Shadows At The Window

THREE

I finally persuaded Bridget to go to her dinner when I told her I needed a bit of alone time to work through my thoughts and that I hoped she would understand. She left, but not without me promising that I’d call her on her cell if I needed her to come home. She’d come immediately, she said. Even if she were in the middle of a conversation with the owner of the company—even about a six-figure raise—she’d drop everything and skedaddle home. Bridget, who grew up in the country, freely uses words like skedaddle.

I couldn’t wait for her to leave so I could cry in private, but when she did, I felt lonely, afraid and desperate. I was actually getting a stomachache. At this rate, I really would be throwing up. That thought gave me a peculiar sort of comfort. At least then I wouldn’t be lying any more. I closed my eyes and snuggled down deep into the blankets on my bed.

I’d told Bridget I wanted to go home, when actually that was about the last place I wanted to go. Maybe I should go see Moira. I closed my eyes and it was ten years ago again—I was under a sheet in another house. It was muggy and hot, and mosquitoes whined at the broken screen. He had just left the room.

Mudd.

His name was Michael Binderson, but everybody called him Mudd.

My arm burned where he’d twisted it, and the back of my neck hurt from where he’d hit me. When I’d put my hand to that spot, there was blood. It had happened when I asked for my rightful share of the money. He told me I was no good, I’d messed up again, I was never good enough—Never. And then he raped me.

It happened all the time. When he was gone, I would lie under the hot sheets in the humid air and sob. Moira would hear me and come from the kitchen to hug me until my gasping tears settled.

“Mudd,” I whispered his name in the darkness of my room in Boston. Mudd was the only person who would send me that picture. But he was dead. He’d been murdered eight years ago in a drug deal gone bad. Or so I thought.

I needed to leave. But where would I go? I couldn’t go home. Once upon a time, a dozen years ago, I had a promising future but I walked out of my family’s house and away from a college music scholarship. I thought I knew better than everybody; my parents, my guidance counselors, my music teachers. Five years ago, I reconnected with my parents, but we’re not close. My mother still thinks I’m wasting my talents. She feels I should be studying classical guitar at a prestigious music school rather than at a local community college. And singing in a church? She really can’t understand that one.

I couldn’t go to Moira, either. Eight years was too long to wait to ask forgiveness.

My mouth felt dry. I reached over and checked that my cell phone was turned off. Bridget and I don’t have a landline in our apartment so if my cell was turned off, no one could reach me. I sat up in bed.

Heaped around me were the clothes that I’d ripped out of my closet when I’d gotten home. On the floor, my music books and composition papers spilled out of one suitcase, and some of my clothes were piled in the other. My guitar was in its opened case. I got out of bed, picked it up and cautiously began to pluck out a melody and sing. I put it back. I couldn’t get anything to sound right.

I glanced at my clock: 8:16. If I hadn’t gotten that e-mail this morning I quite likely would be engaged by now. Maybe I’d be wearing a sparkly diamond and we’d be walking hand in hand on the sea wall, our favorite place. Or perhaps we’d be wandering through the mall picking out dishes and kitchen furniture.

I lay back down and buried my face in my damp pillow. I tried to pray, but I felt as if my prayers reached no higher than my ceiling. In the middle of this most horrible night of my life, I heard the lobby buzzer sound to our apartment and then Greg’s voice over the intercom. “Lilly? Are you okay? I left you messages. I’m really worried.” And then more mumbling that I couldn’t hear.

I actually considered running out and letting him in, saying, “Greg! Come up and I’ll tell you everything.” But I couldn’t. I knew he would never be able to handle the entire truth about me. I barely could.

I kept my head under the covers and stayed perfectly still until I heard his car drive away. There is no mistaking the pattering engine of his old VW.

I dried my tears and started hanging up the clothes I couldn’t fit in my suitcase. How could this happen? I thought I’d worked all this through. When I’d come to Boston, I’d seen a counselor for a long time. I’d gone to that support group in the church. I thought I was over all of this. Obviously I wasn’t. It’s easy to get over something when nothing from the old life threatens. But when it does, all of the hard work—all of the working through everything and the long hours of journaling—are for nothing.

I needed to run, but how could I leave all this? Over in the corner was the dresser I’d bought at a garage sale and had stripped and refinished. Next to it, a beautiful antique wooden music stand. Hanging on the wall was a huge paper star light, a gift from Paige’s daughter, Sara. On the bed, the handwoven bedspread that I bought at the outdoor market. And on my mirror, photos of me with Greg, and with Bridget.

My thoughts were all over the place on that long and terrible night. Lord, I prayed at one point, let whoever it is lose my e-mail address. I prayed that the e-mail had been a mistake. I prayed that their hard drive would crash and they’d lose everything. Or they would leave their computer in Starbucks while they went to the restroom, and then when they came back, someone would have run off with it. I was coming up with all sorts of scenarios that God could use. It could happen, couldn’t it? God performed all sorts of miracles and I needed a miracle. Now.

At first, I thought the faint knocking was on the door of a neighboring apartment. I ignored it and stayed under my covers. But it persisted. Then I thought I heard someone calling. It wasn’t Greg—I had heard him drive away.

