by Steven Gould
Another woman, blond, with a deep Southern accent, came to the door. “Mistuh Niles? He passed away four years ago, I buhlieve. Yes, it was four years ago in August. He had him a stroke, in the worst heat, and died later that same day.” She put a finger on her lips as if thinking. “We lived down the street then, at 330 Pomosa. We bought the house from his daughter.”
I blinked. “Mary Rice?”
“Well, I think that was her married name. I think the paperwork said Mary Niles.”
“Does she live here in town?”
“I don’t buhlieve so. She was here for the funeral, down at the Olive Branch Cemetery, but at the closing, she was represented by a lawyer with a power of attorney.”
“Do you remember the lawyer’s name?”
She looked at me. “Uh, I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me why you need to know all this?”
I paused. “Well, I’m David Rice, Mary’s son. When she left my dad, she, uh, left me, too.” I felt my face flush and my palms were sweating. Well, hadn’t she? Didn’t she leave you behind because you weren’t worth taking? Lamely, I added, “I’m trying to find her.”
Silence. “Hmmm. Well, let me look at the paperwork and see what the name is. You come in out of the sun while I look.” She led me back into the house and showed me a chair in the front room. “Roseleeenda? Aqua frío, por favor, por el hombre.” Then she vanished into the back of the house.
In a minute, the maid brought me a glass of ice water. I said, “Gracias,”
She said, “Por nada,” smiled briefly, and left.
The front room was strange to me, as all the furniture was different. It wasn’t until I glanced out the window and saw the way that it framed the house across the street that I had any sense of being in there before. Then the memory was sharp, clear, and painful.
“Darn you, Davy! That’s the third time you’ve given me the queen of spades.”
“Now, Davy, you be kind to your granddad. After all, he’s old and feeble.”
“I can still lay you across my knee and spank you, young lady. Take that!”
“Oh, Dad, not another heart! Well, I guess Davy wins again.”
We’d played a lot of hearts that summer visit. Granddad and I would fish early in the morning, and some days Mom and I went to the beach.
It was a good trip.
“The deed is down at the bank, so I called my husband. He remembered the lawyer’s name. It was Silverstein, Leo Silverstein.” She carried a phone book with her when she came back into the room. “The phone book says his office is down on Main. It’ll be overlooking the square by this address—Fourteen East Main.”
I thanked her and left. When she closed the door I jumped back to the local airport, appearing by the pay phone. There was a gasp from the counter, but I just walked out through the door as if nothing had happened. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the ticket agent was following me through the door.
Damn.
I walked around the corner and jumped back to New York.
Whereas Millie had forbidden me the touch of her body but twice a month, she still let me call her every night.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh?”
“You call me every night. You don’t usually sound like an undertaker.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve been trying to find my mother. I went to Florida, to see my grandfather.”
“What? Are you in Florida right now?”
“Huh? Oh, no. I came back. My grandfather died four years ago.”
The line was quiet for a moment. “And you just found out?”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder if your father knew?”
“I don’t know,” I said tiredly. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Were you close to your grandfather?”
I thought about it. Hearts and fishing and the odd birthday card with a twenty-dollar bill taped carefully inside. “Once, I was. A long time ago.”
“It’s rough to lose somebody. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well...”
“You couldn’t have known.”
I stared at the phone. “How did you know?”
“What? That you feel guilty about not knowing he was dying? For not knowing when he died?”
“I should have!”
She took a deep breath. “No. I know you feel that way, Davy. You can’t help it. It’s all right to feel that way. But there was no way for you to know! We all feel guilty, now and then, about things that aren’t our fault. Trust me—this wasn’t something you could do anything about.”
I was angry then, at her presumption, at her perception, for putting a name to the feeling I’d been fighting all day. “I should have known when I didn’t get a birthday card on my fifteenth birthday. I could have written. I could have sent a letter from school. Dad wouldn’t have stopped that one!”
“Your father used to read your mail?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure. We were rural so we had a post-box in town. I didn’t have a key for it. I once found an envelope in the car addressed to me with no return address.”
“Christ! Why did he do that?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t let me write relatives, though.”
“No wonder, the way he treated you.”
I didn’t say anything for a while. She didn’t press me, just stayed on the line, a companionable breathing, barely heard. Finally I said, “I’m sorry, Millie. I’m not very good company tonight.”
“It’s okay. I’m just sorry you’re having a rough time. I wish I could hold you right now.”
I screwed my eyes shut and felt the phone squeak under my suddenly increased grip. I could be in your arms in seconds, love. I could.... I made myself say, “I wish you could, too. I’ll hold you to that on Friday.”
“Okay. You sure you don’t want me to meet your plane?”
“No. That’s okay. I’ll get to your door before seven P.M. Just don’t eat without me.”
“Okay. Sleep well.”
“Thanks, I’ll try. Uh, Millie?”
“Yes?”
“I... I... I’m going back to Florida tomorrow, but I’ll still call, okay?”
She sounded slightly disappointed about something. “Yeah, Davy. That’s fine.”
