Crimson Rain

He sighed. “At least she’s smiling now. I was beginning to think—”

“I know what you mean,” Gina said. “She’s been a bear this trip.”

“Maybe we can convince her just to put on the lights tonight. You think she’d be okay with that?”

“We can give it a try,” Gina said.

Rachel’s cry from inside hit them as they came up the walk. “Mom! Dad!”

Gina and Paul ran the rest of the way, following Rachel’s voice into the living room. There they found the Christmas tree lying on its side, a pool of water surrounding it. The bucket lay empty on the hardwood floor.

Gina rushed forward, whipping off her woolen scarf and kneeling, trying to mop up the water before it did any more damage to the wood. “For God’s sake, Paul, I told you to make sure the tree was secure enough so it couldn’t fall!”

“I did,” he said, bristling at the criticism. “I’ll go get some towels.”

“Never mind. Rachel, get me that throw cover over there.”

Gina motioned to a heavy throw lying over a chair, but Rachel didn’t move. Her face was pale as she stared at the tree, her eyes dark and frightened.

“Rachel?” Gina’s tone was one of concern more than irritation, but Rachel’s head snapped up and she took a step backward.

“Don’t touch me! Get back!” Her hands rose as if to protect herself.

Gina started, and Paul stopped in his tracks to stare at his daughter.

“Rachel?” he said softly. “Rach, it’s okay.”

Gina rose slowly and moved carefully toward her daughter. “Shh. Shh, honey, it’s all right.”

Rachel’s gaze rose from the fallen tree to her mother. For a moment she barely moved. Then her face crumpled and tears filled her eyes. “It’s not all right!” she cried. “Nothing is ever going to be all right again!”

3

The next day, Rachel sat across from the psychiatrist who had treated her from the ages of six to sixteen. Victoria Lessing was older, of course, her hair graying now, but only a bit at the temples. Otherwise it was the same pale blond, pulled back into a twist. She still had that look in her violet eyes, too—the one that said, I know your every thought. You can’t hide a thing from me.

“It’s been a while, Rachel.”

Rachel sighed. “You said it. I thought we were through with all this.”

“Well, your parents are worried.”

Rachel gave a shrug.

“You don’t think they should be?”

“No. I just had some bad memories last night. After all, today is Christmas Eve. I think that’s pretty normal.”

“Normal being a relative term,” the psychiatrist said, smiling.

“I suppose.” Rachel fell silent.

“Have you been thinking more about your sister lately?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “Maybe.”

“Do you know why?”

“No.”

“I think you do,” Victoria said softly.

Rachel shrugged again. “I just thought I saw her, once. At Berkeley.”

Victoria leaned forward, resting her arms on her desk. “Really?”

“Well, I was walking around on the campus, and there was this woman. She had dark hair like Angela’s and mine, and…oh, I don’t know. There was just something about the way she looked at me.”

“Did you think she was following you?”

Rachel narrowed her eyes. “You mean, am I getting paranoid again?”

“No. I didn’t mean that at all.”

“But you were thinking it. Rachel’s imagining things again.”

“No, I was not,” Victoria said firmly. “You were a lot younger when you had nightmares that Angela would come back. Now that you’re older, I’m sure you know the difference between being paranoid and feeling something real.”

“Well, I didn’t think this woman was following me, anyway. I just thought it was odd, the way she looked at me. I thought maybe Angela—” Rachel stopped talking and studied her hands.

“You thought that because she was your twin, she might have ended up at the same college as you,” Victoria guessed. “The way identical twins who are separated seem to do similar things in life?”

“I…yes. I guess the thought crossed my mind.”

“Of course you and Angela aren’t identical.”

“No. But does that matter?”

“I’m not sure. You don’t have the same DNA, of course. As for other possibilities…did you try to find out if she was a student at Berkeley? Through the registrar’s office, for instance?”

“No,” Rachel said abruptly.

“You didn’t really want to know,” Victoria guessed again. “Because if it was Angela, you’d have had to do something about it. You’d have had to look her up and talk to her.”

Rachel frowned. “I wish you wouldn’t read my mind that way.”

“That bothers you?”

