Lucifer's Tears

41

I find Kate lying on the couch in the dark, in a bathrobe, her hands folded atop her big pregnant belly. I pick her legs up, slide under them, rest them in my lap and sit next to her. The dull glow of a streetlight shows me tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. She’s sniffling.

“What happened?” I ask.

She whispers. “It’s true, what I said before. I failed my brother and sister.”

“Tell me.”

“Mary might hear. Help me up and let’s go to the bedroom.”

I stand and hoist her onto her feet. As she comes close to term, she’s having a harder and harder time getting around.

We go to our room and lie on top of the covers. Kate takes her usual position, her head in the crook of my shoulder, her face nuzzled into my neck. “Mary is only twenty-five,” she says, “but she acts like an old woman.”

“I noticed.”

“I wanted to find out what’s wrong with her. Why she’s so stern. Why she’s so obsessed with fundamentalist religion. I talked to her for a long time today, and asked without asking what happened to her after I left for college when she was eighteen.”

Kate chokes back a sob, takes a second and composes herself. “Mary told me that after I left for college, Dad started bringing his friends home to drink with him. I pushed her to tell me about it, because I could tell Mary was hiding something. I kept pressing her about what happened and asked her point-blank if she was raped. She denied being raped, but said one of Dad’s friends used to make her drink hard liquor and then do something to her that ‘tasted bad.’”

Kate’s composure dissolves. She grabs my head in her hands and pushes her face against mine to stifle the sound of her sobs. She spits out broken words. “Mary was abused and forced to do awful, disgusting things. I don’t think she even remembers what happened.”

I pull her closer. “If she doesn’t remember, maybe it’s for the best.”

She wipes snot and tears off my neck and onto her bathrobe. “Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“And I thought she’s happily married, and maybe she is, but I got the impression that her husband isn’t good to her, that they live some sort of severe religious lifestyle, and when she doesn’t conform to it, he beats her. I think that’s why she acts so old.”

I wish I had some comforting words, but Kate’s explanation of Mary’s personality makes sense to me. “I’m sorry,” I say.

“All I wanted was for all three of us to be happy,” she says.

“I know.”

“How is your head?” she asks.

“Fine.”

With difficulty, Kate rolls over and flips on the bedside lamp. She rolls back to me. “Look in my eyes,” she says.

I do.

“When your headaches are bad,” she says, “your pupils get so small that I can hardly see them. When your migraines are very very bad, I can’t see much more than the whites of your eyes. Right now, your pupils are almost invisible. Your head is killing you, isn’t it?”

She’s got me. “Yes.”

Anger and frustration creep into her voice. “You lie to me. Why?”

I take a second before answering. “Because I’m afraid for you and our baby. Because I don’t want to cause you needless stress and worry.”

“When you lie to protect me, you treat me like a child. It’s not fair and it’s not right. I also had a talk with John today.”

I suppress a sigh. I guess she’s got all the goods on me. “And?”

“And I knew there was something going on between you two, and I made him tell me what it was.”

She put John on the spot, but I told him to keep things between us between us. It pisses me off. “He wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“He said that, too, but he said you told him to be my friend, and he thought the best way to do that was by telling me what a good husband I have. He told me the truth about himself, about getting fired from New York University and why. Then he told me about his screwups since he arrived in Finland and how you fixed them all. About how you got his boots back.”

I say nothing, prepare for her well-deserved anger.

Kate wraps her arms around my neck and hugs me tight. “Thank you so much,” she says. “John is right, you’re a wonderful husband.”

I think I know Kate so well, but she continues to amaze me.

“But still,” she says, “you should have told me the truth.”

“I was afraid to. John’s life is his own, and I didn’t see how upsetting you with his problems could help.”

“He’s my brother, and you don’t have the right to make those decisions for me. And this discussion goes deeper than that.”

I was afraid of that. “How?”

“You keep all sorts of things from me. We’ve been together for almost two and a half years, been through a lot together, but still you hold things back. I know things hurt you. I want you to tell me about them.”

“I don’t see how it would help.”

“Maybe you should try and find out.”

Back against the wall. I let out a sigh. “Tell me what you want to know.”

“Everything. But this thing with Mary has taught me that I need to know about your childhood.”

“Like what?”

“People were mean to you, especially your father. I want to know about it.”

I try to make myself tell her, but I can’t. I don’t want her to know. “Maybe one day,” I say, “but I’m not ready for that.”

“Don’t you trust me?” she asks.

“Yes, but it’s not about you. I’m just not ready.”

We hold each other in silence for a while. “I shouldn’t have pressed so hard,” she says, “but please don’t lie to me anymore.”

I consider if this is possible for me. It is. “I won’t,” I say, “but sometimes I need time to work up to telling you things. You have to let me do it in my own time and in my own way.”

“Okay,” she says.

Kate falls asleep. I lie awake thinking. We hold each other tight, in a state of detente.