John Hart - Down River

For no reason that I could articulate, I still wanted to speak with her. I guess we had unfinished business. I climbed the stairs, and my feet were quiet on the thick runner. The upstairs hall was bathed in cold light through tall windows. I saw the farm below, the brown drive that cut through it. Oil paintings hung on the walls; a wine-dark carpet ran away from me; and the door to Miriam’s room stood ajar. I stood at the crack and saw Janice within. Drawers were pulled open and she stood with hands on her hips, studying the room. When she moved, it was for the bed. She lifted the mattress and apparently found what she was looking for. A small sound escaped her lips as she held the mattress with one hand and scooped something out from underneath. She dropped the mattress and studied what lay in her palm; it glittered like a shard of mirror.

I spoke as I stepped through the door. “Hello, Janice.”

She spun to face me, and her hand closed in a spasm; she whipped it behind her back, even as she bit down in obvious pain.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing.” A guilty lie.

“What’s in your hand?”

“That’s none of your business, Adam.” Her features calcified as she drew herself up. “I think you should leave.”

I looked from her face to the floor. Blood was dripping on the hardwood behind her feet. “You’re bleeding,” I said.

Something in her seemed to collapse. She slumped and brought her hand from behind her back. It was still clenched shut, white at the knuckles in spite of the pain; and blood had, indeed, channeled through her fingers.

“How badly are you hurt?” I asked.

“Why do you care?”

“How badly?”

Her head moved fractionally. “I don’t know.”

“Let me see.”

Her eyes settled on my face, and there was strength in them. “Don’t tell her that you know,” she said, and opened her hand. On the palm of it lay a double-edged razor blade. Her blood put a sheen on it. It had cut her deeply, and blood welled from perfectly matched wounds on each side of the blade. I lifted the blade and placed it on the bedside table. I took her hand, cupped mine beneath to catch the blood.

“I’m going to take you to the bathroom,” I said. “We’ll wash this off and take a look.”

I ran cold water on the cuts, then wrapped her hand in a clean towel. She stood rigidly throughout the entire process, eyes closed. “Squeeze tight,” I said. She did, and her face paled further. “You may need stitches.”

When her eyes opened, I saw how close she was to breaking. “Don’t tell your father. He can’t possibly understand, and she doesn’t need that burden, too. He’ll only make it worse.”

“Can’t understand what? That his daughter is suicidal?”

“She’s not suicidal. That’s not what this is about.”

“What, then?”

She shook her head. “It’s not your place to hear about it, no more than it’s mine to tell. She’s getting help. That’s all you really need to know.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s true. Come on. Let’s get you downstairs. We’ll talk about it there.” She agreed reluctantly. As we passed the tall windows, I saw Miriam driving away. “Where is she going?” I asked.

She pulled up. “You don’t really care, do you?”

I studied her face: the set jaw, the new lines, and the loose skin. She would never trust me. “She’s still my sister,” I said.

She laughed, a bitter sound. “You want to know; fine, I’ll tell you. She’s taking flowers to Gray Wilson’s grave. She does it every month.” Another tight sound escaped her. “How’s that for irony?” I had no answer, so I kept my mouth shut as I helped Janice down the steps. “Take me to the parlor,” she said. I led her into the parlor, where she sat on the edge of the fainting couch. “Do me one last favor,” she said. “Go to the kitchen and bring ice and another towel.”

I was halfway to the kitchen when the parlor door slammed shut. I was still standing there when I heard the heavy lock engage.

I knocked twice, but she declined to answer.

I heard a high sound that may have been keening.

Miriam was where her mother had said she would be. She knelt, folded into herself, and from a distance it looked as if a giant crow had settled upon the grave. Wind moved between the weathered stones and shifted her dress; all that she lacked was the sheen of feathers, the mournful call. She moved as I watched. Deft fingers sought out weeds and plucked them from the earth; the bouquet was positioned just so. She looked up when she heard me, and tears moved on her skin.

“Hello, Miriam.”

“How did you find me?”

“Your mother.”

She pulled out another weed and tossed it to the wind. “She told you I was here?”

“Does that surprise you?”

She ducked her head, wiped off the tears, and her fingers left a trace of dark soil beneath one eye. “She doesn’t approve of me coming here. She says it’s morbid.”

I squatted on my heels. “Your mother is very much about the present, I think. The present and the future. Not the past.” She studied the heavy sky and seemed oppressed by it. The tears had ceased, but she still looked sunken and gray. Beside her, the bouquet was brilliant and stark and weeping fresh. It leaned against the stone that bore the dead boy’s name. “Does it bother you that I’m here?” I asked.

She grew suddenly still. “I never thought you killed him, Adam.” She put a tentative hand on my leg; a gesture of comfort, I thought. “It doesn’t bother me.”

I moved to place my hand over hers, but, at the last second, laid it on her forearm instead. She jerked back and a small hiss of pain passed though her lips. A dark certainty filled me. The same thing had happened at the hospital when I’d touched her arm; she’d told me that I startled her. I doubted that now.

She canted her eyes at the ground, held the arm against her body, as if afraid I might reach for it again. Her shoulders angled away from me. She was frightened, so I spoke softly. “May I see?”

“See what?” Defensive. Small.

I sighed. “I caught your mother searching your room. She found the razor blade.” She rolled her shoulders in, made a ball of herself. I thought of the long sleeves she wore, the sweeping skirts, and the long pants. She kept her skin hidden. At first, I’d thought nothing of it, but the blade put everything into a different light.

“She should not have done that. It’s an invasion.”

“I can only assume that she’s worried about you.” I waited before I asked again. “May I see?”

She denied nothing, but her voice dwindled even further. “Don’t tell Daddy.”

I held out an open palm. “It’s okay.”

“I don’t do it much,” she said. Her eyes were soulful and afraid, but she held out her arm, half-bent. I took the hand, found it hot and damp. Her fingers squeezed as I pushed up the sleeve as gently as I could. Breath hissed between my teeth. There were fresh cuts and those that had partially healed. And there were scars, thin and white and cruel.

“You weren’t at a health spa, were you?”

She shrank away, almost to nothing. “Eighteen days of inpatient treatment,” she said. “A place in Colorado. The best, supposedly.”

“And Dad doesn’t know?”

She shook her head. “It’s for me to fix. Me and Mom. If Dad knew it would only make it harder.”

“He should be involved, Miriam. I don’t see how hiding this can help anyone.”

She lowered her head further. “I don’t want him to know.”

“Why not?”

“He already thinks something is wrong with me.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He thinks I’m twitchy.” She was right. He’d used those words.