Beyond Suspicion

45

•

It rained on Jack and Cindy’s first night in their new house. With no shades or curtains on their windows yet, each bolt of lightning bathed the bedroom with an eerie flash of light. Thunder rattled the windows, seeming to roll right across their roof. A steady drip from the ceiling pattered against the wood floor in the hallway. They had a leak.

Cindy rose in the middle of the night and went to the kitchen. The counter was still cluttered with cardboard boxes, some empty, some yet to be unpacked. She had hoped that her old demons wouldn’t follow her to her new house, that she might be able to leave the past behind. But no. The nightmares had come with her.

Lightning flashed across the kitchen. Outside, the falling rain clapped against the patio like unending applause. A river of rainwater gushed from a crease in the roof line, splashing just outside the sliding glass door. The run-off pooled at one end of the patio and rushed in torrents toward a big rectangular planter at the lower end. Cindy watched from the kitchen window. It was as if the water was being sucked into the deep planter, an opening in the earth from which there was no return. The harder the rain fell, the thirstier the hole seemed to get. There seemed to be no end to the flow into that planter, no limit to what that big, black hole in the ground could hold. It was hypnotic, like nothing she’d ever seen before, except once.

The dark, rainy day on which her father had been buried.

•

Nine-year-old Cindy was at her mother’s side, dressed in black, the rain dripping from the edge of the big, black umbrella. Her sister, Celeste, was standing on the other side of her mother. Her grandmother was directly behind them, and Cindy could hear her weeping. Her little brothers were too young and stayed home with relatives. It was a small gathering at graveside, just the four of them and a minister.

“Alan Paige was a righteous man,” the minister said, his eulogy ringing hollow in the falling rain. “He was a man who lived by the Scripture.”

That was true, Cindy knew. Church every Sunday, a reading from the Bible every night. Her father had only one known vice, a little nickel-and-dime poker game every Tuesday night. Some said it was hypocritical, but Cindy thought it only proved him human. Either way, it hadn’t stopped him from leading the charge against the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution at her school, or from grounding Celeste when she dared to bring home a D. H. Lawrence novel from the public library.

“From dust we come and to dust we return. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

The minister gave a nod, and Cindy’s mother stepped forward. The cold rain was falling harder, until it seemed that a muddy river was pouring into the open grave. Cindy watched as her tearful mother dropped a single red rose into the dark hole in the earth.

She said a short prayer or perhaps a silent good-bye, and then returned to her daughters. Cindy clung to her, but Celeste stepped toward the grave.

“May I say something?” asked Celeste.

It wasn’t part of the program, but the minister rolled with it. “Why, of course you may.”

Celeste walked around to the other side of the grave, then looked out over the hole toward her mother, sister, and grandmother.

“Hearing my father eulogized as a man who lived by the Scripture was exactly what I expected. He did know his Scripture, I can say that. I think now is the time for me to share with everyone the part of the Scripture that he often read to his daughters. It’s from the Book of Genesis, 19:3, a passage I heard so many times, starting before I could even read, that I’ve committed it to memory. It’s the story of Lot and his two daughters.”

Cindy glanced at her mother. The expression on her face had quickly changed from grief-stricken to mortified.

Celeste continued, reciting from memory. “’Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.” That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and lay with him. So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.’”

Her voice shook as she finished. The minister stood in stunned silence. Cindy’s mother lowered her head in shame. From the hole in the earth, raindrops beat like a drum against her father’s casket.

“It’s a lie!” shouted Cindy.

No one else said a word.

“You are a liar, Celeste! That wasn’t the way it was!”

Celeste glared at her younger sister and said, “Tell the truth, Cindy.”

Cindy’s face flushed with anger, her eyes welling with tears. “It’s not true. That’s not the way our daddy was.”

Celeste didn’t budge. She looked at the minister, and then her angry glare moved squarely to their mother. “You know it’s true,” she said, her eyes like lasers.

All the while, the rain kept falling.

•

Lightning flashed across the kitchen. Cindy was bathed in white light, then stood alone in the darkness.

“Cindy, are you okay?”

She turned to face Jack, but she didn’t answer.

He came to her and held her in his arms. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

She glanced out the window, one last look at the rainwater rushing across the patio toward the gaping hole in the earth. “Nothing new,” she said.

“Come back to bed.”

She took his hand and followed him back to the bedroom, ignoring another flash of lightning and one last clap of thunder.