Mrs March

by Virginia Feito

  She felt a sudden draft and turned to see two men entering the diner. The door slowly closed behind them as they proceeded to sit on stools at the counter. One of them looked over at her. She smiled. He ignored her, turning his back to her as a waiter took their order.

  Her face growing hot, Mrs. March looked down at her menu. It was probably mannerless brutes like these who had murdered Sylvia, not her husband. They had spotted her, a nubile young creature, eating alone at this very diner, and had abducted her in the parking lot. She glared at their backs, stung by the certainty that these men would never leer at her the way they surely had at Sylvia.

  The waiter approached her table, and as he took her order she tried to purse her lips seductively, as she decided on a lobster roll and a hot tea. He never once met her eye, however, between scribbles on his notepad.

  By the time she finished her dinner, only the two men at the counter and Mrs. March remained. She sat in her booth, rehearsing in her head the different ways she might reject the men’s advances if they were to approach her. In the end they did not come anywhere near her, and when they put their coats and hats on, she threw a few crumpled bills onto the table and hurried to the exit, giving the men one last chance to assail her as they all walked out. The men did not acknowledge her, let alone hold the door open for her, and her face burned as she stepped out into the cold.

  Crossing the parking lot, she ran into a dog, or rather the dog ran into her. She never had managed to figure dogs out, and having lived, as a child, with a cat and its erratic whims, she had learned to fear the unpredictable nature of animals in general. The dog pressed its snout against her leg and sniffed, blinking serenely. She’d read somewhere that dogs often smelled those who were ill or suffering. Had it sensed her anguish? She knelt down beside the dog in a grand gesture of appreciation (its owner, indifferent to the exchange, held the leash limply as he readjusted his scarf). She petted the dog, sensing a great connection. She curled her fingers around its wiry gray coat and whispered to it, “Yes. Yes. It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?” as the dog yawned with its tongue out, its wet black eyes focused on a point in the distance (why did dogs never seem to look her in the eye?).

  The owner cleared his throat, and Mrs. March gave a quiet little laugh, sniffed, and stood up. “Thank you,” she said to the owner. “Thank you.” Not waiting for a reply, she walked off across the parking lot, her tasseled loafers—the leather now ruined by snow and salt—clicking on the cement, her shadow slicing through the lights cast by the streetlamps.

  THAT NIGHT, as Mrs. March attempted to sleep in the cabin, she was distracted by a series of unfamiliar noises. The wood walls and floors creaked and a hidden clock ticked away the minutes. Outside, the wind pealed, the endless rumble identical to that of the ocean in Cádiz. As she drifted to sleep, she wondered whether she might drown.

  At some point in the night she lurched awake, disoriented, to find herself in a darkness unknown to her, so black it rung in her ears. The wavelike wind had ceased its crashing, slowing into a kind of relaxed breathing. Listening closer, Mrs. March could detect actual breathing, deep and heavy, almost wet. It’s only Kiki. Good old Kiki who misses you.

  Unsure if she was squeezing her eyes shut or whether it was just the darkness, Mrs. March covered her ears with a blanket.

  A wooden mallard sat on the edge of the bathtub. Mrs. March blinked at it, praying that it wouldn’t blink back as she dabbed at her underarms and between her legs with a threadbare towel she had found under the sink.

  She squinted at the harsh morning light pouring through the bathroom window. It was so bright it was almost white.

  She had slept on the couch in front of the fireplace, so as to disturb as little as possible. For warmth she’d draped herself with a thick blanket that most likely had been used by Edgar’s basset hound; immediately upon waking, she returned it to the floor near the dog bed where she had found it and conducted a more thorough search of the cabin.

  Mrs. March looked under beds, in flower vases, behind toilets, and even in the sugar and flour jars in the kitchen. She knocked on walls, listening for the telltale hollowness of a secret room. She was in search of anything that might seem suspicious or out of place, anything that might contradict George and Edgar’s description of the cabin. She found nothing.

