Cold Woods Read online

  “Go away,” she mumbled into the cushion. Foam stuck to her dry tongue.

  “Get up,” a deep, scratchy voice said. “You’ve been sleeping all day.”

  “So?” she asked, but it was too late; she was up. She could tell by the pounding behind her eyes.

  “We missed you today. Dannie could’ve used your help. There’s still a lot of sorting and packing to do.”

  Right. Evelyn’s funeral. Dannie putting the house up for sale.

  “Carlyn stopped by, but she couldn’t stay. She had appointments or some such.”

  Trisha rolled over.

  “Whoa.” Her mother stepped back.

  Trisha covered her eyes with her forearm. This was what a drunk smelled like. How could her mother forget?

  “Were you with Carlyn again last night?”

  “No. Just me, myself, and I,” she said, having gone to a seedier joint on the south end of town, where she’d spent the last forty-eight hours, or so she thought. It was all a blur. The only thing that stood out was when she’d been with Carlyn at the hotel bar on that first night, how Trisha had peed her pants, how Scott had shown up, driven them home. It could’ve been worse. Scott could’ve arrested her. She could’ve woken up in a jail cell. Instead, she’d woken up in her mother’s house the next day and had gone straight to another bar.

  Trisha’s mother stood over her, arms crossed. “Did you two have a nice chat the other night?”

  “Who are we talking about?” Trisha asked, having a hard time following the conversation.

  “You and Carlyn. Did she tell you she bought a place on Garibaldi Avenue up from the fire station?”

  “She didn’t mention it.”

  “She’s come a long way, you know. It wasn’t easy growing up around here in this small town, given her proclivities.”

  “Proclivities?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Sure,” Trisha said.

  “Anyway, she’s done a lot of good, helping kids everybody else has given up on. It makes Linda very proud.”

  “Okay,” she said. She had no idea where her mother was going with this.

  “But even after everything she’s accomplished, she’s still lonely.”

  Trisha didn’t know how to respond, so when she didn’t say anything, her mother said, “Try not to hurt her.”

  Interesting for her mother to think Trisha still had that kind of power over Carlyn. From what Trisha had seen, she would’ve guessed otherwise.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  She allowed her mother to help her off the couch. She stumbled into the chair. Her mother grabbed her arm before she fell over.

  “We need to dry you out.” She continued helping Trisha up the stairs and into the bathroom. She filled the old claw-foot tub with water and then left Trisha alone to undress.

  Trisha pulled off her jeans, stiff from dried urine, from wearing them two days in a row. She yanked off her top, sending one of the pearl buttons flying across the room. She didn’t care where it went. She wasn’t going to look for it. She stepped into the tub, sinking into the hot water. Her ribs ached, but her head hurt more.

  The bathroom door opened, and her mother stepped inside. She gathered the soiled clothes from the floor, paused when she glanced at Trisha in the tub. Trisha covered the bruise with her arm.

  Her mother looked away. “When you’re done getting washed up, I’m taking you shopping. You need winter clothes. You’re lucky you didn’t freeze to death in these things.” She left Trisha alone again.

  Trisha sank in the tub until the water came up to her chin, replayed her mother’s comments about Carlyn over and over until she was angry. So what if Carlyn was lonely? That was her choice. She’d pushed Trisha away. She’d ended their friendship back in high school. And yet the more she thought about it, another feeling emerged, one that wasn’t familiar. What was it? Could it be Trisha was feeling empathy for her friend?

  Trisha understood the pain of loneliness. She was forever lonely—in the penthouse suite, in the corner of the room at lavish parties, at the bar while Sid played cards in the back rooms of casinos. She’d spend long hours alone binge-watching the latest series on Netflix, waiting for Sid to come home, let her out of the room, pay attention to her. It was sad, pathetic even. No, she didn’t like to think that Carlyn had suffered from the same affliction.

  She grabbed the bar of soap, rubbed her neck, careful to lift her arm next to her sore ribs.

