The Righteous and The Wicked Page 7

  Eric rises early, as always, and looks at the unfinished frame of the house he’s building, and the ladder and lumber that rest there. He would love to work, but he won’t disturb her. He stares at the low ceiling of his trailer and his feet hang off the edge of his tiny bed. He thinks about last night, the intensity of the perversion with the woman in the bathroom, and he’s so disheartened by his inability to control his urges.

  He’s made this useless vow a hundred times before—that this is the last time. He won’t do it again. He will stop. False promises and bargains. Always lying to himself. He wants to finally mean it. His dark secret has forced him to remain so isolated from the world that he has never tried to lean on another person. He has never felt that any kind of relationship could help him to be better.

  He thinks about finding Emma in the bar, and how the unexpected sight of her made him feel even more shame and disgust over his weakness. He thinks of Emma enveloped in his arms in the parking lot, absorbing what haunts him, seeming to absolve him of his sin. Her virtuous nature has kept him from feeling any attraction to her, but last night, it was just that element that he found so intoxicating. Eric has never before been attracted to anyone good. He has always found that only certain kinds of women fit the mold of what he needs. Only certain women will go down on him an hour after meeting him, or fuck him in a bathroom without even knowing his name. Eric has never had any use for the kind of girl that Emma is. He’s never been attracted to a girl like her . . . until now.

  Holding her last night brought him a feeling he has never experienced without being immersed in the ocean of his impulse. The all-consuming release was rivaled by the simplicity of just holding Emma in his arms. When he’s with her, he doesn’t think about finding his next victim. The incessant longing is absent. The sole rationale he has for this is that the blissful peace she brings to him outweighs his insatiable lust.

  Emma’s sensuality and femininity are not lost on Eric, and in spite of his growing attraction to her, he knows he could never treat her the way he treats his victims. Regardless of any temptation he may feel, he would never want to involve her in his sickness. He would never degrade her purity by dragging her down into his deep and sinful needs. If he had Emma in his life, he believes he could resist his addiction. For some reason, she’s like the mute button for the constant white noise of his deviance. She came into his life by accident, a woman as lonely and as lost as himself. In pain, just like him. The only way Eric feels he can stop feeding his disgraceful hunger is to throw himself headfirst into a friendship with Emma. This will not be an easy feat. In fact, it may be impossible.

  Emma gets dressed and paces through her house in a panic. Anticipating meeting up with Eric later to bike the trails is killing her. She goes out onto the porch and continues to pace, her mind muddled with a million different worries. She’s worried he will act different. That he won’t be happy to see her. That he won’t even show up. She’s worried she’s doing something wrong by being with him. A bee buzzes in the lilac bushes that line the porch and she smiles, thinking of him. She’s restless. Not knowing what else to do, Emma gets in her car and drives to church.

  There are scattered parishioners occupying various pews inside St. Simon’s. Emma kneels in the back and stares up at the stained-glass window. She prays for answers to her questions. Should she continue to try to get close to Eric the Sinner? Will she still pine for his lustful indiscretions if she pursues a relationship with him? Should she remain faithful to Aaron, a man who no longer loves her and is not in her life? Is getting a divorce an unforgivable sin? Why have tragedies befallen her if not to lead her down a different path?

  Emma stares at the stained-glass figure of Jesus that resides in the window above the altar. His hands are outstretched with love and mercy. A glowing heart resides in the center of His chest. The sun shines through the Sacred Heart of the Lord, casting every corner of the church in colored light. Emma stares at it, the sun’s rays burn into her, and she remembers the legend of The Sacred Heart . . .

  St. Margaret Mary had visions of the Lord in which He told her she would act as His instrument. Jesus revealed His Sacred Heart to her as a symbol of His love for man, saying: “My divine heart is overwhelmed with love for mankind and it can no longer contain the flames of its burning charity. It must be spread abroad by your means.”

