The Nomination

by William G. Tapply

  The driveway ended in a turnaround in front. A big SUV was parked there. Judging by the size and the squarish shape of it, it was an old-model Jeep, one of those huge Wagoneers, he guessed, but it was still too dark to see clearly. The building itself was your basic New England farmhouse—two stories high, a couple of dormers on the roof, open porch across the front, with a new-looking glassed-in addition on the back, and beyond that a wooden deck. Behind the house the ground sloped away into a valley, and some low hills rose up in the distance against the dark western horizon.

  From where he was kneeling in the woods, Moran could hear the gurgle of water. It seemed to come from the valley in back of the house. Another trout stream, he guessed.

  He moved around to the side of the house, keeping inside the line of trees, until he found some high ground. It was a little wooded knoll from which he could watch both the front and the back of the house. It was on the edge of the field that abutted the side yard, and a clump of big hemlocks grew there. It was about fifty yards from the house—close enough to see everything with the binoculars, far enough to remain safely hidden.

  Moran crawled under the hemlock boughs and sat experimentally with his back against the trunk. The ground under the tree was a pillow of old hemlock needles. It was more luxurious than he had any right to expect.

  He took off his backpack, fished out his big bowie knife, and cut away some branches that blocked his view of Li An’s house and yard. Then he looped his binoculars around his neck, spread his windbreaker on the ground, sat on it with his back against the tree trunk and his pack within reach, and settled in to wait.

  It would be a long day, but Eddie Moran had spent a lot of long days waiting in the woods, and none of them had been as comfortable and relaxed as this one promised to be.

  For one thing, he didn’t expect there to be other men sneaking through the woods who’d kill him if they found him and if he didn’t kill them first.

  A mosquito buzzed in his ear. He squirted some repellent onto his palm, rubbed his hands together, and coated his face, neck, and hands. Then he dug under the layer of old hemlock needles, grabbed a handful of damp dirt, made mud of it between his oily palms, and rubbed it on his face and the backs of his hands. It adhered nicely to the slick insect repellent.

  He ate an apple.

  Overhead, one by one, the stars winked out. The purple sky faded to pewter. Birdsong filled the woods.

  Eddie Moran sat there under the hemlocks, watching and waiting.

  “GOOD MORNING, MAC. I want to tell you about something that happened last night. I need to talk about it for a minute. It is not in the sequence of my story. I do not know if it is—or will ever be—part of the story. Maybe. Maybe it will be how our story ends. It would make a lovely ending.

  “I had just gotten into bed when the phone rang in the other room. Jill answered it. I heard her speak, I heard a strange tone in her voice. When she brought me the phone, she had this odd, concerned look on her face, as if she had heard that somebody I loved had died and that she feared I would be terribly sad. Then she said it was Jessie on the phone.

  “I will not tell you the whole story about how I figured out that May, Jessie Church, that is, my dear daughter, is living in California using a different name. As I’ve mentioned, I wrote her a note several weeks ago asking her—begging her, really—to call me or write to me, but she never did.

  “Now she was calling me. She was there, on the telephone. But when I spoke her name into the phone, she said nothing. I heard her breathe for a moment. Then she hung up.

  “It must have been May. Jessie. I’m sure it was. Who else could it be? And because she called me—even though she hung up without speaking to me—it must mean that she thinks I am her mother.

  “At first I was very sad that she hung up when I spoke her name. I cried. But Jill pointed out that this was really a reason to rejoice, a cause for hope, and I have decided that she is right. It is a very big thing to speak to your mother after a whole lifetime. Jessie needs to understand this and what it means. I am hoping that she will call me again, and that this time she will speak to me.

  “So I went to sleep with this feeling of hope that Jessie will call again, and that I will be able to see her and hold her hand and tell her our story before I die.

  “I confess that when I awoke this morning I felt less hope. The mornings are not good for me. But now I can feel my hope returning. And I will see you today, Mac. That is another cause for happiness.