  But at least Carlyn had Dannie. All these years they’d had each other, a friend a phone call away. It had been Trisha they’d abandoned, they’d left friendless.

  But the hardest part for Trisha to accept about losing her friends, being lonely, was that it was her own fault. She was the only one to blame.

  Trisha followed her mother down an aisle in some chain store where designer clothes were sold for less. She checked the price tag on a sweater with a label she recognized: $84, marked down to $29.99. She inspected the seams, the cable stitching, the percentage of wool to cotton. Polyester. Cheap. She was a label lover, a clothing snob, what she’d become since she’d married Sid. She grabbed the sweater from the rack. She picked out four more sweaters, two “designer” flannels, and a pair of black faux fur–lined winter boots with heavy tread. On the way to the checkout counter, she grabbed a black puffy winter coat, also with faux fur on the hood—a perfect match with the boots.

  She paid in cash.

  Her mother helped her carry the bags to the car, limping alongside her through the parking lot. The cold wind whipped around their shoulders.

  “What did you do to your hip?” Trisha asked, showing a level of compassion, concern. She wasn’t used to caring. She didn’t know where it had come from, but there it was.

  “Arthritis,” her mother said.

  “Do you take anything for it?”

  “Yeah, I take that stuff you see on those commercials during the football games. You know, the ones with those big horses. What’s it called?”

  “The beer commercial?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Beer. Works like a charm.”

  Trisha laughed. “I bet it does.”

  Within twenty minutes they were back home again. Trisha slipped on her new boots before getting out of the car. The sidewalks were covered in salt and ice. The temperature remained at freezing. She grabbed the packages from the back. Her mother stopped short of stepping through the door.

  “What is it?” Trisha asked and pushed her mother aside. The front door was ajar.

  “I could’ve sworn I closed it,” her mother said.

  Tentatively, Trisha pushed it all the way open and walked into the house. She put the bags on the couch. Her mother stood behind her.

  “Stay here,” she said and checked the dining room and kitchen. She smelled the faint scent of expensive cologne. No. No. No. Slowly, she made her way up the steps. By the time she reached the top stair, she felt as though a leather strap had tightened around her throat. She looked left and then right into the shadows of the hall. None of the lights were turned on. The winter days were short, dusk dropping its curtain as early as four o’clock.

  She stopped just inside the doorway of her bedroom. She searched for the light switch, found it, turned it on. On top of the mattress was a pile of poker chips. Something like a gasp escaped from her lips. Her hands wrapped around her neck, pulled the imaginary noose at her throat.

  Her mother came up behind her.

  “He found me,” she choked.

  “Who found you?”

  “My husband.”

  Her mother touched the blouse by Trisha’s ribs. “I saw the bruise,” she said. “You have the same taste in men as your mother.”

  She might’ve laughed if it wasn’t true. Deep down she’d always known she’d never get away from Sid. He wasn’t the kind of man who let something go, not when that something belonged to him. He wouldn’t give her up, allow her to escape. Not without consequences. Anything el
se would’ve been too easy. And nothing in this life was easy.

  Her mother picked up a chip, turned it over. “They’re from the casino right here in Bethlehem,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DECEMBER 1986

  Trisha woke up alone in Carlyn’s bed, heard the sound of Christmas music coming from the kitchen downstairs. She dragged herself out from under the covers. School would start in less than an hour. She dreaded going home, wondered if Lester would be there.

  The toilet flushed in the upstairs bathroom, which meant Mrs. Walsh was home. Carlyn had to be the one who was downstairs. She was the only one who would play Christmas music. Mrs. Walsh didn’t make a fuss around the holidays, no decorations or even a tree, although, according to Carlyn, they were Christians. Mrs. Walsh wasn’t a sentimental or emotional woman. And yet, she was a nurse. There had to be some compassion inside of her somewhere, an instinct to heal and care for others. Trisha had seen tenderness when she’d taken care of Trisha’s mother, a kindness she’d shown to both of them.

