Disintegration

CHAPTER TWENTY

Renee ran the vacuum cleaner over the rug, lost in the hum of tidiness. The windows were open and the breeze caused the curtains to lift and swell. Renee preferred the fresh air and the scent of the pines that grew along the creek outside. The sunlight gave the room a soft, feathery aspect that she found pleasing.

They wouldn't be in the apartment much longer. She had enjoyed their time together here. It had reminded her of the days in Jacob's college apartment, cluttered and crowded and close. Back before Mattie and Christine and-

She would not think of those things. The future mattered, not the past. They were already planning on building a new home. Jacob wanted a larger house than the one that had burned, but Renee wasn't sure she wanted something so big and empty. However, the nest wouldn't be empty forever. After all the pain and sacrifice in their lives, they were due some happiness.

She flipped the vacuum cleaner switch then stooped to check the floor. When Jacob came home after visiting a job site, he often tracked mud across the carpet. She had asked him to take off his boots at the door, but the apartment had no foyer and she was just as bothered by the dirty boots sitting out in the open as she was by the footprints. She tucked the vacuum cleaner in the closet. In the new house, she promised herself, the closets would be deep enough to keep everything out of sight.

She checked her watch. Twenty minutes to get to the office by the end of lunch break. She'd been unsure about working for M amp; W, but Jacob's enthusiasm had won her over. Now she was glad she'd taken the job, because she saw her husband several times during the day and they often ate lunch together. Twice they'd even sneaked away to the apartment and had daytime sex just like in the early years of their relationship. A suffused glow had been born inside her, a feeling that she was rebuilding him. She now had a noble purpose, one that would help heal the wounds caused by the loss of her children. The saving of one man might make up for her failure to save two children. Maybe that counted in God's eyes.

As the last act of her daily ritual, she placed a fresh flower on the mantel by Mattie's urn. A laurel, because the species had just broken into seasonal bloom and grew from black mountain soil. Rich and full of life, the opposite of the gray ashes inside the ceramic shell.

"Wish me, Mattie," she whispered. "Wish me that you're in a better place."

She bowed her head slightly and crossed herself, then went out into the Thursday sunshine. As she unlocked her car, she noticed an out-of-date, rusty Chevrolet beside hers, one of the wide gas guzzlers popular when her parents were young. It was an ugly green, with faded gray primer on one fender and bald tires. The windows were tinted to a shade much darker than was allowed by law. She'd never seen the car in the parking lot before, and new tenants were required to register their vehicles with the M amp; W office. Perhaps the car belonged to a visitor.

She was backing out of her space when the green car's engine rumbled to life, accompanied by a belch of black smoke from its rear. She waited, giving the car room to exit in front of her, but the car didn't move.

So much for random acts of kindness. She waved to indicate that she was going ahead then eased forward. The Chevy lurched, cutting her off. Renee slammed the brakes, her restraint harness digging into her shoulder, stopping her car inches from the Chevy. She frowned toward the tinted windshield, uneasy because she couldn't see the driver's face.

Irritated, she motioned the Chevy forward again. The Chevy idled unevenly.

Renee rolled down her window and leaned her head out. "Please," she shouted. "I'm in a hurry."

She looked around the apartment complex and considered hitting her horn. That would disturb the tenants' peace, though. Rudeness was out of place at Ivy Terrace. Instead of waiting, she backed up and steered around the Chevy.

It shot a few feet forward, the engine rasping with mechanical emphysema. Renee accelerated past, veering in a wider circuit toward the parking lot entrance. Once she was clear, she slowed then looked in her rearview mirror to see the Chevy rumbling up behind her. She cut onto the highway without stopping and the Chevy followed suit, its tires squealing from the inertia of the heavy steel chassis. Renee gripped the steering wheel with all her strength and glanced down at the speedometer. She was already ten miles over the speed limit in the residential zone, but the Chevy was weaving close behind her, its approach steady.

