Tigers in Red Weather (41 page)

I hopped the gate and quietly went up the front steps. I was going to go in and take the temperature, but their conversation stopped me.

“What did she say to you?” Uncle Hughes was asking.

“She …” Aunt Nick stopped. “She thinks I’ve done something.”

“What?”

“Hughes. There’s something I have to tell you.”

“For Christ’s sakes, what is it?”

“I’ve been going crazy with it. I don’t want to hurt Daisy, or you, or anyone. I haven’t been honest …”

Uncle Hughes looked at her, and then down at his hands. He was quiet for a while and then he said: “Nick, you don’t have to explain anything to me.”

“You don’t know what it is,” she said, her eyes searching his downcast face.

“Maybe I do; maybe I don’t. But it doesn’t matter. I know you. I
know what you’re capable of and what you’re not capable of. And you’re not capable of cruelty.”

“Darling …”

“Nick, I love you,” he said simply. “And I don’t think there’s a goddamn thing you could do or say now that would change that.” He looked up at her. “So, you don’t have to explain anything to me. I already know what I need to.”

“Oh, Hughes.” Aunt Nick put her hand to his face. “You have no idea. I’ve made such a mess of all of us.”

“We’ve all made a mess of all of us,” Uncle Hughes said. “But you’re going to have to trust me at some point.”

“Yes,” she said. She shook her head. “I always thought our life was …” She stopped. “God, I was so wrong. I don’t know if this will make any sense, but something has been happening … there’s been someone, someone I can see myself in. And they’ve shown me just what a coward, what a goddamn little fool I’ve been all this time.” She laughed softly, as if responding to some private, bitter joke. “I guess marriage,” she said, “it’s like cliff jumping. You can’t lose your nerve.”

I didn’t like this conversation. Something in Aunt Nick’s manner, in her voice, was confusing me, like I was missing something important, and it bothered me. I had to stop thinking. I just needed to get all of this over with and be done with it. I took a breath, and went into the house, letting the door bang loudly behind me.

When I went into the sitting room, I saw a freshly made jug of martinis on the bar. That was good. It would make things easier if she was drunk.

“Just out for a walk,” I said. “I wanted to say good night.”

“Good night, Ed,” Uncle Hughes said. He was obviously wondering if I’d been spying on them.

“Good night,” Aunt Nick said. She looked wound up.

I walked over to her and leaned in to kiss her cheek. It was smooth
and cool and I could smell her perfume and the vodka on her breath. “Good night, Aunt Nick,” I said. Then I took myself up to my bedroom to wait.

I lay staring at the ceiling. An hour passed, maybe less, before I heard Uncle Hughes coming up. Enough time for the two of them to have finished off the pitcher of martinis. I hoped that Aunt Nick would go for a swim; that would be easiest. I knew that it might not come off tonight, that I might have to wait for the moment to be right. But when I didn’t hear Aunt Nick’s footsteps on the stairs, I got up and began to prepare myself.

I took my shoes out of the plastic bag helpfully provided by the shoeshine man. I stretched it a little with my fingers to make sure it would be large enough. The details were important. This had to be carefully done. It had to look like an accident.

I went down to the second-floor landing and looked out the window. I couldn’t see her, so I kept going. I looked in the sitting room, but it was dark and empty. Then I saw her out on the porch, finishing her drink. She placed her empty glass carefully on the railing and then covered her face with her hands and I could hear her start to cry. I had heard about people crying bitterly. Now I knew what it meant. It sounded like crunching gravel being pushed out of a pipe.

After a while, she wiped her eyes and straightened her back, pin straight. I admired her in a way, just at that moment. But I thought about Daisy and the feeling passed. She picked up her glass and started toward the door. I stepped back into the shadow of the sitting room.

She passed me on the way to the kitchen and I moved quietly back up the stairs, taking them two at a time, to the second floor. The bedroom doors were all shut, like sleeping eyes. I moved to the corner of the landing, where I could stand next to the grandfather clock, unseen. I pulled out the plastic bag and waited.

