About two hours into the trip, a man got on the bus, sat down next to me, and immediately unwrapped a sandwich of salami and cheese in a hard roll and began eating it. His jaws crunched, and the odor of garlic wafted toward me, a smell that Mom would have appreciated. Even though I wasn’t a major garlic lover, it made me so hungry that I took out my cheese sandwich. I’d been saving it for later, but I ate it all and regretted even the crumbs that fell on the floor.
The next time the bus stopped, the driver announced, “This is a fifteen-minute stop. Plenty of time to stretch your legs, folks. I want you all to get out and move. Don’t stay sitting down here; it’s not good for your circulation.” He stood by the door, nodding as the bus emptied. “That’s the way, folks,” he said, slapping his cap against his leg. “I don’t want any blood clots on my run.”
The stop was at a convenience store off a road that bore a sign saying WITTLINGER FALLS, THE HOME OF RUSTY’S INCREDIBLE CORNED BEEF SANDWICHES. Everyone started crowding into the store or walking around, some people doing stretches. A dusty red car drove up, and the salami man got in. I went into the store, stood in line for the bathroom, and then stood in another line to buy a candy bar.
In those few minutes, the sun came out and, outside, trees and grass and weeds were suddenly green, shining, and sparkling. A woman standing by the door, wearing a plaid cap and a man’s dark winter coat, held out a cup to each person who passed her, asking in a soft but steady voice, “Can you spare some change?”
I reached into my pocket, meaning to take out a coin, but instead I brought out a bill. Her eyes widened, and I thought, Okay, why not? I was sure that I had a single in my hand, but it was a five-dollar bill.
Quickly, her reactions faster than mine, she reached for it, took hold of it, and said, “Thank you! You’re a good person. Bless you!”
“Oh, wait,” I said. “I don’t—”
Just then, the bus driver came out of the store. “How you doing, Sylvia? Got a place to live yet?”
“No, but it’s all right there, under the bridge,” the woman said.
“Well, keep your chin up. I know you do.” He dropped a coin in her cup and walked across the parking lot, toward the bus.
Sylvia hadn’t let go of the five-dollar bill, and now she tugged at it, not hard, not aggressively, but firmly.
I wanted to say that I needed that money, that today I probably needed it almost as much as she did. That, without it, I might be homeless and sleeping under a bridge tonight, too.
The bus driver leaned on the horn, and people started boarding.
For a moment more, Sylvia and I tugged at the bill. Then I loosened my grip. I let my fingers go limp. I let her have the five dollars.
“Bless you!” she said. “Bless you,” she called after me, as I sprinted toward the bus. “Bless you, bless you!”
“You must have given our Sylvia a buck, to get blessed like that,” the driver said as I got on.
“Five,” I said, still not believing it.
“Five!” the driver exclaimed.
A stout man sitting behind him whistled. “Girl’s got a great big heart,” he said.
“Too big,” the driver said. “Poor old Sylvia’s never going to be satisfied with my measly quarter again.”
I took my seat, my stomach thumping. I didn’t know where I was going to sleep tonight or how I was going to eat or pay for anything. I smoothed out my last five-dollar bill. If Mom knew what I’d done, wouldn’t she call me a fool?
No, she wouldn’t.
She’d never said that about anything I’d done. And maybe she’d even have approved. Maybe she’d be like the stout man and say I had a great big heart. I wished that were true of me. I wished that I’d given Sylvia the money out of the goodness of my heart, the way Mom would have. Whenever she had played the lottery, she’d always said if she won big, she wouldn’t keep it all for herself.
I opened her address book again and, for about the fiftieth time, looked at each Hinchville name, as if I could make them reveal the secrets of these people—who they were and why they had acted so cruelly to my mother and father.
I looked out the window, whispering the names over and over. Thomas Halley. Doreen Halley. Judith Silver. Martin Silver. Netta Bishop. Elizabeth Wardly.
