Finding Noel (12 page)

I climbed inside. The house was dark; I flipped on the light switch to no effect and realized what a stupid thing that was. I was glad Macy hadn't seen me. There was a musty, pungent smell of mold from rotting carpet and drywall.

I unbolted the front door. Macy walked inside and stood in the center of the living room and looked around. We weren't the home's first trespassers. There was a man-made rat's nest in the corner strewn with empty beer bottles and cigarette stubs. There was graffiti on the wall. Macy didn't seem to notice any of it. She wandered quietly from room to room with me in tow.

“This is like a dream of a dream,” she said. “It seemed so much bigger back then.” She started down into the basement, but it was flooded with several feet of water. She descended to the lowest stair possible, looked around, then came back up.

“Everything's gone,” she said sadly. “How will I find him now?”

I frowned. “I'm sorry,” I said.

She walked out the front door. I locked the deadbolt and was climbing back out the window when someone shouted. “What are you doing in there?! The sign says
NO TRESPASSING
!”

An elderly black woman with silver hair stood on the sidewalk in front of the house. She was nearly as broad as she was high, and wore a bright red wool coat with faux fur collar and black buttons as big as sand dollars, and black rubber galoshes. A sheer scarf was knotted over her head, and a small plastic shopping bag was draped over the crook of one arm. A silver-haired Yorkshire terrier pulled at the leash she held, sniffing around in the snow.

Macy was feeling bad enough, I thought, without an altercation with some cranky old lady. “We're just leaving,” I said. I took Macy's arm and walked her down the steps. The woman just stood there staring at us.

“They should've torn that place down years ago. Place is a magnet for hobos and runaways. Which are you?”

“Excuse me?” Macy said.

“Which are you, hobos or runaways?”

Macy stopped. “We're neither,” she said gently.

“Someday someone's gonna set fire to that place and the whole neighborhood's gonna go up in flames. Not that anyone would mind that much.”

“Let's go,” I said, tugging at Macy's arm.

Macy didn't move. Instead she stepped back toward
the woman. “I was looking for someone who used to live here.”

“No one's lived there more than ten years, honey.” Then the woman strained to look at her. “Come closer.”

To my surprise Macy walked over to her. When she was within arm's reach, the woman squinted and examined her more closely. Then she slowly reached out and touched Macy's cheek. A smile broke across the wrinkled face. “Well, now, you're just all grown up now, aren't you, little Macy?”

Macy looked at her in astonishment. “How do you know my name?”

“Why would I forget that?”

“Do I know you?”

“You did. You used to play at my house almost every day.” She gazed into her face as if waiting for her to remember. “We'd get the old player piano going.”

Macy looked down. “I remember a piano. I'd play at your house?”

“Almost every day, especially when your mama was so sick. You and your sister would come over and ask me for chocolate. I used to have them Brach's stars in the plastic sacks.”

“You know my sister?”

“I should hope so. Well as I know you.”

“Do you know my sister's name?”

The woman just looked at her. “My stars, what have they done to you?” She tugged on the dog's leash. “You come home with me. We have some catching up to do.”

The old lady turned and looked at me. “I know I don't know
you.
”

“I'm a friend of Macy's,” I said.

She extended the grocery bag to me. “Well, friend, would you mind carrying my bag? I'm an old lady.”

I took the sack from her. “No problem.”

She turned to her dog. “C'mon, Fred, let's you and I take Macy home.”

Big Day. We learned Macy's sister's name. It was hanging from her Christmas tree all along.

MARK SMART'S DIARY

The woman lived just three houses down from Macy's old home in a red brick house with cloth awnings that looked altogether out of place in a neighborhood where prefab houses covered in aluminum siding were the norm. She had lived in the same home for fifty-seven of her eighty-two years of life, she told us.

With some effort she climbed the seven steps of the concrete porch; we followed after her. She brought a tangle of keys from her coat pocket, unlocked the door and we all went inside.

She crouched down and unleashed her dog, then stood. “I'll take the milk now.”

I handed her the bag, and she hobbled off to the kitchen, leaving Macy and me alone in the living room. The front room was rectangular, the floor covered with gold shag carpet, the walls coated with faux gold-leafed wallpaper yellowed with age, especially near the windows. The furniture looked like it had been bought in the fifties, and the house smelled of lilac air freshener. On one of the walls was a faded mural of Hawaii. Mounted on the opposite wall was a display of Wedgwood plates above an antique player piano, a
leviathan of an instrument with wood cabinetry set in a herringbone pattern.

In one corner of the room was a squat artificial Christmas tree with a single strand of lights hung haphazardly across it. In the opposite corner of the living room was a three-stepped étagère of burled walnut adorned with porcelain figurines. Macy walked over to it and squatted down to examine the dolls. I sat down on the couch and watched her.

