Succubi Part 14

"What do you think his goals are?" Dr. Greene asked.

"That's anybody's guess. Tharp believes in demons, so who knows? But you know what bothers me more than anything else?"

Dr. Greene laughed. "Tharp's pathologically obsessed with a delusion but he's not pathological."

"Exactly. And that makes me wonder."

Dr. Greene maintained his laughter. "Let me guess. You consider the existence of demons as a possible reality?"

"No but maybe the base base of Tharp's belief is real." of Tharp's belief is real."

"The cult, you mean?"

"Why not? I just read in Time Time that there are over a hundred fifty that there are over a hundred fifty incorporated incorporated devilwors.h.i.+p cults in the United States. I for one don't believe in the devil but I can't deny the reality that there are cults that wors.h.i.+p him." devilwors.h.i.+p cults in the United States. I for one don't believe in the devil but I can't deny the reality that there are cults that wors.h.i.+p him."

"That's an interesting point," Greene remarked. "Maybe Tharp really did belong to some crackpot cult."

"And if that's the case, you just answered your own question. Tharp is motivated by a delusion. The delusion is motivated by a cult. Therefore-"

"That's what he's returning to," Greene considered. "A cult. There was never an investigation because the state NGRI'd him almost immediately. The state attorney's office was satisfied that Tharp perpetrated the murders."

"At least it's something for the police to go on," Dr. Harold pointed out.

"I'm going to give them a call right now. Maybe you're right, and even if you're not, so what?"

"That's the fun of clinical psychiatry, isn't it?"

"Actually, I'm only in it for the free pens and coffee cups... Yeah, I think I'll tell the cops to keep a real close eye on Tharp's hometown."

"Where is Tharp from, by the way?"

"A little town about twenty miles north of the hospital. Lockwood."

Lockwood, Dr. Harold pondered. What a coincidence. Hadn't Ann Slavik said she was from a town called Lockwood? Dr. Harold pondered. What a coincidence. Hadn't Ann Slavik said she was from a town called Lockwood?

"I don't know," Ann said. "It's just that your grandmother and I don't always get along. We don't always see things the same way."

"Like you and me?" Melanie responded.

What a comeback, Ann thought. But it was proof of her innocence-the simple way in which she perceived the truth and how she a.s.sociated it to herself. "Everybody has disagreements, honey. We'll work it out, we always do." Ann thought. But it was proof of her innocence-the simple way in which she perceived the truth and how she a.s.sociated it to herself. "Everybody has disagreements, honey. We'll work it out, we always do."

How honest a reply was that? In a sense, she knew she had never worked anything out with her mother. Adversity was their only common denominator. Ann Slavik had become everything in life that her mother opposed.

You're afraid of becoming your mother, Dr. Harold's voice haunted her again. Had she really been repressing Melanie's perceptions all these years, by condemning her alternativism, by objecting to her friends? It was times like this that Ann wondered if she had any business being a mother at all. She would have to try harder, she knew, much harder, to give her daughter the conceptual freedom that she herself had never been allowed to have. Dr. Harold's voice haunted her again. Had she really been repressing Melanie's perceptions all these years, by condemning her alternativism, by objecting to her friends? It was times like this that Ann wondered if she had any business being a mother at all. She would have to try harder, she knew, much harder, to give her daughter the conceptual freedom that she herself had never been allowed to have.

Melanie would be staying in the last bedroom on the east wing. It had been Ann's room as a child. When she'd left home after high school, her mother had changed it as much as she could, "To turn it into a guest room," she'd said, but Ann knew better. Back then her mother had felt so betrayed she'd gone out of her way to remove all reminders of Ann-a subconscious punishment. She'd gotten rid of all the furniture, and all of her things she'd left behind. She'd even changed the carpet and the wallpaper.

Ann looked out the same window she'd ruminated through so many times as a child. The backyard dimmed in early dusk. How many times had she peered through this same gla.s.s in complete misery, contemplating a future that did not include this place at all?

"Can I see Grandpa now?" Melanie asked.

"Let's wait. He's not conscious very often, and he's probably very tired." The truth was Ann was afraid. She didn't know how to prepare Melanie for the still figure in the room at the other end of the house. Sometimes the facts of life included the facts of death. "Tomorrow, maybe," she said.

Melanie seemed sullen. She loved her grandparents. She didn't understand, but maybe that was the problem. Ann had never taken the time to explain the real world to her daughter. Melanie had been left to interpret it herself.