Renee wasn't an aggressive driver, but fear caused her foot to nudge down on the gas pedal. Houses blurred by on each side of her, the tall oaks along the street forming a tunnel, and cars in the oncoming lane gave her a wide berth. She checked the mirror again. The Chevy was within twenty feet, its dented grill like the grin of a chrome cannibal. A signal light was just ahead, changing to yellow. Renee measured the distance, held her breath, and floored it, shooting through the intersection under the red.

The Chevy ignored the stop signal, bouncing as it came after her. A car horn blared, and a man emptying cans into a garbage truck jumped back onto the curb. An Amoco gas station was just ahead on the right. Renee slowed as if to pull in. The Chevy crossed the double yellow stripes into the oncoming lane and edged alongside her flank.

Renee's window was still down, and her hair whipped about her face, briefly blinding her. Over the busted muffler of the Chevy, she heard music, and it was like a scene out of those old Smokey and the Bandit movies with Burt Reynolds as the lead-footed moonshine runner. The bass line thumped and the guitars jangled, and a half-familiar male voice wailed something about blisters, great big blisters on his heart.

Renee figured the Chevy would pull in beside the gas pumps and trap her there, or maybe run her down if she dashed for the inside of the convenience store. But that notion was just as crazy as the idea that she was in a car chase. She eased off the pedal and took the right turn just before the gas station. The Chevy braked, its wheels smoking, and cut around a pickup and a caved-in telephone booth in the gas station parking lot. Her pursuer made up the lost ground in less than thirty seconds. Renee was afraid to push the Subaru past 70 on the narrow two-lane, though she was now in a rural area and therefore less likely to be blindsided from a driveway. But a remote stretch of road also offered fewer witnesses if the Chevy's driver forced her off the pavement.

She glanced in the mirror again, desperate to see the face of her tormentor. The black glaze of windshield gave away nothing. But if the Chevy were chasing her, what would it do if it caught her?

She might finally see Joshua's face.

And she might get some answers.

The best way to conquer fear was to face it, even if it killed you in the process.

The terrain swept steeply upward to her right, the slope covered with second-growth forest. To her left was a spread of pasture, the grass almost blue with summer ripeness. A herd of Black Angus steers dotted the field, heads all pointed toward the shade of the trees. Renee saw a place to pull over, a dirt driveway that led to a wobbly-looking feed shed. She slowed and made the turn, checking the Chevy in the mirror, bracing in case Joshua decided to ram her from behind. She killed the engine and waited, her window open. A farmhouse sat in the notch of a valley, and the roofs of a few houses were visible in the hills across the road.

The Chevy slowed and pulled alongside her, and again she heard the country-tinged beat and the sweet whiskey smoke of the vocals. The lyrics soared into a chorus about a ring of fire, and then Renee identified the singer. Johnny Cash. She hadn't known much about him, but had seen a television special on his career shortly after his death. "The Man in Black," the narrator had called him.

Renee didn't wait for the Chevy's engine to die. She got out and rounded the front of the car, knowing she was vulnerable, almost daring the car to leap forward. She glared straight at where the driver would be sitting. She would get her answers now, with no more secrets or games. She was about to pound on the tinted driver's-side window when the door opened.

A plume of gray smoke issued from the vehicle's interior, accompanied by Johnny Cash's repetitive ring of fire fade-out. Then the Chevy's engine gave a couple of thunderous, dying coughs and fell silent. Renee heard the wind in the trees and a metallic squeak from the driver's seat. Her muscles tensed, half of her coiling to pounce while the other half wanted to flee across the field.

Come on, Joshua. You can't be any worse than I've imagined.

A woman stepped out of the car, tall and dark-skinned, pretty, but hard around the eyes. She looked Hispanic, with thick, black eyelashes and flat raven hair. Her yellow cotton blouse was tied in a knot beneath her breasts, her brown stomach flat with a tiny dark cave at her navel. She wore cut-off blue jean shorts and a cheap pair of pink flip-flops. She tapped her cigarette and smirked.

