The Point of Vanishing

by Maryka Biaggio

  The Point of Vanishing

  A novel based on the true story of

  child-prodigy writer Barbara Follett.

  Maryka Biaggio

  Milford House Press

  Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

  To my chosen family—Deb and my many wonderful friends and fellow writers.

  CHAPTER ONE

  HELEN

  New York City, December 1939

  That dreary Tuesday morning, an hour before her alarm, Helen woke in a sweat. Something was wrong. She needed to hear her daughter’s voice. Barbara should’ve responded to her letter by now.

  She’d telephone her; that’s what she’d do. But it was too early to call. She threw on her robe and bustled about her apartment, tidying up and fixing coffee and toast. She sat at the kitchen table and spread out The New York Times. The banner headline glared RUSSIA INVADES FINLAND. Dear God, she thought, it’s one bloody incursion after another. She tried to read the story, but its details evaporated, unabsorbed.

  After nibbling a few bites of toast and gulping down her coffee, she took a sponge bath and dressed in her midnight-blue skirt and white cashmere sweater. Glancing over her shoulder in the mirror, she noticed the elbows on the sweater had thinned. Oh, well, she thought, it’s still pure white and does lend a touch of class.

  She slipped on her wristwatch but couldn’t decipher the small numbers and hands. Where were her reading glasses? Ah, yes, in the kitchen. She retrieved them and checked the time. Not yet. Not before seven. She strode to the living-room window and gazed down on the sooty snowbanks lining West 116th. Bundled-up pedestrians hastened along. One couple stood out, striding arm in arm. She studied them—they seemed so smug in their togetherness—until they disappeared around the corner.

  Could it be true, as Barbara feared, that her husband was seeing another woman? She could hardly bear to think of Barbara losing Nick. It’d devastate her. She’d even tried to reassure her daughter: Nick probably just invented this other woman, hoping you’d be so infuriated you’d up and leave. Men sometimes do that sort of thing—to save themselves from being the one to end the marriage.

  A blast of cold penetrated the window’s shrunken caulk, sending a shiver through her. She backed away and looked at her watch. Oh, 6:40 is close enough. She marched to the telephone on the side table and placed a long-distance call to Boston.

  Nick answered.

  “Is Barbara there?”

  After a beat of silence, Nick said, “No?” as if he were asking instead of answering a question.

  “She was supposed to write or call about gift ideas, but I’ve not heard from her.”

  “I thought . . . she was . . . with you.” He sounded like a sputtering engine.

  “What do you mean, with me?”

  “I haven’t seen her for almost two weeks.”

  Helen gasped and pressed a hand to her chest. “You don’t know where she is?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  She wanted to yell at him: What have you done with my daughter? But she needed to get an explanation out of him. She forced calm into her voice. “What exactly is going on?”

  “We had a fight. She stormed out. I assumed she was going to your place.”

  “I can’t believe this.” A burning lump hardened in her throat. “What did you fight about?”

  “You know things haven’t been right between us.”

  She could picture Nick standing in their sparsely furnished apartment, his sturdy frame hunched over as if to fend off her challenges. “Have you heard anything from her since she left?”

  “No, not a word.”

  He sounded so cold. Either he had no idea how fragile Barbara was or he didn’t care. Helen couldn’t help but recall how Barbara had nearly succumbed to dejection and despair when only fifteen. She’d never told Nick about the incident and doubted Barbara had either.

  She asked him, “Aren’t you worried about her?”

  “Of course I am. But she’s the one who left.”

  Oh no. This was worse than she’d imagined. In a half-hour, she’d need to catch the subway to work, when all she wanted to do was track down Barbara, find out what had happened between her and Nick, and bring her home to New York. God knows she’d made mistakes with Barbara. Now her daughter needed her, and all she wanted was to make it up to her.

  But a snowstorm was moving in, and it’d be challenging to get out of the city. Besides, her office didn’t give editorial secretaries time off without notice. She’d have to rely on the telephone—and Nick. “Did she say anything about where she was going?”

  “No, I assumed she was going to see you. Has she written or anything?”

  “I already told you I’ve not heard from her.”

  “That is odd.”

  Odd? His wife storms out on him to Lord knows where and he calls it odd? “Did it ever occur to you to contact me?”

  “She could have gotten in touch with you. Or me.”

  “Was divorce discussed?”

  “I . . . well, yes.”

  Dear God. Barbara must be reeling—her marriage crumbling after only six years. “Nick, I’m very worried. You don’t know where Barbara is. And now I find out . . .”

  He blurted, “I can’t help that she left.”

  She cradled a palm over her forehead. Her mind whirred with questions. “You need to tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m concerned, too.”

  Think, she commanded herself. What to do next? “You must remember everything she said and write it down. And call the police. With a description.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that.”

  She heard a muffled sound on his end as if he’d covered the receiver. “Nick, are you there?”

  “I was just getting some paper. Thinking what description to write.”

  Unbelievable. How could an intelligent man be so obtuse? “Her age, weight, which I’d say is 125. Height five-seven, long-bob hairstyle. What else?”

