PART 4

One more thing to do.

Just one, she promised, but it was hard. What was this feeling she had, this little voice that kept telling her no? Why wouldn't it go away?

It will go away, she told herself, when you finish this. You know what is wrong. As long as there is a sign of her, they will remember. You have to get rid of her, all of her.

But I am afraid. I can remember her inside of me. I can remember holding her in my arms, just a little thing in a pink blanket. She was a happy baby; I remember when she smiled at me and what her lips felt like against my breast as I nursed her.

I don't want to be afraid.

Stop it!

It was later now. Annie's hands were trembling again. She was in the kitchen, the twins upstairs napping. Ruthie had just come home from school and she had gone up to do her homework.

Annie tried to think the name. She could think it but she didn't know what it was. The girl. That girl.

I remember her. She was so sweet.

It was her it was her it was her it was her. All of it was her. You figured it out. You keep thinking that she was a good girl after all, but good girls don't run away. They don't abandon their families. They don't pretend to love their mother and then betray them.

It was hard to think anymore; the calm of this morning had vanished and now it was all Annie could do to keep from screaming. You have to make the pain stop. You have to make it stop hurting. The more you think about it the more it will hurt.

You have to do what you have to do.

Upstairs.

Now.

Go.

#

She went, her feet feeling heavy as she climbed. Down the hall, to the room. Through the door.

Ruthie was there, the end of her pencil bobbing as she wrote in her notebook. She looked up.

"Hi, Mom."

Ruthie. Thank God for Ruthie. Ruthie was her pillar, her support. Somehow Annie knew that she could rely on Ruthie. She smiled.

"How's it coming?" she asked.

"It's all right. Just math. It's not too hard."

Annie nodded. "We need to do something," she said.

"Sure. What's that?"

Annie looked around the room. It wasn't so different from the last time she had come in. Two beds, two dressers. And things, too.

Things. Danger.

It's like before. You have to.

"I need you to tell me which of these things are yours, and which are --"

He voice cut out before she could say it.

Ruthie was watching her, closely. There was silence for a moment. Then Ruthie smiled.

"Lucy's?" she asked.

Annie watched her, nodded.

Strength. Ruthie is strong. Oh, I love you, my sweet daughter. Have I told you today how much I love you? The others don't understand yet, but you do. You can see that this is right, can't you? Because it is right, what we do here.

Ruthie smiled again.

"Sure," she said.

* * *

It hurt, still, but less now. They had set his nose and packed it with gauze, and had given him a prescription for the pain and sent him home. It wasn't a bad break; it would heal.

He had lied, of course, when they had asked him how it had happened. I was kneeling down to get something and I turned at just the wrong time and someone was coming through the door and the doorknob hit me. I thought it was nothing until this morning. No big deal; accidents happen.

Did they believe him?

Maybe.

Did God?

He pulled into the driveway, turned off the motor and engaged the parking brake. It was hard to tell what God thought anymore.

Robbie pulled up as he was getting out of the car. He stared.

"Wow," he said. "What happened, Reverend?"

Eric tried to smile.

"Accident," he said. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

Do you remember the course on counseling when you were studying for ministry? Do you remember what they told you?

"You going to be all right?" Robbie asked.

Eric nodded.

Do you remember how they told you not to let people lie about this sort of thing? What they said about denial?

They went in together, went upstairs. Robbie disappeared into his room; he probably had something tonight with Joy; it was Friday, after all.

Do you remember what Friday nights used to be like here?

There was noise from the girls' room. He stepped toward it and opened the door.

#

Annie there, with Ruthie. Sitting on what had been Lucy's bed, now only a stripped mattress. A garbage bag, filled, sat on the floor beside them. Ruthie was holding a necklace.

"No, that's mine. I guess it got put on her side by mistake."

Annie smiled. She looked up at him.

He froze.

He knew.

No. No, no ....

He almost spoke. But there was that look in his wife's eyes, that look that had been there yesterday, that look that always seemed to be there anymore, that look he didn't recognize. And he remembered her fist, so sudden, and he felt a tremor of fear run through him.

Ruthie was watching him too.

Think. Think!

"Hello, dear," Annie said. She rose. The tremor of fear came again.

"What's this?" he managed.

"We're making more room for Ruthie," Annie said. "I think she's earned the right to have her own room, don't you?"

He glanced at the full garbage bag. "What about ...?"

She turned her head, following his gaze.

"Don't worry about those things. I'll get rid of them so they won't hurt anyone."

He parted his lips but no words came through the disbelief. Who are you? What? Why? Don't you remember her? Don't you love her? What's happened to you?

No answers. But Annie was very close now, and he felt the sudden urge to flee.

And then the thought came to him.

And the words came too.

"No. Wait ...."

Annie's eyes widened, became a glare. He sensed as her body tensed. He spoke again, and with his words came a sick feeling in his gut.

"Let me do it, Annie. I'll get rid of her things for you."

She seemed to relax a bit, and she smiled.