“Of course it does! You’ve always done that, and it drives me nuts.” Rachel paused, then laughed. “I guess that’s not the sort of thing to say to a psychiatrist.”

Victoria smiled. “We’ve known each other a long time, Rachel. You should know by now, you can say anything to me.”

Rachel hugged herself with her arms, feeling cold even though the room was warm. “I just think it’s silly, Vicky, my parents getting all worried like this. I warped back into the past for a few minutes when I saw that tree on the floor. Doesn’t everybody do that sometimes?”

“Your mother said you were up pacing all night, and you didn’t eat any breakfast this morning.”

“Well, duh! I was upset, for heaven’s sake. I’m over it now.”

“Are you?”

“Yes, dammit!” Rachel gave the therapist a mutinous glare.

Victoria laughed. “I haven’t seen that look since you were…oh, seven or eight.”

The glare faded into a grin.

Victoria reached behind her chair and took a plate from a low mahogany filing cabinet. “Cookie?’

“Geez. I can’t believe you’re still plying patients with chocolate-chip cookies.”

Victoria smiled. “It seems to work.”

Rachel took a cookie. “This is supposed to make me more willing to open up, right?”

“Right.”

She rolled her eyes. “Does psychiatry still work, even when the patient is smart enough to figure out all the moves?”

“Only when the cookies are merely a distraction, to keep the patient from figuring out the real moves.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing to me all these years?” Rachel asked. “Playing mind games?”

“Why would you see it as mind games?” Victoria asked. “Why not simply as a way to help you? A way to get to the truth?”

Rachel snorted. “That assumes there’s any such thing as truth.”

“Are you saying there isn’t?”

Carefully Rachel set the cookie back on the plate. “Let’s approach this from another direction. Do you think you’ve helped me over all these years?”

Victoria hesitated. “I…well, you’ve been going to college, preparing for the future. I certainly think you’re better now than you were when you were sixteen, for instance. Or right after Angela left.”

Rachel’s mood changed in an instant. Jumping to her feet, she clenched her fists at her sides. “Angela left? For God’s sake, Vicky, my sister did not leave! She was sent away—returned to the store, like a defective toaster oven. Why does everyone say she left? Does it make it easier somehow to sweep the truth under the rug?”

“So we’re back to truth,” Victoria said calmly, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms. “What is your truth, Rachel?”

Rachel threw up her hands. “How the hell do I know?”

“Do you want to know?”

“I…of course I do!” But she had paused before answering, and Victoria picked up on it quickly.

“What are you afraid of?” she asked.

Rachel sat again, rubbing her face and taking a deep breath. “I don’t know. I think…I think I’m afraid of Angela. Of what I might find out if I saw her again.”

“Have you been wanting to see her again?”

“I haven’t even really thought much about her since I’ve been away at school. Then all of a sudden, I thought for sure she was there, and it all started up again.”

“What started up?”

Rachel gave Victoria a shaky smile. “The fear. It was like déjàvu. It just washed right over me, like some awful wave. I started to shake, and I actually thought—”

“What? What did you think?”

“It’s…it’s silly.”

“Nothing about fear is silly. Remember when I taught you to turn around and face the monster in your nightmares? What happened?”

“It went away,” Rachel admitted. “The nightmares stopped.”

“So you know you can trust me, right?”

“I guess.”

“Then tell me, Rachel. What did you think when you saw—or thought you saw—Angela?”

“I guess I thought, what if she came here to kill me?” Rachel said, looking down at her hands again. They were shaking.

Victoria rested her chin on tented fingers. “And how does it feel now that you’re home? Safer?”

“God, no! It feels worse. Vicky, I keep thinking something awful is about to happen. And my parents—” She paused.

“What about your parents?” Victoria pressed.

“Oh, hell, they aren’t even here anymore. They’re both doing their own thing, and they hardly talk to each other.”

“I see. When did you first feel this about them?” Victoria asked.

“Last summer, I guess. It was so weird, I couldn’t wait to get back to school.”

