With Every Beat of My Heart

Drip, drip, drip, drip. Slow, steady, insistent. It came as an echo, as if within a cavern. It even chilled the air, that sound, that feel. It followed him from room to room. No time of day was spared. It came with the same pulsing rhythm, the same dull slapping. At first he thought a leaking faucet or remnants of a summer storm. He checked for worn washers, loose drainpipes, unattended-to cracks in the old roof. It was none of those. They called in plumbers and home inspectors, heating experts, roofers, and bug exterminators. None could locate the source. Indeed none could hear the drip, drip, drip but him.

Leland could pinpoint the night it began. The first, or rather the first he heard, awoke him as cannon shot. The explosion shook the bed and walls and floor. It rang long and loud. He sat up, his hands squeezing the echo from his ears. Rylee didn’t stir. He shook her shoulders until she rolled over. “How could you not have woken up to that?”

“To what?”

“I don’t know, sounded like a bomb went off.”

“Here? You’re crazy.” She rolled over.

That’s when they started. Slow, steady, insistent. It was nearly three months ago. He would sit alone in his darkened study overlooking the Merrimack River. Staring past the grand willow to the boat dock he counted in cadence. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, his fingers drumming for hours on end.

Rylee was worried. Leland was a queer man in many ways. He would fill his days in tangents. Reading, writing, sketching, fishing, walking the streets of West Newbury. Never allowing sufficient time for any one endeavor, except this, this compulsive adherence to a sound none could hear but him. “There’s nothing wrong with my hearing,” he screamed when she suggested a doctor’s help.

“I didn’t mean a physical exam,” she said.

“Or my head.”

“Maybe it’s the quiet places you keep putting yourself; it makes all noises amplify. Put on the television or some music.”

He tried. The dripping would not be denied. It just got louder.

She read in a journal to never challenge one’s delusions; no two people should go down the same rabbit hole. “You know, Leland, I’ve read that there are phenomenon that can only be seen by a few individuals.”

“Like what?”

“Like ghosts, spirits.”

“Now you’re patronizing me.”

“I’m just saying, we’ve called home repair people, why not think outside the box, if what you say is so.”

Several times he counted drops. The count was always that of his resting pulse. It started out sixty-eight per minute. On days of high anxiety it could reach eighty. Of late it was averaging mid-seventies. Leland was now upset on three fronts: the debilitating echo, the fact no one else could hear them, and now a sorcerer, a conjurer, a witch was being called in to appease him. Still, it was akin to taking a homemade brew to ease a never-ending headache. Whatever works. He left it to her to research it while he sat it out in his dark study.

Helena Rosner nodded her greeting as Rylee answered her knock at the front door. She was not what Rylee envisioned. She was old, Rylee knew that from her voice on the phone. But she expected more flamboyance, more energetic marketing. But she came dressed in loose, dingy blue jeans and shabby slippers. Her gray cardigan sweater draped off her shoulders and had to be rolled up multiple times at the sleeves. She wore dark, round sunglasses and held a cane over her right forearm, accompanied by her driver whom she dismissed to wait in the car.

Helena introduced herself as a Spiritualist. “As you can see,” she said. “I’m blind, have been since birth.” Her smile was soft. Rylee liked her right away.

It was Rylee’s aunt who gave her the name. Aunt Diedre never married. Rich and beautiful, she was forever known as the family meshuga, crazy one. Her suitors were not dismissed for reasons of incompatibility. Rather they were the victims of her Taro readings. Men came and went. Most of her friends and family believed the Tarot cards were no more than an excuse to humiliate the men who came to her. She would dismiss them with a casual wave of her hand after a reading or two. “Rider cards do not lie to the Diviner,” she would say. Rylee had met many of the suitors in her day. Meshuga or not, Aunt Diedre made some very good decisions.

“Helena is different,” Aunt Diedre said, quite the telling statement coming from her. “What kind of trouble are you having?”

Rylee had good reason not to say. Not only was Aunt Diedre fond of giving and getting gossip, she was no fan of Leland. Of course she ran the cards on him, many times. “He has eyes to match his soul,” she told Rylee. “I see the Hanged Man many times with never a card of Temperance. You must always beware. The Tower is in your future if you go to him.”

When they were seated, Helena said, “You might wonder, how can I do what I do when I can’t see. No cards, no crystal ball. You’ve heard that remaining senses elevate when one is taken away. That includes our sixth and seventh sense.”

“I’ve heard of a sixth but a seventh?”

“The Akashic Records,” Helena explained. “Universal knowledge of the past, present, and future that exists beyond our consciousness.”

“I can tell you up front, my husband is not a believer.”