  That morning she walked over to Gentry’s Main Street—a long, bitterly cold forty-minute walk, the backs of her ruined loafers digging into her heels by the end of it. The grocery was a dirty-white clapboard building with a tattered American flag and a blue mailbox. A sign over the entrance read “Gentry General Store.”

  Walking inside, Mrs. March passed a revolving display crammed with postcards, piles of local winter produce—potatoes mostly—and an ice cream freezer, its motor shivering, freezer-burned cartons piled up inside it.

  She wandered the narrow aisles, lifted a few scented candles to sniff them. No matter the label, each one smelled of dust.

  “Can I help you?”

  She turned around to see the store clerk, a pudgy bald man with hairy arms and hairy knuckles, and tufts of hair on the nape of his neck and in his ears. It was as if his body were trying to apologize for his hair loss, Mrs. March thought. “Oh, hello,” she said. She set the candle—“Turkey Stuffing”—back on the shelf and walked over to the counter where he stood. Hunting and fishing licenses sold here! proclaimed a sign on the wall behind the cash register. “I was—I was just looking around.”

  “Looking around at a store with only three aisles? That’s mighty peculiar. Most folks come here with a list, if they’re out of milk and eggs, say.” Mrs. March stared at him blankly until he said, “Well, look around all you want. Nobody’s rushing you. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Well, actually—” she said, wringing her chapped hands, “I was curious to know whether you knew anything about what happened, about that girl who was killed.”

  The clerk raised his eyebrows, eyes widening.

  “I know it’s lurid to be curious,” Mrs. March hurried to explain, “only I’m not from around here, I was just passing through, and the story struck me because, well, I’m a mother,” she said, bravely, gaining conviction as she went on, “and I have a daughter and she—Sylvia—reminds me so much of my Susan.”

  The clerk’s eyebrows relaxed and his face formed an expression resembling tenderness. He looked from left to right rather dramatically before leaning over the counter on his elbows. “Well,” he said, “it’s been really hard for folks these past few weeks. Especially for me—I mean, I knew her personally.”

  Now it was Mrs. March’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “Really?” she said, breathless.

  “I mean, you know, she came in here sometimes. For milk and batteries and whatnot.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. March, deflating.

  “But let me tell you, that girl was friends with everybody. Real friendly like. One of the kindest people I ever met. She was the type to give the less fortunate canned goods and her old clothes. And not just on Christmas.”

  “My goodness,” said Mrs. March. “What a terrible waste.”

  Isn’t it funny, she thought, how one’s status invariably soars after one’s death. She had pictured her own funeral many times: Jonathan, always so imperturbable, finally breaking down into heaving sobs as he clutched his mother’s casket, George at his side in a shocked silence most would misjudge as stoicism but was actually repentance. People would remember her fondly, feeling closer to her than they ever had in life. She liked to imagine another author writing George’s biography, who would include a very large section on her premature death. It sounded wonderful until she pictured the biographer snooping into her past, digging away at the quiet corners of her life, coming up with a less flattering portrait of her, another version of sad, pathetic Johanna.

  “Shouldn’t have been out so late,” the clerk said. “Isn’t safe. Even in a town like this, where everyone knows each other. It’s a shame, but even in Gentr
y it isn’t safe. My daughter always says to me, it’s not fair women have to be careful when it’s dark out. Well, look, it might not be fair, but that’s how this world works. Your daughter ever say that to you?”

  It took Mrs. March a second to realize he was asking after her fabricated daughter. “My Susan’s more of a homebody,” she said, “because she’s very studious, you see. She just got into Harvard.” Even in fantasy, Mrs. March was compelled to keep up appearances.

  “Harvard, eh? Wowee, you got a good one there, dontcha?”

  “Yes, we like to think so,” said Mrs. March, forgetting her modesty.

  “Ayuh. Lucky, very lucky, indeed.”

  “Well, yes, of course luck comes into it,” she said, attempting to correct course, “but one does wonder whether our parenting had anything to do with how she turned out …”

  “Sure, sure. But you never know. Our daughter makes no sense to us, even as a baby—we just can’t figure out who she takes after. Wild thing, you know the type. She settled down a bit after they found Sylvia, though—”

  “Who were the hunters who found her? Do you know them?”

