Faithless

CHAPTER TWO

At the clinic, they had asked Lena about the bruises.

“You all right, darlin’?” the older black woman had said, her brows knitted in concern.

Lena had automatically answered yes, waiting for the nurse to leave before she finished getting dressed.

There were bruises that came from being a cop: the rub from where the gun on your hip wore so hard against you that some days it felt like the bone was getting a permanent dent. The thin line of blue like a crayon mark on your forearm from accommodating the lump of steel as you kept your hand as straight to your side as you could, trying not to alert the population at large that you were carrying concealed.

When Lena was a rookie, there were even more problems: back aching, gunbelt chafing, welts from her nightstick slapping her leg as she ran all out to catch up with a perp. Sometimes, by the time she caught them, it felt good to use the stick, let them know what it felt like to chase their sorry ass half a mile in ninety-degree heat with eighty pounds of equipment flogging your body. Then there was the bulletproof vest. Lena had known cops- big, burly men- who had passed out from heat exhaustion. In August, it was so hot that they weighed the odds: get shot in the chest or die from heatstroke.

Yet, when she finally got her gold detective’s shield, gave up her uniform and hat, signed in her portable radio for the last time, she had missed the weight of it all. She missed the heavy reminder that she was a cop. Being a detective meant you worked without props. On the street, you couldn’t let your uniform do the talking, your cruiser making traffic slow even if the cars were already going the speed limit. You had to find other ways to intimidate the bad guys. You only had your brain to let you know you were still a cop.

After the nurse had left her sitting in that room in Atlanta, what the clinic called the recovery room, Lena had looked at the familiar bruises, judging them against the new ones. Finger marks wrapped around her arm like a band. Her wrist was swollen from where it had been twisted. She could not see the fist-shaped welt above her left kidney, but she felt it whenever she moved the wrong way.

Her first year wearing the uniform, she had seen it all. Domestic disputes where women threw rocks at your cruiser, thinking that would help talk you out of carting off their abusive husbands to jail. Neighbors knifing each other over a mulberry tree hanging too low or a missing lawn mower that ended up being in the garage somewhere, usually near a little Baggie of pot or sometimes something harder. Little kids clinging to their fathers, begging not to be taken away from their homes, then you’d get them to the hospital and the doctors would find signs of vaginal or anal tearing. Sometimes, their throats would be torn down deep, little scratch marks inside where they had choked.

The instructors tried to prepare you for this sort of thing in the academy, but you could never be really prepared. You had to see it, taste it, feel it for yourself. No one explained how terrifying it was to do a traffic stop on some out-of-towner, your heart pounding in your chest as you walked up to the driver’s side, hand on your gun, wondering if the guy in the car had his hand on his gun, too. The textbooks had pictures of dead people, and Lena could remember how the guys in class had laughed at some of them. The lady who got drunk and passed out in the bathtub with her panty hose caught around her ankles. The guy who hanged himself getting his nut off, and then you had this moment when you realized the thing he was holding in his hand wasn’t a ripe plum. He had probably been a father, a husband, definitely someone’s son, but to all the cadets, he was “the Plum-Nut Guy.”

None of this got you ready for the sight and smell of the real thing. Your training officer couldn’t describe the feel of death, when you walked into a room and the hairs on the back of your neck stood up, telling you something bad had happened, or- worse- was about to happen. Your chief couldn’t warn you against the habit of smacking your lips, trying to get the taste out of your mouth. No one told you that no matter how many times you scrubbed your body, only time could wear away the smell of death from your skin. Running three miles a day in the hot sun, working the weights in the gym, the sweat pouring off you like rain coming out of dark clouds until finally you got the smell out, and then you went out on a call- to a gas station, an abandoned car, a neighbor’s house where the papers were piled in the driveway and mail was spilling out of the box- and found another grandmother or brother or sister or uncle you had to sweat out of your system again.

No one knew how to help you deal with it when death came into your own life. No one could take away the grief you felt knowing that your own actions had ended a life- no matter how nasty that life was. That was the kicker. As a cop, you learned pretty quickly that there was an “us” and a “them.” Lena never thought she’d mourn the loss of a “them,” but lately, that was all she could think about. And now there was another life taken, another death on her hands.

She had been feeling death inside out for the last few days, and nothing could rid it from her senses. Her mouth tasted sour, every breath she drew fueling what smelled like decay. Her ears heard a constant shrill siren and there was a clamminess to her skin that made her feel as if she had borrowed it from a graveyard. Her body was not her own, her mind something she could no longer control. From the second she had left the clinic through the night they spent in an Atlanta hotel room to the moment she had walked through the door of her uncle’s house, all she could think about was what she had done, the bad decisions that had led her here.

