THUGLIT Issue One

Magpie by Hilary Davidson

The sheriff who called about my mother-in-law’s death sounded genuinely sad about it. “She looked like she was called up to the Lord all peaceful-like,” he said, in a deep voice that had a lingering drawl to it. “She went in her sleep, I reckon. I’m sure she didn’t feel no pain.”

He told me that she’d died of a heart attack, and that it had probably happened a couple of days earlier, given the state in which she was found. “Couple of her near neighbors hadn’t seen her about, so they went over, and then they called me. Poor Mrs. Carlow. Let me give you my number so your husband can call me.”

I dutifully wrote it down, then folded the paper and put it into my purse. It was just before noon, and Jake was probably with a patient, maybe even in surgery. Telling him the news about his mother over the phone seemed heartless. I could drive to his office and reveal all in person, but given that he hadn’t spoken to his mother in years, that seemed like overkill. The news could wait until evening, after he got home. There wasn’t anything either of us could do about it now. His mother had lived in the western edge of Ohio, close to the border with West Virginia. Jake and I were in Los Angeles, where we’d moved for his medical practice. We’d been there almost five years, and even though his roots were in hill country and mine were in Cleveland, the West Coast felt completely like home.

Jake surprised me an hour later, the tires of his Porsche squealing into the driveway. I met him at the door.

“My mother’s dead,” he said. We clung to each other for a while.

“I’m sorry, baby.”

“Ludy said they think she died in her sleep.”

“Ludy?” I pulled back. “You talked to your sister?”

“She called to tell me what happened.”

“She called your office?” My stomach suddenly clenched into knots. “How did she…”

“Never mind that now, Erica. I need to think.” He pushed me away and headed for his den, slamming the door behind him. I was too surprised to say anything, or to go after him. He didn’t seem sad so much as unsettled. That wasn’t a surprise: it was normal to mourn a parent, even one who was a mean, manipulative person. Jake had cut off contact with her years ago because of her abusiveness, and while he was right to do it, I suspected that his conscience wasn’t easy right now. Any sense of loss would be made worse if it was accompanied by guilt.

When I knocked on the door, he didn’t answer. I listened at it for a moment, but all was quiet. He had alcohol in there, I knew, but no food, so I went to the kitchen and made him a sandwich. I put it on a tray and wrote a little note on an index card-I love you, baby-and left it in front of the door, knocking to let him know it was there. An hour later, it was untouched, like a rejected peace offering at the altar of an angry god.

That was when I started to worry. My husband was a man with a tender heart; he found it hard to hold a grudge against anyone, no matter how deserving. It had been so painful for him to cut off contact with his mother, even though he’d done so for reasons any sane person would understand. You couldn’t put up with a toxic person just because you were related to her; you still had to draw a line somewhere. Mrs. Carlow had actually made it easier for Jake by ignoring him. Jake had sent her a birthday card once, after they cut off contact. I only knew about it because his mother had crossed out her name with a spidery X and wrote RETURN TO SENDER on the envelope, so the card boomeranged back. How did you mourn a mother like that?

I wandered aimlessly through our house, wondering what to do. Jake needed help, but I wasn’t sure how to give it to him. We’d been together for a dozen years, and yet sometimes I found it hard to understand him.

When I knocked again on the door of his study, he ignored me. But he hadn’t locked me out, and the knob turned under my hand. I stepped over the tray and went inside. The blinds were drawn, but I could see Jake’s silhouette at his desk. He seemed to be staring into space. I didn’t hear the music at first, it was turned so low. The lyrics came as a whisper: “Oh, Death, oh death, please spare me over till another year.”

“What is it, Erica?” Jake’s voice was just as quiet as the singer’s.

I’d prepared a speech in my mind, but it slipped away. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I wish I knew what to do to help you, baby.”

Jake just looked at me with that hard, flat expression that came over him when he got lost inside his own thoughts. Normally, I could cajole him out of it, but I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to this time. He was too bitter and raw right now. He was dangerous at the moment, liable to do something rash if I didn’t pay very close attention to him.

“There’s nothing anyone can do now. What’s done is done.”

“It’s normal to have conflicted feelings in a situation like this. It’s…”

“Erica, please cut out the bullshit psychobabble. I can’t listen to it now.”

That made a lump swell in my throat. Jake almost never cursed, certainly not at me. He was more depressed than I’d realized.

“I have to go out there,” he muttered.

“You what?”

