Red Right Hand

24.

SWEET JESUS, DID Lois feel like shit.

Hangover seemed like such an insufficient word for what she had. It suggested a sense of mild discomfort that could be dispelled by aspirin, water, and a greasy breakfast. This wasn’t that. No, what she had was an affliction. A full-on disability.

Lois had slept deeply through the night-no surprise, since she vaguely remembered washing down several back-pain pills with wine yesterday. While she slept, she’d dreamed of loss, of ache, of big events forgotten until too late and important things misplaced.

Daylight was an assault-a sharp stab between her eyes, a slithery uncoiling in her stomach. Every time her eyelids flitted open-from pain, anxiety, or her uneasy dreams expelling her from sleep-she immediately regretted it. Even the red-black static of the light through her closed eyelids was almost more than she could bear. For a time, she slung a forearm over them to block it out, but her own body heat began to make her queasy.

She wondered how she’d managed not to throw up yet. Then she ran her tongue across her lips, tasted bile, and wondered if she had thrown up but was simply too foggy to remember.

Lois’s bedroom was airy and light. Blond wood, mismatched whitewashed furniture, and soft-hued fabrics combined to give the place a beachy feel. Oversize mirrors, one freestanding and another on her vanity, made the space seem even bigger than it was. Her husband, Cal, called it their island retreat. Today it seemed to amplify the afternoon light. Lois felt like she was at the center of a boardwalk busker’s steel drum.

I swear, if I survive this I’m never going to drink again, she thought.

As her eyes adjusted to the sunlight, Lois realized someone was standing in the doorway. Male, and visible only in silhouette.

“Cal?” she asked hopefully, though some small aching part of her knew that it wasn’t.

“Lois, I’m sorry,” Frank said softly, “but Cal’s not here.”

The unfamiliar voice startled her. She jerked upright, her face twisting in agony as her head responded to the sudden movement. “Wh-who are you? What are you doing here? Where’s Cal? Why are you wearing his things?”

“Easy,” he said, stepping just inside the doorway but not approaching her. He was white. Older. Rail-thin. His eyes were the palest blue she’d ever seen. His hair was mussed, and he had on one of Cal’s sweat suits, the sleeves of the sweatshirt pushed up to expose wiry, liver-spotted forearms. His elbows were at right angles, his hands in front of him. One was balled into a fist; the other held a glass of water. Ella, improbably, followed him into the room and stopped at his feet, her fluffy tail wagging. “My name’s Max Rausch, remember? We met yesterday. You…had a little too much to drink last night, so I helped you up to bed.”

Lois’s face fell as the events of yesterday came rushing back. Her brow furrowed. Her lip trembled momentarily, and then stilled. As fear abandoned her, the tension drained from her muscles, and her shoulders sagged. “Max. Of course. Forgive me. Yesterday, I…I wasn’t at my best.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. “I brought you some aspirin and a glass of water. I figured you might need it.”

She beckoned him closer. He dropped the pills into her hand. She popped them into her mouth and took the glass from him to wash them down.

“Easy,” he said. “Sip, don’t gulp. You probably don’t remember, but the water you drank last night didn’t stay down.”

Lois flushed with embarrassment and looked around but saw no sign of any mess.

“It’s fine. I took care of it. The empty glass fell off the nightstand when you tried to put it back, and I heard it shatter. When I came in to check on you, you said you needed a trashcan. I barely managed to get to the bathroom and back in time. Then I, uh, sat with you awhile to make sure you were okay.”

“Thank you,” she said. “You’re very kind.”

Frank startled her by laughing.

“Did I say something funny?” she asked.

“No,” he said, smiling. “It’s just…very kind is not something I’m called often.”

“Really? That surprises me. It seems to me you’ve been nothing but kind since you arrived.”

“Maybe so,” he said, “but when I was younger, I was not the nicest guy.”

“I doubt that’s true.”

“It is. I was a thug. A criminal. Sometimes I hurt people.”