Lying in bed now, Lena looked out the window, staring at the depressing backyard. Hank hadn’t changed a thing in the house since Lena was a child. Her bedroom still had the brown water stain in the corner where a branch had punctured the roof during a storm. The paint peeled off the wall where he’d used the wrong kind of primer and the wallpaper had soaked up enough nicotine to give it all the same sickly jaundiced cast.

Lena had grown up here with Sibyl, her twin sister. Their mother had died in childbirth and Calvin Adams, their father, had been shot on a traffic stop a few months before that. Sibyl had been killed three years ago. Another death, another abandonment. Maybe having her sister around had kept Lena rooted in life. Now she was drifting, making even more bad choices and not bothering to rectify them. She was living with the consequences of her actions. Or maybe barely surviving would be a better way to describe it.

Lena touched her fingers to her stomach, to where the baby had been less than a week ago. Only one person was living with the consequences. Only one person had survived. Would the child have had her dark coloring, the genes of her Mexican-American grandmother surfacing yet again, or would it have inherited the father’s steel gray eyes and pale white skin?

She lifted up, sliding her fingers into her back pocket, pulling out a long pocketknife. Carefully, she pried open the blade. The tip was broken off, and embedded in a semicircle of dried blood was Ethan’s fingerprint.

She looked at her arm, the deep bruise where Ethan had grabbed her, and wondered how the finger that had made the swirling print in the blade, the hand that had held this knife, the fist that had caused so much pain, could be the same one that gently traced its way down her body.

The cop in her knew she should arrest him. The woman in her knew that he was bad. The realist knew that one day he would kill her. Some unnamed place deep inside of Lena resisted these thoughts, and she found herself being the worst kind of coward. She was the woman throwing rocks at the police cruiser. She was the neighbor with the knife. She was the idiot kid clinging to her abuser. She was the one with tears deep inside her throat, choking on what he made her swallow.

There was a knock on the door. “Lee?”

She folded the blade by the edge, sitting up quickly. When Hank opened the door, she was clutching her stomach, feeling like something had torn.

He went to her side, standing there with his fingers reaching out to her shoulder but not quite touching. “You okay?”

“Sat up too fast.”

He dropped his hand, tucking it into his pocket. “You feel like eating anything?”

She nodded, lips slightly parted so she could take a few breaths.

“You need help getting up?”

“It’s been a week,” she said, as if that answered the question. They had told her she would be able to go back to work two days after the procedure, but Lena didn’t know how women managed to do it. She had been on the Grant County force for twelve years and never taken a vacation until now. It’d be funny if this were the sort of thing you could laugh at.

“I got some lunch on the way home,” he said, and Lena guessed from his neatly pressed Hawaiian shirt and white jeans that he had been at church all morning. She glanced at the clock; it was after noon. She had slept for fifteen hours.

Hank stood there, hands still in his pockets, like he was waiting for her to say something.

She said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You need anything?”

“Like what, Hank?”

He pressed together his thin lips, scratching his arms like they itched. The needle tracks scarring his skin were still prominent even after all these years, and she hated the sight of them, hated the way he didn’t seem to care that they reminded her of everything that was wrong between them.

He said, “I’ll fix you a plate.”

“Thanks,” she managed, letting her legs hang over the bed. She pressed her feet firmly to the floor, trying to remind herself that she was here in this room. This last week, she had found herself traveling around in her mind, going to places that felt better, safer. Sibyl was still alive. Ethan Green hadn’t come into her life yet. Things were easier.

A long, hot bath would have been nice, but Lena wasn’t allowed to sit in a tub for at least another week. She wasn’t allowed to have sex for twice as long as that, and every time she tried to come up with a lie, some explanation to give Ethan for not being available, all she could think was that it would be easier just to let him do it. Whatever harm came to her would be her own fault. There had to be a day of reckoning for what she had done. There had to be some sort of punishment for the lie that was her life.

She took a quick shower to wake herself up, making sure not to get her hair wet because the thought of holding a hair dryer for however many minutes it took was too tiring to even think about. She was turning lazy through all this, sitting around and staring out the window as if the dirt-packed backyard with its lonesome tire swing and 1959 Cadillac that had been on blocks since before Lena and Sibyl had been born was the beginning and end of her world. It could be. Hank had said more than a few times that she could move back in with him, and the easiness of the offer had swayed her back and forth like the ocean’s undertow. If she did not leave soon, she would find herself adrift with no hope of land. She would never feel her feet firmly on the ground again.