"I'm going for a walk," Melanie said. When Ann turned, her daughter was stripped down to her underwear and was pulling on jeans.

"I don't know, Melanie. It's getting late."

"This isn't exactly New York, Mom," Melanie observed. "I doubt if there are any drug dealers or rapists around. You think?"

Ann frowned. She couldn't very well blame Melanie for her sarcasm. She's had a great teacher, She's had a great teacher, she thought. "Just don't stay out too late, all right?" she thought. "Just don't stay out too late, all right?"

"I'm only going for a walk, Mom. I'm not going to join the circus." Melanie pulled on a Ts.h.i.+rt that read "Cherry Red Records," then she grabbed her Walkman. "Why don't you come with me?"

Ann hesitated. "No, you go, honey. I'm going to straighten up our room."

"Okay. Bye."

Ann went down the hall to the room she and Martin had. It was on the other side of the house, across from her father's room. Again, it was little things that bothered her, insignificant things. She didn't want Melanie out by herself. She didn't want Melanie to see her father in his present condition. She didn't even like the idea of Melanie's room being so far from her and Martin's.

Now she felt isolated. Martin had gone out earlier. "I need some air," he'd said. "I'm going for a drive." Ann wished he and Melanie had gone to Paris without her; this scene was a dice of strained proximities and discomfort. It was a family matter surrounding a family that had never accepted Martin and had never been sufficiently exposed to Melanie by Ann's own devices.

There was no sign of her mother at all. Where could she be at this hour? Perhaps Ann and her father were the only ones in the house. Down the carpeted hall, a slice of light glimmered. Dr. Heyd said that her father would have a nurse. But no one could be found when Ann stuck her head into the cramped, warmly lit room.

Only her father lay there, swaddled in covers.

He shouldn't be here alone, she thought, but then she heard something downstairs. she thought, but then she heard something downstairs.

In the kitchen, a figure leaned over the refrigerator, a plainly attractive woman about Ann's height and build dressed in traditional nurse's garb, a trim starchy white dress, white stockings, white shoes. Light brown hair had been cut short, and she looked up with very dark brown eyes.

"h.e.l.lo, Ann," she said. She removed a little bottle from the refrigerator. "You probably don't remember me, but we went to high school together."

"Milly G.o.dwin," Ann said. "Of course I remember."

"You're sort of a legend around here. You know, Local Girl Makes Good. Dr. Heyd probably told you, I'm the only RN in town. I'll be looking after your dad. Your mother put me up in the room next to his."

"I can't thank you enough for that," Ann said. "Just let me know your rates and I'll write you a check."

Milly G.o.dwin looked slighted. She closed the refrigerator. "That won't be necessary," she said.

The offer probably offended her, Ann realized. She'd have to remember that this wasn't the city; here time was not redefined in terms of money.

"We thought it best that I stay at the house, and if there are any complications I can't handle, Dr. Heyd can be here in minutes. He has a beeper."

"Well, again, we're very grateful for your time."

"I could never even begin to repay your parents for all they've done for me. They're the most wonderful people, the whole town's in debt to them. I would never have been able to go to nursing school without their help."

What did that mean? Had her mother helped her financially? Ann thought it best not to ask.

"We're feeding him intravenously," Milly G.o.dwin said, shaking the little bottle. "Most of the meds have to be refrigerated."

Ann followed the nurse back upstairs. In the room she proficiently injected the bottle's contents into one of the IV connections. When she looked down at Joshua Slavik, her expression remained flat.

Ann deliberately averted her eyes. It was hard for her, too, to see her father this way. Hopeless, Hopeless, she thought now. she thought now.

"He comes to every now and then," Milly enthusiastically remarked. "You should try to be around as much as you can."

Ann knew what the woman was saying. The next time he comes to may be his last.

Milly could see Ann's restrained despair. "Let's let him rest now," she said, and went out. "Even though he's comatose, he shouldn't be disturbed at night. The brain continues the normal sleep cycles. Unnecessary noise and movement can disturb him."

"Is that what this is considered? A coma?"

"I realize it's a scary word, but, yes, unfortunately. I'm sure Dr. Heyd has explained..." The rest fell off. Ann didn't need to be retold that her father was dying.

They went back downstairs. Milly poured two iced teas and took Ann out back. Potted plants hung off the enclosure over the slate patio. Peepers thrilled heavily from the woods beyond. "This is the most beautiful house in town," Milly remarked, "and such a lovely yard. Your mother does a terrific job keeping it up."