Thomas and Doreen were my mother’s parents. Judith and Martin must be my father’s. The other people, Netta Bishop and Elizabeth Wardly, these two names Mom had preserved so carefully—who were they? She must have known a lot more people, but she’d only written down these names. Maybe they had been her best friends. They would remember her. I could almost hear Elizabeth Wardly saying, Jane Halley? She was a good friend, my best friend. I loved her so much.
We passed bare fields, newly budded trees, heaps of winter debris. We passed one crossroad after another, all with strange, haunting names. Mud Road. Dangerous Pond Road. Killfield Road. Road to Nowhere. I twisted around to read that again—Road to Nowhere. How perfect for this trip.
THIRTY-FOUR
In the drugstore, the phone was on the wall in back. An old couple was waiting at the prescription counter. Two little boys with toy guns were “shooting” one another: “I dead you!” “No, I dead you!” With Mom’s address book open on the little shelf below the phone, I dialed the number for Doreen and Thomas Halley.
It was a little past three o’clock, and I was in Hinchville, in Carrington’s Drug Emporium on Mercer Street.
The phone was picked up. “Is that you, Chris?” a cheerful woman’s voice asked.
“Uh, sorry, no. I’d like to speak to Doreen Halley,” I said, and my lips went a little numb, saying this name.
“Who do you want?”
“Doreen Halley.”
“What number did you want?”
I gave it to her. It was the number Mom had written in her book, but it was the wrong number. “No, there’s nobody here by that name,” she said. “Sorry.”
Next, I called the number for the Silvers. The phone rang twice; then a voice said, “The number you have called is no longer in service. Please consult the phone book or an operator.”
The Elizabeth Wardly number was also out of service. When I borrowed a phone book from the pharmacist, there was no Thomas Halley, no Doreen Halley, no Elizabeth Wardly, no Judith Silver, and no Martin Silver listed.
This was not the way I had envisioned things happening. In fact, I had skipped right over this part of the story I’d told myself about coming here and facing these people. It had been a story, hadn’t it? One in which I’d left out the possibility that nobody would be here. What would I do if there was no Netta Bishop, either?
I tried the Silvers and Elizabeth Wardly again, and again heard the voice saying, “The number you have called is no longer in service.” My stomach clenching, I carefully punched in the numbers for Netta Bishop.
“Yes? Hello,” someone said almost immediately. The voice was deep, and I couldn’t be sure if it was a man or a woman. “Could I speak to, ah, Ms. Bishop,” I said, guessing.
“There is no Ms. Bishop here. This is Netta Bishop speaking. Mrs. Bishop.”
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Bishop,” I said. “You don’t know me, but I think you knew Jane Halley. I think you might have been a friend of hers, and I’ve come to Hinchville to find—”
“Who did you say you were?”
“Sorry, I didn’t say. My name is Sarabeth Silver.”
“I don’t know any Sarabeths.”
“Mrs. Bishop, did you know Jane Halley? I’ve come here to Hinchville to—”
“You’re repeating yourself,” she said, interrupting in that hoarse, almost masculine voice. “Of course I know Jane Halley. She’s my niece. Now, you tell me how you know her and where she is. I have waited to hear from her for a very long time. When you see her again, I want you to give her that message, and I want you to tell her she is to call her aunt Netta at once.”
I had come to Hinchville to find Mom’s relatives. This was what I had wanted, and yet, hea
ring Netta Bishop say Mom was her niece, I froze, unable to speak. I hadn’t imagined her as an aunt. I thought she’d be a best friend, someone like Grant or Patty, only a grown-up.
“Hello!” she demanded. “Are you there?”
“Yes. I’m here. I’m sorry—”
“You haven’t told me how you know Jane.”
“She’s my mother.”
“Your mother! Are you telling me you’re Jane’s child?”
“Yes.”
“Jane’s daughter,” she said. Then she was silent, and I was the one who said, “Hello? Hello, Mrs. Bishop?”