“I need to go home for my mother’s funeral.”

“Jake, she’s gone and nothing is going to change that. Going to her funeral isn’t going to help her. It’s just going to drag you back to a place you hate and bring back painful memories.”

“I’d rather have the painful memories than whitewash the past.”

“You’re so busy at work,” I pointed out. “They need you at the clinic. You can’t just leave them in the lurch.”

“Why? Because some starlet wouldn’t get her boob job? Or maybe some spoiled teenager wouldn’t get her bumpy nose fixed?”

“You’re picking ridiculous examples. You know you do wonderful work. Important work. Think of all the little kids you’ve helped.” Jake occasionally spent his weekends performing surgery, for free, on poor kids from the inner city whose parents could never have afforded to fix their cleft palates and other disfigurements.

He rubbed his temples. “It’s not enough.”

“Look, let’s make a donation in your mother’s honor. I was looking online, and there’s this one association that focuses on heart attack and stroke prevention for women.”

Jake stared at me for what felt like a very long time. “How did you know my mother died of a heart attack?”

“Oh, I…” I felt terrible for not telling him about the sheriff’s call sooner. But when he’d come home, he’d already known that his mother was dead, and he’d disappeared into his den before I’d had the chance to say anything. “The sheriff who found her called here, right before you came in. I was going to call you, but then I was thinking I should tell you in person, and then you came home and you already knew…”

He put his hand up. “I don’t want to hear it. Just leave me alone.”

I swallowed hard and backed out of the room. “Let me know if you need anything,” I said, pulling the door behind me. Just before it closed, I stopped and poked my head back in the room. “I love you, baby.”

Jake just stared at me. I shut the door and tried not to panic.

Jake surprised me late that night, leaving his den and joining me in bed. He didn’t want comfort or sleep. He wanted me. Maybe that was the only way he could forget his pain. By the time he was done, our sheets were sticky with lust and sweat, and I fell asleep in his arms, feeling at peace with the world.

In the morning, I woke up alone. Jake’s gym bag was gone, and I thought he’d gone to the club early to play squash. I was glad, because I thought that was a sign Jake had turned a corner, that the crisis I’d felt was impending was going to be averted.

But then I realized Jake’s laptop was gone. Sitting in its place on his desk was a white sheet from a company that made some sort of line-filling injectable gel.

I had to go home, it read.

I crumpled it into a ball and threw it against the wall. Home? He still thought of that hellhole in the sticks as home? That turned my stomach. What about our home together? What about our life together? I picked up the phone, looked at the numbers Jake had called recently, and hit redial. What did he think he was doing? Was he determined to ruin his life? Jake could be impulsive, acting first and worrying about consequences later. I had to save him from himself.

In theory, I knew where I was going. I got on a red-eye flight that night that took me from Los Angeles to Charlotte, and then a connecting flight on a commuter plane to Charleston, West Virginia. It was easy enough to rent a car and follow the highway west, to where it ran alongside the Ohio River, but once I crossed the bridge, I was on my own. Google Maps could only take me so far through the barren, miserable wilderness of hill country.

Jake had taken me to visit his family there only once, just before we got married. We’d been engaged forever, and he was close to finishing his medical residency. “I can’t marry a girl my family hasn’t met,” he told me. That settled it.

“They’re not going to like me,” I warned him. “They’re going to see me as some city snob in high heels.”

“They’ll love you,” Jake soothed me. “They already know how smart and hard-working you are. That you were a scholarship student like I was. They know you were raised by your mom, and that she died when you were in high school.”

“You told them that?”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Erica. You should be proud that you started with nothing and worked hard to get where you are.”

“What else did you tell them about me?” I seethed.

“Everything that’s wonderful about you,” he said, kissing me. “And I want you to see how wonderful it is there. You’re going to love it.”

I knew he was wrong about that, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him. I’d worked hard to break free from government housing and food stamps, and I hadn’t done that so I could live in a mountain shack. I had other plans.

The visit went just as badly as I knew it would. “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you ‘round here. Ain’t you able to come up with some excuse not to darken my doorstep?” Those were the first words out of Mrs. Carlow’s mouth when she saw us at the door. Jake, being his usual sweet self, mollified her. But she fixed her narrow blue eyes on me and pursed her lips, looking me up and down. Sometimes, when people met me, they told me I looked exotic and used that as cover to ask about my race. Mrs. Carlow didn’t ask that, but I felt those cold eyes parsing pieces out, not liking any of them. While Jake was able to thaw her out, she remained cold and rude with me. She didn’t come out and say anything directly. Her insults were carefully couched in statements that were hard to answer.

