The Moon Around Sarah (10 page)

Don looked up to see a dumpy woman with heavy jowls and crudely-applied crimson lipstick watching him from the porch. She wore a black skirt over wide hips and a white knit top, faintly patterned. They were of a piece, causing Don to think there was probably a matching black jacket. Her expression hovered between mistrust and anger.

Don rose and started toward the porch, the woman watching him with a deep scowl.

‘My name is Donald March,’ he said, offering her a smile which was not accepted. She continued to glare
mistrustfully
at him.

‘I asked you what you are doing with that girl.’

Don explained. ‘I found her sitting out in the rain, quite alone. Earlier I had met Sarah and her mother. I took Sarah to my shop to get her out of the weather. I waited until it stopped raining and then went out looking for her mother. I couldn’t find her. So I borrowed this car and brought her home,’ he said with a shrug, omitting the side trip to the hospital. ‘Sarah showed me the way.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to take her back to town and keep looking for her mother,’ Trish said in exasperation. ‘I’m leaving in an hour or so. I have already called for a taxicab. You say that you know who my sister, Ellen is?’

‘I told you. I met her earlier, briefly, on the pier.’

‘Did you go out with her?’ Trish asked suspiciously.

‘With your sister?’ Don said with surprise, ‘why, no. Of course not. I told you, I just happened to run across Sarah later in the day. I took her to my place, out of the rain.’

Trish’s mouth tightened dangerously, but she simply said, ‘I should have known you weren’t Ellen’s type.’ She glanced at the kitchen behind her. ‘You might as well come in for a few minutes, have a cup of coffee. That’s small enough thanks for watching the girl. Perhaps someone else from the family will return before I leave … but I doubt it.’

Don followed the woman into the house, turning his head to look for Sarah, but she was going down the grassy knoll with the old shaggy dog behind her. Trish caught his look.

‘She’ll be all right. She knows where she’s going. It’s the time of day when she likes to get out … the sun is getting low.’

Don crossed the room, smelling the undignified age of the structure, the rot all around him. Through an open door he saw three suitcases, one still open for packing. Trish poured Don a cup of extremely strong, tepid coffee.

‘Sit down,’ Trish said, motioning toward the chairs
encircling
a round oak table. She sat across from him and decided, ‘I guess you’re all right or you wouldn’t have brought her home. You walked into a mess, didn’t you?’

‘Well … into a mystery, at least,’ Don answered, sipping the terrible coffee.

‘You see why I’m leaving!’ Trish said with sudden emotion. Her eye clouded a little, ‘I’ve had five years of this! Babysitting the two of them. Ellen and Sarah.’ She shook her head with weary self-pity. ‘Nurse, maid, cook, family planner … Christ! Five years! You know,’ she grew briefly maudlin, ‘five years ago I had a man who wanted me. Not to marry me. Not at that point, I suppose, but he had asked me to live with him. I wasn’t this fat then,’ she said, smoothing her skirt over her heavy thighs. ‘I didn’t go to him. I had family obligations. Anyway, I didn’t go. That might have been my last chance, you know. Maybe,’ she admitted sadly, ‘I was just afraid … I don’t know.’ She went on, ‘But I do know that I have rotted away here, decayed like the house itself and gotten older … fatter. In the end I didn’t help anyone here – I just ruined my life. I haven’t got many years left if I ever hope to find a man to grow old with, Mr
March!’ Her last words rose on an upbeat. A false, out-of-key note of optimism.

Don asked, ‘Can’t Sarah’s mother take care of her?’

‘My sister can’t take care of herself. Ellen is one of those unfortunate people who cannot take even one drink. If she has one, she’ll have ten. She’ll vanish for days at a time, or until whoever she’s taken up with kicks her out and she’s broke again.’

‘I see.’

‘Probably you don’t,’ Trish said, ‘unless you’ve lived with a real hardcore alcoholic. Do you see that trashcan in the corner? It’s ready to be dumped. One last gesture of mine before I go. I’ve cleaned out the cupboards. Removed all the vanilla extract, lemon extract, the mouthwash from the bathroom cabinet, Nyquil.’