  “So I am happy today after all, dear Mac. I will see you soon.”

  AFTER AN HOUR of driving with Katie beside him, it occurred to Mac Cassidy that they only had one subject of mutual interest to discuss. Of course, neither of them mentioned it. They never did.

  Instead, he asked her the standard questions about school—how did she like her teachers, what was she reading, did she get any tests or papers back lately, questions he supposed he asked her every evening—and she answered them fully, with none of the impatience or evasion that you’d expect from a normal fifteen-year-old girl.

  Even when he asked her about boys, she didn’t roll her eyes. She didn’t care about boys, she said. They were so immature. She’d been asked out a few times, but she told them no.

  What she didn’t say to Mac Cassidy, but what he suspected, was that she didn’t go out with boys because she didn’t dare to leave her father alone.

  He wanted to just blurt it out: “Honey, let’s talk about Mom, what do you say?”

  No, that wasn’t the way to approach it.

  He could say: “I miss Mom every day. How about you?”

  What he really wanted to say was: “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Except the next thing he would say would be: “It was my fault.”

  He knew Katie was lugging around a load of guilt. He was certain that she knew he was, too. And neither of them could talk about it, not to each other, not to anybody.

  So Mac and his daughter devoted themselves to worrying about each other and avoiding the subject that preoccupied them both.

  Freud said you were “normal” if you were able to love and to work. Mac was back at work now, and he knew that once he started actually writing the book, he’d be able to lose himself in it. As for love, if love for your daughter counted, then Mac Cassidy was a master of love.

  Love for a woman? He hadn’t thought about that kind of love since that March evening over a year ago. He didn’t know if that made him abnormal or not.

  As for Katie, her job was school, and she excelled at that, so he supposed that meant she was able to work. He understood that Katie’s version of love was consoling and taking care of and worrying about her father, playing the role of surrogate wife, obsessed with the fear that he, too, would suddenly die. You didn’t have to be an expert to know that was not even close to normal.

  He wondered what would become of them.

  JESSIE DECIDED TO follow the back roads the rest of the way from Illinois to Beaverkill, New York. She wasn’t so sure that she’d end up there anyway. Meanwhile, she wasn’t in any hurry. She liked seeing the countryside, the farms and the newly planted fields and the lime-green foliage of the springtime leaves.

  After she’d hung up on S. Bonet, she’d lain back on her bed with her eyes closed, letting her mind fly free. She remembered that Jill had spoken the name “Simone,” and then she connected the woman’s first name with her last.

  Simone Bonet. That was her name.

  Jessie had heard of Simone, usually that way, that one name. Simone, as though she didn’t need any last name, like Cher or Madonna. Jessie didn’t know anything about Simone except that she had been some kind of cult movie icon.

  She’d done nude scenes that were considered daring for her time, Jessie seemed to remember. She didn’t think she’d seen any of Simone’s films. If she had, they weren’t memorable.

  Jessie wondered if this Simone Bonet was that movie Simone.

  Simone Bonet, whatever Simone she was
, believed that she was Jessie’s birth mother.

  Jessie wasn’t at all sure she wanted to find out whether it was true. She had no particular curiosity about it. It had taken a while to get used to the idea that both of her parents were dead.

  And yet she found herself drawn to Beaverkill, New York, and she figured she’d keep driving in that general direction until she got there. Then she’d decide what to do next.

  “YOU OKAY, DADDY?” Said Katie.

  He glanced at her and smiled. “Just daydreaming, I guess.”

  They were on Route 84 in the southern part of Connecticut. They’d been on the road a little over two hours. More than halfway there. Katie had tuned the car radio to an NPR station when they left Concord, and when it began to fade, she’d surfed the dial until she found another NPR signal, and she’d kept doing that, looking for the serious talk or the classical music, skipping past the fast-talk stations and the classic rock stations and the easy-listening stations and the hip-hop and rap and other contemporary music stations.