  Trisha tiptoed into the hall and down the stairs. She peeked in the kitchen. Carlyn was up and dressed, sitting at the table. Her anatomy book was opened in front of her. The pages were covered with images of human body parts stripped of skin, muscles exposed, each one labeled. Carlyn had started taking honors courses three years ago when they’d entered high school. Trisha was barely passing basic biology class, the remedial one for students who would not be going to college next fall.

  The bathroom door upstairs opened. Carlyn looked up from her book. Trisha blew her a kiss, then jetted to the door in a hurry to escape Mrs. Walsh’s questions. Trisha had slept over more times than Mrs. Walsh had been made aware of. Her rule was no sleepovers during the school week. Weekends were different, of course. But what Mrs. Walsh didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  Trisha slipped out the front door and into the cold. The sky was gray, a kind of pewter. The air was still and quiet. A couple of inches of snow had fallen sometime after Trisha had gone to Carlyn’s. She shivered and hurried down the sidewalk in bare feet. All she was wearing was the clothes she’d slept in: shorts and Scott’s T-shirt. She hadn’t thought about shoes or a coat late last night when she’d fled from home.

  The car her mother and Lester shared wasn’t anywhere on the block. She looked up and down the street, double- and triple-checked. Maybe her mother had come home last night and Lester had already taken off with it. Trisha glanced across the street at Dannie’s house, saw Dannie in the upstairs window looking down at her. Dannie would now know that Trisha was coming from Carlyn’s house. She’d been caught, and Dannie would sulk the rest of the day, hurt because she hadn’t been invited too.

  Sometimes Trisha resented being stuck between the two. Other times she liked the attention: the friend in their threesome who was never left out. She could’ve run to Dannie’s house last night, spent the night there, but she didn’t want to. Dannie’s mother was always home. The woman never left the house. Dannie did all the grocery shopping, the cooking and cleaning. Trisha didn’t know how Dannie could stomach it, taking care of her fat, lazy mother. Dannie had to resent it, although she’d never admit it. She’d told Trisha she got her frustrations out by praying. Trisha had laughed. Dannie hadn’t. Dannie hadn’t thought it was funny at all.

  Dannie stared at Trisha a moment longer, and then she pulled the blinds closed, everything but her silhouette disappearing from Trisha’s view. She knew that neither one would mention they’d seen each other. Trisha didn’t know why, but it had something to do with the day she’d caught Lester with Dannie on the side of the house, a wound that refused to heal.

  She pulled open her front door and stepped inside. The house wasn’t much warmer than the outside. Her mother had complained about the high electric bill last month. She’d turned the heat way down to save a few bucks.

  Trisha rubbed her arms for warmth as she made her way upstairs. The house was silent except for her mother snoring. Lester was nowhere to be found.

  She plopped onto the mattress in her bedroom. The poster that had been knocked down last night lay on the floor with the pieces of plaster. She put her head in her hands. What now? She didn’t want to go to school. What was the point? She was failing most of her classes. She wasn’t going to college. She was never getting out of here. She didn’t know what she was going to do, what would happen to her. She couldn’t stay in her own home. Not with Lester.

  She pulled off her shorts and slipped on jeans. She tugged a heavy sweatshirt on over Scott’s T-shirt. She laced up her snow boots.

  Anywhere was better than here.

  On her way out the door, she grabbed her winter coat. Then she plucked the cigarettes and the pink lighter she’d stolen from her mother and hidden in the empty flowerpot on the front porch and shoved them in her pocket.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Trisha had her mother pull into the parking lot of the gun shop.

  “Wait here,” she said.

  “You don’t want me to come in with you?” her mother asked.

  “No,” Trisha said and got out of the car. She didn’t want her mother involved any more than she had to be. She was only here because Trisha had needed a ride.

