The Night Visitors, Page 2

  “Oh, girl!” I cry, grabbing her by the ruff and pulling her inside. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her hair is matted with ice. I wrap her in an old tattered beach towel, rubbing her dry, kneading balls of ice from her footpads. “Why didn’t you bark?” I demand, when what I really mean is How could I forget you? I rub her until the ice has melted and she has stopped trembling. Then I use the same towel to wipe my own face.

  Disgusting, I hear my mother say.

  Yes, I agree, rubbing harder.

  Then I look at my watch and see I’ve got ten minutes to make the fifteen-minute drive to the bus station. That’s what comes of flitting about in the middle of the night. My mother is out in full force tonight. Meddling in other people’s business. Neglecting your own.

  Having almost killed my old dog, I have nothing to say in my own defense. So I grab my pack and go, turning the thermostat up a notch to keep poor Dulcie warm while I’m gone.

  IT’S MOSTLY DOWNHILL from my house to town, something I appreciated as a kid when I needed to get away fast and could coast on my Schwinn from my driveway to the Stewart’s without turning a pedal. Frank Barnes and I used to race down the hill, daring each other on. When I was seven and he was nine, I took the curve at the bottom too fast and wound up in the Esopus. I still have the piece of flannel Frank tore from his shirt to stanch the blood and the scar on my forehead as a reminder of my folly.

  Coasting down the ice-slick road tonight, my wipers barely keeping up with the sleet and icy rain, has me praying to Anita, the Virgin of Guadalupe, Ganesh, and whatever pagan wood spirits haunt the lonely pines that stand guard around the little mountain hamlet of Delphi. I roll the window down and take deep gulps of cold, pine-scented air. The shock of the temperature steadies my hands on the wheel for the last hairpin curve before town and through deserted Main Street, past the boarded-up windows of Moore’s Mercantile, where my mother bought me my school clothes every fall, and the Queen Anne Victorian that used to house my father’s law offices but is now home to Sanctuary. There’s a light on downstairs. Doreen’s probably rearranging the food pantry and donation bins. Every night like a goddamned house elf, Muriel, the head of volunteer services, says. I’ll check in with her after I drop off the mother and son at St. Alban’s. Bring her a bear claw from Stewart’s. Give her a chance to talk about the call.

  The bus terminal shares a parking lot with Stewart’s—the only place in town open. There’s no bus there yet. Either it’s late or I’ve missed it. But there’s no boy and woman standing outside, waiting for me.

  I park the car and turn it off, tempted to leave it running but afraid that someone will steal it. Some of the people who do get off the bus aren’t the most savory—drug dealers running heroin from the city to the Catskills, gang members from Newburgh and Kingston, parolees from the prison over in Hudson.

  You always think the worst of people, Doreen tells me.

  It’s what I used to say to my mother. I’ll stop when people stop confirming my worst suspicions of them, she used to answer back.

  Atefeh Sherazi is at the counter inside Stewart’s. She smiles when she sees me come in. Doreen and I helped find her this job when she came to Sanctuary two years ago. She’d left her husband in New Jersey and taken the bus upstate with her two children. When I asked her if she was afraid her husband would follow her she said it was her brother she was worried about. He had brought her to America from Iran ten years ago by promising her an education and had instead brokered an arranged marriage. When her husband started hitting her she went to her brother, but he said that it was her fault she wasn’t able to please her husband. He’ll kill me if he finds me, Atefeh told us.

  She’d stayed at St. Alban’s until her application for Section 8 housing was approved and Roy Carver gave her this job. Now she’s taking classes part-time at Ulster Community College, working toward the education she came here for.

  “What are you doing out on a night like this, Ms. Lane?” she asks. I’ve asked her to call me Mattie many times to no avail.

  “Picking up someone on the bus from Kingston. Has it come in yet?”

  Atefeh shakes her head. “The driver called in half an hour ago to say he’d be late. Black ice on 28. He had to pull over and wait for the sand trucks. Can I get you some coffee while you’re waiting? There’s a fresh pot.”

  “I’ll get it, Atefeh.” I hold up my thermos and nod at the open biology textbook on the counter. “You keep studying.”