“So let’s think about this. Do you feel your parents are no longer around to protect you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Victoria was silent. Finally, she said, “Rachel, let me pose a theory. You’re feeling vulnerable, unprotected, exposed. That could bring up old memories of the night when Angela—”

“Don’t say it,” Rachel interrupted. “I don’t even want to think of it.”

“—when Angela tried to kill you,” Victoria finished, ignoring her. “Look at it, Rachel. See it. Remember it. Then you can let it go.”

Rachel flushed. “You think I haven’t been remembering it all these years? For God’s sake, Vicki!”

“No, what I think is that, as you’ve gotten older, you haven’t been remembering it the right way. We need to work on that.”

“So what you’re saying is that I imagined I saw Angela, because I’m feeling afraid again? My fear conjured her up?”

“Not her, Rachel. A woman who looked like her—” Victoria broke off. “Not even like her, for that matter, since you don’t know what Angela looks like now. Perhaps just some of the same qualities you remember from childhood. Rachel, what does that sound like to you?”

Rachel closed her eyes. “Like I imagined the whole thing. It wasn’t Angela, and she hasn’t come back to try to kill me again. There. Is that better?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know!” Rachel’s eyes flashed, and the mutinous glare came back. “Why do I have to do all the work? You’re the one getting paid for this!”

Victoria shook her head and smiled. “You may be a beautiful, grown-up twenty-one-year-old, Rachel. You may be smart, intelligent, all those good things. But I’m still seeing shades of that little girl in front of me. The one who stuck her chin out and told me to go to hell when she was ten.”

Rachel hesitated, then laughed. “I did do that, didn’t I? God, I must have been a handful.”

“Still are, apparently,” Victoria said with a smile. She picked up her appointment book and a pen. “Okay, now. Do you want us to work together while you’re home on vacation, or not? Shall I put you down for the day after tomorrow?”

“Mom likes to hit the stores the day after Christmas,” Rachel said. “How about the day after that?”

“Right.” Victoria wrote it in.

“Uh…can I have that cookie back?”

Victoria had picked up the plate and was putting it on the file cabinet. She swung back and laughed. “Sure. Maybe it’ll sweeten your mood.”

Rachel stood and gathered up her coat, slipping it on with the cookie between her teeth. Then, taking it in her hand, she said, “Vicky…I know we’re making light of this right now. And to tell the truth, I’m kind of relieved that we are. But I still feel, down deep, that something bad is going to happen.”

Victoria got up and came around the desk, wrapping an arm around Rachel’s shoulders and walking her to the door. “You could be right, of course. But let’s not jump the gun. Let’s look at all sides of it first. Okay?”

Rachel nodded, drawing her pink scarf tighter as Victoria opened the door into the hallway. “God, it’s raining again,” she said, looking back toward the office window. “Now that I’m living in California most of the time, I get so depressed up here when it rains.”

“Espresso,” Victoria said, patting her shoulder. “Get yourself some espresso. Better yet, a mocha. The chocolate will do you good.”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “Maybe I need some Prozac or something.”

Victoria studied her, meeting her eyes. “Maybe you do. But let’s start slowly. We can talk about that later, after we meet some more.”

Rachel sighed. “Okay. See you in a few days, then.”

“Right.” Victoria touched her cheek lightly with a pale, slender hand. “Rachel…try to have a happy Christmas.”

“You, too,” Rachel said, stepping away.

Going down the long, carpeted hallway to the elevator, she felt awkward, as if she were stumbling. As if the hallway had shrunk, and there wasn’t room now to put her feet anywhere. Or the way it felt during the occasional California earthquakes, even when they were only small tremors. It seemed for days afterward that the ground kept moving—but only slightly, so that it was hard to know whether what she felt was real or not.

She hadn’t told Vicky about these “spells,” which had come and gone several times over the past few weeks. She didn’t want anyone to know. It was probably irrational, but the old fear was back: If I tell them too much, they might send me away, too.

4

Sacred Heart, the Queen Anne Hill church that Paul and Gina had been married in, was wall-to-wall with parishioners. Seats were always in demand for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and ten minutes after they’d arrived it was standing room only. Gina had insisted on arriving early to assure their getting a seat, hurrying everyone along. They had made it with half an hour to spare before Mass began, and had landed a pew two rows from the front.