  Trisha looked over her shoulder, then pulled open the glass door and stepped inside. Everywhere she looked there were rifles and handguns and every kind of weapon you could imagine. Some women might’ve been intimidated by the sheer firepower surrounding them. Trisha breathed it in as though she tasted fresh air, as though she’d shed her old skin and slid into a new one.

  She leaned on the glass counter, checked out the display of handguns.

  A man appeared from behind a closed door. “What can I help you with today?” He was short and round. His cheeks were full. His beard was red.

  “I’m looking for a handgun,” she said.

  “Okay. Any idea what kind you’re looking for?”

  “No.”

  “Well, first you’ll have to fill this out,” he said and handed Trisha a form. “I’ll need to do a background check. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, unless you were charged with a crime.” He smiled, an attempt at a joke, but they both knew he wasn’t kidding.

  Trisha faked a smile back as she looked over the application, pausing when she came to the questions about misdemeanor offenses. None of her previous convictions were related to anything on the form. They were nothing, really—disorderly conducts, disturbing the peace. Sid had bailed her out, paid the fines, then locked her in the closet in their suite, her own private cell.

  She filled in her name, wrote down Second Street as her home address. When she got to the next box asking for her driver’s license number, she stopped.

  “I don’t drive,” she said. What did she need a driver’s license for when she didn’t own a car and Sid had a car service? It was another way he’d controlled her, another way she’d let him. It was the reason her mother had had to drive her here in the first place.

  The guy pointed to another box on the form. “Make sure you put your social security number down, and let me see what I can do,” he said.

  She did as she was told, worried the misdemeanors would show up now, but there was nothing she could do about it. When she finished, the guy plugged the information into a computer. He tapped on the keyboard, played around with something, trying to get it to go through. Several minutes passed before he finally looked away from the screen and down at her.

  “I lived in Vegas,” she said, knowing he was looking for an explanation about her prior offenses. “You know the saying ‘What happens in Vegas . . .’”

  He seemed to consider her explanation. He struck a couple of keys on the keyboard, then turned to her again. “You’ll want to pick something you’re comfortable with. It has to feel good in your hand. It’s all about how it feels to you. Guys tend to choose their weapons based on firepower. Women choose what feels comfortable. At least, that’s been my experience working here.”
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  Trisha nodded. “Okay. What do you suggest?”

  He pulled out a small SIG Sauer with a rosewood grip. “Try this.”

  Trisha held it in her hand, turned it over. “It’s lighter than I thought.” It was okay, but it didn’t feel quite right.

  For the next thirty minutes, Trisha held more guns in her hand than some people would ever hold in their lifetime. In the end, it was the “Baby Glock” that fit snugly in her palm like it had been customized for her small fingers, like all the clothes Sid had had made special for her petite frame. She paid cash. Sid’s money. How poetic.

  The guy behind the counter suggested she take the three-hour classroom lesson on safety, then another hour of live fire on the range. She declined.

  “Just show me how to load it,” she said.

  Trisha sat on the floor in her bedroom turning the gun over in her hand. Every now and again she held her arm out straight, aimed, pretended to shoot. The gun was loaded and would remain that way. The only problem was that she wasn’t feeling secure, safe, not like she thought she would. If anything, it felt more dangerous.

  Her mother was sitting on the front porch in the freezing cold drinking beer with Linda. It was ten o’clock at night.

  Trisha had to leave now, or she’d be late. She’d be late. She’d be late.

  An image of the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland flitted across her mind. It was fitting. She was headed down her own proverbial rabbit hole. She shoved the small Glock underneath the mattress. She couldn’t take it with her. The guy at the gun shop had made it clear she’d need a license to carry a concealed weapon, and that could take up to several weeks to process. If she got caught without the license, she could be charged with a felony. Home protection was entirely different, though, and perfectly legal.

  Her new snow boots were by the front door. She stuffed her feet into them and stepped outside. “Holy crap, it’s cold,” she said and pulled the hood up on her new puffy winter coat.