Play Dead

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Serita said.

“Not yet,” Laura answered. “My father is working late tonight. My mother should be home in a few minutes.”

“Are you going to wait out here?”

“I have a key.”

“Right,” Serita said. “Well, good luck, Laura. Keep your cool.”

“I will.”

Laura turned away from the car and made her way to the door. She fumbled through her purse, found her key, placed it in the lock. The door opened easily. She moved into the house and closed the door behind her.

Her hand located the light switch from rote memory. She had been flicking that switch since she was a fat infant who had had to stand on her tiptoes to reach it. She glanced about the surroundings of her youth as though they were all new to her. The familiar house seemed different today, like a book she had only skimmed through but never bothered to read from cover to cover.

Laura climbed the steps to the upper level of the house. She knew exactly where she was heading. At the very least, her mother was an organized person. Everything had its place. Mary Ayars lost nothing. It was a characteristic her younger daughter had not inherited. Whenever Mary had visited Laura’s office, she invariably asked, “How can you work in this mess? How can you find anything?”

The truth was that half the time Laura could not find what she was looking for, but then again, that was why she had Estelle. Estelle, who was up at Colgate with Judy’s mystery key, kept great files, freeing Laura to create mass disarray in peace. Laura’s mind worked fast, too fast sometimes. Ideas flew in and then details would slip out. Not so with her mother. Her mother was a plodder. She did one thing at a time and she did not take on a new task until the prior one had been completed.

My mother would never hurt me, never hurt our family. She loves us. . . .

Laura’s head pounded. Her mother. Her beautiful, loving, often smothering mother. Mary Ayars had taken care of her daughters when they were sick, had held them when they were scared of the dark. She had read them stories before bed and tucked them in with a kiss before sleep. Could it have all been a lie? Had Laura ever really known her mother? Questions like these ate away at Laura’s brain, ate away at her ability to be rational. So few things in life were consistent. Her mother had always loved her unequivocally and unselfishly, but now Laura was forced to wonder about the very foundation of her life. Mary Ayars’s ravishing facade was being slowly peeled away, and Laura no longer wanted to see what was underneath it.

There has to be a mistake. There just has to be. . . .

But her mind knew that her mother held the key to David’s death. How, why, she could not say. Her mother had hated David from the beginning, had begged Laura not to see him. Why? She had never even met him, had never even sat in the same room with him. Why was she so against their relationship? Couldn’t she see how happy he made her, that for the first time she was truly in love? Had a thirty-year-old love affair blinded Mary so? Had the past forced her to fly to Australia, meet with David, and . . . what?

A chill passed through the corridor. Laura did not know the answer to that question but it would come soon enough. Right now there was something else that Laura had to do. She entered her parents’ bedroom and made her way straight to the night table on her mother’s side of the bed. She pulled open the second drawer and spotted the blue cover almost immediately. She took it out, opened it, quickly glanced through the pages. In a matter of seconds, her fears were confirmed. She had known it was coming, had prepared herself for it, but the confirmation still wrenched her heart painfully.

It’s true. My God, it’s true. . . .

A door opened downstairs. “Hello?”

Her mother’s voice. Even the sweet voice now seemed tainted. “I’m up here, Mother.”

“Laura?” Mary called back, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Laura placed the blue item from the drawer in her pocket. “I came to talk to you,” she yelled down.

“At eight o’clock at night? Why didn’t you call, darling?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“You should get to a hospital. Dr. Clarich says—”

“I feel fine.”

“And how did you get here anyhow? Your car isn’t in the driveway.”

Though the voice was only coming from downstairs, it seemed to echo from so far away. “Serita drove me.”

“Then you’ll be staying the night?”

Laura could hear the hope in her mother’s voice. “I don’t think so. She’ll be back for me in a little while.”

Mary moved into the kitchen. “Why don’t you come downstairs, Laura? All of this yelling is giving me a headache.”

A headache? Laura thought as she crossed the room. Did you ever see David get one of his headaches, Mother? No? Then you have no idea what a headache is. You think that slight prick of discomfort in your head is truly painful? What a laugh, but then again you have always had it soft, haven’t you, Mother? You’ve always been shielded from life’s hardships. You let your beauty twist and mold everything to suit your needs. You never worked a day in your life. You spent your life pretending to crave independence when all you wanted to do was make excuses. Dad always took care of you, kept you fed and clothed and happy like some overgrown child. And how did you repay him, dearest Mother? By betraying him. By sleeping with David’s father and who knows how many others.

With each step Laura let the rage build and fester until her mind was ready to explode. Gone were thoughts of prudence—thoughts that maybe there was a logical explanation for all of this, thoughts that maybe her mother had nothing to do with David’s death. Seething anger had crept into Laura and taken over reason. She strode into the kitchen and faced her mother.

Mary spun around and stared at her daughter’s face worriedly. “Laura,” she said, “are you okay?”

Laura did not respond. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the item she had taken out of the night table. When Mary saw what was in her daughter’s hand, her eyes widened with fear. “What are you doing with that?”

“I just got it out of your drawer,” Laura said.

“You have no right to go through my things.”

“And you had no right to kill my husband.”

The silence was staggering, suffocating. Mary took one step back, her hand fluttering to her throat. “What did you say?”