Sleepwalker Page 13

  Everything is exactly where it should be.

  That’s strange.

  Rocky’s been around long enough to know that a person who breaks into a house usually wants to take something—or leave something: say, vandalized rooms, some kind of written threat meant to scare the occupant, even illegal substances. Rocky has seen plenty of empty homes in this city used as drug drops by neighborhood dealers.

  His search didn’t uncover any evidence of a hidden stash—but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. And it doesn’t mean that whoever broke the window won’t be back.

  That’s why he opted to wear his holster to bed. It wouldn’t be good to wake up in the middle of the night with his weapon beyond reach and a stranger prowling around the house.

  Then again, it’s not the worst thing a man can wake up to in the middle of the night. Not by a long shot.

  He closes his eyes and the stormy chill of this autumn night falls away. He sees Ange silhouetted in the moonlight filtering through the screened window on her side of the bed; hears the old box fan humming in another window; feels the warm, humid air blowing on him.

  “Where are you going?” he asks her.

  “To get some Advil. I have a terrible headache.”

  She starts across the room, then collapses.

  He doesn’t see it happen, but he hears it—a terrible crashing thud. For a moment, he thinks she’s tripped over something and fallen.

  “Ange?” he calls, already swinging his legs over his side of the bed.

  No answer.

  He finds her on the floor, and he’s sure she must have fainted from the heat.

  “Ange! Ange!”

  She never woke up.

  Lying alone in the dark, reliving his worst nightmare, Rocky Manzillo cries like a baby, the broken basement window all but forgotten.

  Listening to Allison’s rhythmic breathing and the drumbeat of rain, Mack clenches every muscle in his body, counts to ten, and then releases, counting to ten again.

  It’s a relaxation exercise Dr. Cuthbert taught him months ago, long before the Dormipram. It never worked.

  The Dormipram did, dammit.

  Now what am I supposed to do?

  Go back to taking it, even though it does crazy things to me?

  Mack realizes that his jaw is still clenched, so hard it aches.

  Why does everything have to be so difficult for him?

  All right, not everything. But his career, which used to be such fun, has become a dreaded daily challenge, day in and day out. His house, always a pleasant refuge, is a hodgepodge of tasks that need his attention. Even marriage and fatherhood sometimes feel like a chore lately—four more people who need time and attention he can’t always spare.

  The one saving grace lately has been the newfound ability to fall asleep. The most basic, natural thing in the world, something every human being is capable of doing . . .

  But not me.

  Not on my own, anyway.

  Frustrated, Mack sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed, and stands. Might as well get something constructive done, since sleep doesn’t seem to be an option tonight.

  He starts to walk across the room, trips over something—one of his shoes, kicked off earlier and left in the center of the floor—and curses.

  “Mack?” Allison’s voice, in the dark, is startled.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I tripped.”

  “Are you awake?”

  He bites back a sarcastic Of course I’m awake! I’m standing here talking to you, aren’t I?

  He knows, of course, why she asked.

  “Yeah,” he tells her. “Wide awake. Not sleepwalking.”

  “Good. What are you doing?”

  “Going downstairs—don’t worry, not sleep-eating, either. I have some work to do.”

  “At this hour? On a weekend?”

  He sighs, wanting to remind her that he wanted to get something done earlier in the day, but she went out and left him with J.J. He could remind her, too, that he’s lucky he’s got a job in this economy.

  But he says nothing at all, just leaves the room and closes the door quietly behind him.

  Chapter Seven

  Monday, October 31, 2011

  Dusk has fallen over Orchard Terrace.

  On any other Halloween night, it would bring a bustle of Halloween activity beyond the hedgerow: costumed kids scuffling excitedly through fallen leaves, working their way up and down the block from porch light to porch light. Parents would trail them in couples or groups, carrying flashlights and spare jackets and baby siblings, calling, “Remember to say thank you!” and “Stay where I can see you!”

  Not this year.

  This year, there are no porch lights; no flashlights bobbing along the sidewalks; no streetlights. Orchard Terrace is shrouded in darkness, blanketed in the foot of snow that fell on Saturday, a freak October storm that toppled foliage-heavy trees, knocking out power and shattering weather records—not to mention the children’s excited plans for trick or treat.

  Halloween has been officially canceled this year; the town deemed the darkened streets far too dangerous amid broken limbs and downed wires.

  “It’s so unfair,” Hudson wailed when she found out, and Allison wanted to cry along with her. She’d looked forward to it just as much as her children do.

  As a child, she’d always considered Halloween—the candy and the costume—one of the few bright spots in the year. It was the one holiday that didn’t really revolve around family. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter . . . she invariably spent those days wistfully imagining what it would be like to be gathered around a table with parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins . . .

  There was none of that in her household. Before her father fell off the face of the earth, her half brother, Brett, married young and moved to his in-laws’ cattle farm out in Hayes Township. So it was always just Allison and her mother, pretending—wishing—that holidays didn’t exist.

  But Halloween was different. Halloween was just for kids.

  Allison coveted her classmates’ store-bought costumes, but poverty forced her to create her own getup out of whatever she could beg or borrow and fashion into something suitably glamorous.

