And then, next to the father, the mother, dark curly hair, full, soft body, wide breasts, shiny glasses, biting her lip, staring at the coffin. In her lap she held a photograph in a silver frame, and she kept raising it and looking from the picture to the figure in the coffin, as if comparing the two images.
Melanie had noticed the mother and with a moan, she broke free from Mrs. Saluggio and hurled herself across the room to where she sat. Suddenly Melanie, with her soiled sweatshirt, was on her knees at the woman’s feet, her hands on the woman’s lap. The mother looked down at her, not moving, bewildered.
“You’re Dean’s mother!” cried Melanie. “Dean and I were together!”
The woman’s eyes gleaming behind her glasses. She dabbed at her cheeks with a Kleenex.
Mrs. Saluggio was standing over both of them now. “We’re so sorry,” Mrs. Saluggio was saying in her melodious voice. “I can’t tell you. As one mother to another . . .”
“I was his girlfriend,” Melanie said to the mother. People had stopped talking completely now and were listening.
The mother looked down at the framed photo on her lap as if for confirmation. I moved closer and looked down over her shoulder at the picture. It was a picture of a girl, eight or nine years old, a girl with a wide smile and pigtails sticking out on either side of her face and one front tooth missing. The pigtails were tied with a ribbon and the little girl was wearing a dress with a floral print and an eyelet collar.
You could see in the photograph the beginnings of Dean’s face, the shadow of emerging cheekbones, the adult bones forming in the girl’s face and starting to harden, you could see the full lips, the almond-shaped eyes. A happy child.
“That’s him!” Melanie cried, and she snatched the picture from the mother and stared into it while the woman watched her, as if in a daze.
“Oh my god!” Melanie cried at the picture. “That’s him!” She was on her knees, clutching the photo to her breast with both hands as if it were him, then holding it out in front of her and scrutinizing it avidly. Melanie looked up at Dean’s mother. “Can I have this, please?” she asked. “Please? Do you have another one?”
The mother’s eyebrows creased. “You knew her?” she asked.
“Yes!” cried Melanie. “And he loved me—he loved me more than anyone!”
CHAPTER 32
CHRISSIE
Winter was deep-set now. It was never full daylight anymore, the sun seemed never really to rise. You got up in the morning and it was dark out, and at the end of the workday when you came outside it was dark again. Like that story in the Greek myths of the beautiful girl who is sent underground every year to live with her husband, Hades, and the whole world darkens in mourning for her and all light vanishes until spring. In the sky beyond the river you could sometimes see a glimmer of light along the mountaintops on the horizon, as if behind the mountains there was a warm, light place where the sun whirled at the proper angle to shine upon the earth. But in our county it was mostly darkness and people huddled in coats and scarves looking downward as they passed one another in the street, and the only warmth was the light from people’s homes, the golden light from windows that signified there was life continuing within.
After all the funerals, I returned to work at the Nightingale Home. I kept going to my classes at the college. My first-semester grades that year were all A’s, and in February, I went to the college advisement office and looked through the brochures for four-year schools. The counselor said I would be eligible for money if my dad filled out an affidavit saying I was “emancipated”; then I could get TAP and PELL grants.
The brochure for Caledonia seemed like the best. Caledonia was a branch of the State University, up north. The pictures on the brochure showed old red brick buildings with bell towers and columns from when it was Caledonia Normal School. There was a big new library with dark glass windows, and behind that, a hilly, wooded campus.
The college had rolling admissions, which meant you could apply year-round. I filled out the forms, and within only a couple of weeks, I heard back from them, accepting me for next fall. I’d major in English, I decided, and then I’d teach school. In some warm place, I thought, maybe in the South, where it was always warm, a location with a growing population where they needed teachers.
Meanwhile, through Student Services at the college I got a job as a summer replacement in the Caledonia library stacking books, and they said I could start right after Memorial Day, which meant I could quit the Nightingale Home in May and leave town. They also found me a room, which I rented sight unseen, from some old lady who let to students. The woman told me over the phone that the room was on the top floor of her house, which was right opposite the library where I would work.