  I walk to the coffee counter at the back of the store and fill the thermos. Then I pour myself a cup, adding sugar and milk, to keep myself awake. I pick up a quart of milk, orange juice, butter, and then eye the pastries on the warming rack. The mother and son will be hungry when they get here.

  While I’m deciding between bear claws and cinnamon rolls the bell over the door jangles. I look over to see if the bus has come, but it’s only two guys in heavy camo gear getting out of a jacked-up plow truck, fake foam antlers strapped to the plow and a very real, very dead buck strapped to the roof. Their exhaust steam is billowing around my little Honda. I guess they’re not worried about someone taking off with their ride. I turn back to my pastry selection and hear one of the hunters ask Atefeh for lottery tickets.

  Like that’s going to change your luck.

  It’s not that I have anything against hunters. I know enough families around here who rely on that meat, and the local hunting club always donates a venison roast for Sanctuary’s community holiday supper. In fact one of the hunters, the older and heftier one, looks familiar. I think he’s come into Sanctuary with donations a couple of times.

  I glance back toward the men. The one I don’t recognize, the younger, skinnier one, is staring at Atefeh’s name tag.

  “Atefeh? What kind of name is that?”

  “It’s Persian, sir. Here are your lottery tickets. Good luck to you and have a good night.”

  But the hunter isn’t done. He turns to his friend. “Hey, Wayne, getta hold of this! Her name is Atefeh. Hey, why aren’t you wearing your kebab doohickey?” He pokes his finger at Atefeh’s head. I can see her flinch. Her shoulders have risen beneath her striped uniform as if she is bracing for a blow and fighting off the urge to flee at the same time.

  Stand by the victim, I hear Doreen say. Don’t confront the attacker. I move closer to the counter. “Is everything okay, Atefeh?” I ask, keeping my eyes on her.

  Her eyes flick toward me and her shoulders lower a fraction. “Did you get everything you need, Ms. Lane?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say, edging past the hunter.

  “Hey,” he says, “who said I was done?”

  “Will there be anything else, sir?” Atefeh says with unfailing politeness.

  “Yeah, I’ll take a . . .” His eyes rove around the counter and then settle with undisguised glee on a baseball cap with an American flag on it. “I’ll take one of those.”

  “Of course, sir,” Atefeh says, removing the cap from the stand and ringing it up.

  “No, wait . . .” He spins the stand and sticks his finger in at random. “I changed my mind. I’m not sure. Which one do you like?”

  Atefeh stares at him wide-eyed. I move as close to her as I can with the counter between us so she knows I’m here for her. Why aren’t we supposed to confront the attacker? I’d asked Doreen. Because it will escalate the conflict and ultimately make things worse for the victim, she’d replied. Doreen’s always right about this stuff, but I feel like a pathetic wimp as Atefeh holds out a cap with a shaking hand.

  “Oh, shoot,” he says, looking straight at Atefeh and not the patriotic slogan on the cap. “I left my reading glasses at home. Could you read it for me?”

  I’ve seen men like this before, men who have to make someone else feel small so that they don’t. When he finally chooses one with a MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN slogan on it, and pays in crumpled bills and a handful of linty change, Atefeh puts the cap in a bag.

  “Uh-uh,” Camo says, wagging his head
with what can only be described as a shit-eating grin on his face, “I bought it for you!” He looks back to see if his friend, who’s paging through a Field & Stream magazine, gets the joke. “It’s a present for Atefeh! Go ahead, put it on!”

  Atefeh is looking down at the ugly polyester hat, her cheeks blotched red. I reach across the counter to touch her hand, but before I touch her she raises her eyes and meets the gaze of the hunter.

  “Thank you very much for the present, sir, but I am not allowed to wear a hat at work. I will give it to my son, though, who loves American history and plays Little League.”

  It’s a perfect response. Atefeh does not need me to fight her battles for her. Doreen was right—

  “What’s your son’s name? Jihad?”

  Afterward I will tell Doreen that I knew the coffee had cooled enough to make it perfectly safe, but the truth is that when I tip the cup toward Camo’s groin I hope it will scald the grin right off his face and leave him sterile.