“Child,” she said, “come to my house at once.”
“Where is it? Can I walk from Carrington’s Drug Emporium?”
“Never mind that. What did you say your name was again? Sara?”
“Sarabeth,” I said. “Sarabeth Silver.”
“Then your father is Ben Silver?”
“Yes. Benjamin Robert Silver.”
“You stay right where you are,” she ordered. “I’ll be there in a trice. Watch for a fat lady driving an old black Cadillac. How will I know you?”
I looked down at myself. Jeans, shirt, sneakers. Just like a million other girls. I untied Mom’s fish scarf from my belt loop. “I’ll be holding a fish scarf,” I said.
“A what?”
“A white scarf with yellow fish on it. And a blue address book,” I added.
I stood outside the drugstore and waited, watching the people and the cars passing. It was strange and sort of exciting to think I was standing on a street where Mom had walked, looking at stores she’d probably gone into, maybe seeing people she’d known and talked to.
A black Cadillac glided down the street. It stopped, the window opened, and a woman looked me up and down. Her gaze caused me to think what a sorry sight I must be. “Sarabeth Silver?”
“Yes.”
She opened the door and stuck one foot out, then the other, then seemed to shove her whole self out of the car. She was large, what Mom would have called “heavy-boned.” She wore dark slacks and a starched white blouse. Her white hair was in a thick braid wound on top of her head. She stood up, favoring one leg. I reached out my hand to help her, but she brushed it away.
“How do I know you’re really Jane’s daughter?” she said.
I took out my school ID and handed it to her. “All right,” she said. She gave me that up-and-down look again. “Skinny bean, aren’t you? Like Jane, I expect.”
“Yes,” I said. “Like my mother.” And following her into the car, I thought that now I understood better than ever why Mom had left this town and all the coldhearted people in it behind her.
THIRTY-FIVE
My great-aunt had a little weary-looking clapboard house on River Street. The moment we walked up the steps onto the porch, the door opened, and a round-faced woman wearing jeans cried, “Hello! I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Jeannie,” Nettie Bishop said, “this is Sarabeth Silver, your cousin. Sarabeth, this is my daughter, Jeannie Bishop.”
“Hello, Sarabeth,” Jeannie said. “I am so glad to see you. Welcome to our house.”
She threw her arms around me, taking me by surprise. She was big, like her mother, and smelled good. Roses, I thought, almost the same scent that I’d caught on Patty’s mom.
“Whoa, Jeannie,” my great-aunt said in her deep voice. “Let the girl breathe.”
“I am so sorry!” Jeannie said, releasing me. “Did I crush you, Sarabeth, my friend? Did I squeeze too hard?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” she said. “Do you like my perfume smell? I slithered it all over my neck.”
She dipped her head toward me, and I realized what it was about her that was different, why she said slithered instead of slathered, why her voice was so loud. She was retarded.
She took my hand and showed me through the house, talking excitedly. It was a small two-story house, almost a cottage. Jeannie had something to say about everything. When she showed me the guest room upstairs, she said, “I love this little room! Isn’t it sweet?” It was furnished with a single bed, a wooden bureau, and a rag rug on the floor. “My grandmother Bishop made that rug,” she said. “This is my pet favorite room.”
My great-aunt came up the stairs, puffing a little. She stood in the doorway and said, “This is where your mother slept, Sarabeth, when she came over to visit and play with Jeannie, when they were little girls.”
I didn’t take up her remark or ask any questions. I didn’t want my heart to soften to her, or to Jeannie, where it was in much more danger of doing so. But I began to hope that I could sleep in this room that night.
“Jeannie,” my great-aunt said, “do you remember your cousin Jane?”
“Oh yes, I do! Janie and Jeannie,” she sang out. “Two little girls love to play together!” She hugged me again. “And here is Janie’s little girl! How old are you, Cousin Sarabeth, darling?”
“I’m thirteen, Jeannie.”