  He took her heart and placed it next to His own in His chest, then returned it, burning with divine love into her breast. He told her, “Do nothing without the approval of those who guide you, so that, having the authority of obedience, you may not be misled by Satan, who has no power over those who are obedient.”2

  Emma has tried so hard to be obedient. She was obedient to a father she rarely saw, and a mother who loved her based on conditions, and took that love away when her conditions were not met. She tried to be obedient to a husband who wanted her to conform to his wants and needs, regardless of her own. She’s tried to remain obedient to God, a God who has taken things away from her, and when she finds something that she wants, she’s told it is evil.

  In the pew next to Emma, there’s an old woman dressed in black, with a rosary draped over her fingers. Alone. Praying. Kneeling in servitude. Emma flashes on her life to come. Head bowed in prayer, all alone in the world. Obedient and isolated. It may be a sin, but she wants more than that. She casts another look at the illuminated figure of the Lord. Her faith in God is not shaken, but she refuses to believe the feelings she’s having for Eric are wrong. Emma’s heart burns with love for God, and she has to believe He loves her, too, even if what she wants is a sin. She wants to place Eric’s blackened heart beside her own and let it heal.

  Her eyes fall on the confessional, but she has nothing to confess—no reason to seek forgiveness. She’s not looking for atonement any longer, because she has done nothing wrong. She has spent her life trying to please others, and has done what others wanted. No more. For once, she’s going to do something for herself. She stands up, turns her back to the altar, and walks away.

  That afternoon, Eric rides his bike down Emma’s driveway and finds she’s not at home. Her car is gone. He peeks in the windows. Her curtains billow in the wind, but there is no other movement. He walks back to the shed. With caution, he avoids the bees’ nest, takes out the old bike, and goes about filling the tires and checking the brakes. He bends down with his knees in the earth. He tightens bolts and polishes the metal until everything is just right.

  Emma rolls the window of her car down as she speeds away from the church on the winding country road. The sun warms her and the air smells of spring. Sweet earth and new life. Smiling, she turns up the radio, and sings out clear and strong. She feels lighter. The burden of her uncertainty has left her shoulders. She has decided what she wants to do. She has chosen a new path for herself. The car turns and rattles down her street, and when she pulls into her driveway, she smiles wider.

  Eric is sitting on her porch steps, elbows perched on his knees. The black cap on his head is pulled down over his eyes. A backpack rests on his back and two shiny bikes stand before him. The wind chime sways just above his head, clinking its own melodic rhythm. Eric is unaffected by his old enemy. He smiles when he sees her face.

  She hops out of her car, feeling weightless. In her heart, she knows she’s making the right choice. To pursue whatever it is that’s happening between her and this dangerous yet beautiful man. She tries to conceal her excitement and arousal as she walks toward him.

  “Hey.” She greets him with her hands in her pockets.

  “Hey.”

  “You fixed the bike. Thanks.”

  Eric sees genuine appreciation in her eyes. “Are you ready?”

  “Yeah. Let me just pack some food and water.” She moves to walk into the house, but he blocks her path with his arm. She’s an inch away from him.

  “I already did that.” He smiles. “Let’s go.”

  She nods, and Eric watches the sunlight shimmer in her hair. Her pale pink lips
are turned up in a beautiful smile, an expression Eric is becoming addicted to seeing. She bends down to roll up one leg of her jeans in order to keep it from getting caught in the bike chain. Her shirt falls forward as she bends down, and he can see her full breasts and the white lace of her bra. Her skin is luminous and he becomes rigid looking at her body. Already, he’s tempted to break his promise to himself. The dark place in his mind flashes on the things he could do to her. He closes his eyes and breathes, forcing away the perverse thoughts. This will not be easy, but he’s resolute in his desire to change his life.

  To distract himself, he searches for her eyes and finds peace and prudence there. Her kind and pure face quiets his rising need like ice on a burn. Eric watches as she mounts her bike like she’s no stranger to it.

