If Darkness Takes Us Read online

  Within a minute or two, half the neighborhood was in our entryway, watching my beautiful granddaughter bleed through her sheet. I held her wrist and counted her pulse over and over until it was so thready that I couldn’t count it on her wrist anymore and had to find the pulse in her neck.

  Tasha smiled wistfully, trusting me when I was not worthy of her trust.

  “Everyone except my family, please leave,” I said.

  They backed out the front door. Jack said, “I’ll wait on the stoop,” before he stepped outside. Sonja started to leave, too, but I asked her to take Milo and Mazie out back.

  “Tasha, my beautiful love,” I said, shakily gripping her hand as the back door slammed shut. “I don’t know how to stop your bleeding, sweetheart.”

  “I feel so tired,” she said with drooping eyelids, a clog in her throat. “Am I gonna die?” She looked at me so earnestly, so pleadingly, that I couldn’t lie to her. She had a right to the truth, but I couldn’t tell her. I had a great debate with myself that took place in an instant. Tasha needed a chance to say her goodbyes, so I acted.

  “Oh Tasha, your heart’s slowing down, and I—”

  Keno gasped. Tasha started shaking. “Don’t let me die, Nana!”

  “Honey, I would die myself to save you. I don’t know how to save you. Please forgive me.”

  Tears gushed from Tasha’s eyes. She swallowed hard. Her eyes darted between Keno and me as she took several quick breaths, then one very long one—a sigh of resignation I will never forget.

  “Keno, tell me goodbye,” she said, her voice quavering.

  “I can’t.” Keno stood frozen and staring at his sister.

  I tugged gently on Keno’s arm and pulled him toward Tasha. “Honey, she wants you to.”

  He brushed tears and snot off his face with the back of his hand. He bent down to Tasha, kissing her pretty forehead. “I love you, sister,” he said.

  “It’s okay to hug her, Keno.”

  He hugged her so tenderly that I almost couldn’t watch. “I’m sorry,” he said. Both their faces were flooded with tears.

  “You didn’t mean to fall, Keno. You were helping me. Don’t you dare feel guilty about this. Promise me.”

  “But I screwed up. I turned too sharp, and—”

  “Promise me, Keno! I mean it!”

  “Okay, I promise!”

  “I love you, Joaquin.”

  “I love you, too, Natasha.”

  “T-tell M-mom. Oh!” She panted for breath. “Tell Mom I love her.”

  “I will.” He slowly stepped back, continuing to gaze into Tasha’s eyes.

  I grabbed my granddaughter, my gorgeous granddaughter Natasha Simms, and I hugged her for all I was worth.

  “I’ll come join you someday soon, my love. Maybe you’ll find your mother or your grandfather there.”

  But Tasha was already fading away from us. She died with her big brown eyes open and peering straight through me, drained to the bone of blood.

  Keno let out a piercing cry and crumpled to the floor.

  I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I could not live another minute.

  FORTY-THREE

  KENO SAT SHAKING on the floor with his head buried under his arms.

  Jack opened the front door a crack and peeked at Tasha. “Aw, no,” he said.

  I didn’t look at him. I didn’t do anything except watch over my beautiful girl and try to will the life back into her dark and empty eyes.

  Jack bent down and held my arm. “I’m sorry, Bea.”

  I didn’t respond. Such a stupid, obvious comment. Of course he was sorry. He didn’t have to say so.

  He rubbed my shoulder for a moment, then straightened up and followed the sound of Mazie’s crying to the patio. I heard him murmuring with Sonja out there, but what did I care? Murmur away, you damn fools. Go ahead and waste your breath. It’s worthless anyway.

  Milo screamed “No!” from the backyard, then it sounded like someone was whacking the fence with a stick over and over and over again.

  Soon, Sonja and Jack returned. Sonja sat Mazie in Keno’s lap. “This little girl needs you, Joaquin.” Keno swallowed Mazie in his long arms, and the two of them wept. After a while, he carried Mazie to the patio to rock her in the glider.