“Them’s some fine clothes you have,” she’d told me. “What’s that old saw? Fine feathers make fine birds?” She turned to Jake. “Cousin Hark’s wife just walked out on him. She was one who always thought real well of herself.” Her expression made it clear what she thought of women who thought well of themselves.

I knew, even then, that Mrs. Carlow believed she could chase me off. What she hadn’t realized was that I’d already made up my mind about Jake and my own future, and that there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. What she couldn’t have realized was how much I wanted her to hate me.

I was thinking of that visit as I steered my rental car along the roads. Nature was something I loved in healthy doses. Being surrounded by hills and fields with no indications of people nearby-except for occasional tractor-crossing signs-made me nervous. When it got to be too much for me, I stopped the car and turned on my cell phone. Jake had tried to call me several times before I’d boarded my flight; I hadn’t answered, and once I’d turned off my phone I hadn’t turned it back on. He had to be sweating by now, wondering why I wasn’t answering. I dialed his number and he answered immediately. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“Why did you go running off in the middle of the night? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He sighed. “I knew if I did, I’d never get here. I just had to do it then, Erica. It was important. Don’t be upset, okay?”

“Oh, I’m upset all right. Especially because I’m sitting in the middle of nowhere trying to figure out how to get to where you are.”

It took him a second to absorb that. “You flew out here? To be with me?”

“You didn’t think I was just going to wait at home for you, did you, baby?”

“I was worried you’d be so angry you might file for divorce,” he admitted in a sheepish tone.

“I’d never do that to you, baby,” I said, and I meant it.

The only person who seemed distinctly unhappy to see me was Kady. When Jake brought me back to her house, where all of the family was meeting, her mouth pursed, just like her mother’s had when she’d met me. Kady had been friendly enough when I’d encountered her before, but now I saw bitterness and recrimination in her eyes. But that might only have heated up after her husband, a ruggedly handsome man named Ry, hugged me for longer than was strictly necessary.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” I told her. She nodded, keeping her eyes on my face. Her own was red and blotchy, and her eyes were swollen. Her two young sons stopped running around long enough to inspect me, then took off, laughing. In the living room, a collection of cousins sat around drinking and laughing. It didn’t seem as if anyone missed Mrs. Carlow much.

“You got here in a hurry,” Kady said to me.

“It’s a tough time for Jake. I wasn’t going to leave him alone.”

“You sure that’s the reason? Or were you afraid he’d come back here and go native?” Kady’s voice was more refined and less country than her mother’s had been, but it had the same twangy undertones.

“Go native?”

“You know exactly what I mean. You’re the reason he never came home. Jake was going to come back and be a doctor here. You wouldn’t let him do that.”

“That’s ridiculous. Jake never wanted to come back here.”

“Yes, he did, and you’re the one who ruined it. You’re the one who got him to throw his life away, doing them plastic surgeries instead of proper medicine.” As her temper heated up, her diction slipped.

“Last time I checked, Jake was an adult who could make his own decisions.”

“You’re a thief, nothing more.”

“Really?” I rolled my eyes. “That was what your mother said, too. That was why Jake stopped speaking to her, you know.”

“Oh, I know that full well. You got a hell of a nerve coming back here. You stole Mama’s earrings just like she said you did. You’re a thief and a liar.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” I said, my voice calm. I had the truth on my side. Maybe I had told Jake a lie or two for his own good, but I’d never stolen anything.

“Mama caught you in her room that time Jake brought you to her house!”

“I just wanted to see the photographs. There was nothing wrong with that.”

“Then she found her pearl earrings were gone. You took them. It had to be you.”

“She went and grabbed my purse and dumped it out on the table because she thought they were in there,” I said. “Then, when she found they weren’t, she practically ripped off my blouse because she thought I was hiding them in my bra. She was wrong.”

“You had them,” Kady insisted. “You know what Mama called you? Magpie, on account of you seeing something good and shiny and not being able to keep yourself from thieving.”

The insult rankled, but I wasn’t going to let that show. “Your mother was delusional. Maybe that runs in the family.”

“I don’t know how you got them earrings outta the house, but you did. You stole them, sure as you stole my brother away from his home. But you’re in for a surprise, because this time Jake’s gonna stay where he belongs.”

