John Saul - Midnight Voices

She’d cut the words short in her own mind, just as she’d stopped her son from uttering them, but the thought had finished itself, and no amount of wishing would change things.

Brad was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Claire might fire her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She’d gotten up this morning exhausted, and when Ryan had begged to go to a movie tonight, she’d been too tired to argue with him. What she’d intended as nothing more than a delaying tactic, he’d taken as a promise.

Now, as she felt the sting her words had caused even more than he did, another thought came to her.

Brad might be dead, but she was not, and neither were Ryan and Laurie.

And while she might lose her job, she might also not lose it.

In fact, if she was going to be completely honest, she had no real idea of what would happen, and what would not. All she had were hopes, and most of those had been dashed with Brad’s death.

And even though the bank account was almost empty, she had a nice fat commission coming on the Oriental vase she’d sold to Irene Delamond. All right, it wasn’t going to be fat enough to pay the rent next month. But it was certainly fat enough to take them out to a movie.

She gave Ryan a final squeeze and stood up. “Okay, guys, here’s the deal. I didn’t promise we’d go to a movie tonight, but Ryan’s right — I did say ‘probably,’ which is closer to yes than maybe. And I know I haven’t been a lot of fun to be around today. But I had a good sale yesterday afternoon, so what do you say we go out for Chinese, then go to the movies?”

Instead of answering, Ryan ran to get his jacket before his mother had a chance to change her mind.

Three hours later, as they came out of Loew’s theatre on 84th and started down Broadway, Caroline knew she’d made the right decision. Just having a meal in a restaurant for a change, then sitting in the dark theatre and losing herself in the space epic Ryan had chosen for them to see had given her a feeling that maybe life wasn’t hopeless after all. Though nothing had changed (except that she was a few dollars poorer now than she had been a few hours earlier), just the short respite from worrying somehow seemed to have given her hope that they would all survive. And walking home through the spring night, she could almost imagine that Brad was still with them, walking just behind her, watching her. “I like the way your hips move when you walk,” she heard him whisper in her memory, just the way he used to whisper in her ear before dropping back a few paces so he could watch. But he hadn’t whispered in her ear, and he wasn’t with her. It was only in her imagination that she could feel him watching her.

Yet as they turned on 76th, with only another block to go before they would be back at their building, the feel of Brad’s eyes on her was so strong that Caroline suddenly found herself looking back. For just an instant, she thought she saw a flicker of movement, but the sidewalk was empty, and she decided it must have been a breeze disturbing the leaves on the trees that lined the block. But when they crossed Amsterdam Avenue and started down the last block the feeling of being watched came over her again, and once more she glanced back over her shoulder.

And once again thought she saw a flicker of movement.

The leaves again?

Perhaps a cat or a squirrel?

Or perhaps someone slipping into the concealing shelter of a doorway.

She quickened her step, suddenly wanting to get the children inside.

But surely she was imagining it. Who would be following her?

Now her mind was racing, and even though she told herself that she was being ridiculous — that the streets of Manhattan were safer than they’d been in years — she found herself having to resist the urge to break into a run.

Now her heart was racing, too, and the children seemed to be picking up her nervousness.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” Laurie asked.

“Nothing,” Caroline said a little too quickly. “I’m just a little chilled that’s all. I’m looking forward to getting home.”

Then they were there, and as Caroline fumbled in her purse for the keys, she glanced back down the block, searching the darkness for any sign of danger.

There was nothing.

She found the key, slipped it into the lock, and a moment later she and the children were safely inside the building. She made sure the outside door was fully latched and the inner door locked, and punched at the elevator. Though she tried to resist the urge, she couldn’t keep herself from glancing at the front door three times before the elevator finally arrived, and only when they were safely in the apartment with the door locked, double bolted, and chained did she finally let herself relax. As the kids got ready for bed she moved through the apartment, not only turning off the lights but checking the windows to make sure they were all securely locked. Finally she went to Laurie’s room, said goodnight, then moved on to Ryan’s room to tuck him in. As she bent over to kiss him goodnight, his arms slipped around her neck, and he pulled her close.

“Mom?” he whispered. “Is something wrong?”

Caroline froze for a second, but then squeezed him reassuringly. “Of course not,” she assured him. “Everything’s fine. And tomorrow’s a school day and you need to be asleep.” Tucking him in, she turned off his light, but left his door ajar so a little light would leak into the room from the night-light in the hall. Then she checked the door and windows one more time, and at last retreated to her room. Turning off the light, she went to the window and gazed down into the street.

She saw nothing.

And there is nothing, she told herself. I’m just imagining things.

Pulling the curtains, she turned her back on the darkness, but even as she undressed, she knew she was in for another sleepless night.

Outside, a figure stepped from the doorway across the street from the building in which Caroline Evans and her children lived. The face tipped upward for a moment, scanning the darkened windows one last time.

A moment later, apparently satisfied, the figure vanished into the night as completely as if it had never been there at all.

On Monday morning, Anthony Fleming was feeling almost as dispirited as Caroline Evans had on the day before. He’d spent all day Sunday in his apartment — not a good idea, given the size of the apartment, and its emptiness.

Children — that’s what it needed. That’s what he needed.

Anthony liked children — liked their energy, their vitality. That was the one problem with living in The Rockwell these days; there weren’t enough children. In fact, there were practically no children right now. Only Max and Alicia Albion’s foster daughter, Rebecca Mayhew, but even having Rebecca in the building — sweet though she was — wasn’t the same as having half a dozen kids running from one apartment to another, making life miserable for Rodney, but giving the old building a feeling of vitality. That’s how it had been when he still had Lenore and the kids. Not just his own apartment, but the whole building had vibrated with life as the twin boys organized hide-and-seek games that were never confined to a single apartment, but ranged from floor to floor, and sometimes even into the attic.

Once, a little girl had tried to go down into the basement to hide, but fortunately Rodney had seen her just in time, and kept her away from the maze of steam pipes and old electrical wiring that made going into the building’s substructure an adventure for anyone who had work to do there.

But as time had inevitably gone by, the handful of children had dwindled away until only Rebecca was left. Anthony remembered well the day Max and Alicia had brought her home. Her brown eyes looked almost as large as those of the child in a terrible painting that hung in Virginia Estherbrook’s apartment. Not over the fireplace, of course; a portrait of Virginia herself occupied that spot, in costume as Cleopatra. The picture of the child hung on one of the walls, where its huge eyes seemed forever fixed on the image of Virginia. Even Virginia admitted that the painting should have been done on black velvet, but she said the child seemed to speak to her. Given its grotesquely large eyes and the single tear that ran down its left cheek, Anthony wondered just what, exactly, the seemingly genderless child might be saying, but he’d certainly never risked Virginia’s wrath by asking. When Max and Alicia had brought Rebecca down to introduce her to him and his family, the first thing that had flashed through his mind was that picture. Rebecca had hung back from Lenore and the twins, clinging to Alicia’s hand as if it were a lifeline. But then Samantha, who looked the same age as Rebecca despite the two years difference in their ages, led the younger girl off to indulge in one of those whispering and giggling sessions that Lenore had always understood perfectly but that he had always found totally mystifying. They’d instantly become best friends, and from that point on Rebecca had spent almost as much time in Anthony’s apartment as in the Albions’, her eyes sparkling with laughter.