  Sonja stooped down to me. “Bea, can I get you some tea?” I shook my head. She stood silently beside me with her hand on my shoulder. She may have been praying. At last, she said, “Should I prepare Natasha’s body for burial?”

  She had love and sadness in her eyes, but I hated her eyes because they were alive and Tasha’s were not. I closed my own eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at Sonja. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t know how.

  Jack reached down and took my hand. “Bea, dear, you need to come away and let Sonja work.”

  I opened my eyes and said very quietly, “I am not going anywhere.”

  “Bea.” He sighed and tried to hug me to him, but I was a ramrod, stiff and cold.

  Sonja asked, “Do you mind if I ask Mrs. Zizzo and Mrs. Barnes to help me?”

  “No.”

  The last light of day faded from the sky as Sonja left the house. Jack lit some candles. I held Tasha’s hand and petted her forehead, shivering at the chill of it but not caring because I could still feel my granddaughter.

  A loud pounding on the front door.

  “Tasha! Tasha!” Chas screamed.

  Jack opened the door and shoved Chas backward off the stoop.

  “Hey! Let me see Tasha!” Chas yelled.

  “If I were you, you punk bastard, I’d get as far away from here as I possibly could.”

  “Why can’t I see her?”

  “Because, you fucking idiot, she’s dead!”

  “She can’t be!” Chas cried. I couldn’t see his face, but he shut up, and Jack came back inside.

  “Sorry, Bea,” he said. I merely nodded.

  I had to let go of Tasha’s hand and stop stroking her forehead while the women removed her clothing and washed the blood off her firm breasts and slightly swollen tummy. I could not avert my eyes from the horror of it. Kathy turned Tasha on her side while Doris scoured blood off the tiled floor. Sonja disappeared and returned with a pretty dress of Tasha’s, a dress she’d only recently brought here from her mother’s house.

  “Will this dress be alright?” Sonja asked.

  “Yes, it’s beautiful.”

  They carefully dressed my girl, and someone closed her eyes. I almost reached out to reopen them. I wanted to see her big brown eyes while they still existed.

  Sonja held up a hairbrush and some clips. “Would you like to fix her hair, Bea?”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Don’t you want to make one of your lovely French braids for her?”

  “Will you help me?” I asked.

  “Yes, Bea, I’ll help.”

  The other two women stood by, sniffling, while my tremulous hands braided Tasha’s hair and Sonja’s steady hands smoothed my work. When I reached the end of the braid, Sonja tied it with a silky ribbon, but first she had to gently pry my hand loose from the thick chestnut hair of my girl.

  I sat with Tasha into the night, a mindless mass of murderous pain, surrounded by a room full of candles. Sonja, Kathy, and Doris sat at the other end of the living room, hand-sewing sheets into some kind of burial shroud. It seemed right, but I couldn’t pay attention to it.

  The kids came in and out of the room—one by one, as pairs, all three together. They would cry or just sit and stare. Mazie climbed into my lap and stayed until my legs fell asleep from the weight of her, and still I held her.

  Jack and Sonja each tried to convince me to take a few bites of the food Jack had cooked, but I couldn’t. Silas brought some branches of a Christmas cactus still in bloom—delicate white flowers almost floating atop the soft, green branches. I kept thinking, what good are these beautiful flowers if Tasha can’t see them?

  Doris sat beside me and recited the 23rd Psalm
. I looked at the ceiling while she spoke so I wouldn’t have to see her living, breathing mouth.

  Everyone tried to talk me into going to bed or for a walk, or getting some air on the patio, but I wouldn’t budge. The adults and Keno conferred in a whisper as though they were worried about me, but they needed to be worried about themselves. Something was terribly wrong with them. They just kept moving and breathing and living when Tasha was dead.

  Keno came over to me. “I’m sitting up with Tasha tonight. You should go to bed.”

  “No. You go to bed. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Well, I’m sitting up anyway, so whatever.”

  “Keno, I said, ‘Go to bed!’”

  “No, Nana, I won’t! You’re not the only person who’s sad around here. I want to honor my sister and watch over her, and you can’t stop me!” His face was scarlet red. He had never defied me so vehemently before. His words shredded me.