It was hot in the crowded church, and Gina fanned her face with the printed pamphlet containing words to the carols they would sing throughout the service. The beads of perspiration on her forehead reminded her of her wedding day and the heat wave that had come tearing through Seattle that July. She had been sure her gown would melt before the long ceremony was over. As it was, the white satin stuck to her skin when she tried to peel it off that night.

The heat hadn’t dimmed her passion or Paul’s, however. Gina almost blushed now, just thinking of how wanton they were on that honeymoon night.

She sighed. Where had it all gone, that passion? Had it simply dissipated with so many years of familiarity? Was that the natural order of things? Perhaps. Paul’s mother and father didn’t seem all that passionate about each other any longer, yet after some rocky years when Paul was a child, they seemed contented enough. Right now they were on a cruise through the Caribbean, and after that they were flying to Paris, then Rome—an anniversary gift from her and Paul.

As for Roberta, her own mother, who knew? At times, Gina thought Roberta might still be dating. Certainly that wouldn’t be unusual at her age. She was only sixty, and there had been mysterious evenings lately when Roberta wasn’t at home and wouldn’t tell anyone the next day where she’d been. Why she’d be shy about telling anyone she was dating, Gina didn’t know.

For that matter, as she looked around, Gina didn’t see her mother in any of the front pews. Roberta had never, so far as she knew, missed Midnight Mass. Of course, she might have arrived late and had to settle for sitting somewhere in the back. That wasn’t like her, but sometimes the traffic coming over from Gig Harbor was unusually heavy.

Roberta and Gina’s father, Tony, had grown up in this Seattle parish. They had lived their lives in the old-world Catholic way, following the exhortations of the priests in those days to sacrifice and suffer. There would be stars in their crowns in heaven, they were told. Tony had suffered, all right, living for several months through a siege of cancer when he was fifty. Gina wondered if he were somewhere “up there,” and if the stars in his crown were worth it.

She knew that what had happened with the twins had taken its toll on Paul’s parents as well as her own. She was glad all three remaining parents were thinking of themselves now, rather than focusing on that time when nothing made much sense and everything around them seemed to be falling apart.

When Gina met Paul, who was raised Baptist but no longer attended church, he had agreed to marry her in the Catholic church. They were both very young then, in their early twenties. Following a particular faith didn’t seem to matter as much as the fact that they believed in each other. It mattered to Gina’s parents, however, who insisted that being married outside the church was no marriage at all. Paul, to keep the peace, had gone along with their request.

Even so, Gina’s mother had spoken of misgivings. “A man who will leave his faith behind will one day leave his wife,” she had warned Gina. But that was Roberta Evans; she saw the darker side of things, always. If something could go wrong, it would—at least in Roberta’s mind.

Unfortunately, in the case of the twins, she had turned out to be right. Roberta had warned Gina that adopting a child without knowing its background, both medical and familial, could be trouble. Angela and Rachel had been placed at Saint Sympatica’s shortly after birth, and little was known about the woman who had given birth to them. The note she left with them in the cardboard box, on the steps of the orphanage, had said nothing that would give anyone a clue as to her whereabouts. She never went back to Saint Sympatica’s to reclaim them, and the twins ended up being there several months before Paul and Gina adopted them.

“Why weren’t they adopted right away?” Roberta had wanted to know. “Babies have always been in demand.”

Gina had asked this question of Anita and Rodney Ewing, the couple who owned and directed the orphanage. Mrs. Ewing had seemed uneasy at the question, but had given them a perfectly good explanation. “We wanted to keep them together, and not everyone wants the responsibility of twins. Also, we’ve been very particular. Because the girls have been without a mother or father so long, they may need special care.”

That special care was a watchful eye as the girls grew older, to ensure that they hadn’t suffered from being abandoned by their mother at such a young age. For that matter, they might have been abused or neglected while in the care of their mother. If they had indeed suffered damage, they would need the best possible psychiatric treatment. This could end up costing quite a bit over the years, Paul and Gina were told, and they had assured Mrs. Ewing that they were able and willing to provide the twins with that.

