the flame still burns
Larry is shocked to get a letter in the first place, but when he saw the return address as Constance Langdon in her close, beautiful handwriting, he is sure he is dreaming.
He finds it difficult to dream in prison, mostly because it is difficult to sleep. He has been moved to a state prison in Georgia, and the rednecks and roughnecks aren't like the people back in California. They didn't treat him differently. They did not fear his scars because they had their own. His cellmate, Juan, has a long, jagged white line dragging down the corner of his right eye, and it extends down below his chin. Larry wants to ask where he got it, but Juan doesn't speak English and the one time Larry said hello, Juan hadn't even raised his scarred face, just lifted a long, brown middle finger.
He opens the letter with shaking fingers, half expecting nothing to be inside. Instead of nothing, out falls a sweetly scented note, written on pastel pink stationary. He presses the note to his nose and breathes in Constance's perfume. Juan shifted on the bed above him, and Larry dropped the note. It slipped down between the mattress and the wall, and he spent a long, panicked moment trying to keep it from dropping into that space where he couldn't reach it, would have to lift the mattress off the frame, before he managed to retrieve it.
He reads the note first in a short burst, not even comprehending the words, just admiring the soft curves of Constance's familiar handwriting.
I know I've been an awful, mean girl to you, Larry. My only excuse is that my life has been tragic, and I can't help but think that you have added to that tragedy. I've been trying to forgive you because I know you are in that awful place partially because of me. Perhaps with the time you've been given to think and mourn, you'll be able to forgive me, too.
I have a new light in my life, a little one who is more magic than boy, and I'd like you to meet him. I think if we had ever had a child together, my dear, he would have been like my Michael.
If you'd like, Michael and I would like to come to visit you. I'm sure that even if I cannot be a comfort to you, this little light of mine can.
Yours,
Constance
Larry didn't allow himself to believe that she would follow through, but the next day, he puts her on the list.
Visiting day comes and he sits quietly on the thin mattress with his hands folded in his lap. He skips exercise, skips lunch. His heart pounding and pounding, he folds and unfolds the pink, scented letter. He waits. Larry has always been good at waiting.
When the door buzzes and the guard enters, Larry doesn't move or speak, just lets the guard shackle him and lead him into the visiting room. He's waiting and waiting, looking for her elegant, bobbed blonde hair, and it seems like hours before they lead her inside. Behind her, trailing, is a young boy, about five, golden and sullen, a scary resemblance to the young man who had once set Larry on fire.
He barely sees the boy, though, can barely breathe, because her beautiful face is a little more lined, her blonde hair a little longer, a little grayer, and her bright smile a little dimmer, and it only makes his heart ache all the more. For a time, Larry believed that he had loved Constance for her beauty, but his years without her had taught him that he loved her in spite of it. Today, looking older and wiser and more tired, Larry loves her more than he ever had in the past and all he can think is how soft the lined skin of her face would feel against the back of his hand, how fine her hair must have grown, how it would brush against his face as he kissed her.
He wants to vault out of the chair and go to her, but years of being prisoner to Constance told him that was a sure way to be rejected, and the shackles would have made it all the more difficult.
The guard shuts the door, steps out, watching through the little screen in the steel, and Constance Langdon comes toward him, dragging her little light behind her.
"Larry," she sighs, sitting down across from him, and the sound of his name in her sweet, Southern voice makes him quiver.
"You came," he says, and his head tells him not to be stupid, to be quiet, not to ruin this moment, but he can't stop himself from leaning forward across the long table, toward her.
"Of course I did, darling. I said I would, didn't I? I wanted to see you."
Her words are almost too much for him to bear. "I've wanted to see you too. I've missed you so much."
"I've missed you too, darling. I really have. I wanted to bring my boy to see you," she said, and hefted the sullen child up into her lap. He began to whine, fat tears rolling down his face.
"He's beautiful," Larry said, smiling, but unable to take his eyes off Constance long enough to look at the boy.
"Isn't he? He's just the most wonderful boy, Larry. He's really got something. He's really going to be somebody."
"Of course he is. You're a wonderful mother."
Her smile brightens, lights up the whole room, and Larry wishes he could take it with him back to his cell. If he could, he would be able to bear prison for a hundred years.
The boy begins to cry, loudly, and the guard is looking in the window to make sure nothing is wrong.
"He's just hungry," Constance says, and she croons to him.
Larry is looking at the line of her jaw, her eyelashes fanning down on her cheeks as she looks down at the child.
"I need a favor, Larry," she says softly, still looking down.
Larry knows that he'll do anything, anything, but still he asks. "What is it, darling?"
"You see, I'm in a bit of a spot, darling. I've met someone..." she pauses, looks up to gauge his reaction.
He knows his face is as stricken as his heart feels. He's helpless to her, has always been helpless to her, and his poor scarred heart is burning in his chest.
"I've met someone and he's going to be a good father to Michael. He's strong and brave and...handsome. She looks up at him from underneath her long lashes, her eyes glittering and honey brown.
He stares at her, waiting, waiting for the favor that he knows he'll still do, even though her words are stabbing holes in him.
"There's just one problem. He can't provide for my boy. For a time, I was able to feed him, but now...now you see, things are different."
The boy has stopped crying. He stares at Larry, transfixed, big brown eyes still glittering with tears.
Larry's heart is falling at a level he thought unimaginable. "Constance, my love, I don't have any money-I wish-"
Constance shakes her head, her longer blond curls bouncing, and Larry's mouth goes dry. "I don't need money, darling. He's got money. My Michael is special. He doesn't need material things."
Larry, once transfixed on Constance, now cannot stop looking at the child in her lap. Michael's rosebud of a mouth is open, and Larry finds himself shocked to see how much he looks like Constance.
"He's perfect, Larry, perfect like I always wanted, but like any child, he needs things. Things I can no longer give him."
Michael squirms down off of Constance's lap and takes a few steps toward Larry.
Looking down at the child, a miniature Tate Langdon with his curly blond hair and dark brown eyes, Larry feels terror rising in his stomach.
"You're the perfect man to help me, Larry," Constance says, reaching over the table and grasping his hand.
The guard is no longer watching, just standing there at the door, looking down at his cell phone, and Larry wants to scream and scream and scream, but Constance's touch, her soft, long fingers, stop the sound in his throat, almost stop his heart.
Michael is coming toward him, his tiny feet quick on the tile, and suddenly Larry looks down into the child's black eyes and everything horrible that has ever happened to him happens again. He can feel his skin, burning, smell his hair on fire, can feel that poor, deformed boy's struggles. He can hear Constance's voice, telling him over and over that he's useless and ugly, that she never loved him.
Small, sharp teeth pierce the skin of Larry's wrist but he can barely feel it. He feels too much pain, too much suffering to feel the small tug of his blood leaving his veins. "What...What is he doing?"
"He was born of that house that you and I lived and loved in, my dear. That house where all my children fell. Not this one, though. He's just a bit different, that's all. Instead of milk, he feeds on blood. But not just any blood. The blood of the suffering, the miserable. I'm not miserable anymore, Larry. I've got my man and my boy and I just know good things are coming. That's why I need you, darling." Constance is smiling at him, grasps his hand even tighter. "You're the most miserable soul I know."
Larry cries out as the boy tugs and tears at his wrist with his teeth.
"My boy's got an appetite," Constance laughs, and Larry looks up at the guard's window and back down at Constance's beaming face.
He looks down at the evil drinking his blood, thinks idly that there will probably be a scar.
Larry grits his teeth and bears it, and he'll do it again and again and again until she's used him up and left him for dead.
He'll bear all the scars of this world, for her.