The year She Fell (23 page)

But he needed no persuading. Did he? He was clearly willing to accept this bequest on behalf of the college. He probably would regret any messy complications from the other heirs, that is to say, us, but he wasn’t about to turn this down.

So why was she turning up the persuasion factor?

Then I saw Ellen’s face. Poor Ellen. I wanted to tell her it was okay, that none of us really cared that much, that she didn’t have to feel guilty. Then she said, “I’d be willing to take charge of the house.”

Oh, Ellen, I thought, you don’t have to say that. She’d spent so much of her life running from the prospect of becoming Mother, the matriarch of this town, the responsible one, the one who
took charge
. And here she was, taking charge.

Then Theresa chimed in, saying that she would live there. In the house.

Mother didn’t even take notice. It made no sense. Theresa was her favorite, her baby. And no matter how tolerant she tried to be, I knew she was, well, disappointed in Theresa’s lifestyle choice. A Catholic nun—how did one explain that to the other deacons at Wakefield Presbyterian? The convent—especially that isolated cloister—must have seemed a denial of all the advantages Mother had given her all these years, a reversion back to that original form, the superstitious servant class with their crucifixes and rosaries and lawn shrines to the Virgin Mary. Now Theresa was making it plain that she might abandon that, return to Mother’s world—and Mother paid her no mind.

I couldn’t stand it. I found myself pledging to help out financially. Maybe even come to stay occasionally. Heck, I think I might even have volunteered to take charge of replacing the storm windows with screens every May—I don’t know.

Hey, Mom, the prodigal daughter returns. Hey, Mother! Hey, look at me! I don’t expect a fatted calf, but a bit of smug satisfaction wouldn’t be amiss. What, no
I told you so
? No
I’m glad you’ve finally seen the light, girls?

Nothing. She turned the wattage up a bit on her smile, and promised Dr. Urich a maintenance fund too. The only indication that she even had daughters was her requirement that the house be named The Catherine Wakefield Memorial Hall.

I was relieved. Really. I didn’t want Ellen tied to this town. I didn’t want to Theresa to get stuck here, replacing one cloister with another. I didn’t want to worry about the window screens.

But . . . but Mother was giving our house away.

“And all the contents.”

This woke me up again, enough to make me protest this far more passionately than I’d protested the gift of the house. Stupid of me. Now she knew that I cared.

Fortunately, her eyes were full of Dr. Urich, and her ears full of his humble and hasty statements of gratitude. She probably didn’t even know I’d spoken.

It was all over quickly after that. I headed out the door and down the stairs, and was halfway across the town square when I looked back to see Ellen and Theresa emerging from the door. Ellen looked depressed and defeated. I realized, rather suddenly, that she’d been subdued all this time—not her usual resilient self. I was about to go back and suggest that she come with me to the police lock-up dedication. I mean, that would cheer anyone up, right? But by the time I got this intention formulated, she’d disappeared around the corner.

Theresa, however, was coming towards me. I waited there under the Founder’s Oak tree, wondering if she’d join me. When she saw me there, she hesitated, then kept coming. “So what do you think?” I said when she drew up next to me. “About the house?”

“It’s Mother’s house. She can do what she wants.”

“Did you really decide you wanted to live here?”

She shrugged. I fought back a wave of irritation. Conversing with her was always such an ordeal. It didn’t help that she despised me and I loathed her. But I had to rise above that twenty-year-old grudge. “I think Ellen is taking this hard. Maybe if you speak to Mother—”

We were walking side by side, over the close-clipped grass of the courthouse square, close enough that my handbag banged against her leg. I switched it to the other side. “I mean, you do have maybe more influence with her than I do. Like several hundred times more.”

I said that lightly, but she took it seriously. She took everything seriously. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her smile, much less laugh. But she nodded. “I will speak to her about it, if I get an opportunity.”

I was inordinately pleased to get an agreement from her, and decided to follow it up with an invitation. “Do you want to go over there and check out the band? I never get a chance to hear real bluegrass anymore. They just have the fake kind in LA, bands with handsome young fiddlers who have a second career as a model.”

Theresa looked over at the bandstand in front of police headquarters. The sharp jabs of the fiddle were already gathering a crowd. She hesitated. Then she said, slowly, “All right. But I’m going to buy a drink first.”

“My treat,” I said, pulling a twenty out of my bag. I wasn’t sure she was allowed to carry cash. “As long as you get me a bottle of water.”

For just a moment, I saw the glimmer of amusement in her blue eyes as she took the bill. “This is
Wakefield
. Lemonade and sweet tea in plastic cups. If you want water, you have to go to the water fountain on the corner.”

I looked over at the corner. I remembered Jimmy Millstone throwing up into that water fountain after the junior prom. “Lemonade, then. I’ll be over by the bandstand.”

But I didn’t get there. I was just passing the bronze statue of Alexander Hamilton when someone grabbed my arm. Instinctively I pulled away and whirled around, only to see the flushed eager face of—of, oh, what was her name. Julie something.

I didn’t trust my memory. “Hi!” I said brightly.

She didn’t seem to notice my lapse. “Laura! I can’t believe you’re back in
Wakefield
! How long has it been? Graduation day, probably!”