I would put the bag over her head from behind as she rounded the
corner toward her bedroom. When she stopped breathing I would slide her down the stairs. It would make noise, but not a lot, and I would have enough time to get at least to the middle of the next flight of stairs before Uncle Hughes or my mother came out of their bedrooms. It would look like I’d run down to see what was happening. Aunt Nick, too many martinis in her, would have tripped and fallen.

It seemed like hours before she finally started up, a little unsteady on her feet. I could hear my own breathing and tried to make my mind go quiet, like I’d done so many times before. As she passed me in the hall, I came up behind her. But she turned. To this day, I don’t know why she did. She couldn’t have heard me. Still, there we were. Me: lifting the bag in both hands; her: brow furrowed, trying to make sense of it.

I was so close to her now.

“What are you doing, Ed?” For some reason, she whispered this, like we were sharing a secret.

I thought:
Now, now. She hasn’t made any noise
. But instead, I said: “You. And Tyler.”

Her eyes widened a little then, because she understood. She backed away from me. I started toward her. The situation wasn’t going at all as planned; in fact, it was totally wrong. It was too risky. But I had no choice now but to go ahead with it.

I grabbed her, hooking my arm around her neck and twisting her against my body. She fought, harder than I expected, but then again, I hadn’t counted on a direct confrontation.

Once I had her back to me, I put my hand over her mouth. She was scratching at my arm. With my other hand, I shook out the plastic bag. I could feel the blood pumping through my ears. I could hear her heels scraping on the floor as I dragged her toward the staircase. I felt panic. I had to do it quickly. I pushed her neck down with my elbow so that I would be able to get the bag over her head. She was making wet sucking noises beneath my hand.

Somehow, I managed to get the bag over her head and I tightened
the opening around her neck. I could hear her inhaling the plastic. I was almost there.

Then, all at once, there was something around my own neck. A hand. Crushing my windpipe. I had to let go of her. And I knew it was over. I had failed.

I felt Nick fall from my grasp and could hear her coughing somewhere near my feet. The rustle of the bag.

“Nick.” I could hear Uncle Hughes behind me.

I couldn’t see her because my head was tilted back from the pressure, but after a moment I heard her say: “It’s all right.” It was more of a croak, actually.

Uncle Hughes pulled me around to face him. There was no point in fighting him or asking for mercy. I could see it in his face. I thought about Daisy, about showing her where the maid was killed and the arrowhead and the way Elena Nunes tried to tell us her secrets before she died. It was my turn now.

“It’s Tyler,” I said.

Uncle Hughes looked at me, dead in the eye. And then he pushed me down the stairs.

My mother has been reading to me. She does this every week, reads me the current events from the newspaper, as if I’ve gone blind as well as being paralyzed and mute.

She reads to me for about an hour and then it’s time for her to go. Today, I hear about the antiwar demonstrations in Chicago. They had to call in the National Guard and it will evidently cost the city $150,000. The newspapers are referring to it as the “Days of Rage.” This bores me. In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard anything interesting for a year. Not since that night.

Then my mother says, “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, we’ve had some drama at the house,” and I think maybe my luck is beginning to change.

She puts down her pile of newspaper clippings.

“Well, Daisy was down for the weekend. Did I tell you that? I think I told you last week she was coming. Anyway, guess who shows up? Tyler. He drove all the way from the city, apparently. And, as you know, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since they broke it off.”

My mother pulls her chair in a little closer. She doesn’t want the nurses to hear about our dirty linen.

“I have no idea how on earth he knew she was there, but there he was, larger than life, sitting out in front of the house in that ridiculous car of his. So, of course, I tell Daisy, and dearest, you’ll never believe what she does. She goes down to the basement and comes up with a bag full of tennis balls and her racquet. I was just breathless with anticipation.”

She’s practically breathless now.

“So, she goes out to the porch and calls his name. And when he looks like he’s about to get out of his car, she reaches into the bag and takes out a ball, and then, oh, so carefully, she drops it and whacks it with all her might at his car. And Lord, she does have good aim, I’ll say that for her.”

I can see tears of laughter welling up in my mother’s eyes.

“Well, then, of course, he starts yelling. But Daisy, she just keeps going, hitting one ball after the other until he finally has no choice but to drive away or have his windshield knocked out. Oh, Ed, I was nearly crying, I was laughing so hard.

