Chapter twenty-one

They were buried in the churchyard. I took her to the grave. We climbed the little hill and stood before it, side by side. One plain rounded marker with the name Turner in large letters, then my parents’ names beneath and the date of their death. There was no other inscription.

The sinking afternoon sun had edged the shadow of the church spire over the ground on which we stood. The chill air made me shiver. The housewife next door had banged out through her rear screen door and was gathering the laundry from the line. The traffic on Main Street was whispering by. I heard a sparrow singing. I felt the calm, steady sweetness of an unwavering rage.

“It was after midnight,” I said. “We had a cuckoo clock out in the hall. I think it must’ve awakened me. Then I lay in my bed, in the dark. I was scared. I don’t know if I heard him downstairs. Maybe I did. Maybe I was just scared the way you get scared in your bed in the dark when you’re a kid. The way you lie there in a sweat, listening to the house settle, figuring it’s some monster or killer come to get you. Talking yourself out of it, but not quite relaxed. Still listening, still clutching the covers. Then the house creaks again, and you’re sure. Whatever it is, it’s coming to get you.

“And this time, it was.”

I was staring at the grave. I had almost forgotten Susannah was beside me.

“It happened so fast. So fast. Whispered voices. I remember. I still wasn’t sure. The wind seemed to be whispering at the window. Footsteps—there were footsteps in the hall, but I couldn’t tell, I was so scared by then. I couldn’t tell if it was the house or … I got out of bed. My parents’ room was right next door. But I didn’t want to wake them up. I wanted to be a big boy. I crept out into the hall. I crept toward the top of the stairs. I thought I’d take a look—you know the way you tell yourself you’ll take a look and then you’ll be sure it’s nothing and you’ll be able to sleep. I thought I’d take a look and then I’d be sure.

“I remember—I remember reaching out, reaching out toward the banister, and I just … my ears, my head seemed full of whispers, the creaks of the house seemed to be inside me.… I turned the corner of the stairs, and just at that moment, down below me, down in the front hall, there was a scream, God, a woman’s scream, and I saw—I saw Laura, the maid, trying … She was trying to run up the stairs, and the stairway light went on. She might have hit it. Maybe he did. He was standing below her with the gun, the rifle. She screamed, and at the same moment, the gun went off, and Laura was thrown against the wall. I remember. Pinned against the wall, and her eyes wide and horrified for a moment. Then wide and blank. And she slid down slowly, forever, it took forever, and it seemed like her hair was rising up the wall behind her, but it was the trail of blood she left as she slid down. And at the same time, it seemed like the same time, I saw him, standing below me. I looked right into his eyes. I wasn’t … It didn’t even … surprise me. I knew who it was. I’d been waiting for him since midnight. It was the bogeyman, raising the rifle at me, smiling that little smile, the scarred man, raising … And then I was pulled out of the way. I thought: Just like Laura, the way the gunshot threw me to one side. But it wasn’t the gunshot. It was my father’s hand on my shoulder, pulling me back, pulling me off the stairs. But he’d put himself in the line of fire, and I heard the gun again, and I heard my mother scream, and I screamed, too, because she was running to him, running to him at the top of the stairs as he tumbled backward, and then there was the gun again and again, and they were both lying there. They were both lying there.”

I let out a sharp breath. Blinked up toward the spire with the sun gleaming behind it.

“They were both lying there,” I said.

Susannah put a hand on my arm. I looked around, half surprised to see her.

I said: “He started coming up the stairs.”

She closed her eyes. She leaned against me. The smell of her hair was lush and clean. I looked down at the grave markers.

“He started coming up the stairs. He knew I’d seen him. We’d looked right into each other’s eyes as he was raising the gun. He knew I’d seen him and he was coming up the stairs. I ran into my room. There was a tree outside my window. No one could get down that tree as fast as I could. But the window … we’d put the storm windows up, my father and I. I kept fighting with it, and he was coming closer and closer, I could hear him, I was tearing at those little tabs they have, you have to lift them up to get it to move. And I heard his footsteps on the landing. And it opened. The window. It opened. I went out. I went down the tree. I scrambled down the tree and I ran. I ran and ran and ran into the dark. I knew the forest, see. I knew he couldn’t find me there. I knew … But then … But then …”

Susannah pressed against my side. “Then you came back for me.”