  “Okay,” I muttered, and turned back to face Tasha in her angelic repose. The emotions storming through me ran the gamut of piercing loss, flaming rage, bottomless despair, and merciless self-recrimination, swirling in a stew of near-catatonic madness.

  “Bea,” Jack said from behind me, making me jump in my seat. “Keno is right. You need to collect yourself so you can comfort these kids.”

  “I said he could stay, Jack.”

  “Yes, but what about these other two? They need their grandmother.”

  “What good am I to them? I was so busy taking care of everyone else that I let my baby girl get pregnant and die. Then I had the chance to move my nurse friends over here, but I didn’t, because I didn’t think they could help enough to be worth feeding them. What kind of cold-hearted bitch am I, to do something like that? Then what happens next? Tasha bleeds to death before our eyes when the nurses might’ve saved her. I’m poison, Jack. My daughter will never forgive me. Hank will never forgive me. I should’ve been taking care of Tasha instead of fucking you!”

  “Bea, shut up!”

  Keno’s mouth dropped open, and he flipped his pained, wet eyes from me to Jack and back again.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that, son,” Jack said.

  “Nana, get out of here!” Keno said through clenched teeth. “You’re not gonna act this way around my sister!”

  I glared at Keno. I glared at Jack, who was shaking his head. I couldn’t look at the women in the corner, but I felt their eyes on me. I didn’t care. I wanted to claw their eyes out. I wanted to rip my hair out by the roots.

  I turned to Keno and slapped him smack across the cheek. He stepped back, startled. Jack tried to grab me, and I unleashed a barrage of punches and slaps across his chest and stomach. I kicked him in the shins. I aimed higher, going for his balls. Keno clasped my arms and pulled me back from Jack. The two men hugged me from both sides and sat me down on the floor.

  “Shit, Bea, you hurt me,” Jack said.

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Both of you shut up and get out of here!” Keno growled.

  I looked up to see Mazie standing in the back doorway, bug-eyed.

  “Come on, Bea. You heard the man. We need to get out of here.” Jack tugged me to my feet, wrapped me in his arm, and ushered me out the back door. He sat me on a chair and stood next to me with his hand on my shoulder—to keep me from starting another fight, I guess.

  “Nana, why are you fighting?” Mazie said. “We’re not supposed to fight!”

  “I’m sorry, Mazie.” I pulled her into my lap. “I made a million mistakes today. I’ve been a very bad Nana.”

  “Did the devil make you do it? Daddy says sometimes the devil makes you do stuff.”

  “That must be what happened. Usually the devil can’t fool me because I’m old and I’m mostly wise. But today, I wasn’t wise.” I didn’t realize I was crying until Mazie wiped my tears away with her fingers.

  Mazie snuggled into my bosom and cried with me. Jack patted me on the shoulder, tears in his eyes as well.

  “Where’s Milo?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” Jack said.

  “Will you look for him?”

  “Of course, Bea.” He kissed the top of my head and went inside.

  Jack returned with Milo a good while later. He’d found the boy down the street, breaking rocks into chunks with a hammer, and hurling chunks at the windows of empty houses.

  Grief is a beast. Grief over a senselessly lost child can break your brain and kill you dead.

  FORTY-FOUR

  WE SAT TOGETHER in the living room all night. Even Jack and Sonja stayed. After a while, everyone except Keno and me fell asleep. When I was sure the others were sleeping, I went to sit by Keno and took his hand.

  “I’m sorry, Keno. I lost my mind.”

  “Yeah, you did,” he said, but he let me hug him. We were both numb at this point; neither of us cried, although I wanted to. We stared at Tasha together. We were quiet for a long time, until Keno whispered, “The doctor at the clinic said she couldn’t get an abortion. No place to get one.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Tasha was happy about it. She said she wanted to keep the baby anyway. She said she loved babies.” Such agony in his voice.

  “Oh, God.” I doubled over with pain. It took me a while to straighten up. I had lost my first great-grandchild, too, and only now felt the weight of that loss.

  Keno faced me, his eyes drilling into mine. “Did you really sleep with that old man?”