  “Naw, they were just visiting. One hell of a trip, eh, one minute you’re looking for birds to shoot and the next minute you’re staring down a dead body.”

  “How awful,” said Mrs. March. “I wonder who could have done such a thing?”

  “Oh, there’s all sorts of crazies and weirdos out there. Hate to say it but they mostly target women. What you gonna do, though?”

  “Is it possible that Sylvia knew her attacker personally?”

  “Naw, the people of Gentry would have noticed something funny”—he snapped his fingers—“like that. It’s a small town. Very small town. Had to be an outsider for sure.”

  “Mmm.”

  “She’s just down the street, if you want to pay your respects. Laid to rest at Gentry Township Cemetery.”

  “Yes, I think I will. And—is her store somewhere nearby? The store where she worked? I want to buy a present for my daughter there, you know, in solidarity. It must have been such a blow to her coworkers.”

  “Ayuh, ’specially to Amy, they were very close. Amy Bryant?” he said when Mrs. March frowned at the name. “She’s the daughter of some friends of mine. Very close to Sylvia. Went everywhere together. I saw them pass by the store every morning on their way to work,” he said, pointing his thumb at the window by the counter. “I heard they were thinking of moving in together. Sylvia lived with her grandmother, see. Girl her age would need her independence.”

  “You know, I think I will visit the store, talk to poor Amy,” said Mrs. March.

  “Oh, Amy hasn’t been working since it happened,” said the clerk. “Stays at home, isn’t really doing anything. She’s in a bad state.”

  “That’s a shame, really. How sad.”

  “It’s been quite a rough couple of months around here, I’ll tell you that.”

  “So this Amy, she—she lives near here?”

  “Yessiree, but as you may or may not understand, I’m not gonna give you her address,” the clerk said.

  “Oh, I wasn’t—”

  “Gentry’s a small town and we’re very protective of our own.”

  Mrs. March was offended at his assumption that she wanted to pry the friend’s address out of him—even though that was exactly what she had intended. She fought the urge to tell the clerk that for a town so protective they’d sure allowed a terrible murder, and instead she said, curtly, “You could direct me to the store, at least, I assume?”

  SHE RECOGNIZED the purple shop front immediately from the news footage. The Hope Chest was painted over the door in old-style gold-leaf lettering. It clashed frustratingly with the more modern style of the items in the window display, many of them posing as antiques but most likely vulgar imitations shipped from China. The display, Mrs. March noted, remained wholly unchanged from when they’d shown it on the news—except for the decorative holiday tinsel, which had been removed.

  “This tight-knit community is in mourning, having lost all hope of ever seeing Sylvia alive again,” Mrs. March quoted to herself under her breath, as she pushed the purple door open.

  Inside, the store was dark and cramped; trinkets lined the walls while shelves erupted with stuffed animals and handmade soaps, flower-patterned crockery interspersed throughout.

  Mrs. March walked quietly, squeezing through the shelves and around the furniture, suppressing a cough from the churning dust. She stopped at a chest marked with the initials “G.M.M.” and a date—“1798.” It looked to be a wedding chest. The blue wood was badly splintered and faded, but Mrs. March could make out the traces of a green and yellow bouquet painted on one side. On top of it lay a couple of beautiful leather-bound books tied together with string. Noticing the store assistant loitering nervously nearby, she picked up the books and asked how much they were. The girl—dumpy, with a piggish nose and thin hair the color of a robin’s breast—blushed. “Oh, those aren’t for sale,” she said, “those are on loan from the bookstore down the street, they’re just decorative—”

  “I assumed as much,” said Mrs. March. Meanwhile, she felt her neck aflame under her scarf.

  “Is there anything else I can help you with?” the assistant asked.

  “Actually, yes. I’m looking for a coworker of yours, Amy Bryant, who works here, I believe?”

  “Amy? Oh—she’s not in today.”

  “I see. Well, I need to speak with her,” said Mrs. March, possessed of a calm authority previously unknown to her. “It’s rather important. Do you know where she lives?”