Hank had been against taking her to the clinic in Atlanta, but to his credit, he had let her decision stand. Through the years, Hank had done a lot of things for Lena that maybe he didn’t believe in- be it for religious reasons or his own damn fool stubbornness- and she was just now realizing what a gift that was. Not that she would ever be able to acknowledge this to his face. As much as Hank Norton had been one of the few constants in her life, Lena was keenly aware that for him, she was the only thing he had left to hold on to. If she were a less selfish person, she’d feel sorry for the old man.

The kitchen was right off the bathroom, and she wrapped herself in her robe before she opened the door. Hank was standing over the sink, tearing the skin off a piece of fried chicken. KFC boxes were scattered on the counter beside a paper plate piled with mashed potatoes, coleslaw and a couple of biscuits.

He said, “I didn’t know what piece you wanted.”

Lena could see the brown gravy congealing on top of the potatoes and the mayonnaise smell from the coleslaw made her stomach clench. Just the thought of food made her want to vomit. Seeing it, smelling it, was enough to push her over the edge.

Hank dropped the chicken leg on the counter, putting his hands out like she might fall, saying, “Sit down.”

For once, she did as she was told, taking a wobbly chair from under the kitchen table. There were tons of pamphlets scattered on the top- AA and NA meetings being Hank’s most abiding addiction- but he had cleared a small space for her to eat. She put her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hand, not feeling dizzy so much as out of place.

He rubbed her back, his callused fingers catching on the material of her robe. She gritted her teeth, wishing he wouldn’t touch her but not wanting to deal with the hurt look on his face if she pulled away.

He cleared his throat. “You want me to call the doctor?”

“I’m okay.”

He pointed out the obvious: “You never had a strong stomach.”

“I’m okay,” she repeated, feeling like he was trying to remind her of their history, of the fact that he had seen her through just about everything in her life.

He pulled out another chair and sat across from her. Lena could sense him waiting for her to look up, and she took her time obliging. As a kid, she had thought Hank was old, but now that she was thirty-four, the age Hank had been when he took in his dead sister’s twin daughters to raise, he looked ancient. The life he’d lived had cut hard lines into his face just as the needles he’d pushed into his veins had left their marks. Ice blue eyes stared back at her, and she could see anger under his concern. Anger had always been a constant companion to Hank, and sometimes when she looked at him, Lena could see her future written out in his cragged features.

The drive to Atlanta, to the clinic, had been a quiet one. Normally, they didn’t have much to say to each other, but the heaviness of the silence had been like a weight on Lena ’s chest. She had told Hank she wanted to go into the clinic alone, but once she got into the building- its bright fluorescent lights almost pulsing with the knowledge of what she was about to do- Lena had longed for his presence.

There was one other woman in the waiting room, an almost pathetically thin mousy blonde who kept fidgeting with her hands, avoiding Lena’s gaze almost as keenly as Lena avoided hers. She was a few years younger than Lena, but kept her hair swept up on top of her head in a tight bun like she was an old lady. Lena found herself wondering what had brought the girl there-was she a college student whose carefully planned life had hit a snag? A careless flirt who had gone too far at a party? The victim of some drunken uncle’s affection?

Lena didn’t ask her- didn’t have the nerve and did not want to open herself up to the same question. So they sat for nearly an hour, two prisoners awaiting a death sentence, both consumed by the guilt of their crimes. Lena had almost been relieved when they took her back to the procedure room, doubly relieved to see Hank when they finally wheeled her outside to the parking lot. He must have paced beside his car, chain-smoking the entire time. The pavement was littered with brown butts that he had smoked down to the filters.

Afterward, he had taken her to a hotel on Tenth Street, knowing they should stay in Atlanta in case she had a reaction or needed help. Reese, the town where Hank had raised Lena and Sibyl and where he still lived, was a small town and people didn’t have anything better to do than talk about their neighbors. Barring that, neither one of them trusted the local doctor to know what to do if Lena needed help. The man refused to write prescriptions for birth control and was often quoted in the local paper saying that the problem with the town’s rowdy youth was that their mothers had jobs instead of staying home to raise their kids like God intended.

The hotel room was nicer than anything Lena had ever stayed in, a sort of mini-suite with a sitting area. Hank had stayed on the couch watching TV with the sound turned down low, ordering room service when he had to, not even going out to smoke. At night, he folded his lanky body onto the couch, his light snores keeping Lena up, but comforting her at the same time.

She had told Ethan she was going to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s training lab for a course on crime scene processing that Jeffrey wanted her to attend. She had told Nan, her roommate, that she was going to stay with Hank to go through some of Sibyl’s things. In retrospect, she knew she should have told them the same lie to make it easier, but for some reason lying to Nan had flustered Lena. Her sister and Nan had been lovers, made a life together. After Sibyl died, Nan had tried to take Lena under her wing, a poor substitute for Sibyl, but at least she had tried. Lena still did not know why she could not bring herself to tell the other woman the real reason for the trip.

