The Sleeping Doll

lovely. But now we have to talk.”
    “Sure, sweetheart,” she’d said, resigned to the worst. She caressed her bumpy nose and no silent recitations of angel songs, angel songs were going to help.
    He was going to leave her. Make her go away.
    But things were more complicated than that. It seemed that one of the women in the Family was working with him. Rebecca. They were going to get another Family together and go to his mountaintop, live by themselves.
    “You weren’t supposed to be part of it, lovely, but when I got to know you I changed my mind. I knew I couldn’t live without you. I’ll talk to Rebecca. It’ll take a little while. She’s . . . difficult. But eventually she’ll do what I say. You’ll become friends.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You and me, lovely, we’ll be the team. She and I never had that connection. It was about something else.”
    If he meant they just had sex, that was okay. Jennie wasn’t jealous about that, not too much. She was jealous about him loving someone else, sharing laughs and stories, someone else being his lovely.
    He’d continued, “But now we have to be careful. The police know you and they’ll be able to find you easily. So you’ve got to disappear.”
    “Disappear?”
    “For a while. A month or two. Oh, I don’t like it either. I’ll miss you.”
    And she could see that he would.
    “Don’t worry. Everything’ll work out. I won’t let you go.”
    “Really?”
    “We’re going to pretend that I killed you. The police will stop looking for you. I’m going to have to cut you a little. We’ll put some blood on that rock and purse. They’ll think I hit you with the rock and threw you into the ocean. It’ll hurt.”
    “If it means we can be together.” (Though thinking: Not my hair, not again! What would she look like now?)
    “I’d rather cut myself, lovely. But there’s no way around it.”
    “It’s okay.”
    “Come on over here. Sit down. Hold my leg. Squeeze my leg tight. It’ll hurt less that way.”
    The pain was terrible. But she bit down on her sleeve and squeezed his leg hard and managed not to scream as the knife cut and the blood flowed.
    The bloody purse, the bloody statue of Jasmine . . .
    They’d driven to where he’d hidden the blue Ford Focus stolen at Moss Landing, and he gave her the keys. They’d said good-bye and she’d gotten another room, in this cheap hotel. Just as she’d entered the room, and turned on the TV, lying back and cradling the agonizing wound on her head, she’d seen on the news that her Daniel had been shot dead at Point Lobos.
    She’d screamed into the pillow, beaten the mattress with her bony hands. Finally she’d sobbed herself into a tortured sleep. Then she’d wakened and lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, her eyes flicking from one corner to the other. Endlessly. The compulsive gazing.
    It reminded her of the endless hours lying in the bedroom when she was married, head back, waiting for the nosebleed to stop, the pain to go away.
    And Tim’s bedroom.
    And a dozen others.
    Lying on her back, waiting, waiting, waiting . . .
    Jennie knew she had to get up, get moving. The police were looking for her—she’d seen her driver’s license picture on TV, unsmiling, and her nose huge. Her face burned with horror at the image.
    So get off your ass . . .
    Yet for the past few hours, as she’d lain on the cheap bed, swayback and with coils ridging through the skimpy cover, she’d felt something curious within her.
    A change, like the first frost of autumn. She wondered what the feeling was. Then she understood.
    Anger.
    This was an emotion rare to Jennie Marston. Oh, she was great at feeling bad, great at being afraid, great at scurrying, great at waiting for the pain to go away.
    Or waiting for the pain to begin.
    But now she was angry. Her hands shook and her breath came fast. And then, though the fury remained, she found herself completely calm. It was just like making candy—you cook the sugar for a long time until it reaches the hard-boil stage, bubbling and dangerous (it would stick to your skin like burning glue). And then you poured it onto a piece of marble, and it cooled into a brittle sheet.
    That’s what Jennie felt within her now. Cold anger within her heart. Hard . . .
    Teeth set, heart pounding, she walked into the bathroom and took a shower. She sat at the cheap desk, in front of a mirror, and put on her makeup. She spent nearly a half-hour doing this, then