Full dark,no stars

What she thought was: It’s what drug addicts say. “I’ll never take any of that stuff again. I’ve quit before and this time I’ll quit for good. I mean it.” But they don’t mean it, even when they think they do they don’t, and neither does he.

What she thought was: What am I going to do? I can’t fool him, we’ve been married too long.

A cold voice replied to that, one she had never suspected of being inside her, one perhaps related to the BD-voice that whispered to Bob about the snoots it observed in restaurants, laughing on street corners, riding in expensive sports cars with the top down, whispering and smiling to each other on apartment-building balconies.

Or perhaps it was the voice of the Darker Girl.

Why can’t you? it asked. After all… he fooled you.

And then what? She didn’t know. She only knew that now was now, and now had to be dealt with.

“You’d have to promise to stop,” she said, speaking very slowly and reluctantly. “Your most solemn, never-go-back promise.”

His face filled with a relief so total-so somehow boyish-that she was touched. He so seldom looked like the boy he had been. Of course that was also the boy who had once planned to go to school with guns. “I would, Darcy. I do. I do promise. I already told you.”

“And we could never talk about this again.”

“I get that.”

“You’re not to send the Duvall woman’s ID to the police, either.”

She saw the disappointment (also weirdly boyish) that came over his face when she said that, but she meant to stick to it. He had to feel punished, if only a little. That way he’d believe he had convinced her.

Hasn’t he? Oh Darcellen, hasn’t he?

“I need more than promises, Bobby. Actions speak louder than words. Dig a hole in the woods and bury that woman’s ID cards in it.”

“Once I do that, are we-”

She reached out and put her hand to his mouth. She strove to make herself sound stern. “Hush. No more.”

“Okay. Thank you, Darcy. So much.”

“I don’t know what you’re thanking me for.” And then, although the thought of him lying next to her filled her with revulsion and dismay, she forced herself to say the rest.

“Now get undressed and come to bed. We both need to get some sleep.” – 10 -

He was under almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, but long after he’d commenced his small, polite snores, Darcy lay awake, thinking that if she allowed herself to drift off, she would awake with his hands around her throat. She was in bed with a madman, after all. If he added her, his score would be an even dozen.

But he meant it, she thought. This was right around the time that the sky began to lighten in the east. He said he loves me, and he meant it. And when I said I’d keep his secret-because that’s what it comes down to, keeping his secret-he believed me. Why wouldn’t he? I almost convinced myself.

Wasn’t it possible he could carry through on his promise? Not all drug addicts failed at getting clean, after all. And while she could never keep his secret for herself, wasn’t it possible she could for the kids?

I can’t. I won’t. But what choice?

What goddam choice?

It was while pondering this question that her tired, confused mind finally gave up and slipped away.

She dreamed of going into the dining room and finding a woman bound with chains to the long Ethan Allen table there. The woman was naked except for a black leather hood that covered the top half of her face. I don’t know that woman, that woman is a stranger to me, she thought in her dream, and then from beneath the hood Petra said: “Mama, is that you?”

Darcy tried to scream, but sometimes in nightmares, you can’t. – 11 -

When she finally struggled awake-headachey, miserable, feeling hungover-the other half of the bed was empty. Bob had turned his clock back around, and she saw it was quarter past ten. It was the latest she’d slept in years, but of course she hadn’t dropped off until first light, and such sleep as she’d gotten was populated with horrors.