So all winter long, I saved everything I could from my paycheck. And when Carl found out I was saving for school, he started giving me free beer at the Wooden Nickel.
That April, they had Brian Perez’s trial at the courthouse, and people went just to watch the proceedings as if it were a movie or something. Some local writer was even doing a book about the murders. The trial lasted only three weeks. They gave Brian life for the murders, and Jimmy got a reduced sentence in the rape case for testifying against Brian.
At the Rape Crisis Center on Washington Street, as a response to the tragedy, they began holding regular workshops on rape and gay awareness. The antique dealers on Washington Street really supported the workshops, and there were signs all over town advertising them.
* * *
Gradually, winter began to recede from the county. At first it was just that the snow stopped, and the rain washed what was left away and you looked up at the trees and you saw that the buds on the branches had suddenly swelled. And while the earth waited, along the roadways you’d glimpse here and there amid the sparse branches a shad tree feathered in tiny white blossoms, life emerging while all the trees around it were still dark and bare.
And then, just as you had hope, had thought spring had finally come, there would be biting rain and cold again, followed suddenly by a day of bright sunlight, and hearty souls, men in their T-shirts as they unloaded their trucks or dug ditches by the roadside, and you’d even felt a little sticky from the heat. And then slowly, the green washed across the county, as if someone was coloring the earth with a paintbrush, and soon the days were bright and filled with promise and the evenings were warm and alive.
In springtime in Sparta, you are reminded of when it was a real city. There is life on the streets, people sitting in the shadows of their front porches watching the cars go by, kids allowed to stay up late playing on the sidewalk. You would almost think Sparta was a viable city then, instead of a place where once there had been a thread mill, and a ball bearing factory, and a cord and tassel factory, and now down by the river there were only the shells of buildings covered in ivy and bindweed. There is a sweetness in the air in Sparta then, the fragrance of new leaf flesh, the soft breath of the river rising from its banks and filling the streets of the city.
On the last Thursday in May, I drove over and said good-bye to my dad and mom. My dad gave me big hug and a check for $250, and then he turned away to play with Fletcher and Timmy, who were fighting on the floor while I was trying to talk to him. He was trying to be a real father to Liz’s brats. It was as if my dad had this faint memory of what it was like to be a father to me—Chrissie—and felt guilty because he had gotten it only half right then. Now he wanted to do it really right with those two. He was even coaching the boys’ Little League team. He must’ve always wanted a son, I thought. And his love for Liz was so great that he was able to take on those two, even though they were not his own. If I’d been a boy, I wondered, would he have still left us?
At my mom’s house, my mom was now linked tenaciously to Mason. Her eyes never left him; she watched him warily at all times, anxious and tense. And she talked less and less these days in his presence. Mason did the talking for both of them now. No matter what happened, I felt like a guest
in both homes.
Friday, my final day of work at the Nightingale Home, they held a good-bye party for me. There was a big square cake with “Good Luck, Chrissie” written across it and Kool Aid and music—music for the patients, like “Good Night, Irene,” and “Tennessee Waltz.” Some of the residents actually danced, and those who were in wheelchairs joined hands and swung their arms together and clapped and tapped their feet. And even the really senile ones, the ones who were totally into themselves, like Mr. Ford, who probably didn’t even understand that I was leaving, were smiling. For some of the clients, those old songs were almost the music of their youth.
Terry’s murder had bewildered them, and they had sent in grief counselors to talk to the patients. My going-away party was really the first happy occasion since that bad time. At the party, Mr. Hanley stood up and said, “I’d like to offer a toast to Chrissie on her new life. And let’s take a few minutes to remember our dear friend, Terry, who was taken from us far too soon.”
The residents and workers bowed their heads, though some of the residents looked a little confused. Then after thirty seconds it was over, and time for more music.