“You go on thinking that if it makes you happy,” I said. “But after the funeral, we’re going home.”

Jake and I went to his mother’s house the next day. It was only my second time there, but I remembered it well. It was old-lady fussy, with plastic over the sofa and white doilies on the tables. There were little carvings and statuettes on every available surface, including a series of owls that were downright spooky.

“I’m surprised you were willing to come along for this, but I’m glad you did, Erica.”

“I couldn’t let you go through your mother’s things by yourself, baby. That would be too stressful.”

“Kady’s already done a lot of the work. I’m just looking for anything I want to keep. Kady’s already got the photo albums and Mama’s jewelry and the family Bible at her place.”

“Wow. She lost no time helping herself to your mother’s things.”

“Don’t start, Erica. Please. This is stressful enough.”

I bit my tongue. The last thing I needed to do was fight with Jake right now. I noticed his verbal lapse-Mama-and that made me nervous. Old habits came back quickly, didn’t they? But I was also slightly annoyed with myself. Of course Kady took her mother’s jewelry. If I’d planned ahead, I would have gotten a pair of earrings like Mrs. Carlow had owned-baroque pearls on 14-karat gold stems-and set them in her jewelry box, then remarked on them while Jake was nearby. It was too late for that now. Better to stick with my original plan.

While Jake was going through the record collection, I slipped out of my dress. For a moment I debated leaving my bra and panties on and letting Jake remove them, but then I pulled them off, too. It was important not to have any margin for error. I went up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind.

“This isn’t a good time, Erica. I can’t right now.”

“Oh, baby, you always can.”

We went back and forth like that for a while. I thought he might give in, but all of those owls watching had a negative effect on his libido. After a while I sighed and said I was going to the bathroom.

“You’ll keep an eye on my purse and stuff, right?” I called from the doorway.

Jake turned. It was important that he know I was completely naked. “Sure. But no one’s running off with it.”

I went to the bathroom and closed the door. Everything in the room was pink or had a floral print on it. There was even a pink owl sitting next to the sink… It made me feel a little self-conscious as I knelt down and opened the vanity. Inside were half-used bottles of shampoo, boxes of baking soda, and other junk I didn’t care about. Instead, I ran my fingers along the inside ledge just above the doors. When I hit something that felt like hardened putty, I pried it loose. There, encased in hardened gum, were the missing earrings, just as I’d left them. When I pried them free, I noticed that the pearls were looking a little gray. Of course, pearls needed contact with skin to keep their luster. These had been neglected for five years.

“You won’t believe what I found,” I told Jake when I came out. I put the earrings into his hand.

“Where did you get these?”

“They were in the bathroom.”

“They’ve been in the house all this time?” He frowned. “Where were they, exactly?”

“In the medicine cabinet.”

“Why were you in the medicine cabinet?”

“Why does that matter? I was looking for a Band-Aid, okay?” This wasn’t the reaction I’d expected at all. “The point is, your mother accused me of stealing her earrings, and they’ve been here all this time.”

“I don’t think these are the same ones. They look fake.”

“If they’re fake, it’s because they were always fake!” I was exasperated. “Those are the earrings.”

“How can you be sure?”

I stopped, realizing that that was a trick question. That time we’d visited, I’d denied even seeing the earrings. How could I claim I knew what they looked like. “I guess I just got excited when I saw them. Like maybe your mother realized she was wrong.” I started to get dressed. I’d wanted Jake to know that I hadn’t carried anything into the bathroom with me, but now that seemed pointless.

“I’ll give them to Kady. She’ll know them better than me.”

But Kady wasn’t any more convinced than her brother when she saw them. “These look like cheap-ass imitations. Not the real thing,” she said.

They did look like fakes, truth be told. But that wasn’t my fault.

“You think they’re Mama’s?” Jake asked.

“I’d bet they’re replacements put there by someone with a guilty conscience.” Kady looked at me. I fought the urge to kick her and turned to the window. Her husband, Ry, was outside, playing with their boys. This trip wasn’t going as I expected it to at all. I needed to do something to fix that fast, before it was too late.

“We need to talk,” Jake told me on the morning of his mother’s funeral.

“What is it, baby?”

“We’ve been out in Los Angeles for five years. I’m not happy there. I don’t like the work I’m doing. I trained as an otolaryngologist, and what am I doing? I’m making starlets look like Barbie.”

“But you’re doing so well. They love you at the clinic. And every month you volunteer…”

“It’s not enough, Erica. I want to help people here. That was always my plan. I just got sidetracked.”