It wasn’t the time to remind her I never made it to graduation day. “It’s been awhile. I—”

Before I knew it, she was raising her hand and raising her voice. “Lance! Come here! Laura Wakefield is back in town!”

Pretty soon I was in the middle of a curious little knot of former classmates. None of them asked for my autograph, fortunately, but I did get taken to task for not responding to the last announcement of the class reunion. And one insistent woman— I think I remembered her from the thespian club—demanded, “So did you get engaged or not?”

I kept my voice light. “Not.”

“I saw in People magazine that you were maybe going to marry that action star, what’s his name, the one in the Breakthrough movie—”

“Ken Haldrick?” the man beside her said.

I managed a smile, and nothing more revealing than that. “Oh, I think that was more our publicists’ doing than anything else. You know publicists. They live for the chance that they might get to sell photos of a big
Hollywood
wedding.”

The woman was disappointed. “So you aren’t really going with him?”

“Nope. Sorry.” I thought about starting a rumor that he only went out with women to conceal his penchant for pool boys. It wasn’t true, but—It wasn’t true, so I didn’t say it. In fact, I didn’t have to say anything, because at that moment,
Jackson
came walking up in his navy blue uniform, tapping a nightstick in his palm.

“All right, all right, folks, break it up.” He grinned at me as he put a hand on the insistent woman’s back and guided her towards the stage, where the old mayor sat on a metal chair. “The real celebrity is about to speak. The mayor.”

His arm brushed mine as he passed, and I felt a shiver of anticipation. He was so—manly. Teasing and playful but masculine too. Maybe I could do it. I looked at his back as he walked up the steps to the stage and thought maybe it was true. Maybe I could want him enough—

The fiddler saw him and broke off the old bluegrass tune, then started to play “I Fought the Law and the Law Won.”

“My theme song,”
Jackson
said, loud enough for the crowd to hear.

Then the mayor saw him and rose hastily, probably sensing the crowd might not pay him any mind now that the Man had arrived. He grabbed a microphone off the stand in front of the banjo player and raised his hand to cut off the music. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today for a great moment in our town’s history—”

I listened to his practiced political intonations, wondering why Mother wasn’t here for her town’s great moment in history. Oh, I’d forgotten. She was too busy choosing gown over town, lunching with the college president.

I was suddenly reminded that Theresa was somewhere out there, with my lemonade. Alone in this crowd. She probably didn’t like being in a crowd. So as the mayor droned on, I pushed my way back through the summer-sweaty bodies to the open area near the statue. I still couldn’t see her, so I clambered up on the low lip of Alexander Hamilton’s pedestal and craned my neck to look for her over the heads of the crowd. Then I saw her, standing under a spreading tree, both hands closed around plastic cups.

I filed this picture away as I jumped back to the ground. Someday, maybe, I would write a screenplay—yes, yes, we character actors don’t just fancy ourselves as future directors, we want to write all the lines too, and make sure they can be said by actual humans—about growing up in a small town, and I’d build the story line around such significant small town events—the fire department’s christening of the new ambulance, the Lion’s club fish-fry benefit for the boy with leukemia, the high school play. And maybe an almost-former nun, released from the cloister and alone in a crowd.

But as I made my way over to her, I saw a boy approach her from the sidewalk. He said something to her, a question, I thought from his posture. And as an answer she walked over to a trash barrel and dropped the plastic cups, the lemonade splashing up and then down again. Then she gestured to him to follow.

She was giving him directions. That was all, I realized with some relief, as she stopped at the corner and gestured across the street towards the old brick county office building. But then she stepped off the curb and into the crosswalk and he followed, sprinting a bit to catch up to her, talking all the while.

I watched, amazed. Theresa talking to a stranger. A male stranger. Well, he was hardly more than a boy, nothing wicked there, but—

But now the mayor’s ringing tones were fading, and I looked back at the stage, and there was
Jackson
taking the mike. And when I heard his cool voice, always with the laugh hiding underneath, I forgot about Theresa and her mysterious young man.

He didn’t talk long, just welcomed everyone and thanked them for the bake sales and the benefit concert and the support. And then the mayor trooped down the steps and over to the big red ribbon in front of the new annex. An aide handed him a big pair of pinking shears, and he snipped the ribbon in half. A cheer went up. The band started playing that old John Denver song about
West Virginia
, and that was all there was to the great historical moment for our town.

Without conscious choice, I lingered there by the statue, waiting. Waiting for Theresa to come back. Waiting for
Jackson
to detach himself from the ones who tugged at his uniform sleeve and the ones who declared their loyalty to the law. Waiting.

Finally I turned to look again for my sister. But instead, across the heads of the crowd, I thought I saw my brother-in-law. Ellen hadn’t said anything about him showing up, but that was Tom, wasn’t it? Leaning against the black Jeep in front of the library?

I liked Tom. He was a good man, and good to my sister, and when he got drunk, he lapsed into the most delicious Irish accent. And I supposed I should go over there and welcome him to town. But
Jackson
was walking away, towards the police station, and—and I’d see Tom back at the house.