He wasn’t sure why he’d told her that. He expected her to recoil. To ask him to leave. Instead, she said, “Are you familiar with Heraclitus of Ephesus, Max?”

He cocked his head, confused by the conversational hairpin. “Can’t say as I am,” he said. “Is it a person or a thing?”

“A person,” she said, smiling. “A pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, in fact.”

“Oh. I don’t know a thing about philosophy. Never had much use for it.”

“Mr. Rausch, you wound me. I spent thirty years teaching Classics before retiring.”

“You were a teacher?”

“A professor, yes, first at UNC and eventually across the bay at UC Berkeley.”

“Huh. Then you extra wouldn’t have liked the younger me. He never met a teacher he didn’t manage to piss off.”

“Clearly the two of you have little in common, then-just as Heraclitus would have predicted.”

“How’s that?”

“He believed that change was the only constant in the universe. As he observed, ‘No man can step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river-and he is not the same man.’”

“So you’re saying I ain’t that guy anymore.”

“I’m saying everything, even what we think of as our essential self, is fluid.”

“I dunno,” he replied. “Seems to me, most people never change.”

“I think you’re wrong. We all do. Most of us simply never change direction.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. But I don’t see how it matters. Either way, I’m stuck carrying around the memories of what I’ve done.”

“Those memories might be not a burden, but a gift. It’s possible you carry them to remind yourself why you’ve chosen a different path.”

“That’s a nice thought,” he said. “But if I could, I’d ditch ’em in a heartbeat.”

Her face clouded. “I suppose we all have things we wish we could forget.”

“Listen, Lois. About Cal-”

“Has he called?” she asked, sounding shrill and desperate but not disingenuous, as if she’d convinced herself that he was somehow still okay but knew the illusion wouldn’t hold if examined closely. “Is he on his way?”

“No, Lois, he hasn’t called,” he said, his tone gentle but insistent. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

A brief glimmer of understanding flickered across her face and then vanished, replaced once more by that same odd incuriosity Frank witnessed yesterday and had attributed to the drugs. “Perhaps later,” she said flatly, and then, the topic dismissed, she perked up some. “First, I think I’d like to try to eat some breakfast, since it seems these aspirin are staying down.”

Last time Frank had taken notice of a clock, it was after three-a little late for breakfast, but he didn’t bother to point that out to her. It was one of many things he didn’t bother pointing out.

Lois threw back the covers and tried to get out of bed, but she was shaky, her body weak. Frank wondered how many of those muscle relaxants she’d taken yesterday before the Park Police interrupted her by knocking on her door. Not enough to kill her, it would seem-but if he had to guess, he’d say she hadn’t been far off.

He watched uncomfortably for a minute while she struggled to get up, uncertain if she’d accept his assistance. But when it became clear she’d never make it downstairs on her own, he took her hand and helped her to her feet. She frowned but didn’t object.

Once she got going, she did okay, although he linked arms with her on the way downstairs for safety. Frank’s strength wasn’t what it once was-there was a time when his slender frame had been coiled with muscle-but Lois was so slight, he had no trouble keeping her upright. They apparently moved too slowly for Ella, though, because she raced past them down the stairs.

“So,” Frank said once they’d reached the kitchen and he’d deposited her on a stool beside the island, “what can I get you?”

“That’s very kind of you, Max, but I can’t have you cook me breakfast in my own home.”

“Of course you can. In fact, I insist. So what’ll it be? I make a mean omelet. You want one?”

He watched her expression cycle from disgust to curiosity to outright hunger as she tried the idea on for size. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “How about coffee? I made some earlier-I hope you don’t mind-but I finished it hours ago. I’d be happy to put on some more.”

This time, she ran through the same cycle of expressions in reverse and wound up little green. “I think I’ll stick to water for now, thanks,” she said.

