Keeping Time: A Novel

by Mcglynn, Stacey

  The woman with him, shaking her head, calling through the closed window, “No, sorry.”

  The wheels of the train slowly turning, beginning its journey up the mountain. Michael, hurrying alongside it, keeping pace with it, ignoring the woman. His eyes were on only the man. Shouting, “Did you ever play the piano?”

  The woman, sliding a window down, leaning her head out, saying, “Please leave my father alone. We’re here to help in the search.” Pulling her head in.

  Michael, suddenly indignant, running alongside the train. “You don’t have to tell me about the search! We are the search. Hulda came here with us. And we came here to find you!” Pointing at the old man. Michael, jogging, trying to keep up with the train. Running over uneven terrain. Knocked off balance by the tip of a boulder implanted in the mountainside. Stumbling. Falling. Hitting the ground. Looking up, watching the train moving away. Screaming at it in desperation: “@sshaDaisy Phillips is looking for you. She’s right there.” Pointing at Daisy some yards back. Daisy, panting, leaning on Elisabeth. The two stumbling over the grass, making their way toward him. Michael, scrambling up from the ground, cleaning himself off. Suddenly tired. Suddenly wanting to go home. Suddenly done with the whole darn thing.

  The train gone, the three returning to the bench. Daisy, apologizing. Doubting it was him. Feeling guilty for causing trouble. Noticing the change in Michael’s face. How young he looked, how tired, how unhappy.

  Daisy, handing him another Snickers bar. Finishing her own.

  EIGHT MORE HOURS. No closer to a resolution. Breaking for dinner, leaving the mountain. Eating heartily, feeling guilty about their lusty appetites and their pleasure in the food. Asking themselves again what they should do. How could this have happened? Where cou"19UOPP">Hurry

  FORTY-TWO

  THERE DIDN’T SEEM to be anything more to be said. Hulda’s empty seat was the loudest thing in the car. It was a terrible feeling, leaving the mountains behind. Leaving Hulda behind. If not for the goal of helping Yodeli, they might not have been able to do it.

  They needed to. They needed to get back. For the boys and Richard and Ann, who had been picking up the slack, and Elisabeth’s job.

  BACK IN BROOKLYN. Not far from Hulda’s apartment. Daisy, asking how they were going to get into it.

  “No problem,” Michael, reminding them. “I have that bag she gave me. She must have her keys in there.” Reaching down between his feet. Picking it up. Hesitating before opening it, fingering the latch. “It’s okay, right?”

  Assuring him it was. He was just going to get her keys.

  But that wasn’t what happened. Because right there at the top of the bag was something addressed to him. And to Daisy. And to Elisabeth—postcards from Mount Washington. Written out at the top of the mountain from a bench on the observation deck while Daisy sat nearby in the bright sunlight and Michael and Elisabeth ambled around.

  Postcards written to them.

  “Oh, no.” Michael, reading. “Oh, no. Mom?” His voice, younger.

  Elisabeth, looking over at him but keeping an eye on the bustling Brooklyn street ahead. “Michael, what is it?”

  A bad feeling creeping in.

  Daisy, leaning forward from the backseat, her hand on the side of Michael’s seat.

  His voice shaky, Michael, saying, “Mom, pull over.”

  Elisabeth, a sideways glance at him. Pulling over to the side of the road. There was nowhere to park. Double-parking, using her emergency flashers, blinking rhythmically. Turning to Michael. The postcards. Nodding for him to go on.

  Beginning in a wobbly voice: “Dear Daisy, Elisabeth, and Michael. I don’t know when you’ll be reading this, but by the time you do, I will certainly be missing—for hours or days, I don’t know. Or maybe I will have already been found, found how I want to be found—as a part of the mountain. I hope you will forgive me the grief and inconvenience I have caused you in doing what I did. I am doing what I want to do—ending my days with Albert’s name on my lips and those of my children and parents, how and when and where of my choosing.”

  Michael, flipping to the second postcard. “You three have made my wishes come true, for there is no glory in dying alone in a Brooklyn apartment with the landlord celebrating at my last gasp. But there is in returning to a place like my#ou’b. They parents knew and their parents before them. You have allowed me to end my time on earth at a place so reminiscent of my beginning.