B.J. stood up and sang “My Girl,” and “Since I Lost My Baby” a capella and everybody sat there listening without moving because B.J.’s voice was so sweet and unexpected and it almost made you want to cry. Afterward, while people applauded, B.J. mopped his face with his handkerchief and said he used to have a group in the Bronx where he grew up, and they did real street-corner stuff, singing at weddings and birthday parties.
When it was time for me to go, Mr. Hanley shook my hand and said, “Sorry to lose you, Chrissie. You’ve been a very good worker.” I said good-bye to Mrs. Alderfer and Mr. Ford, who were, miraculously, still alive, and I leaned down into their wheelchairs and gave each of them a hug. “Good-bye, darling,” Mrs. Alderfer said. “You’re a good girl. We’ll miss you.”
“Bye-bye, Chrissie,” they said, like children. “Bye-bye. . . .”
Outside, the parking lot was filled with light from the windows of the Home. I got into my car and pulled out of my spot.
I was about to turn right, toward my apartment, when, on an impulse, I decided to say good-bye to Melanie. I hadn’t seen her since the funeral. I’d called a couple of times, and when I asked Mrs. Saluggio how she was, her voice had seemed guarded, but she said that Melanie was “fine,” and when I spoke to Melanie herself, her voice was bright, and cheerful, almost unnaturally so.
I drove out of town along Route 7. On either side of me, the land was flat and treeless, with only an occasional house, vulnerable and unprotected in the wide space. I came to Melanie’s house, small and spare, right on the edge of the road, a little fountain with a cherub in the midst of its neat plot.
I stopped my car, walked up the concrete path, and rang the doorbell. As I stood there waiting, I could hear the sound of the television coming from inside the house.
The door opened, and there was Mrs. Saluggio, slender and beautiful, her skin tanned and oiled, wearing pedal pushers on her slim legs, and mules on her delicate feet. “Chrissie,” she said.
Beyond, in the room, lying on the couch, was Melanie. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and I saw that her arms and legs were pitiably thin, the bones curved, the joints big. Her skin had a yellowish cast, and there were brown circles around her eyes, and all the light had gone from her hair.
“Mellie . . .”I said.
She saw me, sprang from the couch and ran to me. She was smiling, her eyes feverish. “Oh, Chrissie!” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.” But it was as if she were speaking not to the person in front of her, but to some other being, in some other realm.
“You look so thin, Melanie.”
“I feel fine!”
Her mother stood still, watching her with dark, worried eyes. “She doesn’t eat,” she said. “But we’re working on it, huh, Mellie?”
But Melanie didn’t answer.
“I came to say good-bye,” I said.
“Where are you going?” Melanie asked, with a brightness that could shatter glass.
“Up to Caledonia, to college.”
“Oh that’s wonderful, Chrissie!” Then she said, “I gotta show you my room, Chrissie. I haven’t seen you for months. Come and see what I got!”
And before I knew it, she was headed up the stairs.
As I followed her, I could feel Rosemary Saluggio standing at the foot of the stairs, watching us from below.
At the top, at the door to her room, Melanie paused, then threw open the door. “Look, Chrissie, look what I’ve done!”
I peered at the room. It looked unlived in, the pink chenille spread smooth as if no one ever lay upon the bed, Melanie’s stuffed animals lined up neatly. The white curtains in the windows had little ruffles, and the wallpaper had a pattern of yellow roses. The air was warm and close, as if no life ever stirred it.
“Look,” Mellie said, sweeping her arm across the room.
The bureau was crowded with objects. She had made a little shrine to Dean. There was a newspaper clipping from the Ledger-Republican, in a frame, and in another frame, a photo of herself and Dean taken in the Wooden Nickel. They were sitting in the shadows of the bar, he was leaning over the table in a masculine pose, the arms of his T-shirt rolled up, butchy, elbows resting on the table by his beer mug, and she, beside him, was demure.
Mellie was all made-up and beautiful, her shoulder-length hair fine and gleaming, the mysterious smile on her face. She was glancing over her shoulder at something. She looked just like a movie star.