Frank got Lois some more water. Then he opened her fridge and dug around. Even after their feast last night, it was well stocked-eggs, milk, several kinds of meats and cheeses, and scads of local produce. He selected an herbed goat cheese, thin-sliced prosciutto, and some leftover asparagus, as well as a few sprigs of chive to chop for garnish. Then butter for the pan-an expensive, restaurant-grade nonstick made of anodized aluminum-and three eggs.

He set the pan on the Viking cooktop, put two pats of butter inside. The burner clicked three times when he cranked the dial and then lit with a whoosh, blue flames licking the underside of the pan. He cracked the eggs into a bowl. Seasoned them with salt and pepper. Beat them while the butter melted. Poured the mixture into the pan. Fed Ella a small scrap of prosciutto while the eggs set. All the while, Lois watched in bemused silence.

“What?” he asked when he noticed her expression.

“It’s just…” She hesitated-maybe wondering if she was about to offend him-and then continued. “You must be the most thoughtful home invader on the planet, to make me breakfast.”

The briefest frown touched his features, an expression he replaced immediately with a genial smile. “I didn’t invade nothing-you let me in!”

“Did I?” she asked as he added filling to the omelet and folded it. “I confess, it’s all a bit fuzzy. I remember I was in the tub and heard you knocking.”

It was the Park Police she’d heard, not Frank. “You came downstairs,” he said, rooting through the cupboards, “saw me outside”-he found a plate and set it on the island in front of her-“and let me in.” He grabbed the pan and expertly slid the omelet onto the plate with a nudge from the spatula he’d taken from a ceramic crock beside the stove.

“To the left of the sink,” she said, when he looked flummoxed trying to find the silverware drawer. “No, your other left.”

Frank found the drawer, opened it, and handed her a fork. She cut a bite from the center of the omelet and put it in her mouth. At first, she chewed tentatively, as though worried it would be terrible or-more likely-that her body would rebel. But when she swallowed, she immediately took another. By her third bite, she was practically shoveling it in.

“This is delicious,” she said around a mouthful of omelet. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Frank replied. “It’s been a long time since I got to cook in a kitchen this nice. You have a lovely home.”

“Thanks. I think so too. Of course, it’s not actually ours-we pay the Presidio Trust twelve grand a month for the privilege of staying here. Cal always tells me that it makes more sense to buy than rent, that our money would go farther elsewhere. But I like it here, and in the end, we’re all just renting anyway, aren’t we?”

On that point, Frank agreed.

He watched with a chef’s satisfaction as she demolished the omelet. When she was finished, he took the plate and cleaned it, Lois objecting all the while.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked finally as he dried the plate.

“Better,” she replied. “More myself.”

She looked better. Her eyes clearer. Her color returning. Her movements more assured. “Good, because we need to talk. About Calvin. About you.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Cal’s stuck in Reno.”

“No, Lois, he’s not.”

Her face was a mask of innocent surprise, brittle and unconvincing as a porcelain doll’s. “Oh, are the flights back on schedule? If so, there’s every chance he’s in the air by now. In fact, he’ll probably be here any minute-and he’ll doubtless think me a fool for letting a stranger spend the night.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Of course I do. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Lois, I was in your master bath last night. I saw the pills, the knife. I heard Cal’s message.”

“I…I don’t…”

Lois didn’t finish her sentence. She couldn’t. Because when her mask slipped, it shattered. What began as a slight tremor in her hands as she raised them to her face in shock and horror became a series of violent, choking sobs that racked her body. It was as if she’d just heard Calvin’s final message for the first time, not simply replayed it in her mind.

Her breath came in ragged gasps, and she released it in keening wails, her mouth wide open, her eyes clenched shut, the cords of her neck straining from the effort. Tears and snot streaked her face. These were not dignified widow’s tears; this was the ugly cry of a woman who’d had her heart ripped out. Frank recognized the difference because he’d put his share of husbands and fathers in the ground.

Unconsciously, Lois drew her knees upward, primal instinct reducing her to a wounded animal, curling into a fetal position for protection. Frank reacted without thinking and was glad of it. She would have fallen off her stool if he hadn’t rushed around the island to catch her.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close while she shuddered from grief. He said nothing, just squeezed with all he had and let her cry. There was no point in saying anything-she was beyond the comfort of words.

