Night Town

by Cathi Bond

  The Oldsmobile was gone but there were other cars in the driveway. Dad must have left on an emergency house call. Maybe they wouldn’t be so mad at me if I entertained the patients.

  “Mom?” I called, opening the door and kicking off my boots.

  The living room was empty. Tedder’s Hot Wheels track roped around the legs of the new coffee table. A bright yellow truck lay on its side. Nobody answered.

  “Mom?” I called, even louder this time, walking slowly up the stairs.

  The phone in the office rang, breaking the silence. I could hear Ruth’s voice in the background.

  “Dr. Barnes’s office, please hold.”

  I was still scared and knew I was going to get it, but I wanted to see Mom anyway. The bedroom door was closed. Without knocking I quietly turned the knob. The unmade bed was empty and Mom’s eiderdown comforter lay in a pool of green on the floor. Leaning down I picked it up and buried my face in the satin, but the scent of Joy was gone. Something sweet and earthy had replaced it, a fleeting smell like the garden after all the flowers had died.

  “Mom?” I called again.

  I walked into Frank’s room. He was doing homework.

  “Do you know where Mom is?”

  He looked up from the books. His eyes were red and puffy. He’d been crying.

  “Dad took her back to the hospital…and it’s all because of you and your boyfriend.”

  “It’s not my fault!” I yelled.

  It was Mom’s fault. She followed me out into the snow. If she’d stayed in bed and drank her fluids then she’d get better. Dad always said that was the ticket, though sometimes you needed antibiotics. Why did he take her to the hospital? What could they do that he couldn’t? The kiss, it had been a French.

  Aunt Anne returned that evening. Frank, Tedder and I were lined up on the sofa, and Aunt Anne sat opposite us. I stared at the design of the moiré wallpaper.

  “Ruth is going to stay with you kids,” Aunt Anne said.

  “Where’s Dad?” Frank asked.

  “He’s going to stay with your mother.”

  “I want Mommy,” Tedder whined, clutching Roo to his chest.

  “She can’t be here right now,” Aunt Anne replied.

  “Why can’t you stay?” I asked.

  “Because I need to be with your mother.”

  I couldn’t read her face. It was as blank as Granddad’s after Granny died.

  “Will you be alright?” she asked.

  We all nodded. I was still staring at the wallpaper.

  “Can we do something?” Frank asked.

  I could see his agitation, fingers wriggling like snakes.

  “Behave the way your mother would want,” Aunt Anne replied, her eyes shifting to me.

  Ten days passed. I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Mom up on the hill. Kenneth had told everyone that Mom was sick.

  “What’s she got?” Betsy asked.

  We were down in the rec room, practicing some new dance steps.

  “Some kind of flu.”

  It had to be that or the mumps. Maybe pneumonia. She was awfully thin. Sandy asked when she was coming home but I didn’t know. Every couple of days Aunt Anne arrived to check on us and bring letters from Mom. They were full of the usual stuff: Was I being good? Did I do my homework? Was I being a help to Ruth? But there was never anything about her and the tests, and never once did she mention Kenneth. I tried to read between the lines, looking for clues like Nancy Drew, but there was nothing to find, or else I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. I felt so scared and mad too. She was punishing me for the French.

  The phone rang upstairs.

  “Maddy,” Ruth called. “It’s your aunt.”

  “Hi,” I said, sitting at the dining room table, staring out the window, the pale green receiver clenched in my hand.

  The world outside was white. The chain link fence was nearly buried in high drifts of snow and I could see past Mom’s garden, beyond the gully, all the way to the railway tracks. Aunt Anne didn’t speak.

  “Are you there?” I asked.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “How’s Mom?”

  Aunt Anne was quiet again and then she cleared her throat. “Would you like to come and see her?”

  My heart fluttered with hope, but then fear clamped itself around my chest, squeezing like a band of steel. So hard I couldn’t catch my breath.

  “Why doesn’t she just come home?”

  “She can’t,” Aunt Anne replied.

  Ruth banged a pot in the kitchen.

  “I could come and get you right now,” Aunt Anne said.