  “You bike a lot?”

  “I’m from Boston, Eric,” she replies, as if he has asked a stupid question, but she smiles when she answers him.

  “All right, tough girl. Let’s go.”

  He pedals toward the wooded end of their road where the bike trails begin, and Emma is right beside him, an arm’s length away, keeping pace with ease. The forest swallows them. Its branches bend and cover them in shadow, and the smell of green and spring is everywhere. They ride in silence down the lush trail. Emma rises off her seat when they ascend hills, she never lags behind or seems out of breath. Eric is impressed. They journey deeper and deeper into the woods, enjoying the feel of the wind on their faces and the rush of speeding through the trees together. He desires to know more about who she is and the past that haunts her.

  “Can we stop up here?”

  They pull off on top of the hill and walk their bikes into a field. They sit side by side on a fallen tree trunk, sipping water and catching their breath. Eric takes a plum from his bag and hands it to Emma. She takes a bite and Eric watches the way her lips caress the fruit.

  She looks at him with curiosity. “You’re not gonna eat anything?”

  Eric stares into the warmth of her eyes and watches her lick the juice of the fruit from her lips. He thinks about what she would taste like, the way her mouth would feel, and again must force the thought away.

  He will settle for the next best thing. He takes Emma’s wrist in his hand and pulls it toward him, while holding her gaze. Then he opens his mouth and wraps his own lips around the flesh of the plum. He takes a bite, still gazing at her, and he sees her mouth fall open. He knows that look. He knows what he could do to her right now, and his mind flashes on their bodies, naked and tangled together here in the woods . . . the smell of her, his name on her lips, her touch . . . Eric fights the temptation. He pulls his mouth away and releases her hand.

  Astounded by the eroticism of what Eric has just done, Emma brings the fruit back to her own mouth, wrapping her lips around the place that Eric’s have just been. She takes another slow bite. He’s still watching her and she’s bewitched by the blue of his eyes and the carnal need rising inside her.

  Eric breaks the spell. “Emma, can I ask you something?”

  She tries to remember how to make her mouth form words. “Okay.”

  “What was your life like . . . before we met? What happened to your husband?”

  Here it is. She wants to get closer to him, and this is going to have to be how she does it. Emma takes a deep breath to steady herself and looks up at the sunlight falling through the canopy of trees. She closes her eyes, gathers her strength, and prepares to tell her sad story—to show him her scars—to reveal the enormity of the sadness that follows her wherever she goes.

  Emma tries to begin her tale, but hesitates, glancing up at heaven and then down at her hands. Eric can see her pain about to break the surface; like a predator concealed in the brush, waiting to strike.

  Finally, she speaks, and Eric listens. “I met Aaron in junior high. We were best friends, and that friendship eventually turned into more. We were so in love. That deep first love that feels so intense, so all-consuming. We talked about being together forever, but we broke up when we went to different universities. We found each other again after graduation and started dating. He proposed to me quickly, and not long after that, we got married and bought a house in Boston. He wanted to have children right away, but I wanted to wait. Every time he saw a stroller, there was this longing in his eyes. Every time one of our friends had a baby, it was like our failure was reflected back at us. I never viewed it as a failure, but he did. He wanted a family so much.

  “My mother was on me about it all the time, too. She desperately wanted a grandchild. I loved Aaron, and of course I loved my mother, and I wanted to see them happy. We agreed to start trying and I got pregnant not too long after. Aaron was so thrilled, and I was, too. Every time I felt the baby move inside me, it was such a miracle. I knew how blessed we were.

  “In my second trimester, my friend Meagan suggested we go on a girls’ trip, and we decided to go camping. Kind of like a last hurrah, the last time we would be able to do something like that. Once I became a mother, she was sure our friendship would suffer.