More calling. A high-pitched voice. Had Bridget come back without her keys? I roused myself and went toward the door.

More knocking, more calling.

“Yoo-hoo? Bridget? Are you there?” The soft voice sounded like it came from an older woman. Bridget’s mother? I put my eye against the peephole. The diminutive, round, ashen-haired woman was not Bridget’s mother. The woman outside my door wore an oversized, baggy gray cardigan that I was willing to bet belonged to her husband. Underneath that sweater was a smudgy, food-stained apron tied over crimson track pants. Her sturdy, square hands held out a silver metal cake tin that looked familiar. Curious, I opened the door.

“Yes?”

She looked past me, craned her neck, then looked back at me. “Am I at the wrong apartment?”

“What are you looking for?”

“Bridget.” Then she stopped and smiled widely. She was missing several top teeth along the side. “Oh, you must be the roommate.”

I was curious about something else. “How did you get in here, may I ask? How did you get in the main door without buzzing?”

“Oh, that,” she said, walking around me and into the apartment. “It’s the same with my place. People are always leaving the front doors of these places unlocked, or they’re propping the doors open. People just don’t want to be bothered with keys anymore so they leave a brick in the doorway. Around here it’s so safe anyway.” She placed the cake tin on the counter like she’d been here before. “You just tell Bridget, dear, that I loved the cookies, and that I do want her recipe.”

“Okay, then.” I just stood and watched her. She peered up at me with tiny, close-spaced eyes.

“You don’t look so well, dear. Is it the flu?”

“No, uh…” I put a hand to my face. Did I look that bad?

She pointed at me. “You know what you need? Some of Bridget’s chicken soup. She actually got the recipe from me, you know,” she said, aiming a finger at her heart. She shambled through the door, “Now dear, don’t forget to tell Bridget that I was here.”

I nodded and she was down the steps before I even had a chance to ask who she was. I have to admit that meeting the strange little woman with the square hands and the cake tin had cheered me up for a few minutes.

Bridget came in around ten-thirty. She kicked off her shoes and came over to where I was nestled into a blanket, watching Law and Order.

“There’s some decaf on,” I said.

“Great. Thanks. Oh, these shoes. If I had to wear them one more minute, I swear I would be throwing them against the wall.”

“How was the dinner?”

She ran her slender fingers through her hair. “Oh, you know. Company dinners. They go on and on, speech after speech until not only do you want to start throwing shoes, but also pieces of the rubber chicken they serve.”

“Now there’s a sight I’d like to see.”

She went to pour herself a cup of coffee. “Oh, sweet. My recipe exchanger brought my cake tin by.”

“Cute little woman,” I said. “She told me I needed some of your chicken soup.”

“On Saturday, I’ll make you some. I surely will. It’s good for what ails you.”

“How about a broken heart?”

She came back over to me, all concern.

“I’ve been praying for you all evening. It’s what got me through the speeches. And it came to me that this thing with you and Greg, I think it’s just a temporary obstacle, like a speed bump in the road.” She sat on the couch beside me. “You two belong together. You’ll figure it out, Lilly. I just know it. He loves you, you love him.”

“I don’t know if that’s enough now.” I shook my head. “I’m this close to a commitment, and I find I just can’t do it. I can’t explain it.”

Bridget took off her suit jacket and pulled her legs up underneath her. “Honey, I know you and Greg belong together. You’ll find a way.”

I didn’t sleep well that night. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, when it was still dark, I felt hungry. I got up, went into the kitchen nook and poured myself a bowl of Rice Krispies. I stood for a long time at the back window and looked out into the dark yard between the apartments. I could just make out the very old and mostly rusted chain-link fence dividing the so-called backyards. It had a number of ripped-out places, where small animals could easily get through. We’d never gotten around to putting up curtains, but being so far up, we didn’t worry too much.

As I gazed into the night sky, the thought came to me that things might be better if I was totally honest with everyone. People only knew half my story. Greg needed to know everything about me, and Bridget needed to know much more than the little bits and pieces I’d chosen to share. Because my story is so much more than living with an abusive boyfriend. My story involves murder, drugs and betrayal—and that’s just the beginning.

I looked toward Bridget’s door. If she were to come out right now, I’d tell her. I’d make her sit down on the couch and I’d tell her all about Moira and how I’d betrayed the one true friend I’d had in all the world.

And I’d tell Greg, too. I’d call him first thing in the morning and we’d meet for lunch and by the end of it he would know everything as well. And then he would leave me. I knew the particular heartache that Greg carried, and if Greg knew what I had done, what I was, he would run—not walk—away from me.

Greg had been married before. For two years, he was happily married to his high-school sweetheart. From all accounts, she was a dear, sweet girl—a pastor’s daughter. She’d been killed by a young woman who was driving while high on drugs. It had taken a long time for Greg to work through his grief and forgiveness. And I wasn’t sure he had, not completely. We’d talked about that. He’d told me how difficult it was for him to find any love in his heart for the person who had killed his wife, and how he carried these feelings of rage over to any drug user who got behind the wheel. I have told him a lot of things, but never that I had regularly used drugs. How could I? How could I tell him that I could have been the young woman who killed his wife?