  “Please, if I could ask, get in touch with my son in Venezuela. He’s number one on my speed dial.”

  Switching to the third postcard, Michael, reading, “Elisabeth, please take my recipe book and always make the Mailaenderli cookies for sweet Michael. Michael, I would like you to take Yodeli. Maybe you’ll be able to get him to yodel! And Daisy, what can I say other than thank you. Your spirit and bravery in coming alone to New York are what started this. You gave me the guts. I’m looking at you now as I write this in the glittering sunlight. You’re beautiful. I wish I could do more to help you succeed in your goal. Best of luck in reaching it.

  “Love to you all, Hulda Kheist.”

  “Oh, no,” Daisy saying, her voice cracking, her mouth dry.

  “Holy shit.” Elisabeth.

  Silence from Michael. The three postcards spreading across his hands. Rereading them. Wrapping his young brain around them.

  “She planned the whole thing,” Elisabeth, realizing.

  Daisy, slowly nodding. “That’s why she gave Michael her purse.”

  In the car, silence except for the clicking of the emergency flashers. Three heads, grappling, trying to absorb. Street sounds from outside. A hot, humid day in late June. New Yorkers out in shorts, sandals, tank tops. People from all over the world. Cranky babies in strollers. Dogs pulling against their leashes, sniffing. An old woman pushing a grocery cart. A young man carrying a guitar in a big black case.

  Daisy, her eyes on the postcards in Michael’s hands, wondering what to think. Picturing Hulda on the mountaintop hunched over the postcards, busily writing. Picturing herself sitting right there, just a few feet away, not having any idea what Hulda was doing. Now, sitting here, not having any idea what she was feeling. Confused. Needing time. Needing it to settle inside her. Needing to sift through all her emotions. It was so big.

  “We should call Captain Miller. He has to be told this.” Elisabeth, taking charge.

  “So she might be dead?” Michael, asking, looking at his mother. His lower lip quivering, tears in his eyes. Elisabeth, silently marveling that he hadn’t already feared that. That what had been taunting her mind never entered his. She looked at him a long minute without answering. Wondering if she should let whatever process it was that had kept him from thinking the worst to continue protecting him. Should she let him off the hook, not burden him with the truth? Protect him from being uncomfortably close to death? From rubbing up against it in this way?

  For Hulda had literally left him holding the bag. Cementing her hope that she and the weekend would never be forgotten.

  Elisabeth, looking Michael softly in the eye. Slowly nodding her head. He had asked for the truth, she had to give it to him. “It’s what she wanted.” Her voice gentle, caring, loving.

  Michael, biting his top lip. Tears welling up. Releasing. Crying long and hard. Full of fear and sorrow.

  Elisabeth, taking him into her arms across the car’s dividing console. Cradling him like a baby. Comforting him as in days gone by. Soaking in the smell of his hair, his skin, his scalp. Thinking she would continue inhal to get the mower outrehabcking him as long as he let her.

  Finding deep contentment in the moment.

  THEY HAD TO PULL themselves together. Wipe the tears from their eyes. Rescue Yodeli. Elisabeth and Michael, breaking apart.

  Elisabeth, reaching for her cell phone. Michael, staring forlornly out the window. The postcards still in his hands. His eyes fixed on a sunflower in the corner of someone’s garden. His thoughts six hours away.

  Daisy, feeling fo
r Michael. Her heart breaking, wanting to reach out to comfort him. But resisting it. It was Elisabeth’s moment. With one eye on Michael, Elisabeth, managing to find the torn paper in her bag with Captain Miller’s phone number on it. Managing to dial.

  The call, answered almost immediately. Elisabeth, explaining. Captain Miller, saying the new information would change the nature of the search but not end the search. He thanked her for calling, expressed his sympathy, said they would be in touch.

  Elisabeth hung up, glanced over at Michael, who was still staring out the window. Resisting the urge to rub his shoulder, not wanting to push too far.

  Shifting into drive, heading for the apartment. Double-parking in front, flashers going. They got out. Michael had the keys.