  “Leave her alone!” I shout, as he howls at the pain. “And get the fuck out of here.”

  He glares at me, one fist curled protectively over his groin, and one cocked at his side. I put the pastry bag on the counter, slide my hand into my coat pocket, and curl my hand around my car keys, sliding the keys, teeth out, between my fingers.

  I’m about to take my hand out of the pocket when the other hunter grabs his friend by the shoulders. “I think it’s time we go, Jason. That stag on the roof isn’t getting any sweeter while we stand here jawing.”

  “That bitch threw her coffee at me!” Jason complains, struggling—but not very hard—to get out of his friend’s grasp.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what you get for being an asshole.” The other hunter looks at me. There’s a hint of a smile—and recognition—in his eyes; I’ve definitely met him before. “C’mon before the nice ladies call the cops on you.”

  “Well shit,” Jason says, “I was just trying to be nice. Let’s get out of here.” He shrugs his friend’s hands off and makes an exaggerated show of straightening his camo jacket as if it were an expensive suit, then manages to knock over the magazine rack on his way out.

  His friend—Wayne—stops to pick up the magazines, but I hiss under my breath, “Just get your friend out of here.”

  He looks up at me. “He’s not my friend; he’s my dumbass brother-in-law.” Then he looks back at Atefeh. “I apologize for my family, ma’am. Have a good night.”

  As soon as the door closes I turn back to Atefeh. She’s shaking like a leaf. I move around the counter and put my arms around her. Ask the victim if she’s okay, Doreen told us.

  What a stupid question, I’d told her, as if anyone is okay after being bullied and abused!

  “What an asshole!” I say now. I let loose a blue streak of curses that has Atefeh blushing through her tears. Then I help her clean up the coffee I “spilled.”

  “I’m so clumsy,” I say, making Atefeh laugh.

  By the time Atefeh’s poured me a new cup of coffee the bus is pulling into the parking lot. “I’d better go,” I say. “These two might not want anyone to see them.”

  “Let me know if I can help,” Atefeh says, squeezing my hand. “And . . . thank you.”

  “Just don’t tell Doreen,” I say, hugging her. “I didn’t exactly follow protocol.”

  It’s only when I get out into the parking lot that I start to shake. It’s not throwing the coffee that scares me—although if it had been hot I could have scarred Jason for life. It’s the keys. I’d been ready to punch Jason in the face with a fistful of keys. I would have happily gouged his eyes out.

  Chapter Three

  Alice

  THE WOMAN STANDING in front of the convenience store, bareheaded in the icy rain, looks like one of those do-gooder old hippie types. Spiky gray hair, fuzzy shapeless poncho, heavy work boots. The poncho may well be purple but it’s hard to tell in the weak fluorescent light of the store windows. She’s holding a cup and a shopping bag.

  “Is that her?” Oren asks, woken from his sleep by the shifting gears of the bus as it turned into the parking lot.

  “Must be,” I say. “She looks . . . okay.”

  “She looks like a social worker,” Oren says, making it clear what he thinks of the profession.

  “They’re not all bad,” I say. “Scott was nice, right?”

  “Yeah,” Oren says without much conviction. Scott, his last caseworker, was nice, but he hadn’t been much help in the end. None of them are, really.

  I get up to grab my pack from the overhead. Oren’s already got his Star Wars backpack shouldered. He’d slept with it crammed between his head and the window, one strap on his shoulder, his arms wrapped around it. When we left I’d given him five minutes to go back to his room and take only what he absolutely needed. I saw the library book sticking out the top when he met me at the door, but now I wonder what else he took—money?—that he’s holding on to so tightly.

  We’re the only ones getting off the bus. I glance at the other passengers as we walk up the aisle—the college kid plugged into his earbuds, eyes closed, head nodding to tinny rap; a Latina woman with a baby whose eyes move over me without making contact; an old woman wrapped up in a scarf reading a book. No one who will remember a boy and his mother getting off in a nowhere town in the Catskills. Not even the driver turns to watch us make our way down the steps to the door. I have the creepy feeling that we are invisible. That once we step off this bus we will vanish from the known world, that the purple-shawled woman has been sent to lead us to the underworld like those snake-haired crones in Oren’s book.