Finally, they themselves went through several interviews with the Ewings and Saint Sympatica’s child psychiatrist, interviews that had included psychological tests to assess their level of maturity and ability to carry through with raising the girls. They were young to be adopting, and had been married less than a year.

“Who will take care of the girls if you both work?” Mrs. Ewing had asked.

“I will,” Gina had replied. “I plan to work from our house, and only part-time until they’re both in school. After that, I may work longer hours, but I’ll still be at home most of the time. I’ll be working for myself, and I’ll be able to plan my schedule to accommodate the girls.”

The day they brought the twins home had been the happiest one of their lives. They did everything possible to give the girls tons of love and make them feel secure in their new home. Paul and Gina both thought they had been extremely lucky—at least for the first four years. The girls played like other children, and they seemed loving, both to each other and to their friends. It appeared that, miraculously, they had gotten through their first year of life without emotional damage. Paul and Gina attributed that to the excellent psychiatric care the orphanage afforded to the children in its care.

Then all hell had broken loose.

Gina sighed. Her thoughts had a way of drifting in church, when she should be praying. Sometimes, when making the sign of the cross she would say to herself “one, two, three, four,” instead of “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” It was odd how her spirit seemed to have become a matter of rote over the years. Odd how her marriage had become that, too.

Here in this church that was so familiar to her, however, Gina sat between Paul and Rachel and felt protected with them on either side. The church was warm, and the familiar statues, poinsettias and votive candles lent a cozy air. In the crowded pew they were squeezed together, and with Paul’s and Rachel’s bodies touching hers, it felt as if they were truly bonded together, and that nothing bad could ever happen again.

It was therefore all the more strange when thoughts of something threatening them crossed her mind. It was a thought that had been nagging at her, actually, the past few days—ever since Rachel had come home.

Gina mentally shook herself and turned her attention to the swelling sounds of the pipe organ. Everyone rose as the altar boys came down the aisle, the lead one carrying a cross. The priest came behind them, and the choir began to sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” their voices swelling to a crescendo at the end.

The Mass began, and Gina whispered to Paul, “Do you see Mom anywhere?”

He turned and scanned the crowds. “Can’t tell. It’s hard to see, it’s so packed—”

He broke off and his face paled as he saw the blond woman in an aisle seat, five rows behind and across from theirs. Lacey? My God, what is she doing here?

His eyes met hers, and he thought he saw the beginnings of a mischievous grin. Confusion and a feeling of disaster flooded him. He couldn’t let Gina and Lacey meet. Gina would know right away the place that Lacey held in his life.

Would his mistress force a meeting? Did she just want to see his wife and daughter, find out what they looked like?

As if hearing the question, Lacey gave a shrug and looked away. The procession in the middle aisle came between them as it neared the altar. Paul turned back to Gina as she tugged at his arm. “Do you see her?”

“No,” Paul said, his mouth dry. “I don’t see her.”

From that point on he barely noticed the Mass going on in front of him. Instead, he worried about what Lacey would do.

During Communion, as parishioners filled the aisles and walked to the altar railing, Paul risked a look back again. If she met his eyes, he would try to indicate to her in some way that she shouldn’t speak to him after the Mass. Perhaps just a small shake of the head would do it. Surely she’d understand.

But Lacey was gone, her seat taken by an elderly man.

Paul felt his entire body sag with relief. Then, quickly, his eyes scanned the pews in case she had simply moved to another seat. He didn’t see her anywhere. Thank God.

But why would she leave in the middle of Mass? To avoid having to see him with his family any longer?

That could be it.

It was several minutes before he was able to breathe normally again. He would have to talk to Lacey, though. In the three months that she had been his mistress, they had never discussed what they would do if they were seen together by Gina or anyone else who knew him. Now he would have to make sure that Lacey knew what to say if such an occasion arose: that they knew each other through Soleil. She was a client; nothing more.

Paul turned his attention back to the Mass. The priest was saying the Agnus Dei. “Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”

Paul had little faith that anyone, God or priest, could take away his sins. He thought that he would probably go to hell by the time all this was over. He did pray for mercy, however—understanding, if not forgiveness. “Have mercy on us,” he whispered, along with the congregation. “Have mercy on us.”