Darker Than Night

24

Hiram, Missouri, 1989.

A breeze blew in low off the river, carrying rain that settled as a warm mist. Painting outside became impossible; the colors diluted and ran as soon as they were applied. So Tom Wilde postponed the exterior job, which was his only work at the time, and sent Luther home for the day. He dropped him off in front of the Sand house about two o’clock in the white van with the ladder racks on top, telling him they needed to get an early start tomorrow and they’d have a long day, so Luther should make sure he got a good night’s sleep.

Luther waved to Wilde and watched the van sway around the corner, its wipers sweeping the wide windshield. He clomped up onto the wood porch to get out of the mist and started to ring the doorbell.

Then he remembered—he lived here. This was his home. At least for a while.

He drew back his hand from the doorbell button and tried the door. It was unlocked. He pushed it open and went inside.

Will I always feel like a trespasser?

At first he thought the house was completely quiet, maybe unoccupied; then he heard a faint sound.

Someone was humming.

He made his way in the direction of the sound, to the kitchen, and there was Cara humming a song he didn’t recognize while she rolled dough for a pie. She was perspiring slightly, so her face glowed, and each time she leaned forward and ran the wooden rolling pin over the dough, her large breasts swayed beneath the thin material of her blouse.

She stopped flattening the pale ellipse of dough, wiped the back of her wrist across her moist forehead, then picked up a red sifter that looked like a can with a crank and sprinkled more flour on the dough. As she put down the sifter, she saw Luther and stopped humming.

“You been watching me, Luther?” She was half smiling, not seeming to mind if he’d been quietly observing her. She smelled like sweat and peaches.

“Just for a few seconds, ma’am. I liked watching. You seem to enjoy your work. Cooking, I mean.”

Her smile widened. “Baking, you mean.”

“Well, yeah, sure.” He shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t like him to be ill at ease in the presence of a woman, after his experiences in Kansas City. But he knew what those women wanted, how to act for them and toward them. This was…well, a lady. There were miles of distance between a woman and a lady.

“C’mon over,” she said. “Sit and talk with me awhile, Luther.”

He sidled over to the table, pulled out one of the wooden chairs, and sat, a self-conscious teenage boy not quite sure where to situate his arms and legs.

“This is gonna be another peach pie,” she said. “Special for you.”

Luther didn’t know what to say. He mumbled his thanks.

“How you and Mr. Wilde getting along?” Cara asked, leaning into her rolling again.

“I like him fine,” Luther said, trying not to look at her breasts. He found himself wondering about the Sands’ sex life. It couldn’t be much, the way they were so bitter to each other just beneath almost everything they said. And that was when Milford wasn’t flat out ignoring his wife. Luther knew Milford could turn mean with Cara; he’d overheard some of their bedroom spats. Once, he even heard a slapping sound. Maybe Milford had hit her. Then again, maybe that was what she wanted. Luther recalled a woman with a rich husband back in—

“Luther? You still with me, boy?”

He grinned. “Still here, ma’am.”

“You call me Cara, you hear?”

“I hear, Cara.”

He was trying to find a word describing how he felt with Cara here in the kitchen. Peaceful was the best he could do. He felt at peace. There hadn’t been much of that in his life. Was this how it was to have a mother?

He doubted it. There was something different here.

Cara placed the rolled-out dough in a pie plate, shaped and patted it down, and cut away the excess. Then, very adroitly, she began using her fingers to puff up the crust in little scallops around the plate’s edge.

The motion brought her face close to Luther’s. He could feel the heat of her breath and smell her perspiration. She turned her face toward him, smiling, her eyes only a few inches from his, her lips only a few inches….

Then he found himself kissing her.

Thought hadn’t been involved; there hadn’t been time to think not to do it.

But now he thought about what he was doing. About what a total idiot he was. What a risk he was taking. Fear cut through him.

She’ll tell Milford. What will Milford do?

Worst of all, he liked Cara. A lot. And now look what he was doing!

Oh, God!

When he was about to pull away, confused and upset with himself, she leaned forward and began kissing him back, hard, using her tongue. Their lips still locked, she came around the corner of the table to bend at the waist so she could reach him better where he was seated in the chair. Luther felt the chair lean sideways, then topple as its legs slid on the tiles, and he and Mrs. Sand—Cara—were suddenly on the kitchen floor, their bodies pressed close together.

All of a sudden, he was the other Luther, from the cruel streets of Kansas City. The Luther without hopes or dreams or illusions. He knew women in ways far beyond his years. He knew what Cara wanted, how to treat her.

She’s playing in my backyard.

One of his hands snaked inside her blouse, the other began working her denim slacks down over her hips and buttocks. She moaned and fumbled to unfasten his belt buckle.

Luther kissed her again, then drew his head back, slowing this down. Her breath was hissing in the quiet kitchen and she was staring up at him, her breasts trembling as they rose and fell.

A beat. A pause. They could change their minds here. Change the future. They both knew it. Embarrassed grins, hurried buttoning and zipping, and it could be as if this never happened.