“Then she comes into the house and sees me. And I felt a little sorry, because I didn’t want her to think I found her heartbreak funny. I’ve told you how unhappy she was for a long time after he left her, poor little thing. But she just looks at me and says: ‘Well, Aunt Helena. I think that fixed his bacon.’ And then she laughs and says, ‘Hell’s bells,’ in that old way of hers. I must say, dearest, I’ve never loved that girl more.”

As my mother is telling me this, I can feel the muscles in my cheeks
pulling and I realize I’m smiling. My mother is wiping her eyes, and she sees me. “Oh. A smile. Well, that’s one for the books.” Then she gathers up her things and kisses my cheek and then I think perhaps I don’t mind hearing the news so much after all.

As I lay there at the bottom of the stairs in the darkness, I could hear them. I must have passed out, but at some point afterward, I was aware of what was going on around me.

“Oh, Hughes,” Aunt Nick was saying, her voice rasping. I imagined that her throat had probably taken quite a beating from where I’d held her. “Oh god.”

I could hear her crying. I felt very cold.

“We have to call an ambulance,” she said.

I could see her then. She was sitting next to me and I think she was touching me, but I couldn’t feel her hand. “Ed? Ed, can you move? Hughes, get a blanket.”

“I think …” But he didn’t say anything else, so he must have gone.

Then, out of the shadow, I saw him lifting something over me and I had the strange thought that I was being buried.

“I don’t think he can hear me,” Aunt Nick said. “Did you call?”

“I called.”

Then I could hear footsteps on the stairs.

Nick whispered: “Jesus, what are we going to tell Helena?”

“Listen to me.” Uncle Hughes spoke very slowly. “He was sleepwalking and he fell down the stairs. We were both in bed and heard something and came out to check. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said.

I didn’t hear anything for a while but I saw small movements out of the corner of my eye. I blinked.

Finally, I heard Aunt Nick say: “Hughes. Listen to me, I tried to tell you.” Her voice had some kind of urgency to it.

“I know …”

“No, you have to understand. Nothing happened. With Tyler. It’s not like … he just wouldn’t stop. I think he thought that because …”

“Nick, I know.”

I tried to move, but found I couldn’t. There was some pain, but only in my skull. My skull felt like it might cave in. Aunt Nick leaned over me. She used her hand to cradle my head.

“Where’s the goddamn ambulance?” she said.

“It’s on its way.”

Silence. Then: “Hughes?”

“Yes?”

“It’s the strangest thing, but I have this feeling …” I had to strain to hear her now. “Like everything …” She stopped.

“Yes,” Uncle Hughes said. “Everything is.”

And with that, stars burst in my eyes and the whole world went dark.

“Well, it’s a red-letter day for you,” the nurse says. “You have another visitor.”

“Hello, Ed.”

It’s Daisy. I can’t see her yet, but I can hear her. I concentrate on my neck, but it doesn’t move. I almost can’t believe she’s here. She’s only come once before to see me, right at the beginning. I wondered if maybe she knew about the staircase and all the rest of it, and had decided she couldn’t forgive me, as Aunt Nick had predicted.

But she’s standing over me with a smile on her face, so I guess she doesn’t hate me after all. She looks pale, but it’s October and her tan will have faded by now. I look at her and try to make my eyes communicate what my mouth can’t.

“My goodness,” she says. “What are those wriggly eyes for?” She bends down and, placing her hand on the side of my face, kisses me on the mouth. It’s light, like a butterfly wing.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you. I’ve been very sad. But I’m
feeling better, now.” Her blond hair is shorter, like a halo. She looks around. “It’s so stuffy in here. Why don’t they open a window?”

She sits down on the chair by my bed.

“So, Ed Lewis, they tell me you’re not speaking to us anymore. What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

I smile.

“Not good enough,” Daisy says. “I’m not that easy anymore.”

She opens a canvas bag she’s brought with her, and I’m reminded of the story about tennis. “Since I’m sure you’ve already heard my whole sordid history from your mother, and since you don’t plan on talking, I brought some poems along. I thought I might read to you, if you’d like. Unless you’re bored with that?”

I just look at her.

“No? Good.” As she pulls out the book, the nurse comes back in.