  On their way up the exterior front steps, Elisabeth, saying, “I hope we don’t have to see that Brian Davis. Anything but sadness on his part might push me over the edge.”

  “I might knock him down the stairs.” Michael.

  “I’d take his heart out.” Daisy.

  “Hopefully he’s at work.” Elisabeth, thinking that that’s where she should be. If she misses tomorrow, it would be a full week. Thinking “Holy shit, they must be pissed.” Watching Michael, trying the first key. Seeing it didn’t work.

  Trying another. Success. Pushing the heavy front door open. Stepping inside. Instinctively inhaling. No yummy food smells. “It seems like he’s not home,” Michael, murmuring.

  Up the stairs they went to the first landing. Passing the door with the child’s drawings of flowers and the sun. Starting toward the second, hearing the sound of a door opening, a voice from below.

  “Hulda? Is that you?” Brian Davis. Coming down his hall toward the stairs.

  Three sets of alarmed eyes looking at one another. Michael, asking, “What do we tell him?”

  No time to answer. Brian Davis, bounding up the stairs. “Where’ve you been, gone three nights?”

  Rounding onto the first landing, slamming headlong into the space where they stood. Halting, his eyes sliding over and across each of them, remembering them. Looking in the space between them, around them. For Hulda. A moment passing before anyone spoke.

  “What are you doing here? Where’s Hulda?”

  No one answering, shifting their weight, blinking.

  Again, “Where’s Hulda? I’ve been worried about her silly bird. I almost went in to feed the damn thing myself, but then I thought she’d hit the roof if she caught me. So where is she? When’s she coming back?” Looking from face to face for an answer. “What’s the matter with you gu to get the mower outrehabckys? Cat got your tongue?”

  Daisy, clearing her throat. Saying, “She’s not coming back. We think she’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Passed away … in New Hampshire.” Daisy.

  “No way.” Brian, falling back, leaning against the wall, acting incredulously, as if it were impossible, as if she hadnut. Hand-washi

  FORTY-THREE

  HOME@titDaisy Phillips. PULLING INTO THE DRIVEWAY. Relieved.

  Michael, popping out of the SUV, carefully retrieving the birdcage.

  David and Josh, hearing they were home, flying out of the house, down the steps, into their mother’s arms. She had never been away three nights before. Fighting over her, vying for turf on her body, both pushing the other away with his hips, arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

  Elisabeth, laughing. Enjoying it.

  Then Richard, in a red T-shirt, coming out onto the porch. Unshaven. Ungroomed. On a Thursday. In the early afternoon. Wonder you’d

  FORTY-FOUR

  SHE COULDN’T DO IT. It became painfully clear within just a few weeks that Amanda just couldn’t do it.

  Dennis had gotten over that he had had to do all the unpacking himself. She always had a little something that caused her to run over to her mother’s. He had gotten over her tirade when she heard that Lenny was remarrying. He had listened dutifully as she rambled on about how his mother owes those three stepgrandchildren nothing and how Lenny’s marriage didn’t have to change their inheritance prospects one bit. He had gotten over eating dinner alone almost every night since they had moved and that she was putting off looking for a job while she yelled that he hadn’t made more than one appointment for an interview himself. He had gotten over all that. But there was one thing he just wouldn’t be able to get over, and Amanda managed to find it.

  He had just come back from the shops where he had passed up the fine ales although his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. He made the case in defense of the ale to his brain, hoping his brain would send out a message to his hand to pick up a bottle. But Dennis was strong. He pushed his trolley past the rows of captivating bottles and picked up a single box of pasta, a single jar of sauce, and a package of broccoli. He headed home with a stiff upper lip, reminding himself that the beauty of the surroundings in which he now lived was worth more than an ale sliding down his throat. He also reminded himself that Amanda was happy and that was what really mattered.

  Back in the house, a pasta pot on to boil. The jar of sauce in the saucepan. The broccoli cut into florets, waiting to be sautéed in a little garlic and olive oil. Dennis, putting in a jazz CD, scrolling through job sites on the Internet, hoping to find someone who was looking for someone in his mid-fifties who’d done nothing for a decade after a splashy book publishing adventure and worked for decades editing a dying Artifacts, Archeological Treasures, and Antiquities magazine, an expert in seventeenth-century artifacts.