  When she was eight, she dressed up as Marilyn Monroe, complete with water balloon breasts that, looking back, must have been incredibly inappropriate. Her mother didn’t stop her, and she herself was probably too focused on the loot she collected at every door to notice any raised eyebrows.

  At eleven, she was Anna Wintour, wearing sunglasses and a wig castoff from a classmate’s Cleopatra costume.

  “See that? You can’t buy Anna Wintour in a box!” Her mother slurred her approval.

  Of course no one but Mom even knew whom she was supposed to be that year, but Allison didn’t care. They didn’t get her style even when she wasn’t wearing a costume.

  Well, perhaps Tammy Connolly, her one true friend back in Nebraska, did appreciate it. She was always complimenting Allison on what she was wearing. One day, she even said, “You should be a fashion designer when you grow up, Allison”—words that stayed with her long after Tammy moved away from Centerfield and disappeared altogether from her life.

  Allison always covered as much ground as possible when she went trick-or-treating, returning home several times over the course of the evening to dump the contents of her pillowcase into her pajama drawer, emptied out for the occasion. Of course, she didn’t have one of those coveted plastic pumpkins all the other kids carried. Either her mother didn’t have the money, or she couldn’t manage to get herself to the five-and-dime, or they were sold out by the time she got around to it.

  But she always managed to buy her drugs, didn’t she?

  Oh well. Regardless of how Allison carried it home, all that candy was her own precious stash—Sugar Babies and Snickers and mini boxes of Chiclets and Charms Pops . . . She hoarded it in her room, making it last for as long as she could, savoring a sweet treat every day well
into the new year.

  Last week, before the storm, a note came home in Hudson’s “backpack mail” requesting that parents send their children’s “unwanted” treats to the school office to be distributed to charitable causes.

  Unwanted? Who doesn’t want treats?

  There was also a reminder that costumes would not be allowed in school on Monday, and that anything remotely costumelike would be confiscated and not returned until November 1.

  “A little killjoy, don’t you think?” she asked Mack, during one of their harried daily phone calls while he was at work. “I feel like they’re trying to suck the fun out of the holiday. Do you know what they’re having as snacks for the classroom party? Baby carrots.”

  “You’re the one who’s always trying to get the kids to eat healthy food.”

  He had a point. Why did it bother her so much? Lately, parenting felt like an ongoing exercise in contradiction.

  “But it’s Halloween!” she told Mack. “Carrots?”

  “Look at the bright side—at least they’re orange. And at least they’re having a party.”

  “I know, but it’s just . . . things are so different from the way they were when I was a kid.”

  “Most of the time, that’s a good thing, Allie.”

  “I know . . . but not with this.”

  She can’t imagine how she’d have reacted if someone had told her Halloween had been canceled, or that she was supposed to give away all her candy to charity. Hell, she was the local charity case, and she never forgot it. No one would let her forget it while she was living in that town, and she wouldn’t let herself forget after she moved away.

  Memories are good for nothin’—that’s the bitter lesson her mother had learned, and tried to pass along to her. But Allison refused—still refuses—to buy into the theory. Memories, no matter how painful, are good for something. Whenever she looks back at her old life, she appreciates this one even more.

  You’ve come a long way, baby.

  That was the marketing slogan for the cigarettes her mother smoked, Virginia Slims. Sometimes, Mom would say it sarcastically, usually under her breath to—and about—herself: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

  Brenda Taylor had grown up in a well-to-do Omaha family. Her conservative, controlling parents disowned her when she got mixed up with the wrong crowd as a teenager, winding up pregnant with Brett—and no idea who the father was.

  “I’d never do that to my own child,” she used to assure Allison. “Nothing you ever do would make me turn my back on you.”

  In the end, though, was Brenda’s choice any different from the one her own parents had made? She chose to leave Allison just as surely as her own mother had chosen to leave her. For different reasons, yes. But does it really matter, when you find yourself alone in the world at seventeen, how you got there?

  No. But now I have Mack and the kids and I’ll never be alone again.

  Halloween might have been canceled by the town, but Allison is going to see that her kids get to trick-or-treat.

  Earlier, she’d spotted Phyllis Lewis shaking heavy snow off the forsythia branches along the property line, and had gone outside to see if everything was okay.

  “Looks like there’s a lot of damage,” Phyllis said, shaking her head. “Branches down all over, and an oak tree crushed the pool house out back. How about on your end?”

  “The same. Except the pool house. Good thing we don’t have one. Or a pool.” She flashed a wry grin. “Listen, Phyllis, I know Halloween is officially off this year, but the girls have been working hard on their costumes and I was wondering if they could still trick-or-treat at your door later.”

  “Are you kidding? Of course they can,” Phyllis said. “In fact, why don’t you all come over for dinner? Or even to sleep? We have the generator now.”

  Bob Lewis had bought it in the wake of the weeklong Hurricane Irene power outages, something Mack had also planned to get around to doing, but hadn’t yet. Once the power had been restored in early September, it didn’t seem likely that it would be knocked out indefinitely again any time soon.

