CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LAST TIME TERESA
She was wearing the same clothes she'd had on the first time I'd first seen her; pink sneakers, cut-off blue jeans, pink halter with black polka dots. I hoped for a brief instant that I had been thrown back in time, to the good old days, before my wife was a murderer and my son more than a memory on a chain link fence. Perhaps, I thought, Rollins had forced the issue and plead my case and made “a time” no time at all.
I touched her mind, but it only interred a dead hope, for all the images and memories on the surface were those of the few hours just past…
...bolting from the house after seeing Jim trying to do things to the woman who looked dead; running down the street, turning to see the police, being knocked over by some invisible force, getting up and running more, hearing gun shots but not turning to look again; out of breath minutes later, drained from guilt at abandoning Jim; gaining a second wind which seemed to push her so her feet seemed to skim the ground…
Later: cleaning up in a gas station bathroom, scrounging enough money for a candy bar dinner, taking the longest way home she could, arriving just before I had.
Now, on the couch, anguished, spent, empty.
But the tears were drying. And it was time to leave.
Thoughts of home had slowly surfaced from the depths as well, and the direction for her life had been made. Finally.
I helped her pack.
She had forsaken the suitcase for a plastic grocery bag, which was more than sufficient as she was traveling fast and light. Bathroom junk, kitchen crap, all the other accoutrements of life were now useless and ignored. Papers, magazines, food, utensils the same. Most of her clothes couldn't be worn during daylight. Jim's clothes would be left as well. Teresa dangerously ran her hand over one of his shirts hanging in the closet, lingering, letting it slide off the hanger and draping it over her shoulder. She turned to the dresser and the pile of a dozen or more pictures lying scattered on top. Pictures of her and Jim. She flipped through them. One at the beach. One of Jim with a fu-man-chu. Two of them at a bike show. Jim asleep on the couch. Teresa naked on the bed. Jim sitting at the table, scowling at the camera.
I scowled with him. She had looked at them all with a half-smile, but the last had brought a tremor to her lips. She dropped it on the dresser and sat on the bed, squeezing out tears until her entire body was trembling.
A few minutes later found her still on the bed, her face buried in Jim's shirt, her arms quivering uncontrollably. She stood and took deep breaths, her hands to her chest, hyperventilating.
She looked toward the closet.
I moved to cut her off but she walked through me and knelt down in front of the closet, reaching her hand deep within, bringing back a plastic bag. She walked through me again into the living room.
She sat on the couch and dumped the bag of joints onto the coffee table. I jumped over it and tried to connect with her mind while she lit one and inhaled quickly three times.
"There’s no time for that now," I said out loud. "The police could be here at any time. Go, get out, be free."
Nothing.
I moved in front of her, put my hand to her chest and pushed. There was a faint connection.
"Teresa, listen, time is short. Home is calling. Listen, listen...clear your mind. Open your eyes and see."
But as the drug took hold she became more distant and my temples throbbed. The small grasp I had slipped away until I was outside watching.
After she finished the first she lit another and inhaled desperately, trying to keep memories from sneaking in between puffs. Suddenly she pulled it from her lips and let it fall to the carpet. She began breathing deeply, looking around the room in a panic, then crying out and putting her hands to her head. “Make it stop!” She shook her head violently from side to side, then bent over and squeezed it with both hands like a vise.
I bent with her. "Rollins!"
She stood, stumbled, and landed on her side onto the floor. She curled into the fetal position, holding her head, kicking at air.
"Rollins!"
"I'm here." I turned and he was standing next to me as I knelt beside Teresa.
"What's happening?"
"One of the joints," he said, kneeling next to me, "had some added ingredients."
"I know, I know," I said. "Jim's going-away present. I thought she'd be gone by now—dammit! What was in it?"
"Detergent. Some rat poison. Pure crystal."
Teresa was moaning, eyes shut and watering, bubbling spit coming from her mouth.
"What's happening to her?"
“She’s dying.” His look was even, concerned, inevitable.
"What can I do?"
“Let’s get her up.” He put his arms under hers, sat her up and propped her against the couch.
“Should we get her anything?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
“What can we do?”
"Pray."
So I prayed. Maybe not what I should have prayed, but it was from the heart.
I prayed it would be over soon.
I knew too much to do otherwise, for if the joint had been laced with all the things Rollins had said, especially the pure crystal, it was a matter of simple steps, one after the other, leading to the last. Rapid heart rate, rapid rise in body temperature, a pounding in her head that wouldn’t go away. And that was just the beginning.
Delirium came next, her voice babbling in staccato strainings that were beyond interpretation. Then blindness, as connections in her brain began to fry. Then loss of speech. Loss of feeling. Loss of movement. It was a disappearance of life, a regression that was bringing her back to the helpless state of the newborn, and a step beyond. It was all taking place before me and I could do nothing but breathe whatever peace I could into her heart and mind and soul.
Gradually, mercifully, it began to subside. She was rocking back and forth, back and forth, staring at emptiness, her blank eyes holding nothing but tears. Then, small convulsions. Finally...so finally, her eyes closed and her breathing stopped and the sensation of life left my fingers. I took my hands from her and ran them over my face and found it wet.
Stupid whore.
Her eyes opened.
She looked up at me dully through moist haze, focused a squint and managed a faint smile.
"Who...who are you?"
I jerked straight as if shot. "Rollins!" I stared into her eyes. They were alive and clear and curious. And seeing. "She can see me.” My eyes darted to him briefly. “She can see me. Do you see? She can see--"
The words caught in my throat, for in looking back I found Teresa’s eyes closed and her face expressionless and her lips silent and her life gone. I stared for a moment before reaching over to carefully touch her cheek.
"She saw me."
"I know."
"Does that mean...?" I took my hand from her and found it trembling.
“Trace, listen–“
I jumped to my feet and ran, and kept running until I got to the sidewalk and to the street and to the freeway exit, running up the off-ramp and not slowing until I reached the fast lane where I walked slowly and deliberately into traffic, letting face after face move through me until I couldn’t see Teresa’s anymore.