‘Surely she doesn’t.…’

‘Of course she does, if I don’t keep my eye on her. Those cooking extracts, some of them are fifty per cent alcohol, and once she tastes
any
alcohol, she won’t stop. I learned a lot when I used to take her to the doctor for this. People will drink anything. Did you know Bela Lugosi drank formaldehyde? Tallulah Bankhead – you probably wouldn’t know who she was – used to drink ammonia. Apparently a lot of genteel ladies in the South did; it wasn’t considered drinking. Sailors at sea have been known to drink torpedo fuel. I guess there is some way of straining Sterno, that canned heat stuff, to make
something
they can drink.’

Don asked, ‘You said you used to take Ellen to a doctor
for the problem. Couldn’t they do anything for her? Give her something?’

‘Lord, Mr March, they tried everything. First they gave her that Miltown, a tranquilizer; that didn’t work. Several other things – I can’t remember them all. Finally they gave her this stuff called Meprobamate. “It’ll fell an ox” the doctor said. So Ellen took twice as many as she was supposed to, of course, and then somehow got hold of a bottle of whisky and drank that on top of it. It put her into a coma briefly. About then I ran out of money and patience at the same time. We didn’t go back to the doctor after that. No, Mr March, there’s no way my sister can take care of Sarah … and that’s probably all of the family problems you care to hear about.’

‘Not really,’ Don said sincerely, ‘I’m trying to understand. You see, I care about Sarah and,’ he admitted, ‘I’ve seen that hospital. I went out there and talked to one of the
psychiatrists
.’

Trish expressed surprise but not censure. ‘Well, Mr March, you are a regular little busybody, aren’t you?’

‘I told you – I care about Sarah.’

‘You can’t know her.’

‘Does anyone?’

‘I suppose not….’

‘But you
care
nevertheless, don’t you?’ Don asked.

‘Yes. I do.’

‘All right. So you understand that I can care as well. I need to understand her family….’

‘What exactly are you trying to accomplish, Mr March?’

‘What I am trying to do is to help Sarah. It doesn’t seem that anyone else is,’ he said bluntly.

She studied him minutely, then came to a decision. ‘All right. If you can talk while I finish packing, I’ll tell you whatever I know. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore,’ she finished distantly.

Don followed the heavily-moving woman into the inner room. Through a curtained window, he could see Sarah sitting on the grass far below the house. She was holding something; it seemed to be a yellow flower. The low sun bathed her in reddish light. Her shadow stretched across the knoll, thin and long and desolate.

‘Take a seat, Mr March,’ Trish said, folding a white sweater that she placed in the suitcase. ‘Maybe it’ll even do me some good to talk to a stranger about it. Like – what do they say? Catharsis. Maybe then I can shed it like a snake’s skin and leave it all behind me instead of just pretending … just pretending as we all have for far too long.’

T
RISH HAD TURNED
on a lamp, one with two red glass globes in imitation of an oil lamp. The dull light did little to banish the darkness or the gloom. She continued to pack her suitcase as sunset colors spread across the sky and sea beyond the windows.

‘I suppose it all starts with Raymond – Sarah’s father. Well, it must, mustn’t it?’ Trish’s expression was of complete disapproval, perhaps bordering on sheer hatred. ‘He is an arrogant man. He believes there is only one right way to conduct yourself in this world, and that is his way … one of those people. He’s not terrifically bright and so, of course, he assumes that he is, being so sure of himself and infatuated with Raymond Tucker. In the days when I first met him he was a cocky, good-looking, hell-raiser. He was a very heavy drinker, too, until the day … well, he was able to stop cold five years ago. I don’t believe he’s had so much as a beer since then. Of course it was he who introduced Ellen to liquor. She, as I have told you, cannot – will not – quit no matter what it costs her. Now her drinking is one more thing for Raymond to feel superior about; he quit, why can’t she? Like that.’