  Not surprisingly, nothing popped out at him. Causing him to really want that pint of ale. Finding himself justifying having just one, telling himself that things weren’t so urgent yet that he couldn’t have a single pint. Turning off the computer, on his way out to grab one. Amanda, rolling into the driveway. Her long leg exiting the car before the rest of her. Standing up tall, smiling up at the house, hurrying up the walk, her heavy bag slung over her shoulder.

  Charging over to Dennis, full of good cheer, taking the sides of his face in each of her hands, squeezing them together. Kissing him hard on the lips. Saying, “You’re never going to guess what I just did.” Kissing him again. His face was in a vice between her strong hands, being crushed from both sides into the middle. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  “Now, promise me you won’t be upset. I know it was a little extravagant, and I know I#siitDaisy Phillips promised not to buy anything for a year, but, oh, darling, how could I resist? It would have taken superhuman strength because it was such an amazing deal! You should be proud of me, not angry. Do you promise?” Kissing him longer and harder.

  Dennis, taking a step back, worrying that his face might not come out of her kisses undented. Wanting to ask what she was going on about, but his lips were under siege. Fighting off the kiss. Asking what he feared most: “You didn’t buy anything, did you?”

  Amanda, pausing. Nodding. Meekly. Her teeth clenched in a guilty grin.

  “Oh, no, Amanda,” Dennis, saying, massaging his cheeks. They were throbbing. “You didn’t. What? What did you buy?”

  Amanda, becoming worried. Her good cheer being quickly replaced by fear. Realizing now that she might not be able to wriggle out of this one. Looking at Dennis’s face, seeing an impatience she hadn’t seen before. Taking a deep breath, pulling herself up to her full statuesque height, telling herself that he was just going to have to take this one on the chin, not her. Opening her charm full throttle, drawing her fingers through her hair, tossing her head in a beguiling way—a way that had worked wonders in the past.

  Dennis, repeating the question. Tonelessly. Through a tight mouth.

  Amanda, “I got us a great deal on something we’ve always wanted, something we’ve talked about for years.” More hair maneuvering.

  Dennis, impatient, his whole body stiffened for battle, barking out: “What?”

  “A baby grand.” Giggling a little guiltily now that it was out. Reaching for “coquettish” but instead getting “n
ervous.”

  “You didn’t!” Dennis, really blowing his top. Veins bulging across every patch of exposed skin. “A piano! A baby grand? Are you out of your mind?”

  Amanda, staring at him in horror. She had never seen anything like it from him before. Her lower lip trembled.

  “Return it! You hear me? Cancel the order! We don’t have the money for that!”

  “I got us on a monthly installment plan, interest free! I thought you&#was savvy enou

  FORTY-FIVE

  DAISY, UP AT DAWN. SHOWERED. Completely packed by breakfast. She spent the early hours sipping tea before the boys were up. Richard and Elisabeth had said their good-byes before going to bed the night before. Elisabeth had hugged and kissed Daisy, saying she wanted to bring the whole family to see her at her home this year. Richard, in a blue-and-white-striped robe and slippers, said that would be nice but they simply didn’t have the money. He reminded Elisabeth that now they had two kids in college. Elisabeth sighed and got ready to go to work. She apologized before she left that she couldn’t take Daisy to the airport. She couldn’t possibly take another day off.

  Daisy told her not to worry. She leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead, a motherly kiss.

  Now Daisy, alone in the living room, waiting for the boys to wake up, listening to the plentiful sounds of birds from beyond the sliding glass doors. Going through old photo albums, enjoying seeing the boys when they were small. Flipping pages, watching them grow. Trying to pretend that she wasn’t going to miss them much. But what she had told Richard was true: She hadn’t been successful in what had brought her there, but she had found so much more.

  ELISABETH, BACK AT HER DESK. Having dealt with the concerns for her health, the questions, and the expressions of sympathy. A summer flu? There is nothing worse. And how was she feeling now? Better? That#ȁ’b. They ’s good.