Shame

if he desperately needed a shower, even though he hadn’t yet broken into a sweat.
    Caleb started trembling. What the hell had happened there? One moment he’d been walking, and the next he’d been playing some twisted mental game. At least he hoped it was a game and not his father’s sickness coming to the fore. The deeper he got into his father’s biography, the more he felt touched by his darkness. He had always wondered and been afraid to find out what part of him was his father. That answer seemed to be closing in on him.
    Even with the earbuds removed, Elizabeth Line’s voice kept circulating through his head. She had narrated her own book. Every grisly detail. Her voice hadn’t changed over the years, was still slightly breathless, with a touch of the Midwest and just a hint of a gravel floor. Hearing her had bothered Caleb. She had brought an added intimacy to the work. In her telling, it was almost as if she was in his father’s head as well as his own.
    He hurried back to Lola’s bungalow, had to force himself not to sprint. After all these years, he thought, I’m still running away. But he’d never found a way to lose his shadow.
    Caleb opened the front door quietly, mindful of not waking Lola, but his precautions weren’t necessary. He heard footsteps, then saw her come rushing out of the guest room. She looked as if she had been caught doing something wrong.
    “I—I wondered where you were,” she said, backing up toward her room so as to not expose her back. Her face was to him, but she refused to meet his eyes.
    “I went for a walk.”
    “Oh.”
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    She continued to back up. “Nothing.”
    Lola’s answer was too quick and her tone too falsetto. The pictures, Caleb remembered. He’d left them in an envelope on the nightstand.
    She was at her door, opening it.
    “Those pictures made me run as well,” Caleb said.
    Lola edged through the door sideways, then swung it closed behind her. Caleb listened as locks were turned. He didn’t come any closer but spoke loudly enough to be heard.
    “I found those photos in my truck yesterday,” he said. “Someone either followed me to the Sheriff’s Office or knew I was going to be there and planted them. I noticed the envelope when I was driving home.
    “You ever see that painting
The Scream
? That’s what I felt like when I pulled those pictures out of the envelope. Inside and out I didn’t feel human. All of me was just this scream that was desperate to come out.
    “I didn’t know what the hell to do. I thought about killing myself. But then I realized I couldn’t do that even if it was the only way to end the pain. I couldn’t kill myself, because my kids would have been condemned to growing up like I had. I couldn’t be that selfish.”
    From behind the door, she broke her silence. Her voice was small, still frightened. “Why didn’t you just contact the police?”
    “I was afraid to go back. I’m claustrophobic, and I knew that if I gave them the photos, this time they wouldn’t let me go.”
    “Did you know the girl?”
    “No—that is, I don’t know her name, but I know who she was. She worked behind the counter at the doughnut shop where I met Elizabeth Line the night before last. After Elizabeth left I just zoned out sitting there, trying to make sense of things. This girl had to tap me on the shoulder to wake me up. She kept apologizing for disturbing me and said that she wouldn’t be bothering me except that the shop was closing.”
    “She was the girl in the photos?”
    “Yes.”
    “You said that when you first saw those pictures you wanted to scream. Did you?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I was afraid if I started I’d never stop.” After a minute of silence, Caleb finally spoke again.
    “If you want,” he said, “I’ll leave.”
    He waited for an answer. Just when he decided one wasn’t forthcoming, he heard the locks turning. Lola walked through the door with a towel in hand.
    “Go shower,” Lola said, “but don’t dry your hair.”
    Lola set him up at the kitchen table, positioned him with his back to her. It was almost like facing up to major surgery, thought Caleb, looking at the bottles, tubes, and ointments lined up along the table. In a box but at the ready, were curling irons, setting pins, lotions, sprays, and metal implements that looked like instruments of torture but probably had something to do with hairdressing. Worst of all was the chemical smell.