I jumped to the corner of the Pine Bluffs airport building, outside, on the sidewalk. When I looked around the corner, the beat-up blue station wagon was there with the ancient cabbie. He seemed surprised to see me.
“How’d you get out here? The Orlando flight doesn’t get in for another fifteen minutes.”
I shrugged. “I need to go to the Olive Branch Cemetery, and then I need to go to Fourteen East Main Street.”
“Ohhhhhkay. Hop in.”
He tried to engage me in conversation a couple of more times, but I answered his questions in monosyllables or shrugs. He tried once more in the long curving drive of the cemetery. “I knew most of the people buried here. You looking for any body in particular?”
It was a large cemetery. “Arthur Niles.”
“Ah. Well that explains your trip out to Pomosa Circle.” He pulled the car around to the far side of the cemetery and parked in the shade of a tree. “See that white marble stone there, fourth from the end?” He pointed down a row of gravestones that ran to the edge of the cemetery.
“Yes. Is that it?”
“Yeah. Take your time, I’ll wait.” He picked up a newspaper.
“Thanks.”
“Arthurs Niles, born nineteen twenty-two, died nineteen eighty-nine, beloved of wife, daughter, and grandson.” Grandson? Oh, mother, why didn’t you tell me? There were flowers on the grave, old and withered, in one of those rusty iron hoops attached to a stake. I pulled the flowers from the holder and removed the few dead leaves from the grass.
Sorry, Granddad, I didn’t get to say good-bye. I would’ve preferred to say hello. I felt sad... incredibly sad.
After a while I consciously acquired th
e site for jumping, then carried the dead flowers and leaves to a wire trash can by the drive.
The cabbie was still reading so I stepped behind a tree and jumped to the flower market on Twenty-eighth Street, Manhattan. I bought a prepared bouquet with roses and astemarias and mums and orchids. It cost thirty bucks. I jumped back to the grave and left it in the iron holder.
The cabbie put down his paper when I climbed into the backseat. He didn’t say anything, just started up the car and drove me into town.
He did speak, though, when he stopped the car on Main Street. “Will you need a ride after this, Davy?”
I looked at him. How...? Ah. “How well did you know my grandfather?”
He shrugged. “Well enough. We played pinochle at his house every Wednesday, a bunch of us old codgers. He was a good man—a lousy pinochle player, but a good man.”
I sat back in the seat. “Do you know where my mother is, Mr....?”
“Steiger, Walt Steiger. I don’t know where Mary is. After she left your father she was here for about a year, what with one thing or another.” His expression was grim and he looked away for a moment. Then he said, “Art said that she was working out in California, I think, after that, but I’m not sure. I think he also told me she was moving again, but that was right before the stroke. I don’t recall where.” He twisted in the seat. “I got to talk to her for a moment at the funeral, but we just talked about Art.”
“Oh.” I sat there for several more heartbeats. “Thanks for the information. What’s the fare?”
He shrugged. “Five bucks.”
“But you had to wait over thirty minutes....”
“I was reading. Give me five bucks.”
He wouldn’t take a tip.
Leo Silverstein’s office was on the second floor, over a drugstore. I went up narrow stairs and through a glass door, where a middle-aged woman typed rapidly at a word processor while she listened to headphones. I stepped into her field of vision. She started and pulled her headphones off.
“Dictation?” I asked, smiling.
“Grateful Dead,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to see Mr. Silverstein, please. My name is David Rice. I’d like to talk to him about my mother, Mary Niles.”
“Ah. Did you have an appointment, Mr. Rice?” She asked it the way people do when they know damn well you don’t have one.
I shook my head and swallowed. “Sorry, no. I’m just in from New York for the day. I didn’t know Mr. Silverstein handled my mother’s affairs until yesterday and I wasn’t sure I’d be in Pine Bluffs today.”
She looked skeptical.
“I only need a moment of his time. Uh, by the way, why do they call this town Pine Bluffs? I haven’t seen a pine tree or a cliff since I got here.”
In a dry voice she said, “The bluffs are upriver ten miles by the original townsite. They logged the pine trees out in the early eighteen-hundreds. Have a seat,” she added, pointing at the couch across from her desk. “I’ll ask Mr. Silverstein if he can see you.”
I sat down while she talked quietly into the phone.
I hated this. I’ve never liked meeting new people. Well, that is, I hate reaching out to strangers. What are you scared of, Davy? Think they’ll take your hand off? I squirmed on the couch, trying to get comfortable. Yes, they might take my hand off or, worse, not like me.
The door to the inner office opened and a man came through, perhaps fifty, my height, gray hair. He was wearing the vest and pants of a three-piece suit and his tie was loosened at the collar. “Mr. Rice? I’m Leo Silverstein. I’ve got an appointment in ten minutes but I can give you until then.”
I stood and shook his hand. “Kind of you,” I said as I followed him into the office.
He shut the door and pointed to chair. “So you’re Mary Niles’s son?”
“Yes.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m trying to locate her.”
“Oh.” He picked up a paperweight on his desk and shifted it from hand to hand. “I was wondering if it might be something like that.”
I frowned. The plush seat seemed suddenly hard. “What do you mean?”