She paused briefly, a pair of red shoes in her hand. Her eyes and thoughts drifted away to some distant place and time and quickly returned. ‘Ellen was really an
astonishingly
pretty girl in those days. That’s where Sarah got her prettiness, from Ellen. And her intelligence,’ she said more quietly.

‘So you also believe Sarah is quite intelligent?’

‘I know she is!’ Trish placed the shoes in a pocket on the suitcase lid. ‘That’s one thing that makes it all the sadder. Raymond,’ she told him as if he hadn’t guessed, ‘was totally domineering, lord of the manor. He controlled Ellen so firmly that it bordered on cruelty. Nothing that she did was ever up to his level of expectation. Nothing. Poor girl. Things changed a little when Edward arrived. Growing up, the boy was subjected to the same emotional harassment, but he was able to shrug his father’s constant criticism off. Besides,’ she said, ‘Edward was good at
everything
,
positively
everything. Mathematics, sports, working with his hands. Just the opposite of Eric.’ An apparently unprovoked expression of intense dislike tightened Trish’s features.

‘Eric wasn’t so capable as Edward?’

‘Well, he was the younger, of course, and he was forced to compete with Edward who was not only bigger and older, but so talented in so many areas. It was extremely
frustrating
to Eric. Criticism was a deeply ingrained habit of Raymond’s now, and he was scathing towards Eric. No doubt a part of it was Raymond’s own failures financially. He went through his own father’s legacy at breakneck speed, one bad investment after another. And there was the
constantly escalating intake of liquor. Eric paid for it all. One can’t say it was Edward’s fault for being older, more athletic. He just was. Eric was poor at sports, troubled at school – no wonder! If he brought home bad marks, he could only expect the wrath of his God. The house used to shake with Raymond’s excoriations. Literally. Nor was Eric able to shrug off criticism as Edward could. It wounded him deeply to be picked on so violently. I think it cut his future manhood away from him. Cut it away as surely as a surgeon’s scalpel. All the same,’ Trish said thoughtfully, ‘it was Eric who loved his father, worshipped him. Edward – I don’t think Edward has ever loved anything or anyone in his life. Perhaps in that way, his father destroyed him as well. What, after all, could Edward have learned about love here? In this place.’

Trish gestured uncertainly around the big empty house and sat down heavily in an old overstuffed chair.

‘I can’t believe you want to hear any more of this, Mr March. Feel free to say “goodbye”.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Don said, seating himself in a matching gold-colored chair. ‘It fills in a few gaps for me. I didn’t tell you earlier, but I have met Sarah’s brothers.’

‘When?’

‘Today. They were looking for Sarah.’

‘I don’t imagine they were looking very hard.’

‘Well….’

‘What did you think of them?’

Don hesitated and decided not to answer directly. ‘What you’ve told me about their father explains part of it.’

‘I haven’t told you one-thousandth of what I know about Raymond Tucker; his ranting, cursing, his viciousness … and I won’t.’ She rose again and glanced at her wristwatch, ‘You wouldn’t have the time,’ she said, ‘and neither do I.’

She rearranged a few items in the suitcase and took another dress from a hanger, folding it.

‘But Sarah…?’ Don prodded.

‘Sarah was Raymond’s darling, his little angel. She could do no wrong. From the day she was born he fussed over her. Had her diaper been changed? Didn’t she feel warm? When she was older, Raymond spent hours brushing her hair. He bought her extravagant gifts … all up until she was four years old, of course.’

‘When she quit speaking?’

‘Yes.’ Trish nodded. ‘But when she was a baby, Raymond lavished her with – well, with Raymond you couldn’t call it affection – but with attention. Eric became totally alienated then. He was afraid at school, afraid at home. He would do anything to avoid the house; Raymond hadn’t quit picking on him for a second. When Sarah quit talking, Raymond couldn’t adjust to that at all. He couldn’t accept it although he refused to take the child to a doctor. In his mind it was a weakness, an unnatural weakness. He shunned the girl as he had shunned Eric. I suppose that it was natural that Eric and Sarah should grow very close together then. When they were little they used to hold hands everywhere they went. It was very sweet and pathetic at once if you knew their background. Of course that period didn’t last long. Raymond put an abrupt halt to it.’