They helped each other undress. Neither wanted to take the time to go into one of the bedrooms. There was a heavy woven throw rug on the floor in front of the sink. Luther folded it in quarters and slid it beneath Cara’s raised hips before using his mouth on her, then mounting and entering her.

If she was surprised by Luther’s experience and lack of inhibition, she didn’t show it. Yet there was a glint of wonder and confirmation in her eyes. He knew now that her sex with Milford had been lacking, and that she was in new territory, and he, Luther, was her expert guide. But she was the expert on what sex could mean, and where it could carry them. They had so much to teach each other.

He showed her what he knew and how well he knew it.

And he was eager to learn from her.

For Luther, this wasn’t simply sex. It was love.

Luther began going home every day for lunch. Hiram wasn’t that big a town, so wherever the painting jobs were, usually it wasn’t that far to walk. If Tom Wilde suspected anything, he never let on.

Cara would take Luther into the bedroom now, and Luther knew he was enjoying her where Milford lay with her. Being in the master bedroom seemed to make it better for Cara. She’d clamp her legs tight around Luther and bite his bare shoulder, or grab a handful of his sweat-damp hair and urge him on.

Cara never talked about her life with Milford, never complained. It seemed enough to her that she had Luther.

One afternoon after sex, when Luther lay with his head on Milford’s pillow and looked across white linen at Cara, he said, “I hear some gossip now and again about Tom Wilde.”

She laughed. “Is all of that still floating around? Been a lotta years ago.” She turned onto her side, dug an elbow into the pillow, and propped her head sideways on one hand. “What is it you heard, Luther?”

“That Tom used to teach at the high school and got himself in trouble with some of the boys there.”

“Yep,” Cara said. “Same old rumor. And that’s all it is, Luther. You think Milford and I would let you go to work for a child molester?”

“Not you,” Luther said.

“Luther! Milford’s not that kinda man!”

“How do you know the rumors about Tom aren’t true?”

“No witnesses ever came forth, Luther. It was just stories floated around by people that wanted Tom Wilde to lose his job. The father of some boy was said to have complained to the board of education, but if that’s so, whatever he said stayed a secret. And none of the boys came forward to point an accusing finger.”

“So what happened?”

“What happened is Tom Wilde lost his job. This is a small town, Luther, and it don’t take chances with child molesters teaching school, even if they’re just suspected child molesters.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Luther, you don’t worry any about Tom Wilde in that regard. I know some other stories about him, concerning some of the so-called ladies of the town, and I tend more to believe those rumors.”

So did Luther, whatever the rumors. He’d been with child molesters, with Norbert Black and with others for pay. Wilde wasn’t like any of them. Of course, Luther also knew people could have many different sides.

He decided not to worry about Tom Wilde, but if anything made him suspicious or uneasy, he’d tell Cara.

He had a friend now, as well as a lover.

Tom Wilde knew Luther must have heard the rumors about him, but Luther never mentioned them. But then he wouldn’t. It was obvious, once you got to know Luther, that he was more worldly than he first appeared. Wilde had looked into his background and even suspected he’d worked as a male prostitute in Kansas City.

Maybe it was because of those days and nights on the street that Luther didn’t particularly care what was in Wilde’s past. Wilde figured Luther was a good-size boy and strong, and with his teenager’s assumption of immortality, he wouldn’t be afraid of him whatever he’d heard.

Anyway, their arrangement wasn’t forever. At the end of summer Luther would go to school and paint only part-time, if at all.

The summer was going very well. Wilde was getting plenty of jobs. Luther was a hard worker and a deft and steady painter on his way to becoming a craftsman. And he was a remarkably apt pupil. He’d learned quickly whatever Wilde taught him, even to the point where Wilde trusted him with jobs that required genuine artistry. Luther had talent. Wilde could spot it, because he used to teach art, and now and then one of his students displayed a gift Wilde tried to reach, tried to develop. Usually it did no good. The gifted student ignored or abused the gift and lurched ahead into a life of mundane matters and average, at best, accomplishments. It used to make Wilde sick to watch it happen. The waste. The terrible waste! A town like Hiram could suffocate an artist, and for Wilde, it was agonizing to watch art die.

Maybe that closeness and caring for some of his more talented students was what started the rumors so long ago.

Or maybe it was something else.

Wilde had become aware of the rumors early. At first they angered him. Then amused him. Because he knew they were untrue. He was sure that, being unfounded, they’d soon wither on the vine of gossip and drop off.

He’d been wrong about that. The rumors had grown and grown. The rumors had changed his life, and taken on a life of their own that persisted to this day.

The rumors were also wrong.

It wasn’t boys that interested Wilde, it was girls. One girl. Which made it more difficult to fight the rumors and constant innuendo.

Wilde remembered how it had been, the sideways glances, the lump in his stomach, the sleepless nights. The ponderous weight of it all had ground him down as if he were being milled to pulp and powder.

Finally the small-town gossip and viciousness had cost Wilde his teaching job.

He was sorry about the job, but not the girl.

When it came to the girl, he’d do it all over again.