The year She Fell (51 page)

Finally he turned and came back, and his face was bleak. “I was fourteen. Sure I remember.”

“What?”

“Mom took you with her. To work, she said. Dad stayed away all day. Drinking, I guess. We didn’t see him at all. And then Mom came back alone, and she said you were going to stay with the Wakefields, and they were going to give you a good life.”

“What—what did you think?”

“I thought . . . I don’t know. I thought—” He shook his head. “I don’t remember. Ronnie thought they’d sold you, like I said. But I didn’t think they’d do that.”

I just couldn’t leave without asking. “Was it something I’d done? Something I was? Was that why they gave me away?”

“You mean, were you bad? Christ, no. If they were giving away bad kids, they’d’ve given me and Ronnie away, not you.” He smoothed a hand down the hood of the car, his fingers light on the hot metal. “I figure it was triage, you know. I guess I thought she wanted you away from the trap we were in. She thought she could still save you. Not us. Just you.”

“Did you talk about it?”

“Just with Ronnie. For awhile. Couldn’t say your name to Dad—he’d go off on a bender. And Mom would go off to church and pray more. So we didn’t talk about you. Only sometimes Ronnie would get high and talk about finding you and bringing you home. But I’d tell him he was stupid. There wasn’t any home anymore.”

And then he turned and left me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The cemetery in Paulsen, like everything else in that town, was shabby. I walked past leaning gravestones, hardly able to read their faded lettering, until I found what Mitch had termed the family plot—a dozen old stones by a corner of the rusting iron fence. A maple tree shaded the oldest graves, but the newer ones were out in the sunshine, and I could read the epitaphs plainly. Peter Price, beloved husband. Joan Price, beloved mother and wife. Ronald Price, beloved brother. Just the names, the pro forma messages, the birth and death dates.

I sank down beside Ronnie’s grave. I remembered him as a boy—sharp-featured and clever, adept at card play and magic tricks. And then he stopped—or rather, my memory of him stopped, and I sat there, my hands gripping the long grass, and it was as if I was staring at the grave of a young boy. A life cut tragically short. But I stared at the recent death date carved into the stone, and reminded myself that he had lived into adulthood, had time to grow up and make choices and explore the world.

I pushed at the soft earth and rose to my knees. Grooming graves was a woman’s job. Mother made us girls help her take care of the
Wakefield
family graves, though she hired college boys to weed the more distant relatives’ plots. I knelt in the dirt and yanked the dandelions, tossing them over the old fence. But there wasn’t much I could do about the overgrown grass and the bare patches on Peter’s grave. I sat back on my heels and let the breeze push my hair back from my face. I couldn’t do anything here. I couldn’t make it right or make it meaningful. It was time to leave.

In the car I used my water bottle to wash the dandelion spores from my hands, then started the engine. The sun was already sliding behind the mountains, even in the middle of June, and that meant shadows on the twisted mountain roads. It was at least a two-hour drive home, and I didn’t feel confident enough of my driving skills to drive in the long mountain dusk. And the despair was creeping over me. I never cried, but I was afraid that I might start crying, alone in my car, driving home.

So I stopped just outside Paulsen at the only motel and took a room down from the office. It was hard to get the key to fit, and the door squeaked loudly as I opened it. But at least it closed tight, and the dark room smelled of cleaning supplies instead of smoke. Setting my bag on the bed, I went into the bathroom to wash up, and almost didn’t hear the tinny ring of the cell phone. I dug it out of my bag and, after a few seconds, realized I had to flip it open.

My first incoming call. No one had the number except Mitch.

He spoke so low I couldn’t understand him, and I had to ask him to speak up. I could hear his deep breath on the other end of the line, and then he said, “Look. I didn’t tell you this, because I don’t like what it means. What it means about my parents, and my dad. But it’s been so long, and they’re dead, and you say you want to know.”

“What?” I whispered.

“I remember when Mom came home with you.”

That was all, and I had to prompt him. “Home from the hospital?”

“No. That’s just it. I don’t remember her being pregnant. I was eight, and I wasn’t stupid. I knew about women getting pregnant. My aunt had just had a baby a year before.”

Cousin Phil. Suddenly I remembered. A nasty tale-telling boy, a year older than
I.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying that I’d remember Mom being pregnant. I was old enough. And I’d remember her going to the hospital. But I don’t. She never got big, and she wasn’t ever sick, and she didn’t go away for days like she would if she’d gone to the hospital. She and Dad just went somewhere and came back the next day, and they came back with you.”

I shook my head. It made no sense. “But— but what does that mean?”

Another deep breath. “Ronnie and me, we never asked. We knew we weren’t supposed to ask. But I figured—well, I figured Dad had gotten some girl in trouble, and Mom had agreed to raise the baby as her own. It was, you know, one of those family secrets. No one said anything, not the aunts or Dad or Mom. You just weren’t there one day, and you were there the next.”

I had to repeat it, and it still made no sense. “You think I wasn’t your mother’s child?”

“Not like Ronnie and I were.” Roughly he added, “Look, she loved you. You were her favorite, not that I blamed her, stuck with two boys like me and Ronnie. You were her little princess. So it’s not like—”

The muscles in my hand clenched on the small phone. “But then she gave me away.”

