P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

“No,” Louis said.

For a second, Louis thought about telling Rodney about the ashes. But it didn’t seem like the right thing to do before Phillip knew.

“Do you know when he’ll be back?” Rodney asked.

Louis shook his head.

Rodney hesitated, like he wasn’t sure what to do or say. Then he nodded stiffly and turned. Louis started to close the door.

“Wait.”

Rodney had turned back. For a moment, he just stood there, looking at Louis, his face drawn with sadness. Louis waited, his hand on the door.

“I’ve made a mess of most of my life,” Rodney said. “A mess of others’ lives, too, I’m afraid.”

Louis didn’t say a word.

“I was wondering if you might take a drive with me.”

“To where?”

Rodney fought to keep his eyes steady. “Saugatuck.”

Rodney kept the black Jaguar at a steady clip, dodging the eighteen-wheelers and slow Chevys on I-94. Louis sat silent in the passenger seat, his minding racing ahead to Saugatuck.

I’ve made a mess of most of my life. A mess of others’ lives, too, I’m afraid. I was wondering if you might take a drive with me.

To where?

Saugatuck.

Why?

That’s where she is.

Rodney hadn’t said much since they started out. And even though Louis had a million questions he needed to ask, only one seemed important right now.

“What is she like?” he asked finally.

Rodney didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I see her once a week. Sometimes she’s almost normal, like you or me or anyone. Then there are the days I have come to call her otherworld times. And then are the bad days when I can’t see anything behind her eyes at all.” He glanced at Louis. “Do you understand what I mean?”

Louis nodded, looking back out the windshield. The traffic slowed as they neared Jackson. For a long time, neither said anything.

“You despise me, don’t you?” Rodney said.

Louis didn’t answer. He let the silence lengthen before he finally spoke. “Just tell me one thing. Why are you doing this? What, your guilt finally get to you? You expect Phillip to forgive you?”

“No,” Rodney said quietly.

“Then why now after all these years?”

Rodney seemed to be thinking for a moment. “The night they took Claudia away. . I’ve spent my whole life trying to find ways to forget that night. Did a damn good job until you showed up.”

He glanced at Louis and looked back to the road. “But when you came to the house Monday, something my mother said to you made me remember something. It was like it had always been there in the back of my memory, but like I said, I didn’t really want to remember.”

When Rodney spoke again, his voice had an edge.

“Mother said that when she went upstairs, Claudia wasn’t in her bedroom and that she found her in the bathroom with her wrists slit.”

“So?”

Rodney was shaking his head. “But that wasn’t possible because Mother had locked Claudia in her room and Claudia’s bathroom wasn’t attached to her room. Claudia couldn’t have been in her own bathroom.”

“I don’t follow,” Louis said.

“I think my mother locked Claudia in her bedroom. That’s where I remember Claudia being when the police came, in Mother’s bathroom.”

Rodney was quiet for a moment.

“I saw the bathroom after,” Rodney said. “The maid was there, with her bucket and rag wiping down the walls and the tub, and. . Mother always hated messes.”

“Rodney-”

“Let me finish. I’m trying to tell you I didn’t see it then but I do now. Claudia didn’t slash her own wrists. Mother cut her.”

Louis looked away.

“She must have drugged her,” Rodney said. “God knows there was always enough Valium in the house. She drugged her, then held her down and cut her.”

Louis remembered what Millie Reuben had said, about Claudia having no memory of cutting herself. She used to cry all night. I never heard someone cry so much.

“I never believed Claudia,” Rodney said softly. “She always said she didn’t cut herself. But I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe her because I always just thought she was. . damaged.”

“Damaged?” Louis said.

“She was the one who found Father.” Rodney glanced at him. “I already told you that, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

For a second, Louis thought about telling Rodney to pull over. He looked too distressed to drive. But Rodney’s hands were steady on the wheel.

“Why did you go through the whole charade of the death and burial? Why not just take your sister out of there?” Louis asked.

“It was mostly because of Phillip. Dr. Seraphin had red-flagged Claudia’s file to prevent anyone from visiting her.”

“Why?”

“Because of the baby. Seraphin was afraid if Phillip saw Claudia, he would figure things out. When Phillip came back to see Claudia, Seraphin panicked and told Phillip she had died. Right after that, she called me and said I had to get Claudia out of there.”

“Why bury the rocks?”

“Seraphin said we needed something Phillip could see, something real. So she gave him a grave to visit.”

“How’d she get away with it?”

“She had the power, especially in E Building, because no one really cared what went on there. She told everyone Claudia had had died of the flu. She had patients do the burial.”

“And you went along with all this.”

“I wasn’t going to let Mother put Claudia in another one of those places. So I took her to Saugatuck. Mother never went there so she never knew. She still doesn’t.”

“You can’t keep her to yourself anymore,” Louis said.

Rodney nodded. “I know.”

Most of Saugatuck’s shops and restaurants were shuttered for the winter. There were only a few old boats left in the harbor, and on the street, snowdrifts were heaped against listing fences normally meant to hold back the sands.

Rodney headed away from town on the road that rimmed Lake Michigan. No cars. No people. The beautiful homes overlooking the lake were shuttered, their lawns covered with pristine blankets of white. Far off across the huge gray expanse of Lake Michigan, a freighter sat poised like a toy against the blue wall of sky.

The Jaguar slowed. Louis looked up at the house. He remembered Phillip’s description of the house as an old stone fortress. But it was really a modest place compared to its neighbors, outdated and softened by the embrace of a veranda. The driveway was freshly plowed and there was a green car parked by the front door.

Rodney pulled in behind it and turned off the engine. “This was our old summer house. Claudia and I both loved this place. I think this was the only place we were happy when we were kids.”

“Rodney, do you know where Claudia’s child is?” Louis asked.

“I wish the hell I did,” Rodney said softly.

He sat staring at the stone house for a moment, then opened the car door. Louis followed him up onto the porch. Rodney unlocked the front door and they went in.

A black woman with a lilting accent greeted Rodney by name and took their coats. Rodney introduced her as Enid Lewis, a nurse who had been taking care of Claudia for the last fifteen years.

“How is she today, Enid?” Rodney asked.

“Good. We’re playing poker.”

“Poker?”

“I taught her. We play for shells. Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

Enid led them deeper into the house. Louis had a sense of old slip-covered chairs, overflowing bookcases, and walls of framed photographs. They passed through a living room with a stone fireplace. There was a model of a clipper ship on the mantel surrounded by shells and twisting pieces of driftwood. The placed smelled of pine furniture polish and something good cooking.