  “Aaron didn’t want me to go and we fought about it, but I went anyway. Meagan and I rented a cabin, and on our third night there, I started to have painful cramps. We were out in the woods . . . hours away from anything . . . out of cell phone range. When I started bleeding, she drove me to the nearest hospital. By the time we got there, I had lost a lot of blood. I lost the baby . . .”

  Emma’s voice cracks, and a sob rolls through her . . . but she continues to tell Eric her story.

  “The doctor said it was a genetic abnormality. That it was my body getting rid of a fetus that wasn’t viable. He said it would’ve happened even if I wasn’t camping, and the trip had nothing to do with it, but Aaron didn’t want to hear it. He was devastated. Every time he looked at me, I could feel him judging me. He thought it was my fault, he thought I’d been reckless. He blamed me—and so did my mother. She wouldn’t speak to me after I lost the baby. She couldn’t forgive me for purposely putting her grandchild’s life in jeopardy. She wouldn’t return my phone calls and refused to see me.”

  Emma pauses, staring into space, grieving her mother’s absence.

  “I wanted to try again, but we didn’t get another chance. Aaron was so scarred from what happened. A month after the miscarriage, I woke up one morning and he was gone. He didn’t leave a note. He just left. He disappeared and didn’t come back or try to contact me. He left me all alone. I couldn’t take the pain of living in that house without him. So I rented it out, and moved back here. Every day since then has been emptier than the next.”

  Staring down at the grass, a tear rolls off the end of her nose and lands on a blade, like dew.

  Eric doesn’t speak, because there are no words. The loss she has suffered is threefold: a baby, a mother, a husband. He could never have imagined the depth of her pain. The abandonment and desolation she must feel. The guilt. He knows what it’s like to be that isolated. The agony of loneliness and the bitterness of looking back at things you cannot change. Intense compassion overwhelms Eric. He wishes for her to never experience that kind of pain again. Someone so good doesn’t deserve this kind of sadness. He wants her to feel joy, and he wants to be the one to make her feel it. His thirst is for her smile, his hunger for her laughter.

  Emma knows Eric’s face will be filled with pity, and she’s had enough of that for one lifetime. She doesn’t look up, but feels his hand on her back. The hand begins to make slow circles and this touch holds no pity. Emma sits in silence, crying tears she has cried a million times, but this time she’s not alone. Eric is there, and he is comforting her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Monday morning. Emma tents her fingers in front of her on her desk and gazes at one of her students.

  “But she was looking at me,” the child complains.

  “What do you mean she was ‘looking at you’?”

  “She was looking at me mean, Ms. Santori. It’s not fair and it’s not nice! She’s not nice; tell her
to stop looking at me!” the little girl whines.

  There’s not enough coffee in the world to help Emma get through this kind of day. Her work is meaningful and satisfying, but not on days like this. Little bullies, little tattletales. First grade in a girls’ school can sometimes feel like a shark tank. Emma manages to survive until her lunch break, and meets Abby in the faculty room.

  “You look . . . rested.” She eyes Emma up and down. “How’s Sexy Neighbor Guy? Did you see him at all?”

  Emma’s mind flashes back to Friday night—the moonlit parking lot.

  “Um, yeah, we went for a bike ride.”

  “Like a date? Emma, did you go on a date?” Abby is flabbergasted.

  “No. No, we were just . . . hanging out.”

  “Sure you were. You better not be withholding juicy details here. You know that I’m married. I thrive on other people’s juicy details.”

  “I promise you there are no juicy details, Abby. Your marriage is much juicier than my single life is. Trust me.”

  “Fine. But when the juicy comes, you better be generous with it. Did you get Danni’s e-mail? We have a dress fitting this weekend and . . .”

  And Emma stares out the window, thinking of bulldozers, bikes, wind chimes, and bees.

  “Danni, that’s the doorbell! Can you get the door?” Sean shouts from the bathroom.

  Danielle pads down the stairs with a big smile on her face, expecting to find Jeff on the other side of the door, but it’s not Jeff, it’s Eric. Her face falls.