“Well, she must have had her reasons.” He was silent for a moment, then he added, “You said you wanted to know. So that’s all I know.” And then he hung up, and I sat there with the phone pressed painfully to my ear until it went numb.

I kept the cell phone the
next day. The car rental agent showed me a couple tricks, like how to see the details of the last incoming call. I jotted Mitch’s phone number in my little notebook, promised to return the phone in a few days, and walked home. After years in
Romania
, where every medicine order and patient admission meant three pages of forms to fill out, it was oddly good to be back here, where all I had to do was say my name to get special favors. They knew my mother would make good even if I stole the phone.

Not that I would. Mother never had to clean up after my messes. Cathy, Laura, even Ellen— Mother had to deal with their big and little scrapes. But I didn’t cause her much trouble.

Not until now, that is.

I’d gone to Mitch looking for answers and instead got only more questions. And I couldn’t escape the truth any longer. The answers were here, at home, with my mother.

But Mother wasn’t there. Her car was still missing from that long driveway up to the house.

I felt like I’d traveled for weeks, but it had been less than two days since I’d been home.

It all hit me as I entered the door. I’d only been seeking some information, but that innocent inquiry—maybe it wasn’t so innocent. This might be what I was secretly hoping for, to bring down this house somehow. I was like that boy Brian, wasn’t I? Willing to wreck what I had for what I couldn’t have. I just didn’t have his recklessness.

Brian was waiting there
on the porch in the late afternoon sun. Just sitting on the steps, waiting. He looked young and abashed and tried to speak. But I pushed past him and went inside the house. I heard Laura in the kitchen, and without much volition I found my way back there through the dark hall. The light was pouring in the wide windows, outlining Laura at the sink as she washed coffee cups. I didn’t know her. I never had. She didn’t know me.

But she turned when she heard me. For an instant, I thought she might hug me, but she stopped a couple feet away, drying her hands on a towel. “Theresa! We were a little worried.”

“I’m all right. I just didn’t want to drive home in the dark.”

She gave me a tired smile. “I’m impressed you drove at all in the mountains.”

“I drove very slowly. It took me four hours to get back here.”

“Well, sit down. I just made some raspberry iced tea.”

I took a seat on one of the scarred oak chairs. “Tell me what happened.”

And so, as she busied herself, putting ice in tall glasses and finding long spoons, she said, “Tom’s at his hotel. No—no harm done.”

And then, succinctly, she summed it all up. Brian had come looking for the identity of his birthmother, and she and Ellen had figured out that it was Cathy. “And Mother knew,” Laura said bitterly. “All along. Or at least she had a letter from Brian, and hid it. She’d written down a bunch of dates, see, working out the timing. So she knew.”

For once, I was in accord with Laura. We were just discovering how closely Mother kept her secrets. “How is Ellen?”

“Okay. She went to find Tom. I don’t know. I guess he’s pretty mad that she—and I— didn’t tell the police about Brian.” She took a sip of her tea. “But Ellen didn’t think he’d hurt Tom. And she didn’t want him to go to jail.”

“I saw him sitting outside. So I guess he’s not going to jail.”

“Well,” she said ambiguously, “it helps to know the police chief.” She shook her head. “He’s still out there, huh? He’s waiting for us to welcome him into the family, I guess. But— he’s like Cathy, that way. Headstrong. And he never thinks of consequences.”

She was trying to be conciliatory, I realized. Otherwise she would be demanding why I’d been helping him. But now, I supposed, she felt herself equally culpable. Sisters united in sin.

 
“So he’s our . . . nephew?” I asked. The term sounded so strange. I thought of him as “Brian”, and yet, he was my sister’s child.

Laura took a quick glance back through the door to the hallway. “Our nephew. And Ellen’s—I guess stepson. Since Tom is his father.”

Then it hit me finally—that Tom must have slept with Cathy. Laura saw my shock and immediately began explaining. Tom didn’t know it was Cathy. He and Ellen were broken up at the time. Cathy had sought him out for some unknown reason, vengeance maybe. “No one understands why. She just did it. And never told anyone about the baby.” She busied herself at the sink, washing up a stray cup. “I knew she was pregnant. I just happened to stop there on my way to
New York
. But she said she was going to get an abortion.” She glanced back at me, belatedly remembering how my church felt about abortion. “I guess she didn’t. And she put Ellen’s name on the birth certificate. And then she’s dead in a year.”

“What do you mean?” I said slowly.

With an abrupt gesture, she shut off the faucet. “I don’t know. Why would she put Ellen’s name down? Unless she wanted to lead the boy to us some day? But she wouldn’t have needed to do that unless she knew she wasn’t going to be here for him.” She turned, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I thought she was wonderful. So beautiful and brave. I always admired her so much. But to do that to Ellen—”

I had been living the last week in a roil of emotion, my own fears and desires and regrets. But now, I felt overwhelmed. Ellen’s pain and Laura’s anger and Brian’s need, they were like a dark cloud surrounding me. I didn’t want to think of Cathy taking some vengeance on her little sister, or planning for her own death. And I didn’t want to think about those graves in Paulsen, that other family I’d lost, or Mitch, alone and embittered on that mountain, carving his statues and shutting out the world.