She giggled. “I’m thirty next month, which is when I have my birthday. And I’m older than you, and that means you have to do what I say!”
“Okay,” I said.
“Oh, you make me happy!” She grabbed my hand and swung it up in the air, as if we were two little girls, the way she and Mom had been. I was unable to hold off loving her one more second.
“Jeannie,” her mother said. “Do you want to play a piece on the piano for Sarabeth?”
“Great idea,” she said. “Mommy, you are smart!” Downstairs, she seated herself at the upright piano in the living room. “This is by that man Chopin,” she said, her hands bouncing over the keys. “Some people say choppin’, but I say it right. Show pin!”
I clapped when she was done, and my great-aunt said, “She never took lessons, but she can play anything. She hears it once, and she’s got it forever.” Then, as if we were those two little girls from the past, she said, “You girls come help me with supper now.”
She set me to peeling carrots and Jeannie to laying the silverware on the table. Supper was a stew, and it was delicious. “You’re a good cook,” I said.
“Oh, I’m nothing compared to my mother,” she said. “We girls, Doreen and I, picked up what we could, but our mother was a great cook. She could have been professional, except in those days, women didn’t do much outside the home.”
“Doreen is my grandmother,” I said.
“Yes.”
I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. Not then.
Afterward, she left Jeannie to clean the kitchen. “It’s my special job,” Jeannie said. “No one else can do it as good as I can.”
Aunt Netta and I went into the living room. “Now we talk,” she said. “I’ve been patient for three hours, but now I want to hear about Jane. Tell me how she is; tell me everything about her. How is she? And, of course, Ben, too?”
We were sitting opposite each other. She was in a soft chair, the worn arms covered with crocheted doilies, and I was in a wicker rocker.
“My mother … they’re both dead,” I said.
Aunt Netta gasped. Her face went white. “You say what, child?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t …” I pressed my lips together. I hadn’t meant to be brutal. Too late for me to take back those words, soften them, or lead up to them. So, as plainly as possible, I told her about my father and then about Mom.
“She died back in November. She had a heart attack.” As I told her the rest of it, about Mom lying in the snow in the park and then having another, fatal attack in the hospital—all things I had tried hard not to think about for months—I nearly broke.
Listening, my great-aunt put her hand over her own chest and drew in one huge breath after another. “So, my sister and my niece,” she said. “Both of them, both of them.”
She got up and, wiping her eyes and still drawing in those huge breaths, she walked around the room, window to window, piano to couch, side table to wall, and back aga
in to the windows.
Finally, she sat down again. That was when she told me that Mom’s mother, her sister Doreen, the same person I’d thought of only with anger, had died the way Mom had died, young, of a heart attack. “Only, in Hinchville,” Aunt Netta said, “there are plenty of people who believe that what she really died of was a broken heart over Jane.”
Days later, when I wanted to describe my time in Hinchville, to say how those few days had spun my mind and heart around like a top, I didn’t do too well. Trying to tell what I had found there was like trying to stuff the contents of a huge house into a small bag. Did I even remember everything? No. But that first evening I remembered vividly.
“When Jane and Ben were teenagers,” Aunt Netta said, “just young kids … When they … I mean to say, when we, the adults who—when we, their family, acted so badly to them, wronged them …”
She had to stop. She straightened her back and looked off, as if trying to put her thoughts together. “It’s time to speak the truth,” she said, “although this will be hard, and you’re just a child yourself. It was a different time then. I only hope you can understand. It must seem strange and very wrong to you, Sarabeth, the way we acted. Looking back, I can see it now, all the things we did and said without ever knowing there was anything wrong with them. We thought we were upholding our family’s honor. Something grand like that. It was disgraceful, we thought, that your mother wasn’t more than a child and she was pregnant. We were ashamed.”
“She was sixteen when she had me,” I said, my face heating at the thought of their shame. “Are you still ashamed? Are you ashamed of me?”
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