“Neither are you. Many are not. No matter. We do what we do not because of you and not in spite of you. It is a gift we must use to expand life beyond the objective, beyond what we think we know and how we know it. A child handed an orange for the first, if taught that it is not food but rather a ball, then it will use it as such. And whose to say his knowledge is right or wrong? He is simply using the knowledge he was given. Reality and objectivity are learned processes, thus they are confined by knowledge. And dear, our knowledge, though vast, is severely limited by our mandated experiences. Now, dear, tell me all about what you don’t yet know.”

Rylee explained as well as she could. She called her husband’s obsession “a psychosis” and the noises “delusions.”

“Nothing is delusional to the believer. When did this begin?” Helena asked.

“I’m not really sure. It’s been a few months since he told me so I’m guessing that’s when it started.”

Helena pursed her lips and nodded. “And any events leading up to it? A death, perhaps?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Could you bring him down. Please.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, he’s not here right now.”

Helena smiled. “Of course he is, dear. He’s upstairs in his study. The room in the southwest corner facing the lake.”

It wasn’t her idea to lie about his whereabouts. But she was impressed with Helena’s guess, if that’s what it was. When she went up to get him he declined. “She knows you’re up here.” “Yeah, shit, I was looking out the window when they came up.” “Don’t think that’s how she knows.” “Whatta ya mean?” “Come down and see for yourself.”

They came down without a word. Helena held her hand out to Leland. “Take it; don’t be afraid.”

“You’re blind.”

“Yes, which is why I need to touch.”

He was watching Rylee, a look of I dare you on her face. Then he understood. She knew. He had left something lying around; a scrap of paper with a name or number or telling note. Someone has seen. Someone had called. Now it was making sense. It was Rylee who called in the home inspectors and repairmen. It was she who supervised them as they looked for the leaks. She was there when they denied hearing them. Now she added this macabre woman who feigns blindness while mystically feeling his presence in the house. This charlatan would not only deny hearing anything but concoct a story of a haunting. She’d faintly describe a young girl and give sketchy particulars of a murder. And though faint and sketchy she’d be eerily close to describing Melinda and what happened on the boat that night. He’d either go crazy or to prison, either would be fine with Rylee.

He met Melinda the way most married men meet single young women. At a bar. But this was a trolling bar where the women come in to hook up with sugar daddies who’ll take care of them for the night or longer. Players have to play the part. The girl must be seductive and coy; the man, sophisticated enough to flash money in a subtle but cavalier way. Leland and Melinda were in perfect synch that night. A senior at Salem State, Melinda was partying with friends; Leland was out while his wife was on her annual separate vacation with friends, New Zealand he thought. Maybe Australia. He brought her home that night but was smart enough to keep things slow thereafter. “I’m married,” he said, “and what, thirteen years older than you.”

“It’s doable. People have bigger age differences, not like your thirty years older. And you have no kids.”

True enough but he didn’t want to tell her the real reason, that Rylee’s family was loaded whereas his inheritance, after being spilt four ways, amounted to this old house which if left on his own he couldn’t afford to pay the taxes. What he told her was he needed to put his finances, which he boasted were substantial, into safe trusts before making any moves. He admonished her to, “keep this quiet from your people. It gets back here it’ll be impossible to move forward.” And as far as he knew, she did.

She really was a sweet, simple girl, very accommodating and very sensual in bed. He didn’t want to give that up, not completely, but her needs were incessant of late. She’d text him two, three times a day and twice he saw her driving past the house. The messages were cryptic, stating only, “I need to see you,” “it’s urgent,” “we need to talk.” Finally he relented. He invited her up on a day Rylee went on her monthly extravagant shopping spree in Boston. While he waited he practiced his story, insuring it sounded financially sound enough without confusing himself or her with big words and concepts she’d research on the Internet.

She was frantic and didn’t sugarcoat it when she arrived. “I’m pregnant.”

What he expected was an ultimatum to put up or shut up. Even a blackmail would have been better. He hushed her with a finger to her lips, feigning the maid being nearby, when what he was waiting for was a new plan to pop into his head. Now they were both in a panic. They’d go out on the boat where they’d be alone to discuss it.

Once out he brought them to marshes along the Indian River. It was still daylight but nearing the end of the boating day. They spoke about where and when it happened, how could it have happened. He suggested an abortion, he’d pay, she refused both offers. Adoption was possible, maybe. He anchored in the reeds and they bobbed in silence for a while. “Who else knows?” he asked.

“No one. No one even knows about us.”

She sobbed into her hands as Leland brought the fire extinguisher onto the back of her skull. She went down hard. He rode deeper into the mouth of the river. Melinda staggered to her feet and stumbled overboard. He shifted into reverse. She grabbed hold of the ladder and pulled herself aboard. She stood dazed, blood mingling with river water, dripping salmon pink onto the deck. Leland grabbed hold of the anchor rope and wrapped it around her neck, pulling it tight until she collapsed. He rolled her over the side, anchor in tow.