"You're not him," Renee said.

"Neither are you," the woman said, her accent a blend of tobacco-road Southern and back-alley Spanish, a little rolling of the r with the vowels drawn out.

"Why were you chasing me?"

"We need to talk." The woman leaned against the Chevy.

"Why couldn't you use the phone like anybody else?"

"Because I had to be sure," she said. "And I didn't want Jacob to know."

"Who are you?"

"Carlita. A friend of your husband."

"Jacob never mentioned you."

Carlita laughed then coughed. She tossed her cigarette into the ditch. "No wonder."

"What about my husband?" Renee wished she had her cell phone. A car whizzed down the road and past before she could make up her mind to flag it down.

"Jacob's been a very bad boy. He gets a little loco." Carlita cocked her hip and tilted her head, letting her black hair spill across her shoulders. Her mouth twisted into a wry curve. "It's not my fault. But you know how he is, si?"

"Hold on," Renee said. "First you're trying to run me off the road, and now you're talking like we're old friends."

"We're nearly sisters," Carlita said. "And Joshua's told me so much about you."

"But I've never met Joshua. Jacob won't talk about him. They had a falling out years ago, before I even met Jacob."

"Jacob's got his-how you say? — his delusion. He thinks Joshua tricked their father to get the house and land. He thinks Joshua's after his money now. But Joshua just wants to make up, to bring the family together."

Renee shook her head. "Jacob hates that house. He said it's full of bad memories."

"Do you trust your husband?"

"Of course I do. I mean, we've had some tough times lately-"

"The children. A terrible thing."

Renee's heart stuttered then lurched inside her chest. She could scarcely recognize her own voice when she spoke. "How did you know?"

"Like sisters, remember? Sisters keep secrets from the rest of the world, not each other."

"I'm not your sister, and if you don't start making sense, I'll-" She looked at the ground for something to throw. A pile of oak stakes, used for curing tobacco, lay beside the gate. The tips were sharp enough to skewer a vampire. Her hands trembled and her vision blurred from anger and tears.

"Don't go like that," Carlita said, her voice flat, as if she had been threatened so often it now aroused only weariness. "I'm trying to help."

"By chasing me down and then dumping all this on my head?"

"I'm doing it for Joshua, because I love him, and I want him to be happy."

"So you make him happy by making me miserable?"

"I'm worried what Jacob might do to him."

"Jacob wouldn't hurt a fly. He's the kindest man I've ever known."

"But you see what he's like when someone stands in his way. Big trouble."

"Not my Jacob."

"You don't know him."

"I know him plenty."

"Then you know he's in love with me."

The woman's accent made the word even more foreign. "Love?"

"We've been lovers for many years."

Renee had always wondered about the expression "seeing red." She thought it was figurative, based on an emotional connotation. Now she knew it was real, because the red madness squeezed from the backs of her eyelids and the hidden crevices inside her skull. A sick and strange energy flowed through her, cruel electricity sparked by demonic lightning.

"Bitch." Renee launched herself at the woman, knowing she was out of shape and undersized, no match for her sinewy opponent.

But the red tidal wave of rage flooded her, used her body like a puppet, flung her flesh against Carlita. Her hands curled into fists and raised to smash that dark, somber face, to punch out those bottomless brown eyes, to tear away the lips that had uttered such an obscene claim.

The momentum of Renee's assault carried them both across the Chevy's warm hood. The sheet metal dented as Renee rolled atop Carlita, one hand gripping the woman's hair. Carlita grunted, breath tinged with tobacco and beer. Renee slapped her and scrambled astride her waist as Carlita twisted and tried to kick off her attacker. One foot bounced off Renee's shin but she barely felt it. Carlita's forearm shoved into Renee's stomach, taking her breath as the pain rippled out from the point of contact.