Next to the photo were two books, Modern Magic, and Magic Secrets of the World. “Those were his,” she said. “They help me to understand him better.”
In a silver frame on the bureau was the picture of him as a little girl, the one his mother had held at the funeral home, Dean in pigtails, front tooth missing, cheekbones large even then, pointy chin. The look of surprise at the camera, the delight. “His mom sent it to me,” she said. “I wrote her and begged her for something of his. We’ve been writing. I guess I’m her only connection to him.”
A teddy bear sat on the bureau. Melanie picked it up and hugged it to her breast. “He gave it to me on our first date. I call him Dean. Isn’t he cute? Want to hold him?”
I took the bear, petted it like you would to oblige a child, then tried to give it back to her. “No, you can hold him,” she said, watching me, studying me, as if she was trying to remember the image of me holding the bear because I was tied together in her mind with him.
“You’re the only other person left who was close to him,” she said.
On top of the bureau was a scrapbook with “Dean Lily” in big black letters.
She opened the book. Pasted on its pages were more newspaper clippings from the case. “Area Man Convicted in Multiple Killings.” She turned the pages. An empty Skittles bag stuck down, an advertisement for Mountain Dew cut from a magazine. “That’s what I’m mostly eating now. Skittles, because of him,” she said with a little laugh.
Pasted on a page under a piece of Scotch tape was a lock of golden brown hair. “His mom sent it to me with his picture.”
“Oh, Mellie . . .” I said. And I sighed.
I sensed a movement behind me. I turned and I saw that Rosemary Saluggio was standing in the doorway. I hadn’t heard her.
“You gotta eat something other than Skittles, Melanie,” Mrs. Saluggio said. “You gotta drink milk.”
But Melanie was staring at the photo of Dean as a little girl, as if she hadn’t heard her mother.
“Didn’t you know?” I asked Melanie. “I mean, how could you not have known?”
Still staring at the picture, “No. I never knew.”
“But it was obvious. I knew.”
“I didn’t know. I believed him.”
Her head angled toward the picture. As if I was not even there now. “It didn’t matter,” she said. “Because Dean acted like a man, he did everything a man
does. He loved me the way a man loves a woman. I mean, if he does everything that a man does? What does it matter?”
And now she seemed not to know we were there at all, me, and behind me Mrs. Saluggio in the doorway, her hair like a gleaming cap on her head, dark red lipstick, watching with her dark eyes, watching her daughter, who had become a child again, a child with a thin body and no breasts, little and frail, and lost, forever lost to her.
* * *
It was still early evening when I entered my apartment on Washington Street. The atmosphere was close and it smelled of warm wood and I pushed up the window to let in some night air.
Everything was ready to go. I didn’t have many belongings anyway. The futon was too heavy to load into my car. I would leave it here for the next tenant.
I had borrowed a suitcase from my mom and all my clothes fit into it. My precious things—my yearbook—I would take them with me. My books were packed in a box. I had almost as many books as clothes. The Mariah Carey poster was too torn to salvage so I ripped it off the wall and crumpled it into the garbage.
In the bedroom near my mattress was my green fireproof box. I knelt down, pulled up the lock, opened the lid. Inside was my birth certificate. I kept my Social Security card there too, in case I lost my wallet. I saw the big manila envelope with the writing on it, Bureau of the Public Debt. That was my savings bond. I pulled the envelope out of the box and opened the flap.
Inside it was empty. The savings bond was gone.
I sat up on the mattress. “Son of a bitch! Shit!” I cried, into the empty room. He had taken it. Screwed me too. I had begged him not to steal from me, but he must have stolen it while he was actually staying here with me. I had trusted him, I hadn’t bothered to look in my green box for months.
Now, crouched on the mattress, I felt my face heating up in anger and sweat spring from my body. He had dared—he had counted on my trust, counted on the fact that even if I discovered the savings bond gone, I wouldn’t throw him out of the house. He knew he had me under his spell.
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