The lights of the kitchen were dimmed. The three sat at the table. Helena asked that Leland and Rylee be still. Her left hand cupped Leland’s. The dripping became louder, faster, until it became a steady shower. “Hear it,” Leland said.

Helena shushed him.

He ignored her. “Look, at the fireplace, see it? You must see that. That puddle.”

“Where?” Rylee said. “I don’t see anything.”

He pulled his hand away and stood. “Bullshit. You know. You see it.”

“There’s no water.”

“I don’t know how but you’re making this happen, you’ve always been making it happen.”

“Leland, stop, please, you’re scaring me.”

Helena was trembling. “I won’t,” she said. “No. Please, I can’t.”

“Won’t what?” Rylee asked.

“I’m sorry. I have to go. Please, someone, take me to the door. Now. I must go.”

The woman who came in so calm, so serene, was ushered from the house a quivering wreck. Rylee pleaded with her for an answer to what had happened. Was it Leland? “No, I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

Leland stayed behind, examining the ceiling and floor by the fireplace. “See,” Rylee screamed, stomping her foot on the floor by the fireplace. “Nothing, not even wet. You crazy? You scared that poor woman, and me, nearly to death with your ... delusions.”

“Upset that I saw through your plan, Rylee? Just what did you expect to accomplish with all this?”

“All what, Leland? I’m trying to help here. What else can I do?”

She let him be for the next three days, wallowing in his study. She was stunned when he was sitting in the kitchen one morning, before seven, a cup of coffee in his hand with more in the pot. “Can I fix you some?” he asked. He was calm, almost pleasant, and seemingly sincere.

“Sure.”

He spoke to her as he fixed it. “I think you might be right. Too much time in this house. I love the river, so why haven’t I been out on it?”

“You’ve been pre-occupied.”

“I need a change. We both do. Get out of the house, on the river like we used to. Remember?”

He arranged a late cruise, approximately the same time and place as with Melinda. He equipped the boat with a new line and four cinder blocks. And the poker from the fireplace. He hadn’t the nerve to strike her until he had her fasten the straps on the Bimini top. With her back turned he ripped at her neck several times. He cinched the rope around her waist, tied the cinder blocks to the end, and slipped her over. The water revived her and while he fumbled with the weights she draped herself over the swim platform to pull herself up. He turned on her. Unlike Melinda she was not dazed. “You cold bastard,” were the last words she said before he finished her.

***

The room was cold and white. Much brighter than he was used too. He found it impossible to sleep. All he could so was listen and think. He thought hard on the message brought to him two weeks after Rylee’s disappearance. He expected one final visit from the police to effect his arrest. But it was Helena who showed up at his door. “I thought it only right to explain myself,” she said.

Drip, drip, drip, drip. Even now, nearly a year later, still with each heartbeat.

“Nothing to explain.”

“There is. Not to you, to her.”

“I’m sorry but Rylee’s not here.”

“Oh, but she is. She surely is.”

“I don’t understand what you −.”

“We have no impact on your world. By that, I mean the living world. But as part of it, we do care. Rylee was murdered. She was murdered by you in a very similar way you killed Melinda.”

He tried laughing it off. “Who have you been talking to?”

She ignored the question.

“I saw it that day but I had no power to change it. I’d never seen such a specter myself, though I’d heard of them. Frankly, it terrified me to the point I had to leave.”

“Saw what? Change what? I thought you were blind.”

“Blind only to what you know and understand. I couldn’t say what I saw that night because it would necessitate me influencing the future. Hard as it was, I had to do it.”

“I’ve heard enough. You have no right to accuse me, especially on ... mystical assertions. Leave.”

She stepped around him in spite of his attitude. She stared into the parlor. “Yes, I see. I am sorry. Please understand. I have no right to alter the future: I am only a witness. I know you’ll handle it. No, I have no objections, this is your world now.”

“Who the hell you talking to?”

“Do you know the word, Doppelganger?”

“No.”

“A double, a twin. That’s what I saw. But one on each side of the divide. That’s where she was then, and where she is now?”

“Are you trying to tell me this Melinda, this one you said I killed, is haunting me?”

“Not Melinda. It was Rylee who you’ve been hearing. It’s her I saw that night standing before the fireplace. It was her dripping, making that puddle.”

“That’s crazy. She was at the table with us.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be telling this to authorities; they wouldn’t believe me anymore than you do. Rylee will handle it still. It will be Rylee you’ll answer to for the rest of your days.”

“Hello, Leland, how are we today?” The orderly placed the tray on the bedside table then undid the straps around Leland’s arms. “Going to be good this time, right?”

Leland stared at the doorway, ignoring the orderly, ignoring the food. Drip, drip, drip, drip into the ever-widening puddle at the base of Rylee’s feet.