“You came on a good day,” the woman said from the other room. “I'm going to be hand-dipping my Christmas chocolates. Cordials and haystacks.” She came back into the room carrying a plate of cookies. “Haven't changed much, have you, girl?”

Macy turned to her. “Excuse me?”

“You loved those dolls. Always went right to them.”

She cocked her head. “I remember these.”

“See that one with the broken arm?”

“Yes.”

“You did that. Well, maybe Noel did it and you took the blame for it. Never got the truth out of you; you were always looking out for her.”

“Noel. That's her name,” she said as if it had just been pulled from somewhere deep in her mind. “It's on my Christmas ornament.”

“Christina Noel. Born Christmas Day.”

“I always felt something whenever I heard that song,” Macy said, “‘The First Noel.'”

“I always sang that to her when you came over, even in the summer. You both were the cutest little things. You made
quite a sight coming up the walk hand in hand. I used to tell you, you should sue the county for building the sidewalk so close to your rear.” She laughed.

“I used to sing to you too. Your favorite song was 'You're a little bit of honey that the bees ain't found.' And you liked that song from
Mary Poppins
, ‘Feed the birds, tuppence a bag…'”

The woman's voice was irregular and scratchy like an old vinyl record, but it washed over Macy like a warm wave. “I used to have a voice,” she continued.

“I remember,” Macy said.

“Had a trio with my sisters. We were popular back then. Sang at the opening of St. Mark's Hospital. Course I had looks too, and you can see where that got me.”

She held out the plate. “Ginger snap?”

Macy took one. “I love ginger snaps,” she said.

“I know. Take two.”

Macy took another, then the woman offered the plate to me and I took one. Then she took a cookie for herself. “I used to tell you that if you ate one more ginger snap you'd turn into one. You believed me too. You'd puzzle over that like it might be a good thing.”

Macy said hesitantly, “I'm sorry, but I don't remember your name.”

“You just called me Nanna. My name's Bonnie Foster.”

“Bonnie Foster,” Macy repeated. “Did you know my mother well?”

“You don't think your mother would just send you off to a stranger's house, do you?” She pushed herself up by her
knees. “Just a minute.” She left the room, and we could hear her rooting through the hall closet. She returned carrying an old shoe box. “Want to see a picture of her?”

“You have pictures of us?”

“Course I do. All of you. Even your father.”

Bonnie set the box on the coffee table in front of us. Macy reached for the pictures. The first photo was of two little girls posing in Easter dresses.

“That's me and Noel?”

Bonnie smiled. “Cuter than a bug's ears.”

“You look alike,” I said.

“Oh yes,” Bonnie said. “The two of you could've been twins if it wasn't for the age.”

Macy went through several other pictures of her and her sister. In one of them the children sat on a woman's lap.

“That's my mother,” Macy said softly.

Bonnie looked over. “Your dear mother.”

“She was beautiful.”

“Heavens, yes. She was beautiful inside too. Your mother was a saint.”

Macy looked at her quizzically. “A saint?”

“It's a sin to counsel the Lord, but I don't know why He always takes His best when we need them so badly down here. There He's got all those martyrs and saints, and when we get one of them down here it's like He just wants them back. He should have taken your father.” She quickly turned away. “I shouldn't have said that. Now I've sinned twice. I'll be keeping Father Lapina busy at confessional this Sunday.”

I thought of my own situation and how many times in the
last few weeks I'd thought the very same thing, that it should have been my father.

Macy set down the picture. “You said my mother was sick?”

“She had cancer of the lung.”

“Cancer? You mean she didn't die from drinking?”

“Your mama? Heavens no! I don't think she touched a drop in all her life. Where'd you get that fool idea?”

“Irene Hummel told me.”

“And who's Irene Hummel?”

“The woman who adopted me.”

Bonnie shook her head. “Now I
know
that's a sin, talking about your mother that way. Your mother was an angel if ever there was one on this earth.”

“What about my father?”

Her expression hardened. “That man's a different story.” She shuffled through the pictures. “There he is.” The photograph showed a thin man, leaning against a motorcycle, a cigarette dangling from his lip. “That man was the bane of her existence. He was her only hope of keeping the family together. But he let her down. He let all of you down.”

“Why'd she marry him?” I asked, seeing another similarity with my parents.

“Question I couldn't figure is why she didn't leave him. But then, love isn't reasonable.”

Macy finally asked the question she'd been waiting to ask. “Do you know where Noel is?”

“No. Wish I did. One day they just came and took her. I never saw her again. But I'm sure someone at the state could tell you.”