"Daddy?" I shook his arm and his eyelids fluttered and then opened wide as he focused on me.
"What?" He started to sit up quickly, but stopped as if the movement brought him great pain. It was then that I saw the tear in the elbow of his left shirt sleeve and the dry blood on his skin. My eyes went to his pants and I saw the mud stains and what looked like a tear at the right knee.
He straightened up.
"Olivia? You're home? I mean, you've returned? What is today?" He scrubbed his cheeks with his dry palms vigorously and licked his lips.
"What happened to you, Daddy?" I asked softly. Had he been in a fight? I wondered.
"Happened?"
"Your clothes are torn and you've hurt yourself."
"Oh," he said as he blinked rapidly, his memory focusing. "I had a little accident out back. It's nothing. Looks worse than it is."
"What sort of an accident?"
"I tripped on a stump. It was dark."
"What were you doing out back in the dark? What's going on here? Where's Belinda?" I fired my questions at him so quickly he only heard one word.
"Belinda?" He ran his right hand over his hair. "Isn't she here?"
"I don't know. I just came in and I haven't checked upstairs. What were you doing outside in the dark, Daddy?" I repeated.
"Doing?" he said forcing a smile. It looked like his face had turned to glass and twisting his lips shattered his cheeks. All the tiny veins had come to the surface. "I was just . . . taking a walk, enjoying the night air. Your mother and I used to do that a lot. We'd sit out back and gaze at the ocean and the stars, but it was overcast and I wasn't watching where I was walking."
"You look like you took quite a fall, Daddy. You look like you were running, not walking," I said my eyes narrowing with suspicion.
He held his eyes on me.
"What really happened, Daddy?" I demanded. Lies between us were like fish out of water. They had a short, painful life.
"Can't fool you, can I, Olivia? Never could fool you," he said. His lips trembled; his whole face quaked and looked like it really would shatter like a piece of china.
"What happened, Daddy? What went on here? Has it something to do with Belinda?"
He shook his head and looked about frantically for a moment. His lips moved but no sounds emerged. Then he reached down to take hold of the neck of his bourbon bottle. He brought it to his lips and took a swig. It was as if the taste and the heat of the bourbon in his throat restored his ability to speak.
"I've been hearing his voice," he whispered. He leaned toward me, his eyes wide and wild. "I've been hearing him cry, Olivia."
"What?" I brought my hands to my throat and stepped back. "Whose voice?"
"Shh," he said looking back at the door. "She doesn't know anything."
"Who?"
"Carmelita, but she looks at me with those eyes of accusation sometimes, Olivia," he said shaking his head. "I think she hears him, too, and she wants to know what's it about. She told me yesterday she's thinking of leaving to go live with her sister in New Haven. Jerome's already given me notice. He's leaving next Tuesday. Going to Florida, he says. He claims it's the weather, but I know it's all because they know," Daddy added nodding. Then he took another swig of liquor and closed his eyes.
My heart was pounding. It felt like my ribs were knocking against each other. I took a deep breath. I knew what Daddy meant, but I had to hear him say it.
"Whose voice did you hear out there, Daddy? Who's crying?"
He opened his eyes, but stared up at the ceiling.
"Her little one, the unnamed. I planted him like so much seed. It always bothered your mother, Olivia. She used to stand by the window and look out back and think about him. She never said a word to you or Belinda, but sometimes at night, she would wake with a start and then she would sob softly. I didn't have to ask why. I heard the same cry and ignored it."
"You don't hear anything, Daddy. It's in your imagination, maybe because you're drinking too much," I said.