Eventually, her cries subsided. Her breathing slowed. Her body stilled. Frank released her and was pleased to see she stayed upright. She dabbed her eyes with her pajama sleeve and wiped it across her nose like a child. Her eyes were bloodshot and glistened with tears.

A hysterical laugh escaped her lips. It startled Frank, and worried him too. He hoped he hadn’t pushed her to some kind of psychotic break. “What’s so funny?”

“I just remembered an old joke my mama used to tell, is all.”

“A joke.” Not questioning, exactly, but skeptical.

“That’s right. It was about a righteous man and a terrible storm. Town officials warned him the river that ran beside his house was going to overrun its banks and ordered him to evacuate, but he refused. ‘I put my faith in God,’ he said. ‘If I’m in danger, He will protect me.’

“As the storm raged and the waters rose, his neighbors loaded up their car and said, ‘We’re headed to higher ground, and we’ve got room for you-come with us!’ But the man declined. ‘I’m in no danger. God will save me,’ he said.

“The river breached its banks and lapped against his porch. A man in a canoe paddled by. ‘Hurry into my canoe! I’ll take you to safety!’ But the man said, ‘No, thanks. God will save me.’

“As the floodwaters rose higher, the man retreated inside and was eventually forced onto his roof. A helicopter spotted him and lowered down a rescuer who shouted, ‘Grab my hand so I can pull you up!’ But still, the man refused. ‘God will save me!’ he said. Shortly after, he was swept away and drowned.

“When he reached heaven, the man said angrily to God, ‘I put my faith in You-how could You just let me die?’ And God said, ‘My son, I sent you a car, a canoe, and a helicopter. What more were you looking for?’”

She laughed again, the sort of raw, guffawing laughter that strikes at funerals and is only encouraged by attempts to suppress it. Frank tried his best to smile politely, although he thought that as jokes went, this one was pretty weak. When Lois saw his pained half-smile, it only made her laugh harder.

“I know,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Mama must’ve told that joke a thousand times, and I never found it funny either!”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“Because it occurred to me that you’re my goddamn helicopter. And now I can’t get my Mama’s smug-ass voice saying ‘What more were you looking for?’ out of my head.”

“You saying you believe all that ‘God works in mysterious ways’ bullshi-er, stuff?”

That elicited a fresh peal of laughter from Lois. “No!” she said. “That’s the point! Mama dragged my ass to Sunday service every week until I went away to college, and it never meant a thing to me. But here you are, and thanks to you, here I am. Now, maybe I’m just grasping because”-and here her smile faltered, a deep reservoir of sadness peeking through-“because of Cal, but to me, it feels like fate. And if that’s the case, when I finally do pass through the Pearly Gates, that old biddy’s never going to let me hear the end of it.”

“I hope you’re right about all that,” Frank said, and he meant it. Not because he much believed-he’d seen so many senseless acts of violence in his life, he figured the universe was either random or outright cruel-but because he liked the notion that in his useless, fucked-up life, he might’ve done one good thing, if only by accident.

“I do too. But either way, thank you.”

“Anytime,” he said.

The moment was interrupted by an unexpected sound: the melodic tinkle of glass breaking. It happened so quickly and with no evident cause that at first Frank thought he had imagined it. But then Ella growled, her hackles rising, and a matte-black cylinder skittered down the hallway from the living room into the kitchen.

“Get down!” Frank yelled. He threw himself at Lois, knocking her off her stool. She shrieked as they fell and was silenced when the landing knocked the wind from her lungs.

A half a second later, the room was filled with blinding light, followed by a firework pop so loud that Frank’s ears ran warm with blood. He collapsed, disoriented, atop Lois, who struggled to get free.

Then, as one, the front and back doors imploded with a brittle snap of wood-not that Frank or Lois could hear or see-and armed men in riot gear stormed the house.