  Now here they are on day three without lights, hot water, heat, or communications. School had been canceled today and tomorrow, but the trains were running again this morning and Allison had been stuck alone today in a frigid house with the kids while Mack went off to work.

  “Oh, it’s okay,” she told Phyllis. “You don’t have to feed us. Or shelter us.”

  “I’d love it. Bob is away on business and I’m all alone here anyway. I have plenty of food and plenty of spare bedrooms.”

  Randi keeps saying the same thing, calling daily to invite the MacKennas to come stay. If this goes on for much longer, Allison told Mack, they’re going to take her up on it. But he’d made some calls from work this morning and been told by NYSEG was that the power should be back tomorrow. One last cold, dark night in the house . . . they could handle that, she assured Phyllis.

  “It would just be great if the kids could trick-or-treat at your door. Hudson will be devastated if no one gets to admire all her hard work on the costumes—not to mention, if the only candy she gets to eat is the kind I bought. I’ve got SweeTARTS, Red Hot Dollars, and lollipops, but no chocolate.”

  “Well, I’ve got plenty. Bring them by anytime. I’ll be home all night. I promise I’ll fill up their bags.”

  Now, as she lights a couple more candles to make the kitchen a little brighter, Allison wishes Mack would call. She’s been trying to stall the girls in the hope that he’ll make it home in time to go over to the Lewises with them, but he’s in the midst of what he called a “manic Monday” at work, so it isn’t likely.

  “Call me or text me from the office when you know which train you’re taking,” Allison told him earlier, before they hung up. “I’m down to one bar on my cell and I don’t want to use up what’s left of my battery by calling you again.”

  “I will. But if you don’t hear from me by six-thirty, just go without me, because that means I won’t be home until almost eight and that’s too late for the kids.”

  Checking the time on her watch, Allison sees that it’s almost a quarter to seven. Too late.

  This will be the first year he’s not here to trick-or-treat with the kids. She wonders who’s going to be most disappointed about that—the girls, or Allison herself. Venturing next door in the dark with the kids, worrying about dangling limbs and wires, is about as appealing as the now-congealed boxed macaroni and cheese she prepared for dinner—yes, because it’s orange.

  And maybe, secretly, because it’s so unhealthy. Maybe some rebellious part of her longs to push back against the many perfect-mommy rules she’s been trying too hard to follow.

  At the table, the girls are putting the finishing touches on their costumes by candlelight. J.J. is fussing in his high chair because no one has bothered to pick up all the things he cast overboard: a wooden spatula, a couple of soggy crackers, plastic measuring spoons, and a milk-filled sippy cup that—thank goodness—has one of those no-spill stoppers in the spout.

  Allison leaves it all right where it is. Throw-things-on-the-floor-and-watch-Mommy-crawl-around-and-pick-them-up is her son’s latest game, and she’s not in the mood to play tonight.

  “How’s it going, ladies?” Allison asks the girls, who are both wearing red pajamas and white face paint.

  “It’s going great!” Hudson flutters around Maddy, obediently standing statue-still on a chair. “See? Don’t you love it?”

  “I do see, and I do love it.”

  Gone are the days when Allison bought their Halloween costumes from one of those expensive mail-order catalogs that are always coming in the mail, courtesy of demographics—theirs being one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country.

  One year she dressed the girls as a plush ladybug and bumblebee; another, Dora the Explorer and Minnie Mouse. Last year, Hudson was Snow White and Maddy one of the seven dwarfs—Bashful, quite aptly.

  But things have changed,
and it’s because the girls have been asking questions about Allison’s childhood, as if they’ve finally absorbed the realization that she was actually a little girl once, too. When the subject of Halloween came up a while back, Hudson, in particular, listened with interest to the news that Allison used to make her own costumes.

  “How old were you?”

  “Around your age.”

  “You mean your mom let you cut fabric and sew stuff? She didn’t even help you?” The pathos in it clearly escaped wide-eyed Hudson. “You were so lucky! Can we do that?”

  “You don’t have to, sweetie. We always buy our costumes, and you can choose anything you want.”

  “But we want to make them! Please!”

  Taken aback by this ironic turn of events, Allison asked, “Why?”

  “Because it would be so cool!”

  Cool. Imagine that.

  Allison had to remind herself that just because her kids can have fancy store-bought costumes doesn’t mean they want to.

  She agreed to the plan, impressed by her daughters’ creative, independent streak. Well, it was mostly Hudson. Mild-mannered Maddy went along with it based on a single stipulation: that the costumes had to be storybook characters this year. That was fine with her big sister, who welcomed the challenge with typical gusto.

  Hudson came up with a Seussian theme that even includes J.J. He’ll be a miniature Cat in the Hat; his sisters, Thing One and Thing Two.

  Allison loves watching her girls interact with each other, though it makes her a bit wistful, too. Her own life would have been so different if she and Brett had been closer in age—or just plain closer. Or if she’d had a sister instead of a brother, or in addition to him . . .

  One night, as a little girl, she had such a vivid dream about a sister that she woke up convinced it meant her mother was going to have a baby. That was the morning she learned her father had left them—and the morning Allison’s imaginary sister, Winona, came to live in her head.