“How old is Melissa?” Charlotte asked.
“Twelve or thirteen,” he said.
“Does she look like her mother?”
“Not much,” Nicholas said. “But she’s really her sister’s kid, and I never saw her sister.”
“Her sister’s child?” Charlotte took a sip of her tea, which was laced with bourbon. She held it in her mouth a second before swallowing.
“Melissa’s mother killed herself when Melissa was just a baby. I guess her father didn’t want her. Anyway, he gave her up.”
“Her sister killed herself?” Charlotte said. She could feel her eyes widening. Suddenly she remembered the night before, the open window in the bathroom, the black sky, wind smacking her in the face.
“Awful, huh?” Nicholas said, lifting the tea bag out of the mug and lowering it to the saucer. “Hey, did I shock you? How come you didn’t know that? I thought you were the one with a sense for disaster.”
“What do you mean? I don’t expect disaster. I don’t know anything at all about Melissa. Naturally—”
“I know you don’t know anything about her,” he said, cutting her off. “Look — don’t get mad at me, but I’m going to say this, because I think you aren’t aware of what you do. You don’t ask anything, because you’re afraid of what every answer might be. It makes people reluctant to talk to you. Nobody wants to tell you things.”
She took another sip of tea, which had gone tepid. Specks of loose tea leaves had floated to the top. “People talk to me,” she said.
“I know they do,” he said. “I’m not criticizing you. I’m just telling you that if you give off those vibes people are going to back off.”
“Who backs off?” she said.
“Charlotte, I don’t know everything about your life. I’m just telling you that you’ve never asked one thing about Dad’s family in — what is it? Eleven years. You don’t even mention my stepmother by name, ever. Her name is Joan. You don’t want to know things, that’s all.”
He kicked a ball of wrapping paper away from his foot. “Let’s drop it,” he said. “What I’m saying is that you’re always worried. You always think something’s going to happen.”
She started to speak, but took another drink instead. Maybe all mothers seemed oppressive when their children were teenagers. Didn’t everyone say that parents could hardly do anything right during those years? That was what Father Curnan said — that although we may always try to do our best, we can’t always expect to succeed. She wished Father Curnan were here right now. The whole evening would be different.
“Don’t start sulking,” Nicholas said. “You’ve been pissed off at me since last night, because I wouldn’t go over and glad-hand Father Curnan. I hardly know him. I went to the party with you because you wanted me to. I don’t practice anymore. I’m not a Catholic anymore. I don’t believe what Father Curnan believes. Just because twenty years ago he had some doubt in his life and sorted it out, you think he’s a hero. I don’t think he’s a hero. I don’t care what he decided. That’s fine for him, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“I never mention your loss of faith,” she said. “Never. We don’t discuss it.”
“You don’t have to say anything. What’s awful is that you let me know that I’ve scared you. It’s like I deliberately did something to you.”
“What would you have me do?” she said. “How good an actress do you think I can be? I do worry. You don’t give me credit for trying.”
“You don’t give me credit,” he said. “I don’t get credit for putting up with Dad’s crap because I came to Virginia to be with you instead of going to his house. If I go to a stupid party for some priest who condescends to me by letter and says he’ll pray for my soul, I don’t get credit from you for going because you wanted me there. It never occurs to you. Instead I get told that I didn’t shake his hand on the way out. If I had told you that the car was driving funny before I got it fixed, you would have bitten your nails some more and refused to ride in it. I wish you’d stop being scared. I wish you’d just stop.”
She put the mug on the table and looked at him. He’s a grown man, she thought. Taller than his father. Nicholas shook his head and walked out of the room. She heard him stomp upstairs. In a few minutes, the music began. He was playing rock, not Christmas music, and her heart seemed to pick up the relentless beat of the bass. Nicholas had scored his point. She was just sitting there, scared to death.
The sound jolted through her dream: once, twice, again. And then it awakened her. When she opened her eyes, it took her a minute to realize that she was in the living room in a chair, not in bed, and that she had been dreaming. The loud music had become part of her dream. She was squinting. Light flooded part of the living room — a painful brightness as constant as the noise. Out of the area of light she saw the shapes of crumpled gift wrappings by the tree. She passed one hand over her forehead, attempting to soothe the pain. The dog looked up from across the room. He yawned and walked over to the footstool beside her, wagging his tail.
The noise continued. It was from outside. A high-pitched squeal resonated in her chest. It had been snowing earlier. It must have gone on snowing. Someone’s car was stuck out there.
The dog padded with her to the front window. Beyond the huge oak tree in the front yard, there was a car at an odd angle, with its headlights aimed toward the house. A front and back wheel were up on the hill. Whoever was driving had missed the turn and skidded onto her property. There was a man bending over by the side of the car. Somebody else, in the driver’s seat, gunned the engine and wheels spun again. “Wait for me to move! Wait till I’m out of the way, for Christ’s sake,” the man outside the car hollered. The wheels screamed again, drowning out the rest of what he said.
Charlotte got her coat from the hall closet and snapped on the outside light. She nudged the dog back inside, and went carefully down the front walkway. Snow seeped into one shoe.
“What’s going on?” she called, clasping her hands across her chest.
“Nothin’,” the man said, as if all this were the most normal thing in the world. “I’m trying to give us something to roll back on, so’s we can get some traction.”
She looked down and saw a large piece of flagstone from her wall jammed under one back wheel. Again the man raced the engine.
“He’s gonna get it,” the man said.
“Do you want me to call a tow truck?” she said, shivering.
There were no lights in any nearby windows. She could not believe that she was alone in this, that half the neighborhood was not awake.
“We got it! We got it!” the man said, crouching as the driver raced the engine again. The tire screamed on the flagstone, but the car did not move. Suddenly she smelled something sweet — liquor on the man’s breath. The man sprang up and banged on the car window. “Ease up, ease up, God damn it,” he said. “Don’t you know how to drive?”
The driver rolled down the window and began to curse. The other man hit his hand on the roof of the car. Again, the driver gassed it and tires spun and screamed.
For the first time, she felt frightened. The man began to tug at the door on the driver’s side, and Charlotte turned away and walked quickly toward the house. This has got to stop, she thought. It has got to stop. She opened the door. Horatio was looking at her. It was as though he had been waiting and now he simply wanted an answer.