Part 23 (1/2)
The kitchen was pristine save for an ebony-handled carving knife, its blade embedded in the butcher block. Tara blew on her hands, trying to warm them, as she went to fetch it, only to pause. Atop the impeccably scrubbed butcher block, beneath the blade of the knife, was a note written in Donna's childish scribble. Tara's hand went behind her back, instinct telling her not to touch it, common sense telling her that caution was ridiculous.
Touch it she did. The news was a flash, scrawled in the throes of excitement. Donna was engaged.
Bill Hamilton was a bridegroom to be. Around the message she had drawn a curlicued heart and through the heart the knife had been jammed, its handle obscuring the bottom half of the page.
Grasping it tight, Tara wiggled it, yanking it out of the wood. With her other hand she picked up the note. In bold, block print, the message had been amended, Bill laughing while he wrote ” ”Til death do we part” before he had driven the knife through that papery heart, drawing no blood but making Tara's run cold.
Sick. Furious. Appalled at the grossness of the joke, the intimate inference that they shared a dangerous understanding of the way Bill's mind worked. She didn't want to think about it, much less understand it. Tara wanted rest. She wanted her life back. She wanted her friends back. She wanted to wake up in the morning and know there was a calendar for her to follow. No more insane teasing from Bill Hamilton. No more idiotic accusations of jealousy from Donna. This lunacy would stop now. Tara threw open the back door and stormed across the yard.
”Wake up! Bill, get out here.” Tara banged on the door, dancing on the doorstep of the guest house, jumping off the steps to look through the window. But the curtains were drawn and the night was dark and silent. She lay her fist on the wood again, pounding and pounding. There was no one to hear if she screamed at the top of her lungs and she wished there were. Let someone ask questions, let someone call the cops. Let them take this out of her hands. Send her anyone else, but not someone whom Donna loved. Anyone but that.
She raised her fist and dropped it again. One.
Two. Three times.
Bill was right. He was nuts. He needed help, but if she was going to get it for him, then he had to stay out of her s.p.a.ce. She could not, would not, live with him. That was Donna's choice, not hers.
”Bill,” she screamed, ”I want to talk to you now.
Get out here.”
The door opened. She shut her mouth and clenched her jaw. One step back and the knife was held at the ready. Tara knew only that it was there and that holding it made her feel safer. But the door stopped opening. Tara stepped forward and gave it a little push, her knees buckling in the face of such frightful uncertainty. He had touched her tonight, laid his hands on her. He had watched her and she was shaken. What was left? What would he do now that she had come for him? With a courage fueled by desperation, Tara pushed a little harder.
”Don't you play these sick little games, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Tara hissed.
”I don't care if we wake the dead, you're going to explain this and all the rest of it. The phone call. I know I didn't dream it.
The .. .”
Slowly the door opened all the way. Donna, half asleep, held on to the k.n.o.b and leaned against the jamb.
”Tara, come on, that hurt.” She mumbled, her voice slurred with a sleepiness born of pills.
”What time is it? What are you doing?”
”Donna, I need to talk to Bill. Just go back to bed and send Bill out here. I need to see him.
Now .. .” Tara's voice broke.
”Don't you ever give up, Tara. Talk in the morning,” she muttered and the door began to close again. Tara put her hand out, more gently this time so she could reach around and take hold of Donna and pull her outside onto the stoop. Swiftly she closed the door behind them.
”Tara, don't. It's freezing. I'm not dressed,” Donna whined, coming awake now as Tara wanted.
She held Donna close, not for warmth but from a need to be secretive.
This was better. Much better than confronting Bill.
”Listen to me. Donna. Listen good. Look at this.” Tara held up the knife. It looked uglier in the dark, a dull gleam running up the backbone of the long blade. She held Donna tight, shaking her as she ordered, ”Wake up and look at this.”
”What? It's a knife, Tara. I've got twenty at home.” Donna twisted, trying to squirm her way out of Tara's grip.
”Ever had one through your heart?” Tara growled.
”Huh? Ever thought about that?”
”Wha .. . ?” Donna was shaking her head now, her eyes blinking like crazy as she fought the effects of her sleeping pill.
”Through your heart,” Tara said, punching each word for emphasis.
”That sweet little note you left me about your engagement. Well, your intended left his own little message. He drew another heart.
He wrote, ”Til death do we part,” then stuck this through the heart. Through it. Donna. Don't you understand? Don't you see what he's trying to tell me?” Tara took a deep breath. Her eyes darted to the door. It was still closed, the house still silent, Tara still frightened. Her whisper grew more urgent still.
”Don't get any clothes, just come with me to the house. I want you to leave tonight. Bill can stay here, and I'll take care of him. He needs help. Donna, and I don't want you around if it gets ugly.”
Donna was staring now, standing quietly in the circle of Tara's arm. She looked drunk. She looked astonished. Finally she looked amused, and then she started to giggle.
”Tara. You are getting weird. Very, very, very weird.” Donna put her hand out, touched the knife, then backed off to the door, clearly annoyed.
”It was a joke. He thought our news would be like a knife through your heart. We shouldn't have laughed about it, but we did. He stuck the note to the board with a knife. Big deal.”
”Donna, you don't understand. Donna .. .”
Tara insisted in a frantic whisper, but Donna already had the door open.
”I'm freezing, Tara. Go to bed. Sleep it off or whatever.” She waved behind, shooing Tara away from her.
”I'm not drunk,” Tara said, throwing herself against the door and holding her hands across the frame.
”He hurts people. Donna. He's going to hurt you.”
”Oh, please.” Donna turned back and rolled her eyes.
”That man loves me. He took me to bed tonight and touched me and loved me and I loved him back. Want to look?” She held out her arms.
”See any scratches? Bruises? Want to watch next time just to make sure I come out unscathed?”
”I'm not crazy,” Tara said flatly.
”Really?” Donna asked.
”Could've fooled me.”
The door closed. Tara was alone in the cold dark wondering if maybe, just maybe, she had lost her mind.
Quietly, in a fog. Donna slipped back into bed with Bill. She turned on her side, asleep before her head hit the pillow. Beside her, Bill Hamilton lay quietly, his eyes on the ceiling, his mind on the pain that shot through his head. Then, there was nothing.