John Manning: The Killing Room

“Freaky,” he murmured to himself, looking down at the rocks. The only sound was the steady crash of the surf and the occasional call of a lonesome gull.

Finally Douglas roused himself. He began heading once again across the great lawn. He wouldn’t mention any of this to Uncle Howie. There had been a time, right after his mother died, when Douglas had smoked a bit too much pot. Aunt Therese had reported as much to Uncle Howie. The old man had sat Douglas down and lectured him against the dangers of marijuana. Douglas had nodded, pretending to listen, but it had been the magic of that wonderful weed that had kept him sane not only after Mom’s death but after Aunt Therese’s as well. A couple of times when Douglas came to visit Uncle Howie after that, his clothes had reeked of pot, and his uncle had noticed. There was a disapproving look for his little hoodlum.

For the last few years, however, Douglas had pretty much cleaned up his act. He’d maybe smoke a joint on a Saturday night with Brenda, but that was all. For this visit to his uncle, he fully intended to present himself as upstanding and serious. If he started telling tales of barefoot women jumping off cliffs, Uncle Howie would assume he’d been smoking that wacky weed again. So Douglas would keep his little hallucination to himself. The muddy clothes were going to be bad enough. Uncle Howie always worried one of these days his nephew would crash his motorcycle.

Douglas decided to blame it on a squirrel.

“I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel,” he said out loud, practicing the line he’d use with his uncle.

He smiled. He thought that would work.

There would be no talk of mysterious women who disappeared into thin air.

The look in Karen’s eyes was enough to shatter Paula’s heart, but there was no way-no way in heaven or, more appropriately, hell-that she was going to give in.

“All my life,” Karen was saying, “I’ve dreamed of having a baby.”

“I know, sweetie. I know.”

“I don’t understand,” Karen said. She was angry, but more tearful and sad than anything else. She was a simple girl, a farm girl from Nebraska. All Karen wanted was a home and children. She was old-fashioned like that. But as much as Paula loved her, there was no way she could give that to her.

What made it worse was that she couldn’t tell her why.

“You’re great with kids,” Karen argued, trying for nearly the hundredth time to convince her partner to conceive a child. “You’re a teacher! Your students adore you! I’ve watched you with them. You’d make a great mother.”

Paula sighed and looked out her window down onto Commonwealth Avenue. The day was warm, the air pleasant, so she’d opened all the windows of her apartment. Autumn would soon be here, and then winter-and the days of open windows would be over. From the street, taxicabs were bleating. Paula could hear a group of little children laughing. It broke her heart.

There was nothing she could say to Karen. Yes, indeed, she loved kids. In her job teaching English as a second language to immigrants from Puerto Rico, Colombia, Vietnam, and Mexico, she found great satisfaction and joy being with children. She agreed she’d make a wonderful mother, especially with Karen as co-parent. They could raise a wonderful family. If only things were different.

They’d been together five years now. Karen was the love of Paula’s life. There had been other girlfriends who had come and gone, but only Karen had truly captured her heart. Right from the start, Paula had wanted to give Karen the world. And she could. Paula had money-her father’s will had ensured that at least some of the Young fortune had already made its way to her. But Karen didn’t care about Paula’s wealth. She cared only about having a baby, a child to love and to raise. She herself was unable to conceive, which was the great sadness of her life. So a child was the one thing she looked to Paula to give her. But it was the one thing Paula could never do.

For a time, Paula had considered telling Karen a lie. She’d agree to go to the doctor and get tested. Then she’d come back and announce that she, too, was sterile. But surely then Karen would want to adopt. Paula had phoned her Uncle Howard and asked him if an adopted child would still face the family curse. He couldn’t be sure. Perhaps without the actual bloodline the child would be free. But he could give her no guarantee. That wasn’t enough assurance for Paula. She had seen what had happened to her father and to the others. There was no way she could ever bring a child into the family, through birth or adoption, to face that.

So she had told Karen that she simply didn’t want children. “A child would change our lives,” she said, over and over, a claim she repeated now.

“Yes, it would,” Karen said. “It would give us new purpose, a new direction.”

Paula turned away from the window to look at her. “Do we need a new purpose? A new direction? Aren’t you happy just with me?”

“I love you, Paula. Yes, I’m happy. But I don’t feel…complete.”

Paula couldn’t admit that she felt exactly the same way. When she was a teenager, before she’d learned about that room and the terrors it held for her family, she’d dreamed of having kids. Lots of them. How she’d loved watching over her little brother and her little cousins when the adults were inside Uncle Howard’s house, talking about those serious things that made them frown and sometimes cry. Paula hadn’t understood what all that had been about back then. She’d just been a kid romping in the grass.

Now she was nearly forty. Karen was telling her that her biological clock would soon run out. Paula countered that no kid wanted an old woman for a mother. But it was an argument that didn’t hold water. Karen’s own mother had been forty-two when she gave birth to Karen. “And Mom was the best mother in the world!” Karen told her emphatically.

A couple of times, Paula had come close to telling her the truth. But each time, she had chickened out at the last possible moment. The secret shamed her. What kind of family had to live with such a thing? She lived the years between those terrible family reunions in a state of denial; she imagined everyone in the family did. To think of it, to actually speak of it, would make it too real. What would Karen think if she told her? She might even leave her. At the time of the last family reunion ten years ago, they hadn’t met each other. So there had been no reason for Paula to tell Karen about the family’s terrible secret. Not until now-because next month she would have to drive up to Maine and face the chance that this time it might be her spending a night in that room.

No way would she ever let a son or daughter of hers face that.

“It’s just the way I feel,” she said to Karen, her eyes growing moist. “I’m sorry if that hurts you, baby. You don’t know how sorry I am.”

Karen said nothing more. Once again the discussion had gone nowhere. She just wiped her eyes and grabbed her purse. “I need to go for a walk,” she announced.

“Baby-”

Karen flinched when Paula moved to embrace her. So Paula stood back and let her pass, saying nothing more. The door closed hard on Karen’s way out.

Paula looked once more out the window. She saw Karen emerge from the building onto the sidewalk and hurry down the street. She thought she was crying. Paula’s heart broke.

She turned and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the wall. She looked hard. Closed off. She studied her blue eyes, hiding behind lowered lids. Her face was tight, the lines around her eyes more pronounced. Once, Paula had been very pretty. Her hair was still auburn, her eyelashes still dark and thick, but a light seemed to have gone out in her eyes. It was extinguished by the pain and disappointment that she had seen on the face of the woman she loved. Pain and disappointment she had caused.