‘But why? Don asked in confusion, ‘and what could it have been that happened to Sarah when she was four? You
must
know.’

‘No, sir.’ Trish said, ‘I don’t. Of course in later years we all came to the same conclusion, that…’

The front door opened, a freshening gust of wind shifted the curtains, and Sarah came in, backlit by the crimson sunset. The big white dog followed her. Sarah closed the door carefully and walked past them, drifting soundlessly toward a dark-paneled corridor. She had a yellow daffodil in her hand.

‘Sarah,’ Don said, rising from his chair. ‘I was wondering when you’d be back.’

She walked on, not so much as glancing at him.

Don stepped that way, but Trish placed a restraining hand on his arm.

‘Leave her alone. It’s that time of the evening. She’ll be back in a little while.’

Not understanding, Don watched as Sarah continued along the dark corridor, opened a door and turned on a faint light, proceeding down some steps, apparently to a
basement
.

‘What is she doing?’ Don asked.

‘It’s a little ritual she has. I tried to break her out of it in any way I could think of … I suppose it doesn’t matter now, does it?’

‘What sort of ritual?’

Trish didn’t answer, but returned to her last little bit of packing, tossing a few odds and ends into the bag.

Don seated himself again, keeping his eyes on the hallway where Sarah had vanished. A faint yellow light from below smeared the high ceiling of the corridor. The old white dog rested itself on the floor next to Don and pushed at his hand with its nose. Don scratched Poppsy’s head absently.

‘What’s going to become of the dog? Poppsy?’ he asked.

‘Look at the old thing,’ Trish answered, ‘what do you think?’

‘Oh, sure,’ Don said roughly. ‘Anywhere where
people
are disposable….’

‘If you want the mangy old bitch, take her!’ Trish snapped. When Don didn’t answer her, she shrugged as if to say: ‘you see?’

‘What in the world is Sarah doing?’ Don wondered aloud.

‘Do you want to know?’ Trish asked harshly. ‘You want to know everything, don’t you, busybody?’

‘Yes.’ Don’s voice was pitched very low. He looked up at the faded woman before him. ‘I do want to know.’

‘All right,’ Trish said. Her eyes locked with Don’s. ‘I’ll tell you then.’ Her voice was hoarse and broken, ‘She’s down in the basement visiting her baby!’

‘She’s what?’ Don’s face went blank. His thoughts snarled upon themselves, lacking logical progression. Could Trish have actually said that, meant it? ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said.

‘Her dead baby. It’s buried in the basement,’ Trish said, turning her back deliberately as she pretended to finish packing. ‘
Now
are you happy, busybody?’

‘In the basement?’ Don said, struggling to order his
confused thoughts. His mouth went very dry. His vision was not quite focused. A baby buried down there. Not on a grassy knoll beneath a wide-spreading tree, nor in the peaceful town graveyard. In a basement!

‘Yes.’ Trish turned to face him again. Her composure had returned. ‘We decided it was for the best.’

‘Why? What had happened?’

‘It was born dead,’ Trish said.

‘But still…’

‘It was her brother, Eric’s baby!’ Trish said, the words gushing forth. Perhaps she was building toward her
longed-for
catharsis. ‘We couldn’t report it, don’t you see? We kept Sarah at home. Raymond was desperately afraid of scandal. His business … what there was left of it, would have been destroyed. Ellen was terrified of moral censure. She had few friends, but she had her dignity.’

‘You all conspired to break the law.’

‘Yes,’ Trish answered without a trace of guilt, ‘it had to be done. Raymond would have demanded it if we didn’t agree, and we did agree. Incest is an abominable act.’

‘You are sure…?’

‘Yes, we are sure. Raymond found Eric in bed with his sister.’