Renee bent her head forward and realized with horror that she was about to sink her teeth into the woman's cheek. She froze, then went limp and slid down Carlita's body, aware of the woman's unrestrained breasts beneath the thin shirt. Aware of the woman's heat, her soft but powerful thighs, her robust Hispanic lips, everything that was feminine and dangerous and attractive to men.

Any man. Even a man like a Jacob.

She pushed away and slid down the bumper to the ground, her legs weak. She couldn't wrap her mind around the idea. Jacob didn't even glance at sun-bathing college girls and he didn't ogle stars on television shows.

She trusted him.

Didn't she?

Despite his fugues and his forgetful lapses and his occasional, inexplicable anger.

Carlita sat on the hood, her legs crossed under her as if she were folding into a yoga position. She fished a cellophane-wrapped pack from her pocket, tapped it, and offered the brown tip of a cigarette to Renee. "Give it time," she said.

Renee shook her head, refusing both the cigarette and the advice.

Carlita lit one and rubbed her cheek. "You fight like you mean it."

"What about you and Jacob?"

"I didn't want to tell it this way. A man should be honest about his heart. But men, they never are."

A pickup drove down the road toward them, slowing, the driver waving before speeding up again. A country boy checking to make sure everything was all right. As if anything would ever be all right again. Renee thought about flagging him down and sending for the police, but she didn't want any more attention drawn to the Wells family.

Now that the anger had faded, Renee felt deflated. She could barely muster a whisper. "Tell me. Please."

"I lived on the Wells farm when I was young. My father and brother worked the Christmas trees, and I helped in the vegetable garden, picking tomatoes and green beans. Migrant workers, up on temporary permits. Mi padre said it was the only way out of Mexico. That's when I met Joshua."

"You mean Warren Wells let his son date a Mexican? From what Jacob's told me, your people-I mean, the workers-were not people he respected."

Carlita smoked around a smile. "We didn't date. He came by the camp when the men were out in the fields. I was in the shed, shelling beans. He walked in like he owned the place and sat down beside me. I was just a scared girl, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. My English was okay even back then. I'd been coming to North Carolina with my family for years, mostly when padre worked soybeans and tobacco down by the coast, sometimes peaches. One thing led to another, and Joshua took the basket of beans from me and set it to the side, then laid me down on the hay."

"God. He raped you?"

Carlita gave a coarse laugh. "Oh, no. I wanted to see what a gringo was like. I only had a few of the camp boys before then, and mi padre would have killed me if he caught me. It was a danger and that makes it fun when you're a teenage girl. Comprende?"

"Not really. I kept my virginity until I met Jacob," she lied. "And I only gave it up then because I knew we were going to be married."

"Maybe I was thinking some of that. We were to stay nine months on our visas, go back to Guadalajara in December after all the trees were cut. I thought if Joshua got me pregnant, I'd get my ring and a green card."

Renee was shocked at the confession. "What does this have to do with Jacob?"

"After that first time, Joshua and me were doing it every minute we could sneak away. He liked it and I thought the more we did it, the faster I get a gringo baby in my belly." She slapped her bare abdomen and added with bitterness, "Turned out I'm no good in there. Seed won't take root."

Renee wondered if never having a baby was worse than losing two children. She decided nothing could be worse than that. "So you had to go back to Mexico?"

"No. His father fixed it up so we didn't have to go back right away. Joshua said it was because we were cheap. Said, 'Daddy don't have to pay no white-man wages.' Jacob used to follow Joshua sometimes when he came to the camp. I think he was jealous."

"I'm sorry. You don't know Jacob."

"Maybe you don't, hey, senora? He used to watch us while we did it. One day, under the bridge, I saw him hiding in the bushes. He came out and said he was going to tell their father if I didn't let him do it, too."

Renee's intestines clenched as if they harbored a nest of snakes. "Did you let him?"

"Joshua went loco, beat him up. Said he was the oldest so he always got to go first. Said to come back when he had something to offer in return."

"And?"

"Jacob finally did come back. Eight years ago. Right after he married you."