  Mac Cassidy figured she was doing that out of consideration for his tastes, although he wouldn’t have minded listening to some classic rock.

  It was disturbing. Teenage girls were supposed to be selfish about car music. They were supposed to get sulky if they couldn’t listen to their own stations. Or else they brought their own iPods with them—Katie had one—that they played so loud into their earphones that other people could hear the noise leaking out.

  That’s what Katie used to do, back when she rode in the backseat with her two parents up front.

  Now she had found some classical music from a station out of Danbury. Cassidy didn’t recognize it, but it was melodic and he liked it.

  “So what’re you daydreaming about?” said Katie.

  He glanced at her beside him in the front seat. She was looking out the window, acting almost too casual. He tried to read her body language. He wondered if she could read his mind. He wondered if she wanted him to initiate a conversation about Jane. He wondered if she wanted to talk about guilt and responsibility, about grieving and healing, about moving on.

  She gave him a quick, perfunctory smile, and he decided that she was just making conversation, so he said, “Oh, nothing. Sorry. My mind was wandering, that’s all.”

  Then she turned and looked hard at him for just an instant, and he thought he saw in her eyes that she knew. You were thinking about Mom, he could practically hear her say. You were blaming yourself.

  He found his response actually forming in his mouth. The words were right there. He could feel them on his tongue. All he had to do was say them. It wasn’t your fault, honey. It was just an accident. Please don’t blame yourself. If you’ll stop blaming yourself, I won’t blame myself anymore. Deal?

  But he couldn’t make himself speak those words. Instead, he smiled at her and said, “We’ve got to stop for gas pretty soon. Keep an eye out for a place. We can get something to drink.”

  A LITTLE AFTER ten-thirty, a tall blonde woman pushed a wheelchair out onto the wooden deck on the back of the house. Through his binoculars, Eddie Moran could see that the blonde was somewhere in her thirties, quite good-looking in a slender, muscular way. She was wearing shorts and a tank top. Nice tan. Good skin. Strong arms and legs. If he hadn’t been working, Moran supposed he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from thinking about her sexually, imagining her shucking off her shorts and wrapping those long tanned legs around his hips, him cradling her hard round ass in his hands . . .

  But now he was working, so he banished those thoughts as quickly as they came into his head. He’d learned a long time ago that sex and work didn’t mix, unless the sex was part of the work the way it had been with Bunny.

  Maybe the time would come for him and the blonde, but not today.

  He shifted his binoculars to the figure in the wheelchair. It was Li An—she might be called Simone now, but she was still Li An to Eddie Moran—and she was apparently an invalid.

  He studied her face. It was amazing. She looked just the same. He supposed her body had gone to hell—why else would she be in a wheelchair with a blanket spread over her legs?—but her face . . . she still looked about fourteen, the way she looked back then. That same smooth bronze color, those amazing cheekbones, those big almond-shaped dark eyes, skin like silk, no wrinkles, not even around her mouth or eyes, even after all these years.

  The blonde went back inside. Li An had a book opened on her lap, but after about ten minutes, her chin slumped onto her chest, and Moran figured she’d gone to sleep.

  Around noon the blonde came back out with a tray. It held a teapot and a couple of silver pitchers and two teacups. She put the tray on a table, then leaned close to Li An and spoke to her.

  Li An lifted her head. Moran saw her smile, and then the blonde cradled Li An’s face in both of her hands and kissed her on the mouth.

  Moran found himself smiling. So that’s how it was.

  He watched the two women sit there sipping their tea and holding hands. After a while the blonde went inside, and Li An started reading her book again.

  Moran had been taking notes in his notebook, keeping track of the time everything happened. He didn’t know how or if any of it would be useful. It was his habit, and he knew it was a good habit. Keep track of everything. Plan carefully. Be more alert than the enemy. Anticipate the worst.

  Do all that and you might survive for one more night.

  A GREEN SEDAN—a Toyota Camry, several years old—pulled up beside the old Wagoneer at ten minutes before two, according to Eddie Moran’s watch. He noted the time in his notebook.

