Brain Child Page 0,126
not Alex,” he went on. “That’s what I came to tell you. Alex is dead.”
“Dead?” Lisa echoed. “Alex, what are you talking about?”
“He’s dead,” Alex said again. “He died in the wreck. That’s all I came to tell you, so you wouldn’t think he’d done anything.” His eyes fixed on Lisa, and when he spoke again, his voice was strangled, as if the very act of speaking the words was painful for him. “He loved you,” he whispered. “Alex loved you very much. I … I don’t understand what that means, but I know it’s true. Don’t blame Alex for what I’ve done. He couldn’t stop it.”
Suddenly his eyes filled with tears once again. “He would have stopped it,” he whispered. “If so much of him hadn’t died—if just a little more of him had lived—I know he would have stopped it.”
Carol Cochran shakily rose to her feet. “What, Alex?” she whispered. “What would you have stopped?”
“Not me,” Alex breathed. “Him. Alex would have stopped what Dr. Torres did. But I didn’t know. He wouldn’t let me remember, so I didn’t know. But Alex found out. What was left of him found out, and he’s trying to stop it. He’s still trying, but he might not be able to, because he’s dead.” His eyes suddenly took on a wildness as they focused on Lisa once more. “Don’t you understand?” he begged. “Alex is dead, Lisa!” Then he turned, and shambled back through the dining room and out into the night. A moment later, Carol heard a car door slam and an engine start. And then she heard Kim, and felt the little girl tugging at her arms.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “What’s wrong with Alex?”
Carol swallowed hard, then held Kim close. “He’s sick, honey,” she whispered. “He’s very sick in his head, that’s all.” Then she released Kim, and started toward the phone. “I’d better call the police,” she said.
“No!” Carol turned back to see Lisa standing up, her expression suddenly clear. “Let him go, Mama,” she said softly. “He won’t hurt anyone else now. Don’t you understand? That’s what he was trying to tell us. All he wants to do now is die, and we have to let him.” She knelt down, and pulled Kim close. “That wasn’t Alex that was just here, Kim,” she said softly. “That was someone else. Alex is dead. That’s what he was telling us. That he’s dead, and we should remember him the way he used to be. The way he was the night he took me to the dance.” She hesitated, as her eyes flooded with tears. “Do you remember that night, Kim?”
Kim nodded, but said nothing.
“Then let’s remember him that way, sweetheart. Let’s remember how he looked all dressed up in his dinner jacket, and let’s remember how good he was. All right?”
Kim hesitated, then nodded, and Lisa’s gaze shifted to her mother. “Let him go, Mama. Please?” she begged. “He won’t hurt anyone. I know he won’t.”
Carol stood silently watching her daughter for several long seconds, then, at last, moved toward her and embraced her.
“All right,” she said softly. Then: “I’m sorry.”
“I am too,” Lisa replied. “And so is Alex.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing I can do?” Jim Cochran asked.
Marsh opened the front door, and gazed out into the night as if expecting Alex to appear, but there was nothing. “No,” he sighed. “Go on back to Carol and the girls. And tell them I understand why they didn’t come,” he added.
Jim Cochran regarded his friend shrewdly. “I don’t believe I told you why they didn’t come.”
“You told me,” Marsh replied with a tight smile. “Maybe not in words, but I understood.” He glanced back over his shoulder to the living room, where Ellen was still sitting on the couch. “I’d better get back in,” he went on. “I don’t think she can stand to be by herself very long.”
During the hour that Jim Cochran had been there, Ellen had finally begun to speak, but she was still confused, as if she wasn’t exactly sure what had happened.
“Where’s Carol?” she had asked half an hour ago. Then she’d peered vacantly around the room.
“She’s home,” Jim had told her. “Home with the girls. Kim’s not feeling too well.”
“Oh,” Ellen had breathed, then fallen silent again before repeating her question five minutes later.
“She’ll be all right,” Marsh had assured him. “It’s a kind of shock, and she’ll pull out of it.”
But even as he was about to leave, Jim wasn’t sure he