‘But that doesn’t necessarily mean.…’

‘There were signs. Blood … signs.’ Trish again looked into the past. ‘Raymond beat the boy senseless. His fury was terrible, just terrible. Slamming Eric against the wall, beating him with his fists until Eric’s eyes were closed and his nose broken.’

Don had seen the marks of a fresh beating on Eric’s face that morning. He knew now where they must have come from.

Trish said, ‘We realized then what must have happened to Sarah when she was still a little girl. The two children were too close. Eric had obviously been molesting Sarah in various ways for years. She loved her brother. She could not speak out against him, and so she refused to speak at all.’

‘Is that what the psychiatrist told you?’

‘No. We never told the psychiatrist about it.’

‘But why? It might have helped Sarah. You had the doctor working in the dark. Why?’

‘It’s none of your business. It’s a family shame.’

‘That makes no sense,’ Don said.

‘It’s not your family. Ellen would never have told the doctors. Nor would I,’ she added.

‘But all of you.…’ Don shut up. It was pointless to argue with the woman. Don was not as shocked by incest, by the home delivery, and silent burial of the dead infant, as by their refusal to share with the doctors the one key to Sarah’s door of silence.

‘Why?’ Don asked, only of himself, but Trish heard him.

‘They’d have to know about the baby then, wouldn’t they?

Trish turned her back again, this time quite definitely, and she closed her suitcase with the same finality, locking it with a tiny key from her chain.

Her attitude underwent a rapid change. He was no longer welcome; he was being dismissed. The conversation had gone too far, probably farther than she had intended
and that only because she was severing herself from the house and all of its related concerns.

‘I told you that I’m waiting for a cab. It should be here shortly now. When Sarah comes back, take her into town. You can’t leave her here alone. If you can’t find any of the family, try the lawyer’s. His name is Dennison. I’ll give you his address.’ She spoke rapid-fire as if giving a series of last minute instructions before leaving on vacation. There was no inflection in her voice. None.

Don tried again. ‘Listen, if you can give me another minute? Isn’t it a little late now for all of you to be guarding the past and its secrets? You’re all worried about contracts and checks and timetables. What about helping Sarah?’

‘No one can help Sarah.’

‘Maybe.…’

‘Are you going to help her?’ Trish interrupted acidly. ‘
You
? Who are you anyway? Are you a psychiatrist? Some kind of doctor, a social worker? You don’t look like it to me.’

‘No, of course not, I….’

‘I know,’ Trish said in a fatigued voice. ‘You just want to
help
, maybe take care of Sarah.’

‘Yes, of course I’d like to.’

‘Are you a rich man, then, Mr March?’

‘Hardly, I only….’

Trish paced, waving an impatient hand in the air. Once she looked out of the window for her taxi. She came back and bent over him, her dark eyes riveting and filled with challenge.

‘Are you rich enough to pay a psychiatrist’s bills – for who
knows how many years? To hire a nurse for Sarah? Someone to cook while you’re working; to clean her up? To watch her so she doesn’t wander off alone? Or hurt herself?
I
did those things for five years,’ she said, putting her fingertips to her bosom, ‘and you couldn’t pay me enough to do it for another five years.’ She straightened up and looked down at Don, her hands on her heavy hips, her round face in shadow. ‘What do you do for a living anyway?’

‘I’m a photographer,’ Don answered, and Trish waved her hands skyward. A brief scornful laugh exploded in the room.

‘God help us! A photographer! An artistic, sensitive soul. Dead-ass broke, I’ll wager. Maybe you have worked out a plan to get your hands on some of the money Sarah’s come into.’ When Don didn’t answer, Trish said, ‘Listen, Mr March, you’ve had your cheap entertainment for the day. Saved you the price of a movie ticket. You can take your moral superiority and shove it up your ass! If you’ve
satisfied
your vague charitable impulse, you can take Sarah back to town like I told you … oh, shit!’

This, because a yellow taxicab had just pulled up in front of the house, lights on against the dusk. The driver tooted his horn. Trish crossed quickly to the kitchen door and called out, ‘Just a minute! I’m coming!’