A Web of Black Widows Read online

  But the father didn't heed him. He was much shorter than the man in the leather jacket, but he was still able to reach up and place his hand on the man's shoulder. Marty stepped closer.

  "Go ahead, son," Father Jantz said.

  The man bowed his head, then dropped to his knees. Marty looked beyond him at the bodies in the surf. A man in a plaid shirt and jeans. And a naked pregnant woman.

  "What happened?" he asked.

  The man didn't answer.

  Slowly, gingerly, Father Jantz lowered himself to his own knees. "It's okay to speak," he said. "Speaking is a way of healing, so long as it's the truth. Just start from the beginning."

  And when the man looked up, with the tiniest flicker of hope in his eyes, that's exactly what he did.

  The Woman Coughed Up By The Sea

  THE ARTIST FOUND HER just after dawn — a young woman, in jeans and a yellow sweater, curled into a ball on the beach. The whispering sea lapped at her bare feet. The sun, breaking through the dense clouds, laced the white-crusted waves with red. The air was thick with salt and heavy with impending rain.

  She was dead. He knew that before he touched her. Her skin, which at one time must have been pink and rosy, was now as white as the sand dollars he pocketed on his morning walks. Her brown hair, matted to her face, was tangled with the long green grass that grew in the ocean. When he did touch her — lightly on her neck with two fingers, as if she might crumble before his eyes — her skin was colder than anything he had ever touched in his life.

  "How did you end up here?" he asked.

  Speaking had been automatic. An impulse. What else could he do? She was dead, coughed up by the sea, and he couldn't just leave her there. He took hold of the back of her sweater and pulled her to her feet. She was a wafer of a woman, her body almost skeletal, and he managed to throw her over his shoulder.

  Her weight made him zig-zag across the beach. He felt her wet body pressing through his thin windbreaker. He passed a lone jogger — an old man with hair like wild white waves and a chiseled face like petrified wood. The jogger's mouth dropped open when he saw the woman, but it was the artist who spoke.

  "Too much to drink," he said, laughing.

  Breathing heavy now, he carried the woman up the stone steps, to the white cottage on the bluff that looked out at the sea. He struggled to get the key in the lock, the clinking metal breaking the stillness. Once inside, he crossed through the dark room and put her down on the rocking chair next to the bay window, her body melting against the oak. He pulled back the curtains behind her, letting light flood into the room.

  He went to his easel on the other side of the room, brushing off the dust before sitting on the stool. The paintings surrounding him on the walls — the beach in the evening, the lighthouse at Neander's peak, the sea lions playing at the Punchbowl — all pictured a young woman in a white dress. In all of them her face was blotted out with black paint.

  Picking up his trusty HB, a soft-lead pencil that was still sharp, he began to sketch the dead woman's portrait on the faded yellow canvas taped to the board. He didn't look at the portrait as he worked. He was watching her: the curve of her sloping breasts under her soaked sweater, the chiseled nose coated with sand, the lazy line from her hips down her legs to her ankles. When he finished the sketch, he opened his acrylic paints and picked up a brush. The bristles were a little hard, and with thumb and index finger he massaged them back to usefulness.

  He was putting the finishing touches on the painting — a few soft strokes of brown under her neck to accentuate the shadows from her hair — when there was a knock at the door.

  "Come in," he said.

  The door swung open slowly, cautiously, as if the person feared something within. When the door finally opened, the artist saw that it was a young policeman: tall, crew cut blond hair, face as smooth as polished rock. His eyes danced feverishly back and forth, his gaze finally landing on the artist.

  "Sir?"

  The artist motioned impatiently for him to come inside. "Almost finished," he said.

  The policeman came into the room. When he saw the woman in the chair, he looked at the artist. "So it's true," he said. "An old jogger told me. Fit a report that came in last night. Woman fell overboard."

  The artist put down his brush. The policeman stepped over next to the artist and looked at the painting. He glanced at the woman. He looked back at the painting, leaning closer. "It's not her, is it?"

  The artist studied the pale, silent corpse in his rocking chair, then looked at his canvas — and really saw the woman he had painted. "No," he said. "But I thought it was her until you said so just now." He picked up the paintbrush, dabbed at the black paint, and wiped out the woman's face.

  "Who was she?" the policeman asked, looking at the paintings on the wall.

  The artist didn't answer. He looked past the painting, past all his paintings, past the woman in the chair, out the window at the sea. The morning light was strong and made him squint. The waves were rolling inland, the tide coming in — slowly, with purpose, to retreat only to return again.

  Black Lace and Salt Water

  SHE WAS GOING TO SURPRISE HIM — got off work an hour early, picked up a couple of steaks from Roy's and some cheap red wine, and figured she'd make an early dinner, maybe celebrate her getting the dayshift at the hospital with a little lovemaking. It'd been two weeks and they hadn't properly celebrated. She knew they'd better get some lovemaking in soon before her belly got too big.

  Life was full of such simple plans, and she should have known that it wouldn't bear out the way she wanted. Maybe other people's plans worked, but Megan's seldom did.