  “Yes, but I’m sorry I told you in such a crude way.”

  “What about Grandpa?”

  “I’ll always care about your grandpa. He’s not here though, and we don’t know if he’ll come back. I don’t know why I did it. I guess I’m just lonely.”

  “Are you gonna keep seeing this guy?”

  “Keno, you know his name. He’s your friend.”

  “I thought he was my friend.”

  “Don’t blame him. He was being sweet to me. I don’t know if I’ll see him again or not. It’s hard to imagine doing anything right now.”

  “Yeah.” Keno sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t see him.”

  “I can’t promise that, honey. I deserve a little love, don’t I?”

  My eldest grandson regarded me in a very peculiar way. Maybe he was seeing me more as a fellow adult than he ever had before. I reached over and tousled his hair.

  “Don’t think about it too much. Nobody wants to think about old people making love.”

  Keno smirked. “Yeah, it’s gross.”

  “Yeah? Think how gross it is to be old.”

  He nodded and slid to the floor to continue his watch over his departed sister.

  “Children,” I said, shortly after the neighborhood roosters crowed at dawn. “It’s time to get up and prepare for the day.” This awful day when we would lay our Natasha to rest.

  “Bea,” Jack said as he rose to his feet, “I was thinking we could bury Tasha on a hill I know about. It’s near the train tracks.”

  “It’s not down where the poison is, is it? I won’t bury her in poison.”

  “No, it’s about a mile north, on the other side of William Cannon Drive. There’s some nice trees there.”

  I stared off through the window at a leaden sky. “Think it will rain?”

  “Don’t know. It might.”

  I looked Jack squarely in the eyes. “How will I get to her grave? I need to be able to get there.”

  “I’ll take you any time you want to go,” he said.

  “How would you take me? What if I want to go alone?”

  “I’ll push you in a wheelchair. If you want to be alone, I’ll walk away for a while.” He seemed sad to me, and he was genuinely offering help. But he was already making me dependent on him by trying to take Tasha so far away.

  “I want her closer.” I again stared through the window.

  “Bea.”

  “I can’t have her so far away from me, Jack.”


  “Honey, she’s. . . .”

  “I know she’s dead. Don’t you think I know it? And don’t call me honey.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He hesitated. Maybe he wanted me to look at him, but I wouldn’t. Finally, he said, “I’ll talk to some of the others and see what kind of place we can find.”

  “Thank you. And please come tell me about it before you start digging.”

  “Whatever you want. Only tryin’ to help,”

  “I know. I appreciate it.”

  Before long, people began tapping at our door and delivering hot food: scalloped potatoes, pecan turnovers made with honey, green beans stewed with onions, lentil soup, even a bit of fried chicken. Since we had no refrigeration, I assumed this meant we were expected to spend the day with a house full of awkward neighbors eating the food. I needed a place to hide.

  Sonja left to pick up Cesar from the Zizzos and to take care of his needs. I couldn’t tell Sonja how much I appreciated her right then. It would have set me to crying, and I knew I would have plenty of that before this day was over.

  Without any prompting from me, Keno had already fed breakfast to Mazie and Milo. Now he led them upstairs to get cleaned up and dressed. Where Keno got these fatherly instincts, I didn’t know. He didn’t get them from his own father. Jimmy only visited his kids once or twice per year. And, although Jimmy had redeeming qualities—he paid most of his child support, for instance—he was uncomfortable around his kids, and they were equally uneasy around him.

  Keno, however, had always been good with kids. He’d never picked on his sister like so many brothers do. He played with his younger cousins when they asked; he’d even babysat kids in his old neighborhood on occasion. Now, in our new world, Keno had grown into the role of family father, and, though I’d asked him to take that responsibility in my absence, I hadn’t realized he’d come so far.

  I couldn’t dwell on these thoughts for long, or any other thoughts for that matter. My mind refused to focus. I took a chicken leg and went upstairs to wash up. I found a somber-looking pantsuit inside a dry cleaner’s bag. I put the suit on, but it was much too big for me now, plus it looked so hideously dark and sad. Tasha liked beautiful things.