Nan was a lesbian, and judging by the mail she got, she was probably some kind of feminist. She would have been an easier person to take to the clinic than Hank, vocalizing her support instead of seething in quiet disdain. Nan would have probably raised her fist at the protesters outside who were yelling “Baby killer!” and “Murderer!” as the nurse took Lena to the car in a squeaky old wheelchair. Nan probably would have comforted Lena, maybe brought her tea and made her eat something instead of letting her hold on to her hunger like a punishment, relishing the dizziness and the burning pain in her stomach. She certainly wouldn’t have let Lena lie around in bed all day staring out the window.

Which was as good a reason as any to keep all of this from her. Nan knew too many bad things about Lena already. There was no need to add another failure to the list.

Hank said, “You need to talk to somebody.”

Lena rested her cheek against her palm, staring over his shoulder. She was so tired her eyelids fluttered when she blinked. Five minutes. She would give him five minutes, then go back to bed.

“What you did…” He let his voice trail off. “I understand why you did it. I really do.”

“Thanks,” she said, glib.

“I wish I had it in me,” he began, clenching his hands. “I’d tear that boy apart and bury him where nobody’d ever think to look.”

They’d had this conversation before. Mostly, Hank talked and Lena just stared, waiting for him to realize she was not going to participate. He had gone to too many meetings, seen too many drunks and addicts pouring out their hearts to a bunch of strangers just for a little plastic chip to carry around in their pockets.

“I woulda raised it,” he said, not the first time he had offered. “Just like I raised you and your sister.”

“Yeah,” she said, pulling her robe tighter around her. “You did such a great job.”

“You never let me in.”

“Into what?” she asked. Sibyl had always been his favorite. As a child she had been more pliable, more eager to please. Lena had been the uncontrollable one, the one who wanted to push the limits.

She realized that she was rubbing her belly and made herself stop. Ethan had punched her square in the stomach when she had told him that no, she really wasn’t pregnant, it was a false alarm. He had warned her that if she ever killed a child of theirs, he would kill her, too. He warned her about a lot of things she didn’t listen to.

“You’re such a strong person,” Hank said. “I don’t understand why you let that boy control you.”

She would have explained it if she knew how. Men didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that it didn’t matter how strong you were, mentally or physically. What mattered was that need you felt in your gut, and how they made the ache go away. Lena used to have such disgust for women who let men knock them around. What was wrong with them? What made them so weak that they didn’t care about themselves? They were pathetic, getting exactly what they asked for. Sometimes she had wanted to slap them around herself, tell them to straighten up, stop being a doormat.

From the inside, she saw it differently. As easy as it was to hate Ethan when he wasn’t around, when he was there and being sweet, she never wanted him to leave. As bad as her life was, he could make it better or worse, depending on his mood. Giving him that control, that responsibility, was almost a relief, one more thing she didn’t have to deal with. And, to be honest, sometimes she hit him back. Sometimes she hit him first.

Every woman who’d ever been slapped around said she had asked for it, set off her boyfriend or husband by making him mad or burning dinner or whatever it was they used to justify having the shit beaten out of them, but Lena knew for a fact that she brought out Ethan’s bad side. He had wanted to change. When she first met him, he was trying very hard to be a different person, a good person. If Hank knew this particular fact, he would be shocked if not sickened. It wasn’t Ethan who caused the bruises, it was Lena. She was the one who kept pulling him back in. She was the one who kept baiting him and slapping him until he got angry enough to explode, and when he was on top of her, beating her, fucking her, she felt alive. She felt reborn.

There was no way she could have brought a baby into this world. She would not wish her fucked-up life on anyone.

Hank leaned his elbows on his knees. “I just want to understand.”

With his history, Hank of all people should understand. Ethan was bad for her. He turned her into the kind of person she loathed, and yet she kept going back for more. He was the worst kind of addiction because no one but Lena could understand the draw.

Musical trilling came from the bedroom, and it took Lena a second to realize the noise was her cell phone.

Hank saw her start to stand and said, “I’ll get it,” going into the bedroom before she could stop him. She heard him answer the phone, say, “Wait a minute.”

He came back into the kitchen with his jaw set. “It’s your boss,” he said, handing her the phone.

Jeffrey’s voice was as dire as Hank’s mood. “ Lena,” he began. “I know you’ve got one more day on your vacation, but I need you to come in.”

She looked at the clock on the wall, tried to think how long it would take to pack and get back to Grant County. For the first time that week, she could feel her heart beating again, adrenaline flooding into her bloodstream and making her feel like she was waking up from a long sleep.

She avoided Hank’s gaze, offering, “I can be there in three hours.”

“Good,” Jeffrey said. “Meet me at the morgue.”