  The sky was darkening to a deep purple by the time she parked in her numbered spot, the asphalt still slick from the afternoon rain. Their complex was split into two sections, forming a V that gave everyone a decent view of the ocean. It had been painted only a year earlier, but already the reddish-brown was beginning to gray. Such was life on the Oregon coast. Eventually the constant buffeting of the harsh wind drained the color out of everything.

  The white shade was pulled, but since the curtain was open, and it was now brighter inside the condo than outside, she could see fairly well into the living room. She was about to get the bag of groceries out of the backseat—hating how she waddled, the damn pregnant woman's waddle—when she saw the shape of person pass by the window.

  She froze. After ten years married to Nathan, she knew without a doubt that the shape she saw was not him. Nathan was short, broad-shouldered, with a head slightly too large for his body. This person had been tall and thin—incredibly tall and thin, with arms and neck that seemed no thicker than broomsticks. When they were in college, Nathan used to watch at lot of women's basketball, and some of the really tall players reminded her of this shape, with their small torsos and stretched-looking limbs.

  Megan's throat went dry. Nathan had cheated on her once, shortly after they met, but she had no reason to suspect anything since. He had been drunk and they hadn't been serious at the time. He had made no friends since they moved to Lincoln City, but this wasn't a surprise, because he tended to be a brooding, introverted sort who preferred to spend long hours by himself.

  Hands trembling, she retrieved the brown paper bag and carried it up the concrete steps to the landing. She kept trying to reassure herself that he probably just met some local hermit, a poet he found through one of the obscure literary journals he read. They'd met on the beach and Nathan had invited him up to the condo for a brandy.

  But Nathan would never do such a thing.

  And then there was the fact that he wasn't expecting her . . .

  Armed with her grocery bags, she hesitated on the landing outside the door. She hadn't seen anyone else pass in front of the window. The blustery wind whipped around her bare legs.

  She heard Nathan's low rumbling voice, but she didn't hear any other voices. Only his.

  There was a long silence, then he spoke again.

  She tr
ied the door, found it unlocked, and stepped inside. The entryway was dark. Glancing to the right, into a cozy living room lighted by the yellow glow a single lamp, she saw Nathan sitting in the wicker rocker.

  And a roomful of sea-people.

  There were at least a dozen of them, some standing, some sitting on the brown leather couch or the wicker chairs. Sea-people was the first thing that came to mind because of the way they looked—their skin the color of seaweed, a dark, shimmering green. What looked like real seaweed hung like a horse's mane from the undersides of their pole-like arms and calves. They could have been wearing costumes, but if so, they would have been the most incredible costumes she had ever seen. And the smell. My God. It was like the time they went up to Fisherman's Wharf in Seattle. The pungent odor of fish was overpowering in the same way.

  Their heads were small, sleek, and round like volley-balls. When she entered, they turned and looked at her with eyes as big as her fists, shiny and glistening like black pearls. Their noses were just small rises in the green flesh underneath their eyes, and their mouths . . .

  They had no mouths.

  Megan realized too late that the grocery bags had slipped from her hands.

  i can hear the baby

  when im down here in the dark and they put their long fingers over my ears and they put seaweed in my mouth i hear things up there above the sea

  i hear it moving kicking ready to come out

  it wont be long

  they tell me it takes time

  do you know were having a girl

  It was Megan's idea that they move to the Oregon coast. They were sitting at the kitchen table in Fairmont, Minnesota, the half-eaten spaghetti on their plates cold, the air still charged with all of their harsh words. Nathan wouldn't look at her. He was looking out the half-closed blinds at the bent and twisted apple tree in their backyard—the one that looked like an old man stooping to pick something up out of the tall grass. The sky was going dark.

  "Look at me," she said.

  Slowly, he turned to her. He had chocolate-brown eyes, his black hair already thinning and going gray at thirty, just as his father's had. His cheeks were flushed pink, which is what happened whenever he got mad.

  "Tell me why," she said.

  He sighed and leaned forward, placing his long-fingered hands on the white-tile table. They were beautiful hands. When she first met him in the student union at Mankato State University, when he stooped to pick up her handbag, that's what she noticed. His hands. She had wanted to make love to a man with those hands.

  "I can't explain it," he said, his voice now hoarse.

  "Try."

  "I already told you, I can't."

  "Don't get angry. I'm trying to help you."

  Anger flashed in his eyes, then faded. His faced looked aged and tired as he turned to look at the apple tree.

  "It's like . . . " he began, then shrugged.

  "Go on," she said.

  "I don't know. Something's blocking me here, I don't know what it is. I know I sound crazy. This place should be perfect. It's quiet. It's a nice little town. I should hear the music. I just . . . don't." He shook his head.

  Jennifer knew exactly what he was talking about. Music was his word for the muse. But moving down to Fairmont from Minneapolis had been his idea. When his first book hit the bestseller list in their final year of college, something almost unheard of for a book of poetry, they had moved up to the Twin Cities to be closer to the community of writers there.

  But the poems in Jagged Edges had been the only ones he had written in the last three years. Since they were frugal with his advance, they still had enough left to make a down payment on a house in the little town of Fairmont. A place to get away from the rush of the big city. Since she was a nurse, Megan could get a job anywhere.