  “Yes, age twenty-five . . . dark brown hair . . . brown eyes . . . black eyebrows.”

  “Fair complexion, sometimes wears horn-rimmed glasses. Whatever else the police suggest. And do it now!”

  “Certainly,” he said.

  She shuddered at the flatness in his voice. “Because something is terribly, terribly wrong.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  TWENTY-ONE YEARS EARLIER—BARBARA AT FOUR

  Providence, April 1918

  Barbara circled her spoon around her bowl and rounded up the last Post Toasties. Yum. The milk was sweetest when it turned that pretty cream color. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth. “Daddy, when can we go to the dry-goods store?”

  “Elbows off the table, and use your napkin to wipe your mouth,” her father said. “This afternoon. After I finish grading papers.”

  Her mother leaned over and picked up her bowl and juice glass. “We can play the piano together after I wash the dishes.”

  She watched her mother walk to the kitchen counter. Her brown hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her sweater swooshed this way and that because her hair was long and her sweater was baggy, and she was skinny.

  Her father slung an arm around the back of his chair and said to her mother, “Maybe Barbara would like to arrange her bookcase.”

  That was Daddy’s way of telling Mommy that his idea was better than hers.

  Barbara was excited about her new bookcase. Her father had bought it especially for her so she wouldn’t have to keep squeezing her books higgledy-piggledy in the old one.

  Her mother stacked the breakfast dishes on the counter—saucers first, then cups and bowls. “Go on upstairs and work on your bookcase, dear.”

  Barbara bustled up the st
airs and sat down in front of her old bookcase. Her father had explained that books should be arranged according to the first letter of the author’s last name. But she’d come up with her own system: the top of the bookcase for books she used all the time, like The Butterfly Guide; the first shelf for books she was reading now; and the two bottom shelves for the books she’d read so many times she could recite parts of them, like The Three Mulla-Mulgars and The Princess and the Goblin. When she told her father about her plan, he said she could still alphabetize them on their shelves. Only that didn’t work for the books that had pretty covers because she liked to stand them up, so they looked at her in a pleasing way.

  She started arranging her books into piles—one for each shelf of her new bookcase—and she heard her parents talking in her father’s study. Her mother’s voice sounded screechy like it did when she was mad at Daddy, and that made her feel squirmy. She took off her shoes, tiptoed down the stairs in stocking feet, and crept up to the door.

  She could hear the rocker in the corner of the room go creak, creak, just the way her mother rocked, not fast, but steady, like every other tick of the clock. That meant her father was sitting at his desk, which always had stacks of paper piled up with their corners poking out like star spikes.

  Her mother said, “I think of my high school students joking in the hallways, and I just don’t feel it’s fair to deprive her of that.”

  “Missing out on tomfoolery’s no deprivation. She possesses a playfulness all her own. Look at those snowmen she built in our likenesses.” She could picture her father at his desk—his black hair swooped over the top of his head and his pixie-like ears sticking out.

  “I’ll grant she’s creative,” her mother said.

  They’re talking about me, Barbara thought. But Mommy and Daddy said I could visit with all the grown-ups whenever I wanted, so why are they talking without me?

  Her father asked, “Then why resist?”

  “Because I hate to set her apart from her age mates.”

  “She’s far ahead of other children in the ways that matter. I wish those louts in my classes had her curiosity and knack for knowledge.” Barbara smiled. Daddy thought she was more curious than the big kids he taught at the university.

  “You’re not concerned about her being labeled peculiar?” Barbara would have to look up that word peculiar. She didn’t like the way it sounded.

  “She’s bright. She has a purpose about her. But I wouldn’t call her peculiar.”

  “You know very well what I mean,” her mother said. “She spends all her time with our friends and us.”

  “You worry too much. Give her a good education, and she’ll have the world at her feet.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Then why dig your heels in?” Her father sounded mad, but only a little, like when she didn’t choose the very best word to describe a cloud or flower or bird.

  “She should learn to play with others.”

  “She gets along famously with both of us,” her father said. “With all adults, for that matter. My God, she’s got more charm than any of my colleagues.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “I credit you with teaching her to be gracious and at ease with our guests.”

  “Now who’s trying to charm?” Barbara could tell her mother thought that was a clever thing to say.

  “You know I don’t hand out empty praise.”

  Everything was quiet then, and Barbara stood still so they wouldn’t hear her at the door.

  “Look, it’s not a difficult decision,” her father said. “Let’s just get on with it.”

  “We agreed I’d start teaching again.” Uh-oh, Mommy was getting crabby. Daddy wouldn’t like that. “Lord knows we need the money.”

  “Oh, to hell with the money.” Barbara twisted a button on her dress. She hated hearing Daddy swear. Her mother said vulgar language was a lazy substitute for proper English.

  The rocking stopped, and Mother said, “I’m the one who has to wring every penny out of your paycheck for rent and everything else. While you spend however you please.”

  Then her father used his quiet voice, the one he used to calm Mommy down. “If the high and mighty at Brown see fit to promote and tenure me, we’ll have more money.”