"Where is she, by the way?"

"Board meeting. They have several per week. The town wouldn't run without your mother. It'd be like any other town."

Would that be so bad? Ann wondered. "Where do you live, Milly?" Ann wondered. "Where do you live, Milly?"

"I have a house two blocks up from the town square. It's small but very nice."

Ann couldn't imagine that Milly made much money, not as an RN in Lockwood. How could she afford her own house? "What are mortgages like around here?" she strategically asked.

Milly looked at her as if shocked. "There are no mortgages. Lockwood is a collective incorporate. Didn't you know that? Anyone who lives in the town contributes to the town. The town gave me the house, and my car too. For as long as I live here."

Ann winced. Whatever happened to private enterprise? Whatever happened to private enterprise?

"Plus, the town pays me. Fifteen thousand a year." Milly G.o.dwin beamed.

Ann's firm paid more than that in overtime for their three paralegals. "Couldn't you do a lot better somewhere else, like at a hospital. RNs start at several times that where I live."

"Yeah, and they also pay rent, car payments, auto insurance, health insurance, and thirty percent in taxes. Lockwood pays all that for me. It's part of the community employment plan. Besides, I wouldn't dream of leaving Lockwood."

"Why?"

"No crime, no drugs, no corruption and sleazy politics. No gangs and no halfa.s.sed education. I'd never want my daughter growing up in all that."

"Oh, you have a daughter?"

"Her name's Rena, she's fifteen."

"I have a seventeenyearold myself," Ann said.

"I know. Melanie. She's lovely. Oh, and I didn't mean to imply that you're wrong to raise her in the city. I only meant-"

"I know," Ann said.

"We're happy here, and that's the important thing."

"Sure."

They sat down on a stone bench past the slate. "What's your husband do?" Ann asked, sipping her iced tea.

Milly G.o.dwin laughed abruptly. "He ran out years ago."

"I hear that," Ann said. "Same thing happened to me."

"I'm not even sorry he left. Rena and I are much better off without him. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d left when I was eight months pregnant. This was when your mother started the community a.s.sistance program. The town took care of me, then sent me to nursing school. I don't know what I would've done if I was on my own."

Again, her mother's shadow reared. This town ran itself among itself. It bred what it needed to exist. It perpetuated from within.

"Lockwood's New Mothers Program is really good too. If a woman gets pregnant, she doesn't work for two years but she retains her pay. After that there's free day care. There's also a retirement program, an accident program, and an education program. Lockwood takes care of it all. The town has a multimilliondollar investment fund. Jake and Ellie Wynn are trained brokers. Lockwood's been in the black for decades."

But how could that be? How could Lockwood, with a population of five hundred, generate such a level of prosperity? The vast farmland to the south was valuable, but it must have taken some risky investments with produce profits to make all this work. Maybe Ann's mother was smarter than she thought. n.o.body was really rich, yet n.o.body seemed to want for anything.

"I saw your man earlier," Milly said. "He seems very nice."

Your man, the words echoed. What an antiquated way to put it, yet it sounded nice. the words echoed. What an antiquated way to put it, yet it sounded nice. My man, My man, she thought. "He's a teacher, and a published author." she thought. "He's a teacher, and a published author."

"Not badlooking either." Milly grinned. "But don't worry, I won't go gunning for him."

You f.u.c.king better not, Ann thought. "You date anyone regular?" Ann thought. "You date anyone regular?"

"Oh, no. Pretty slim pickings in Lockwood as far as single men are concerned. All the good ones get taken right away, and what's left just hang around, drink beer at the Crossroads. Your mother figured she'd let them have a watering hole at least. Every animal needs a trough."

Ann nearly spat out her iced tea. "And I thought I was a cynical feminist."

"It's not feminism," Milly said, and sat back. "I see it more as realism. What's the one thing that all the world's problems have in common? Men. Not good for much of anything except filling potholes and fixing cars when they break."

Ann couldn't help but laugh.

"Why get involved with something that's going to turn rotten anyway? After they have you, they take you for granted. Pretty soon you find out that you're married to a couch that drinks beer, watches football, and farts."

Now Ann was really laughing.

"I can live quite nicely without that," Milly went on. "And I don't need a man in my life to feel complete... Oh, but I didn't mean to imply that your man-"

"I know, Milly, you're just generalizing, right?"

"Right. And when I need to get laid, I get laid."

The prompt.i.tude of this comment almost stunned her.