  Sensing my hesitation, Oren stops at the steps down to the door and turns to look up at me, eyes wide and solemn. I open my mouth to tell him it’s all right but he beats me to it. “It’s okay,” he says. “This is the right stop.” The driver turns his head to us. He’s wondering what’s wrong with me that my son has to lead me off the bus—and he’ll remember us now. I curse myself for hesitating.

  “Of course it is. Thanks . . . honey.” I remember at the last moment not to use Oren’s name. I smile at the bus driver. “He’s been studying the bus map since we planned this trip to Aunt Jean’s.”

  “Good man,” the driver says. “You take care of your mom, now.”

  Asshole, I think, giving Oren a little push to move him along and keep him from answering. He does anyway. “We take care of each other,” he says.

  The icy rain makes my eyes sting as we step off the bus onto the pavement, and I have to stop and wipe them. Oren takes my hand like I’m a goddamned invalid and leads me forward, out of the exhaust fumes. The woman is approaching, holding out a white paper bag. “You must be Alice and Oren,” she says, looking first at me and then down at Oren. “I’m Mattie. I’d shake hands but I seem to have a bag full of bear claws. Do you think you could help me with those?” She holds the bag toward Oren.

  “Are they real bear claws?”

  The woman—Mattie—throws back her head and laughs. “Oh my, do I look like a bear hunter? Even if they do get in my garbage cans and make a stink, I consider the bears my friends.”

  “There are bears here?” Oren asks, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  “Why yes,” Mattie says, “and coyotes and bobcats too. But the only kind of bear claws I eat are of the pastry variety. Here, why don’t you try one?” She’s still holding the bag out to him. Oren looks to me, as if I am the kind of mother who restricts his sweets intake. What a clever touch. I smile to show how much I appreciate it and he takes the bag from Mattie. He digs his hand in and takes out a glazed pastry as big as a man’s fist. He holds it up to me.

  “You take it,” I say.

  Oren takes an enormous bite, and Mattie looks up from him to me like she’s waiting for me to say something, like I’m supposed to slaver all over her for some cheap pastries from Stewart’s. That’s what these do-gooders get off on. Still, I’d better keep on her good side until we’re safely out of here. “Thanks,” I say
. “We had to leave too fast to pack any food.”

  “There will be something more substantial where you’re going,” she says.

  “And where’s that?” I ask. “It has to be someplace no one can find out where we are. Oren’s father—”

  “I understand,” Mattie says. “Everyone in our network understands. Your whereabouts will be kept completely confidential. There’s a convent fifteen miles from here.”

  “A convent?” I ask.

  “The sisters are committed to protecting women and children. No one could be more confidential—most of them don’t even talk!”

  I think of the last time I was in a church and begin to shake. “I—I’m not religious.”

  “Me neither,” Mattie says. She looks down at Oren, who has finished the bear claw and is licking icing off his fingers and studying me. “Let’s get out of this sleet,” Mattie says, turning toward her car, an old rusted-out Honda.

  “Nuns are for orphans,” Oren says, not budging. “And I’m no orphan.”

  Where on earth did he get that? Did some social worker threaten him with an orphanage? A swell of hatred for the profession overwhelms me and makes me want to tell this do-gooder with her sugary snacks to get lost. A convent! They’ll probably try to convert us like the born-again foster parents I had one year.

  I put my hand on Oren’s shoulder. “The woman on the phone didn’t say anything about a convent. We’ll wait for the next bus and take our chances elsewhere.”

  Mattie gives me a level look and I can tell she sees right through me. I don’t have the money for another bus and I don’t have any idea where else we’d go. We’re fresh out of chances. It makes me angry that she’s so sure about me. Who is she to judge me? Now that we’re closer I can see that her purple shawl is moth-eaten and there’s an odor coming off her that smells like wet dog. She looks like she’s getting ready to tell me to lump it, but then Oren pipes up.

  “Couldn’t we just stay with you? I bet that convent is far away and hard to get to in the snow.”