He took a deep breath. “Your mother showed up here six years ago with three broken bones in the face, lacerations, bruises, and severe trauma. She’d been physically and mentally abused. She went through a year of inpatient psychiatric therapy for severe depression and two operations to reconstruct her face.”
I stared at him. My stomach churned.
Leo Silverstein watched me carefully, the paperweight poised in one hand, ready to drop into the other, but not yet. “Is this a surprise to you?”
I nodded. “Well... I knew of at least one time when my father hurt her. But, when she left, I came home from school one day and she was gone. My dad wouldn’t talk about it.” I should have known! “I was only twelve at the time.”
He nodded his head. “I tried several times to talk your mother into bringing charges against your father. She refused. She said she never wanted to get near him, to be in the same state as him. She was absolutely terrified of him.” He started shifting the paperweight again. “I also think that she was afraid of what he might do to you. Apparently, he made threats to this effect.”
A goddam hostage. He got away with it because of me. I felt like throwing up.
“Where is she now?” I asked. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry....
“Well, that’s the point. I can’t say. My client has instructed me to keep that information completely confidential. I don’t have a choice in the matter. She made no provisions for exceptions.”
“Not even for me? For her son?”
He shrugged. “How is she to know that you aren’t Working in concert with your father?”
“I ran away from that son of a bitch over a year ago. I am not working with him!”
He shifted back in his chair and I saw him grip the paperweight suddenly, almost like a weapon. Relax, Davy. I let a breath out slowly and sat well back in the chair, laying my hands in my lap. More slowly I repeated, “I am not working with him.”
“I think I believe you,” Silverstein said, loosening his grip on the paperweight and relaxing slightly. “However, that has no bearing on the matter. I still can’t tell you where she is.”
I folded my arms tightly across my chest. I knew that my ears were burning and I felt ashamed and angry and on the verge of doing or saying something stupid.
“I would be willing, however, to forward a message or a letter to her.”
What would I say? What does she think of me? How could I write a letter without knowing that? She doesn’t really want to hear from me....
I stood abruptly. “I’ll have to think about it,” I said shortly. I noticed that Silverstein had shifted back again and was gripping the paperweight tightly. What is it in my face that is scaring him so? I went to the door and jerked the door open, then stopped. I was still angry at him, but part of me realized that it wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t take away the anger. How would you like to be jumped to a truck stop in Minnesota, Mr. Silverstein? Without turning I said, “Thanks. Please excuse my bad temper.” Then I walked past the receptionist, out the glass door, and down the stairs.
I was about to walk out onto the street when I saw Walt Steiger, the cabbie, still parked out front, reading his paper.
I did not want to talk to him.
I jumped to Brooklyn.
The apartment was too small to contain my mood. I tried to sit, but I couldn’t stop moving. I tried to lie down, but there was no way to hold still. Downstairs the Washburns were fighting again, shouting at each other. I heard dishes break and flinched as I paced.
I was still dressed for Florida, but I didn’t want to change. I grabbed my coat, the long soft leather one, and jumped to the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The clock on the Watchtower building said it was forty-five degrees, and the wind off the East River bit like teeth. The sky had a low
, dirty overcast that fit my mood exactly.
One year in the hospital... oh my God, ohmigod, ohmigod. I clenched the lapels of the coat together and stared blindly south, away from the wind, into the harbor. I remembered standing over my dad, a heavy scotch bottle in my hand, torn with indecision and doubt. I remember deciding not to kill him. Or was it that you couldn’t kill him?
Whatever. Whatever it was that kept me from crushing his head in, I regretted it. I was sorry that I hadn’t killed him.
Kill him now? I pulled my head down, between my shoulders. The wind howled past my ears, rocking me on my feet. Maybe.
I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking of ways to do it, most of which involved jumping. I could grab him, jump to the top of the Empire State Building, and drop him over the edge. I looked down at the cold waters of the East River. The drop from here isn’t so bad either. I pictured things, played them out in my head, a hundred different violent acts. Instead of calming my anger, each one made me feel guiltier, more ashamed of myself. This made me even angrier. I found myself clenching the railing and grinding my teeth. My jaw hurt. Damnitalltohell! I’m not the one that broke her face!
It was when I realized that I could kill him, and get away with it, that I began to calm down. That’s when I realized that I wouldn’t.
I still wanted to hurt him, though. I wanted to smash things, to feel flesh under my fists. I wanted to break a few bones myself.
I remembered what I considered doing to the lawyer in Florida. I was going to jump him to that truck stop in Minnesota, where Topper Robbins, the truck driver who tried to rape me, had bought my trust with a lousy meal.
Topper Robbins. Now there’s someone who deserves some punishment.
I pulled my coat tighter around me and jumped.
Topper pulled into the truck stop at 10:30 P.M., twenty minutes later than what one of the waitresses had said was his usual time. I’d been waiting for over an hour, moderately comfortable despite the snow because of newly purchased long underwear and gloves.
Waiting in the cold, though, gave me second thoughts, and I’d just about talked myself out of it, when he arrived. My hands clenched suddenly and I could feel my lips draw back from my teeth. Going home became the last thing on my mind.