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

  “Betsy and Sandy are here,” I said, staring at Mom’s fence. “They’re staying overnight,” I lied.

  “Oh.”

  “Why doesn’t Mom just come home?”

  The air hung like a blanket –air that still smelled faintly of fresh paint and wallpaper glue. I tried hard to keep that smell fresh in my mind. If I didn’t let it go, then Mom would come back and start decorating something else. Maybe we could do my room together.

  “I better go,” Aunt Anne said.

  She cleared her throat again, then the line went dead. The dial began to hum and then Betsy yelled up from the basement. I hung up and ran down to my friends.

  There were no more letters or health updates that week. Neither Aunt Anne nor Dad came back to the house. Just the odd phone call to Ruth to make sure everything was all right.

  “Can I talk to Dad?” I asked, but Ruth just shook her head, placing the phone back in the receiver.

  “Maybe next time,” she said, picking Tedder up and carrying him into the office. The patients kept arriving, even though Ruth told them that the office was closed for the time being. Everyone asked the same question.

  “When’s he coming back?”

  Mothers bouncing sick children on their hips, old farmers doubled over with rheumatism, and even Florence arrived one afternoon complaining of her gut ache.

  “When’s he coming back?”

  I tried to talk her through it, but she needed Dad’s magic pills. He was gone, and as each day passed I tried harder and harder to push the scary thoughts out of my mind, but they kept appearing like thought bubbles in the comics: “Batman raced to the cavern. Maybe Robin had been kidnapped by The Joker.” “What if Mom isn’t coming back?”

  “Go away!” I told the thought bubbles, but that didn’t always work, and at night, the bubbles were the worst. I never knew what they might say.

  The boys and Ruth were asleep, but I was wide awake in the little spare gabled room that overlooked the church. After Mom left I started sleeping there. I couldn’t bear my own bedroom because the window overlooked her garden and the gully –the gully where she’d seen the French. Two single beds rested on either side of the window. There wasn’t enough room for a dresser, just two tiny bedside tables with driftwood lamps Mom and I had made. I ran my fingers over the driftwood. It was still smooth. Mom and I collected the wood down by Lake Erie, sanded the bases and sealed the wood with shellac. They were as nice as any lamps in the store. There were no slivers. We’d done a good job.

  The little room was cold. I pulled the quilt up under my chin. A sudden blast of wind struck the side of the house, making me jump and rattling the shutters as a cold draft seeped beneath the windowsill. The storm windows were still out in the garage. Mom had forgotten to get the yardman to prepare the house that winter. Another blast hit the house. I got up and looked out the window to see if the shutters were still intact. Maybe they’d snapped off.

  The trees twisted, bare branches swinging like skinny arms. Our metal garbage can had fallen on its side and was rolling across the driveway. A line of red started to peek over the edge of the horizon when suddenly everything went still. The garbage can stopped rolling. The trees relaxed. I opened the window. The wind was gone and it was peaceful. I could smell the air, brisk and fresh, when the phone rang out like an
alarm. I shut the window and hopped back into bed. Ruth stumbled out of the spare room, her body shifting in the dark hall. The band of fear was back. I tried to breathe.

  “Hello,” Ruth said, picking up the receiver. “Oh no,” she said, letting out the tiniest cry. “Yes,” she said, over and over. “Yes.” She put the phone down and quietly walked towards my room.

  I lay down, closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. Ruth paused in the doorway and I heard her uneven breathing, little jagged gasps catching in the back of her throat. Then she turned away, her footsteps getting softer and softer as she walked down the hall and descended the stairs. Then the wind resumed its wild dance; the shutters banged and the shingles threatened to rip themselves off the gables.

  The wind eventually settled down but I didn’t. I lay there staring straight up, watching the day begin to spread itself across the ceiling, getting brighter and brighter. The band of steel remained, clamping tighter and tighter. A car pulled into the driveway, the front door opened, then closed. Ruth must have been waiting in the foyer. Her voice mixed with Dad’s, getting louder as they climbed the stairs. He told Ruth to wake the boys as he entered my room and sat down on the other bed.