I was about to pour myself another bowl of cereal when it hit me. If what I was beginning to suspect was true—that Mudd was alive and had tracked me down and sent the e-mail—then no one was safe. Mudd was vicious beyond all viciousness. I put the cereal back without eating any more. Had I actually seen Mudd die? Not really. I’d seen Mark, the owner of the bar holding the gun on Mudd. And that’s when I turned and ran. I heard the shot when I got to the van.

I couldn’t tell Greg I had been found. That would put him in as much danger as I was in. And I couldn’t tell Bridget—dear, sweet, innocent Bridget.

I put away the milk and went back to the rocking chair where I rocked quietly for a while in the dark, thinking, thinking. Because if Mudd had been alive all this time, then my betrayal of Moira was all the more acute.

I went to bed and practiced the sentences I would say to Greg…until I fell asleep.

In the morning, Greg called me at eight, just like I figured he would.

“You okay? I came by last night but you must’ve been asleep. I’ve been thinking about you all night. In the time I’ve known you, you’ve never so much as had a cold.”

“Greg?” I said. “Can we meet for lunch?”

“Sure, babe, are you up to it?”

I love it when he calls me “babe.” I clutched my cell phone and coughed to cover up a sob. “I need to see you, to talk to you,” I said. “It’s important.”

“Lil? You don’t sound good. You sure you’re okay?”

“Please! Please don’t call me ‘Lil.’ It’s a nickname I hate. Please.”

There was silence for a moment. “But I always call you ‘Lil.’”

“I know. I know. And I hate it.”

“Okay, then, uh, I won’t call you ‘Lil.’ Where should we meet, Primo’s?”

“No!” I said, maybe a bit too loudly. “Not Primo’s. How about—” I cast about for a place “—how about Griffi’s Café?”

“Griffi’s Café it is then,” he said.

Neil, Tiff, Lora and I had a study-group meeting that morning to work on our joint project. We were studying the composer Bela Bartok to show how his early life in Hungary and the music which surrounded him evidenced itself in his compositions. The whole thing seemed a little pointless now. Isn’t that what was causing all my problems? The stuff I’d surrounded myself with in my youth? Rock music, selling my soul to the devil for a chance to be a rock star. Someone could do a project on me.

I was usually the first to arrive at the table in the student-union building that we’d claimed as our own. While I waited for the others to saunter in late, I would work on music or homework, or check my e-mail. But today the three of them were already there, engaged in a spirited discussion. Tiff, who reminds me of a pixie with her spiky black hair and tiny body, was moving her hands exaggeratedly as she talked. Neil sat next to her, his expressive fingers aligning the edges of his books precisely as he listened.

I shoved in beside Lora. Neil’s eyes were bright. “So, you engaged now?”

I groaned. Why couldn’t I have kept my effusiveness to myself? “Do I look like I’m engaged?” I waved my empty ring finger in front of their faces.

“What happened?” Tiff asked, concern on her face.

“I was sick last night. We had to cancel.” In the future, I vowed, I would be more circumspect with my life. “We’re going to reschedule.”

Lora raked her dark fingernails through her long, heavy hair. “I personally don’t see the big deal with the institution of marriage anyway.”

I really didn’t feel like getting into this particular discussion with anyone, so I shrugged and opened my notebook.

Neil grinned, ran his hands with their perfectly clean nails down the perfectly aligned edges of his books and said, “Well, if he doesn’t want to marry you, you could always marry me.”

“Thanks, Neil,” I said as Tiff and Lora laughed.

I got to Griffi’s at ten to noon and found a booth by the window. I ordered a coffee and waited. The organic coffee and panini shop was getting crowded. Lots of students came here, but it was located among several office buildings, so the place filled up at lunch hour. It was a good thing I’d arrived before the rush.

I used the time before Greg came to read over the lyric sheet, looking for the final, elusive verse of the worship song. I may as well have been trying to read Greek.

Greg arrived on the dot of noon and scooted in across from me. I looked up at him, at the shock of sun-colored hair that fell onto his forehead, at those expressive eyebrows of his. Today he wore a red shirt emblazoned with Creation Music Festival.

I saw the look on his face, the tentativeness in his eyes. His movements were erratic and uncertain. It was as if he didn’t know how to be here with me. How could I do this to him? To us? How could I hurt him? Yet what choice did I have?

“Is…” he asked cautiously “…is everything all right with your health? Is that what this is about, Lilly? I was talking with Bridget. Um…” He licked his lips, swallowed.

My health. That would be the easy way out. I could tell him I was dying and that I had to say goodbye and go live with my parents. And then I could pack my suitcases and disappear. For a quick second, I thought about that. But it wouldn’t work. Bridget already knew I wasn’t really sick.

More than anything, I wanted to reach across and touch his cheek, tell him how much I loved him. At that precise moment, our perky, smiley waitress came and poured us coffee, chattering happily about the daily specials. We ordered. And then Greg and I were left alone again. I looked down at my coffee cup and couldn’t think of what to say.