Forty Words for Sorrow

41

WHEN SHE GOT HOME FROM the mall, Edie kicked off her snow boots, which were soaked through with slush, and went upstairs in damp socks to check on Gram. The old biddy was snoring away, mouth hanging open like a garage door. She hadn’t even asked about the gunshots the other day, more concerned about the shouting. Time to check on the prisoner.

The three bolts were still in place. Edie put her ear to the door and listened for a full minute before opening it. Eric had told her not to speak to the prisoner unless he was there too, but they’d been holding him so long, Edie could no longer resist. What was the point of having a prisoner if you couldn’t show him who was boss?

He was seated upright in the chair, his wrists and ankles still securely fastened. The blanket had fallen off, leaving him completely naked. His entire body was pimpled with goosebumps.

He raised his head when Edie came in. Above the taped mouth, the eyes were red and pleading.

Edie sniffed. “Couldn’t wait, could you? Pig.” They hadn’t fed him for at least twenty-four hours, or given him anything to drink, so using the basin they had set under the hole in his chair seemed a deliberate provocation.

She checked his leg wound. It was just a little hole with a bit of a burn around it, nothing serious.

The prisoner was trying to say something, grunting and groaning under the tape. Edie sat on the bed and observed him. “Pardon me, prisoner? Can’t hear you.” The red eyes bulged wider, the groans were louder. “What’s that, prisoner? Speak up.”

Whatever it was he was trying to communicate, he must have been shouting it. It filtered through the tape as a kind of subterranean roar. “Stop that racket. I’ll get a screwdriver and stick it in your bullet hole. Want me to do that?”

The prisoner shook his head in a comic, exaggerated way.

She squatted down in front of him. “You know the only reason you’re still alive?” she said softly. “I’ll tell you. The only reason you’re still alive, prisoner, is because we’re trying to find a place where no one will hear you scream.”

Suddenly a hot tear fell on Edie’s wrist, and she jumped back, staring at it. “Bastard,” she said, and spit, catching him square in the face.

The prisoner bent his head down to evade her.

Edie had to squat down again to get him. She spat at him again and again—calmly, there was no passion in it—and after a while her prisoner stopped even trying to avoid it. Edie kept spitting until his face was glistening all over. She didn’t stop until she was completely out of spit.