  “Well … I mean I would like to help you, but I don’t think—”

  “I’m from the New York Times. I’m writing an article on Sylvia, and it would be of the utmost importance to get an interview with Amy Bryant, seeing as how they were so close. They were close, right?”

  “Oh,” said the girl, her dull, freckled face arranging itself into an expression of unadulterated clarity. “Oh, wow, I understand—of course—Amy’s actually staying at Sylvia’s grandmother’s, they’re keeping each other company, you know, after what’s happened—so you’d have to visit her there.”

  “The house where Sylvia used to live?” Mrs. March swallowed, her head reeling at the thought that she might be about to venture into the actual house Sylvia slept in, ate in, breathed in …

  “Is that all right?” the girl asked, seemingly anxious that she had lost Mrs. March’s interest with this new piece of information. “I can write the address down for you.”

  Mrs. March was tempted to call the whole thing off and confess, but the lure of entering Sylvia’s home was too much to resist, and, quashing any remaining moral objections, she said, “Yes, thank you, that will do,” in an accurate imitation of her mother’s transatlantic accent.

  She set off for the house clutching the piece of paper on which the address was written in loopy schoolgirl cursive. Giddy, she wondered what she would find there, and asked herself whether she was taking her suspicions too far, or—remembering Johanna—not far enough.

  Mrs. March knocked on the door to Sylvia’s home—a dull, beige structure just off the main road, on a street that ended in a cul-de-sac presided over by a light blue steepled church.

  She had just taken off her headscarf and stuffed it into her purse, suspecting it was not something a New York Times reporter would wear on assignment, when Amy Bryant answered. Mrs. March considered it rude to open a front door that wasn’t one’s own, but she supposed Sylvia’s grandmother was too affected by the whole tragic ordeal to muster the strength to answer it herself.

  Amy Bryant was sharp-nosed, with a small mouth and chin and hard, beady eyes. No doubt Sylvia had befriended her because she was so plain, Mrs. March reflected. Although she most likely had been the more intelligent of the two, Amy would always have paled in comparison to the beautiful Sylvia, who must have used the discrepancy to her advantage.

  “Hello, I’m a reporter
with the New York Times. I’m writing a piece on Sylvia Gibbler and I’m hoping I could just ask you some questions. I’d only take a few minutes of your time. I know how hard this must be for you, but you and I have a duty to the public to bring her killers to justice. Sylvia would want that.” Mrs. March fiddled with her purse as she said this, figuring it looked more authentic—a busy Times writer with a busy schedule—if she were searching for a pen.

  Amy Bryant held the door open. “Of course, yes. Come in.”

  Mrs. March was thrilled at how easy it was to get people to talk once you said you were with the New York Times. Nobody asked to see any proof, not even a business card, at the merest possibility of being featured in a Times article. Would she open the door to herself, just as Amy was doing now? She supposed she would. She pictured herself sitting across from the reporter—also herself—in her living room in New York, offering herself a macaron from a dessert plate.

  “Nothing you don’t want to talk about,” she said to Amy as she crossed the threshold of Sylvia Gibbler’s house. “I’m just trying to get as much information as possible. To really write the truth, you know. I want to paint as objective—and truthful—a picture as possible.”

  “I understand, ma’am. I’ll try to be as objective as I can—”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that, Miss Bryant, that’s my job. You just focus on telling me what you remember. You’ve been through enough already.” She directed her most sincere, most compassionate gaze at Amy, whose weak chin quivered and beady eyes watered with self-pity upon hearing this.

  Mrs. March was led into the living room, which she couldn’t help but eye critically. The house—from what she’d seen of it—was cluttered and mismatched. The curtains were stained, the floors unmopped, doilies yellowed, the air musty. She itched to open the windows.

  “Please—” said Amy, motioning toward a particularly haggard-looking couch sheathed in plastic. Mrs. March managed a quick scan before she sat, attempting a surreptitious brush of her hand to swipe away a smattering of crumbs and white animal hairs.