  “Maddy,” he said, his voice trembling. “Wake up.”

  Dad was still in his hat and coat. His pants were wrinkled and he hadn’t shaved in days. Sitting up, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and put them on the cold maple floor. Somehow the chill took a bit of the terror away, but it came right back when Dad looked at me. His face wasn’t blank. It was full of pain. So deep there was no bottom. I didn’t go to him.

  Frank and Tedder stood in the doorway. Ruth was behind them. Tedder climbed into Dad’s lap, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Dad wrapped his arm around him and Frank sat down beside him. The band squeezed.

  “How’s Mom?” Frank asked.

  “She’s with the angels,” Dad said, one hand stroking Tedder’s hair, as the other found Frank’s hand. His voice shook.

  “Where did the angels take her?” Tedder asked.

  “What do you mean?” Frank interrupted, his jaw clenching and unclenching.

  She was dead –that’s what he meant. There was a hangnail on my right thumb. I pulled at it and made it hurt.

  “I was with her. She was peaceful. There was no pain.”

  Then Dad looked straight at me, meeting my gaze, but I turned away. It had to be the kiss. He turned back to the boys.

  “The door opened and an angel came in, and the angel took her to heaven.”

  Frank started to cry.

  “I want her back,” Tedder said.

  He was crying too. The three men of the family sobbed as Ruth stood out in the hallway, not wanting to intrude. I sat straight-backed, staring at the church and the red dawn. I didn’t cry. I wouldn’t –no matter what –I wouldn’t cry, for fear I’d be swept away by the tears or swallowed up by the terrible bubbles. No. I sat on my bed, pressing my feet into the cold, cold floor. No.

  Aunt Anne arrived a few minutes later. She burst through the front door, flew up the stairs and into my room, swooping the boys up into her arms, kissing them on their cheeks, telling them their mother loved them and that we’d all get through this together. Her clothing was as wrinkled as Dad’s, but she wore that face that said, “March on! We’re strong. We can get through this.” Dad stayed where he was, in his hat and coat, with Tedder in his arms. I got up and walked past them all, down the hall and into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

  “Maddy,” Aunt Anne called after me. “Maddy!”

  I turned on all the taps so I couldn’t hear. The shower poured down and ice cold water splashed out, soaking the good chenille mat. I didn’t care.

  “Maddy!” she called again, knocking at the door. “Let me in.”

  I didn’t answer. I stepped into the shower in my nightgown. Standing under the rushing water, I opened my mouth as wide as I could and thought about all the men who rode barrels over Niagara Falls. They’d all drowned, the barrels smashed into bits by the rocks. The cold prickled my skin and rushed into my ears, like shards of ice slicing into my body. I couldn’t hear a thing. How did the men feel as they flew along the Niagara River, and what was it like when they struck the rocks?

  The doorbell chimed. The boys and I were dressed in our Sunday best. Aunt Anne told us it was our job to answer the door. It felt as if everyone in the world was coming to our house that day. I opened the door. The lady whose little girl had been killed on McKenzie stood there, clutching a Corning Ware casserole dish. So did all the women standing beside her. Endless casseroles and tubs packed with precooked food.

  “Would you please come in?” I asked, opening the door wide.

  When they looked at the three of us they all burst into tears. “You poor motherless children,” said the lady with the dead girl.

  The others dabbed their eyes with embroidered handkerchiefs, passing into the kitchen to drop off the casseroles and then joined all the other friends and neighbours in the living room. Frank and I started carrying in dining room chairs for the overflow of mourners, while Tedder sat on the fireplace hearth clutching Roo.

  I heard one of the women say, “Did you even know she was sick?”

  “Nobody did,” another replied, glancing at me.

  “Where’s Dr. Barnes? The children shouldn’t be all alone.”

  Dad had disappeared when I was standing in the shower the morning before. Ruth said he just got in the car and drove away. He still hadn’t returned.

  Aunt Anne arrived, pushing Mom’s mahogany tea trolley into the living room. It was covered with an assortment of Mom’s favourite brightly painted teacups. “Can I get any of you coffee or tea?”