  “And I can stay home all day, every day, and use my master’s degree to tend a four-year-old.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Fine, start your filthy cursing.”

  Barbara’s eyes started to drip tears. She blinked them back. Daddy had told her big girls don’t cry. But she didn’t like it when Mommy and Daddy yelled like that. She wanted them to be kind to each other, like the bees were. She enjoyed watching bees buzz all around the meadow flowers. They didn’t fight over blossoms, they just flitted to a different one, and then they all went back to the hive to make honey together. That way, all the bees had something to eat while the flowers slept under the snow.

  “I’d like to get back to teaching,” her mother said. “And have time for my writing. I’m devoted to Barbara, but I want a life of my own, too.”

  Daddy didn’t have time to say anything because Mommy kept talking. “You have your position and projects. Why can’t I have some semblance of that myself?”

  “I gave you first authorship on Modern Novelists. That’s not enough for you?”

  Shoes bonked on the floor. They must have been Mommy’s because she yelled at Daddy. “Gave it to me? After I scrambled to carve out ten, fifteen hours every week to research, write, and edit? I was the first author of that book.”

  Daddy talked fast as a flash. “Fine, whatever you say.”

  Barbara heard a sssttt sound. Daddy must have struck a match to light his cigarette. Then he said, “All right, Helen, what do you propose?”

  “That she starts kindergarten in the fall. And I continue teaching her on weekends.”

  “How many four-year-olds do you know who can type? Or have half the vocabulary she has? She’s far outpaced children her age.”

  “She’s hardly interacted with them.”

  “Be realistic, Helen. You’re the best person Barbara could have to foster her talent. And we both know it.”

  Everything went still again until her mother said, “I have my book project, and I’d like to finish it.”

  “Don’t fight me on this. If you see to Barbara’s schooling, I’ll help you with your book.”

  “And just how would I find time to go to the library and do my research?”

  Daddy’s cigarette smoke floated through the keyhole and tickled her nose.

  Her father said, “I’ll likely get promotion and tenure. That’d allow me to relax my hours. And give you some time for your work.”

  “So, if I do Barbara’s home educating, you’ll give me time to write? And you’ll rein in your expenses?”

  “Yes.”

  Her parents were quiet—like that time she surprised them with the alphabet written in a spiral.

  Her mother said, “I suppose I can track down some lesson books and start next month.”

  “I’m so pleased, dear.” Daddy sounded happy. “I know we’re doing right by Barbara.”

  Quick as could be, her mother said, “I’ll be holding you to your promises.”

  Barbara heard the rocker make one long creak and imagined Mommy was getting up, so she turned and tiptoed toward the stairs.

  Her mother said, “I ought to check on her.”

  The doorknob twisted. Barbara dashed up the stairs.

  The door opened, and her mother said, “I just heard her pattering up the stairs. The little rascal was listening.”

  “Humph,” said her father. “You should’ve kept your voice down.”

  Barbara ran into her bedroom, closed the door, and sat with her back against it. She wished Grandma Ding was visiting. Her grandmother read her stories about baby birds and lambs. Once Grandma took her to a yarn shop and told her about how sheep let people use their wool be
cause the sheep grow a new coat every year and people can take the wool and sit at spinning wheels, like the one she had in her bedroom, only bigger, and spin it into strands and skeins. (Barbara liked all the “s” sounds in the words strands and skeins.) Grandma showed her how she unwound the skeins and used knitting needles to knit the strands back together and change it from a sheep’s coat to a person’s sweater, and Barbara said it was nice of the sheep to help keep people warm in the winter. Snuggling up in the sweater Grandma knit for her was almost as nice as having a kitten to cuddle, but Mother had told her a kitten was out of the question.

  Grandma Ding invited her to live with her for a while, but Mommy and Daddy said she had to stay home to do her reading and writing. Then Grandma said she would come to live with them in the summer, but that was a long time away because the ground was still squishy from melting snow.

  She wished Grandma Ding could come right away. Then she’d have someone to play with when Daddy was at the university and Mommy was busy because now she had to go out and play by herself, but she wasn’t supposed to go any farther than the back yard or the field across the road, and she wasn’t to cross the road when a car was in earshot. (Earshot was a special word formed by putting two different words together.) Sometimes, for fun, she stood on the side of the road and waited until a car got close and then dashed across and stopped on the other side just in time to watch it whiz by.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BARBARA AT NINE

  New Haven, October 1923

  If it were up to Barbara, they’d live at the Lake Sunapee cabin year-round. She far preferred it to their dreary New Haven home.

  She’d so enjoyed the lake water lapping at inlets, see-through minnows shimmering in the shallows, and bats bewitching the twilight skies. Many an afternoon, she’d tempted her father away from his editing work to join her fishing or hiking. Sometimes, when her mother wasn’t giving Sabra her bottle or bouncing her on her hip, Barbara watched her little sister wriggle in her crib or slumber sweetly. She liked how her baby nostrils fluttered like wild rose petals.