  A tall bearded guy and a girl, looked like a teenager, got out. A minute later the blonde came out of the house. She shook hands with both the man and the girl, and from where he was hiding in the clump of hemlocks, Moran could hear their voices, although he couldn’t make out their words. It sounded as if they all knew each other and were happy to see each other.

  They went into the front door, and a minute later they emerged onto the deck behind the house. The bearded guy sat beside Li An and gripped her hand in both of his for a minute. The girl went and stood in front of Li An’s wheelchair, and Moran could see her bend a little and speak to her.

  Then the guy said something to the girl, and she went into the house.

  Moran picked up his camera, zoomed in on the guy with the beard, and snapped a few shots. Then he turned the camera onto the green Camry. The way it was parked he could see the rear license plate, although it was at an angle. He couldn’t read the plate, but he knew he could manipulate the digital image on his computer and get the numbers, so he snapped a couple of shots.

  A little while later the blonde and the girl came out with trays piled with sandwiches and drinks.

  They all sat there on the deck and ate.

  Eddie Moran snapped a few more photos. Then he found an apple and a Hershey bar in his backpack, and he ate, too, and washed it down with a swig from one of his water bottles.

  TRYING TO BE entertaining and upbeat exhausted Simone, and by the time the four of them had finished eating their lunch out there on her sunny deck, she was spent. Having Mac and Katie for company, however, and thinking about their book energized her, too.

  Katie helped Jill pile the lunch dishes and glasses onto the tray and the two of them went inside. Jill was going to take the girl with her on her afternoon errands, leaving Simone and Mac alone for an hour or so to give them a chance to talk about their book.

  Katie was an adorable girl. Smart and poised and innocent, devoted to her father. Also profoundly sad, deeply troubled. Simone guessed Katie was a little older than Simone had been when she had given birth to May.

  Simone heard Jill’s car start up and drive away. Mac was sitting beside her. They were both gazing off toward the distant hills. Simone’s eyelids were growing heavy.

  “It’s very peaceful here,” Mac said.

  Simone blinked her eyes open. “I’m lucky to have found it,”
she said. “I will live out the rest of my life here.”

  “How have you been feeling?”

  She hesitated. “I think we should try to finish our book very soon.” Then she told him about Jessie Church, without revealing the details of her birth. He would learn about that in the tapes. She needed him to understand now, as they sat together, that she had a daughter out there somewhere with whom she felt an urgent need to share her story, to reconnect with before it was too late.

  Mac looked at her for a moment, then nodded.

  “I have made eight tapes for you,” she said. “I know you want to take them home with you. I tried to include everything, but I’m sure when you hear them you will have questions. Next time you come to see me, you can ask them. It was very painful for me, but I did it. The next parts will not be so difficult.”

  “I look forward to hearing them.” He hesitated. “I’ve been reading about your disease.”

  “You want to write about it, do you?”

  “It’s part of your story. Maybe it will give inspiration to others who have it.”

  “I doubt if I will inspire anybody,” she said. “I don’t want sympathy. Many people who have my disease are no doubt more courageous and . . . and more tragic than I am. But I have no secrets from you, Mac Cassidy. You may ask your questions.”

  THE BLONDE AND the teenager drove away in the old Jeep Wagoneer at 3:12. While they were gone, Simone and the tall guy sat on the deck and talked. Eddie Moran watched them through his binoculars. He wondered what they were talking about. It looked quite intense.

  The Wagoneer returned at 4:27, and the blonde and the kid got out. Each carried a paper bag into the house.

  One hour and fifteen minutes, exactly. Moran thought about the distance from this house to the nearest . . . anything. Mini-mart in one direction, and the center of the little town in the other direction where, besides the fishing shops and restaurants, there was a market, a post office, a hardware store, a library. Nothing was closer than twenty minutes away. He figured anytime the blonde left, she’d be gone for at least an hour.