“Sidetracked?” I stared at him. “You have a great life. These people here, don’t you think any of them would kill to get what you have? You got out. That’s what the people here want to do.”

“It’s not like your old neighborhood, Erica. There are a lot of people happy to be living out here. I’m sick of being in the city.”

“This is just guilt talking,” I said. “Your mother died, and now you feel bad. Never mind that she was an evil person who told lies about people to try to manipulate you.”

“Erica.” He looked at me, his face serious. “That time we visited her…you didn’t accidentally take her earrings or anything like that, did you?”

“I can’t believe you’re even asking.” Now I was getting angry. “I told you then, and I can’t believe you’re making me say it again, but I swear to you, I didn’t steal her earrings, accidentally or otherwise.”

“It’s just… it’s kind of funny you found those replacements. It is a little weird.”

“I guess your whole family thinks I’m a thief and a liar.”

“Of course not, Erica. I’m sorry, I just…”

I walked out of the room. We were silent on the drive to the church; at least, I was. Jake made a few attempts at conversation, which I ignored. At the church, I sat next to him, but stared straight ahead, ignoring him. Jake was busy consoling Kady, who wore a frumpy black dress and a big black hat with a veil. The two of them stood over their mother’s casket for the longest time.

“Can’t say I miss the old bat,” Kady’s husband, Ry, whispered to me. “She was a pain in the ass. She was always fighting with somebody.”

I’d thought to pack a form-fitting black designer dress that hugged my curves. Jake was too preoccupied to notice, but it didn’t escape Ry.

Back at the house for the wake, Ry whispered, “So, Kady says you planted fake pearls at her mama’s house. She’s all steamed about it.”

“What makes you think I did something?” I smiled at him.

He grinned back. “You’re the kinda gal who’s always up to something, Erica.”

“Well, it’s never good to be boring.” We clinked glasses. Ry was drinking bourbon, while I was guzzling more wine than I’d planned. It was frustrating, knowing I was right about something and not being able to prove it.

“It must’ve been awful, living only an hour away from Mrs. Carlow,” I said.

“Lemme tell you about that.” He did, and he made me laugh, which earned some dark looks from Kady. Then Ry followed me when I went upstairs.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you staring at me,” I said. We were standing in the guest bedroom where Jake and I were staying. I looked in the mirror and unpinned my hair.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you enjoying it,” he answered.

“Do you think anyone will come up here?”

“Not if we’re quiet.”

I pounced on him. Ry was a surprisingly good kisser. I thought about Kady’s sour face and figured he must be getting practice somewhere else. He started to unzip my dress. “No,” I whispered. “Rip it off.”

“But it must’ve cost a pretty penny.”

“Rip it off,” I ordered. There was a sound like a series of pops as the fabric broke apart at the seam.

“Oh, I like this,” Ry said.

“I bet you do.” With that, I reached out and raked my nails over his face.

“What the fuck?” He pushed me away and touched his skin. I let out a bloodcurdling scream, opened the door, and ran from the room. Jake was on the stairs and I ran into his arms. Then I sobbed and sobbed.

The trip home to Los Angeles was uneventful. Jake was silent most of the time. I wore a little eye mask so that I could sleep, but occasionally I would tug at the corner to watch him. He was drinking whiskey, his jaw taut. Every so often his eyes would narrow, but mostly he just drank.

“Do you think I did the right thing?” I asked him. “By not pressing charges against Ry, I mean.”

“I think that would’ve been a mistake,” Jake answered. “Those kids don’t need their dad locked up in jail.”

“At long as he doesn’t attack some other woman,” I mused.

“He won’t do that,” Jake muttered.

That made me frown, but he didn’t say anything else and I let the matter drop. I fell asleep somewhere over the Midwest, and when I did, I dreamt I was back in Mrs. Carlow’s house.

“What are you doing in here?” she snapped at me, just as she had in real life. I was in her bedroom, standing in front of her dresser. There were framed photos there, of her dead husband and her children, and one of Mrs. Carlow herself before she was Mrs. anything.

“Nothing,” I said, brushing past her and walking down the hall, turning into the bathroom. My heart was racing as I locked the door. I opened my hand and saw the earrings in my palm. There was a beautiful black bird sitting in the open window, and I dropped the pearls into her mouth. Then magpie flew away until she was just a distant dot on the horizon, getting as far from that place as fast as she could.