“You were so little,” I said. “I heard you crying. You started crying when the first shot went off. You had a room downstairs. I heard you crying in your crib. You were screaming. Mommy. I didn’t even realize I’d heard it until I was running into the woods. Then it came to me, and I thought of you, pictured you, down there, all alone, crying, while he came back down the steps, while he came down the hall to your room.… And I came back for you.”

I turned my head a little until my cheek touched hers. I breathed the scent of her deeply.

“Let’s get away from this place,” she whispered, leaning against me, staring at the grave. “Let’s get away from everywhere.”

“The window to your room was closed,” I said. I pursed my lips against her hair. “I could see it as I came running back. I had to go in through the door, the front door. The front door was open. I came in and the stairs were in front of me. I saw his legs as he came down. They stopped. He saw me. I ran, to my left, through the kitchen, down the long hall. I heard him coming after me. He was taking long strides, walking quickly, but he didn’t know the way. I came into your room. You were standing up, your hands were holding the top of the crib railing. You’d stopped crying for a minute. You were looking out into the dark. I remember your voice. You said something. You said my name. You said Michael. I picked you up. I told you to be quiet. I heard him coming down the hall now. There was no time to open the window, to get the storm window up. So I went to it, I went to the window, and I opened it. I opened it up. And then I ran back and stood behind the door. And he came in. He came through the door. I saw him pass by like a shadow on the sun. The scarred man came in, and he headed straight toward the window, across the room. And I ran out the door behind him, holding you in my arms.”

I heard myself let out one dull laugh. I felt a little better about him outsmarting me in the alleyway. I’d outsmarted him when I was five years old.

“I went down the hall. I thought: I better keep to the parts of the house he hasn’t been in before. I couldn’t run too fast carrying you. I couldn’t have made it back to the door. So I went to the cellar. There were lots of places to hide in the cellar. I didn’t think he’d even be able to find the lights down there. So I took you into the broom closet. I had such a hard time keeping you quiet. I kept trying to get you to fall asleep. I don’t … He was out there. I don’t remember anymore. He was out there, he was calling us.…”

“My dream …” Susannah said.

“Yes. I don’t … He got closer. I wet myself. I was crying, too, and trying to keep quiet. And you kept talking. And he was right on the stairs above us, calling, ‘Come here, children. I promise not to hurt you. Come here.’”

Susannah let out a strangled noise. “All real. It was all real,” she said.

I shook my head. A moment ago the images had been running through it like a movie. Now they all seemed to have collided and blended together. It was all a jumble. I couldn’t think about it anymore.

I moved away from her a little. I moved among the graves. I moved until I saw the sun come out from behind the steeple. The sun seemed pale in the cool blue sky. We were on the ridge of the hill. Below us, the woman on the other side of the fence had finished bringing in her laundry.

Susannah still stood in front of the graves. Her head was bowed like a mourner’s.

She said: “We’ll go where they don’t know us.”

I said: “What do you think they were like?”

“What?”

“That story Yardley told about … about our father … about Dad … him standing out in front of the mob like that …”

“I don’t remember,” she said. “I don’t remember either of them.”

“No. Me either. Still. He must have been something.”

She didn’t answer.

“Don’t you think so?” I said. “I’ll bet he was. I’ll bet they both were. Hell, the way she ran to him on the stairs, I’ll bet—”

Susannah raised her face to me. I saw weariness in her eyes, and sadness.

“Yes,” she said gently. “They must’ve been something.”

“Sure,” I said. “Sure they were. Do you really think so?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Sure,” I said. “Sure.”

I came back to her. She leaned her arm on my shoulder. We stood in front of the grave. We stood a long time. We were silent a long time.

Then I said: “I’m going to kill him.”

And Susannah said: “I know.”