Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

Marian remembered how she used to giggle at those marks on her father’s back when she was a child: What’s all them funny things, Daddy? — Why, those’re dots, honey, so you can play at connect-the-dots and see what kind of picture they make.

“The one thing he kept saying to me,” whispered Boots, wiping something from her eye, “was that someday he was gonna do something great, something that would make mama and the rest of the kids who used to call him a dummy feel sorry they’d ever been bad to him and me.

“He used to ask me if he bored me with all of his talking, his out-loud daydreaming. I thought he was the greatest thing since Errol Flynn. He’d always stand in front of me when mama would go off on one of her pounding fits. Most of the time, he wound up taking my beatings for me.” She touched the scar on her chin. “When he was there, that is. He was a fine boy and an even better man, your dad. You should’ve known him back then, back when you could see his greatness instead of just hearing about it the way others remembered it. I’m gonna miss him so much — oh, goddammit!” She turned away and wept quietly.

Marian reached over and took Boots’s hand. “Please tell me?”

“Oh, honey ... it was terrible for him at the end. I wish I had it in me to lie and spare your feelings but I can’t and I’m sorry. He kept...crying all the time, going on about how he’d never get to build his masterpiece. He figured that his life had been one big waste. There was no feeling sorry for himself, though. He had no sympathy for himself at all — he even said it’d make more sense if he did feel sorry for himself, ’cause that’d at least explain why he couldn’t stop crying. He never got to do any of the things he wanted to do, only the things he had to do. I just couldn’t stand it. He was so miserable. The cancer pain was too much. He needed...I don’t know... something so much and none of us could give it to him. It was terrible. He started drinking, to help kill some of the pain, he said. I knew that he shouldn’t have been pouring booze down his throat but when I said something to Alan, he only said —” “‘I can’t deny him a drink when he needs one.’” “That’s right.” Marian got up and put her arms around Boots, holding her as tightly as she could.

“I’m fine, honey,” said Boots, “thank you. I’m always fine. Don’t know why I had to go and blubber like this. Not my way. Let’s put ourselves back together now, whatta you say?”

Marian kissed Boots’s cheek. “You were always my favorite aunt.”

“Glad to know someone in this family was born with good taste. Listen, now; I’m gonna get myself freshened up. Why don’t you go on and stick your head in the guest room down here and wake Laura? She’d throw a fit if she knew you’d been here and I didn’t let you wake her to say hello. You go do that, I’ll make myself presentable, then I’ll drive us back over to the house. I want to see this thing your brother made.”

Boots went upstairs and Marian— after another shot of doctored tea— went to the door of the guest room and knocked. “Laura? Laura, it’s me. Can I come in?”

“M-Marian?” She sounded half-asleep still. “Hell, yes...come in.”

For a while there were no words exchanged between them, there was no need. Marian sat next to her ex-sister-in-law’s bed, holding her hand and trying not to give in to the fear that was clawing at the lining of her stomach.

Laura was pregnant and—judging from her size—in the last month.

Marian wished she could smile and make herself believe that Laura had found someone new, a man who loved and cared for her and wanted a family, but the look of helplessness on Laura’s face, one composed of fear and more than a little hatred, kept her nailed in the moment.

“I don’t feel very good,” said Laura, her voice thin, hollow, “so please j-just listen to what I have to say.” As she spoke the color drained from her face until she looked ashen, a bloated greying corpse. Marian felt herself shaking as she watched the sweat pour down Laura’s face.

“I left your brother over nine months ago, and I haven’t slept with any man since then. I’ve been tested, Marian, and I there’s a...baby in me. I feel it kicking, I feel its hunger...it’s there. And its Alan’s. I don’t know how or why he did this to me, but I know.

“Early on, I tried three times to have an abortion, but when they got inside me there was... there was nothing there .”

The sweating was worse now and she was shaking badly— as was Marian.

“I never really wanted kids,” said Laura. “All I ever wanted was a man who would love me, who would support me, and who knew that I came first once he’d left the family. But Alan could never leave your family behind. Was that so much to ask? Was it? To have a home all my own? A home that had no trace of whatever it was that happened to him when you guys were kids? I still love him, Marian, but this thing in me is moving and I don’t want it! I just want to... to have my job and my husband back, I want to read in bed at night and feel him beside me, I want to go to movies and drive him crazy because I insist on sitting through all the credits, I want him to wake me up and send me to bed because I feel asleep watching some late night talk show again, I want him to crack bad jokes when our friends come over....” She leaned back and started taking deep breaths. Marian looked at Laura’s middle. It rippled. A quick movement, a thin hissing sound, and Laura’s water broke. Marian jumped to her feet and called out for Boots. “Press the ‘O’ key on the phone,” called her aunt from upstairs. “That’s 911.”

Marian snatched up the phone and made the call. Four minutes later she and Boots watched as the EMTs loaded Laura into the ambulance. Boots kissed Laura’s forehead and told her they’d follow in her car. The ambulance pulled away and Marian followed her aunt into the garage.

The garage was dark but Boots was able to guide Marian to the car without either of them banging a shin. Once inside the car, under the harsh glow of the dome light, the strain on Boots was evident; she suddenly looked much older than her years. She caught Marian staring at her and smiled. “You are a pretty thing. Won’t be much longer now and I’ll be paying good money to see your face up on a movie screen.”

“That’s right. You’re sharing space with the next Katherine Hepburn, so show the proper respect.”

“And humble, to boot,” said Boots, laughing, then closed the car door, plunging them both into darkness. “Lord, I hope they take 21 stStreet to the hospital, it’s the quickest way.”

Marian suddenly did not want to leave. Out there, Alan was waiting. And maybe something else. But behind her, just through the door, was a warm and bright house, a place of safety where two women could sit down with a cup of nasty-ass tea and have a good cry over a death in the family, a place where grief would eventually ease, not grow to become so strong it walked on two spindly legs and spoke in a voice teeming with coffin beetles. “...all right,” said Boots. “H-huh?” “I said you shouldn’t worry, things’ll be all right. One disaster at a time. Laura and the baby first, then your brother.” “Laura told me—”

“I know what she told you. She’s been telling me the same thing for weeks.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know what to believe half the time anymore.” Boots started the car, raised the garage door, turned on the headlights, and slowly backed out into the street. “Can’t say I’m much looking forward to this.”

“I don’t think Alan’s really dangerous. Besides, he cut himself worse than I did. He must be pretty weak by now and there’s two of us.”