  "Where can we move that you will be happy?" she asked.

  "It's not that I'm not happy . . . "

  "Your exact words were, 'I hate this place.' Did I hear wrong?"

  "Don't be mad, honey, please."

  She hated how he never looked her in the eyes. She wished there was a way she could just reach inside him and make it right. When the money rolled in for his first book, she had no problems going to work each morning while he stayed home. But the royalties had slowed to a trickle, and most of the advance had been spent paying off school loans. She found herself becoming bitter about how he did nothing all day while she paid the mortgage.

  Then there was the baby issue.

  They had agreed to start trying when he was twenty-eight, and he was fine with that when they were in college. But now that the time had come, he said he needed to make sure he could write first. And so they fought. And fought. And fought until there was nothing more to say and they had come around to the beginning, forgetting what it was they were fighting about. It was always about something different, and yet it always ended up being about the same thing. Writing poetry and babies.

  She could see the love crumbling in front of her eyes, and she didn't want it to happen.

  "Answer me," she said.

  "Answer you what?"

  "Tell me where you'd rather live."

  "Oh, I don't know."

  She placed her own, smaller hand over his. His fingers were warm, the skin dry.

  "I'm serious," she said. "Pick any place. I don't care. You want to go to Hawaii?"

  "No, no."

  "Florida?"

  He laughed sharply and pulled his hands away. "Where all the old people live?"

  "Well, where then? Come on, I'm a nurse. We can go anywhere."

  He frowned. The skin under his eyes quivered, and she was afraid he was going to cry.

  "I'm not sure it'll make a difference," he said.

  "How will we know unless we try?"

  He shrugged.

  "Come on," she said, "there must be someplace."

  "I don't know. You pick."

  She thought about it. There was a time, long ago, that they had taken a cross-country trip to visit an aunt of hers in Portland, Oregon. On their last day, they had made a run out to the coast. She remembered how much Nathan had loved it.

  The cool whip of the air. The rocky beaches. The smell of salt water.

  She remembered how they camped on the beach that night. They had set up their little dome tent and zipped their two sleeping bags together. By the golden light of a single propane lantern, she had undressed for him. She had known something like that might happen, and she had worn the black lace nightie that was his favorite. They made love then, and in the morning he wrote her a poem. Later it was published in Jagged Edges.

  "Let's move to the Oregon coast," she said.

  have you found my notes

  they showed me how to do this

  if i imagine the yellow sticky pad on our refrigerator and if i think about the words they will appear

  when i hear the music i will write poems on here

  and then you can sell them

  and make money

  for you and the baby

  They had been living in Neskowin for a year when Megan finally forced the issue. She was nearly thirty, and she couldn't wait any longer. She had read far too many articles about what happened to a woman's eggs if you waited. Down's syndrome. Birth defects.

  He pleaded with her. Begged. Said give me more time. Just a few months. He wanted children, too, but he needed his long hours of walking on the beach to get him going again. It was working. He knew he was going to hear the music soon.

  She gave him a month.

  Then, miraculously, he started writing.

  He never showed anything to her, of course, but that wasn't surprising. He never wanted to show her his poetry until it was finished. But she saw him scribbling in his little red notebooks, saw how the cover was bent and worn. When he came back from the beach, he always had it tucked under his arm.

  After a month, he agreed to start trying.

  She got pregnant immediately.

  She was
worried how he would react when he found out, but he hugged her and said he was happy. He sounded genuine. He came to all of her OB/GYN appointments. He asked lots of questions. He went shopping with her at Babies by the Sea. She said she wanted the nursery painted with an underwater theme. He picked out a children's book that contained cartoon-like sea creatures and painted them on the wall.

  Meanwhile, he filled one red notebook after another.

  thank you for leaving me the note

  yes i can read whatever you put on the sticky pad

  i understand that youre lonely

  thank you for wearing your black nightie

  i promise it wont be long now

  they said it might take longer for me

  im different from them and so they dont know how long

  Sea-people.

  Sea-people in her living room.

  Megan felt herself falling, but Nathan was up and out of his chair the moment she walked through the door. It wasn't fast enough to prevent the groceries from crashing to the vinyl, the bags ripping open, the potatoes rolling onto the carpet, but he was fast enough to grab her waist and keep her steady. Her vision went black briefly, and when she opened her eyes, the sea-people were on their feet as well.

  Their heads nearly touched the ceiling.

  "Who— ?" she began.

  "My friends," he said, smiling.

  He turned and looked at them, and they nodded at her. She tried not to look at where their mouths should be.

  "They say hello," he said.

  "You can hear them?"

  He nodded, tightening his grip on her arms. "They heard me, honey," he said. "I have been writing and writing in my journals but nothing has come of it. It's all been flat. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to be disappointed."

  "But you were writing," she said. "At least you were writing." She wished her heart would slow down.

  "Yes, and they heard me. There must have been a glimmer of music, because one day they showed up on our doorstep. No one can see them or hear them unless they want to be seen, but they spoke to me. Me! Their voices are like songs in my brain. And they said they would teach me to find my music, honey. They've been trying to teach me here, but it's not working. They want me to come with them."