  “Oh, no,” a lady said, rising to her feet. The other women did the same. “You’ll need your time alone,” she added.

  They left behind a mountain of food that covered the kitchen counters and spilled onto the dining room table. Aunt Anne couldn’t make enough room in the fridge, so she pulled all of Mom’s Tupperware containers down from the top shelf over the sink.

  “There’s no point in letting good food go to waste,” she said, automatically transferring spoonful after spoonful of scalloped potatoes and macaroni and cheese into the clear plastic tubs. She attacked some noodles stuck to the bottom of a pan. “It’s important to get it all.”

  Snapping the lids into place, I wanted to ask what had happened to Mom, but I didn’t dare since I was the one who had kissed Kenneth in the gully.

  Aunt Anne pushed up the sleeves of Mom’s black cashmere sweater. There wasn’t enough time for her to go home and change, and Aunt Anne needed something decent to wear. Since Mom’s slacks were much too long, Aunt Anne had been forced to wear a skirt. Other than church, it was the only time I ever remember her wearing one. Her pale legs looked exposed in the light. The only sounds in the room were the slap of the spoon and the snap of the lids, coupled with the uneasy sight of Aunt Anne’s bare legs.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What on earth for?”

  Then I grabbed her, hugging her as tightly as I could as the Joy washed over me and I remembered the softness of her hair.

  “It’s all my fault.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault.”

  The harder I hugged, the more Aunt Anne’s body stiffened and the harder I hung on.

  “Maddy!”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maddy. Let go.”

  I clung even tighter.

  “This is no time to let emotion get the best of us,” she said, wrenching herself free. Seizing me by the shoulders, Aunt Anne held me firmly at arm’s length and, like the determined nurse she was, administered the Gillespie family medicine:

  “Now make yourself useful, run those tubs down to the freezer and meet me in your parents’ room.”

  It was quiet in the basement. The big, white freezer was full of frozen meat wrapped in brown butcher’s wrap. The cuts read
‘Roast beef,’ ‘Chuck,’ ‘Prime Rib,’ ‘T-Bone,’ ‘Stewing’ and ‘Flank.’ Once a year, Mom asked Granddad for a side of beef. He’d personally select the animal and have it sent to the slaughterhouse. Once the animal was butchered, Granddad would load the meat into the trunk of his Lincoln and drive it over to our place.

  “Be darned if it doesn’t fill the whole thing,” he’d say, marveling at the storage space his big sedan provided. “I could fit all you kids in there,” he’d say, running after us, threatening to put us inside and close the lid.

  Granddad could make sense of this. He’d know what to do. He’d tell me what happened. I moved the rib roasts to the side and tossed a couple of rigid chickens into the bottom of the freezer, placed the still faintly warm casseroles on the upper rack, then went upstairs to look for Aunt Anne.

  I found her in Mom and Dad’s bedroom in the middle of their enormous walk-in closet. Dad’s side was a snarl of socks and shoes, with pants and jackets dangling haphazardly from big wooden hangers. Mom’s side was perfectly organized, with clothing ordered according to season and function. Sunday suits were followed by slacks, sweaters, blouses and dresses; formal wear was near the back, with footwear lined up neatly beneath. Mom’s good quilted housecoat hung on a hook. Why didn’t she take that to the hospital? She must have been in a terrible hurry. She must have been wearing the mauve dressing gown –the one she was wearing at the top of the hill.

  Aunt Anne was rifling through Mom’s clothes. “What do you think your mother would like?”

  “What?” I asked, confused by the question, but comforted by the smell. Standing on the threshold of Mom’s closet was like walking into her arms. I wanted to tear every dress and slip from their hangers, roll up the sweaters, throw everything into a heap on the floor and lie there, drifting away in the smell that had surrounded me my whole life. But I didn’t. Aunt Anne wouldn’t approve. I would come back later when I was all alone.

  “What do you think she’d like?” Aunt Anne repeated.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “To be buried in.”

  Neither of us spoke. The doorbell rang and I heard Ruth answer it.