News From Heaven

by Jennifer Haigh

  She was the last of the Bakers: a spoiled lonely girl without siblings, without cousins, raised by two maiden aunts who’d lost everything—one histrionically, the other in silent bitterness—and invested all their hopes in her.

  Sunny’s great-grandfather Chester Baker had thrown the first shovel; but it was Chester Junior, known as Chessie, who grew the two Baker mines—in a few decades, with the help of two wars—into twelve. Chessie was a mine operator, and only that; the planet, to him, the scene of a cosmic shell game. Its land masses existed for one purpose only, the hiding of bituminous coal. He kept the company name, Baker Brothers, though he’d long been brotherless. (Edgar Baker had been killed at the Somme.) From his youth, Chessie lived only for his mines, a man so single-minded that he’d never once gone to the pictures, never watched a single game played by the Baker Bombers, his company’s baseball team.

  Yet he found time to marry and raise three children, or at least get them started. There was a clever girl named Virginia, a pretty one named Rosalie. The boy, Chester III, was known in the family as Third or simply The Youngest, a title shortened in childhood to the tender moniker Ty. These names were part of Sunny’s childhood, each matched to a framed portrait on the parlor wall of the Baker house on Indian Hill. The house referred to, in town, as The Mansion, with audible capitals, and by the Bakers as the big house or simply home.

  For all of Sunny’s girlhood, the wall was laden with photographs. Chester and Elias (known as the Brothers) posed before Baker One in string ties and muttonchops, the coalman’s uniform of the day. There was a stern portrait of her grandfather Chessie, in his vest and round spectacles, and a lovely one of Chessie’s lost brother, a slender blond boy in tennis whites. There were the aunts who’d raised her, each captured at the time of her greatest happiness: Virgie in tweed and cashmere, crossing the quadrangle at Wellesley College with her great friend Tess Drew; Rosalie under a velvety layer of Max Factor in a publicity still for The Edge of the Universe—the David O. Selznick extravaganza, never released, that was to have made her a star.

  At the center of the display—the place of honor, the fulcrum around which the others were balanced—hung a wedding portrait of Sunny’s parents. Its mahogany frame had cost a hundred dollars, back when a dollar bought dinner and a hundred could get you a car. The photo was taken in a church in England where the couple had been married. Ty Baker wore his dress uniform, decked with medals; his blond hair waved back from his forehead like the actor Leslie Howard’s. Nola, his English bride, was draped in white.

  Of these parents—dead before her fifth birthday—Sunny had two memories. The first: sitting at the dressing table in her mother’s bedroom, Nola painting her mouth with lipstick (Hold still, darling) while demonstrating the proper position, lips puckered for a kiss. The second: Ty and Nola in the foyer of the big house wearing hats and long wool coats, dressed for one of their trips. Sunny had been distraught, overcome with the exhaustion that came when you’d cried so long that you couldn’t remember the feeling of not crying. She’d crouched on the staircase, peering through the banister, and shrunk away when her mother bent to kiss her. Nola had protested wearily—Beatrice Emma, don’t be tiresome—but Sunny wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t let herself be touched.

  Let her sulk, then. Ty Baker nodded curtly and led Nola to the door.

  Had it been their final departure, Sunny’s last glimpse of her parents? Her whole life, the possibility would haunt her: that she’d been so sulky and unpleasant, they’d been glad to be rid of her; that she’d refused her mother’s final embrace on the day their plane went down. The question tore at her. It also made her angry. She felt wrongly judged, the victim of a gross injustice: branded a tantrumming brat when in fact she’d been a jolly child, earning her nickname.

  Only Sunny’s mother, in an irritable mood, had ever called her Beatrice.

  After her parents were gone, she became Poor Sunny. There was no way to make up for all the child had lost, but her aunts did their best. Her girlhood was filled with hugs and kisses, bedtime stories and unexpected treats. There were darling dresses, music lessons, a pony. One Christmas brought dolls from all over the world, dressed in exotic costumes—Balinese princess, geisha, Eskimo. The everyday gifts were, in a way, even more extravagant: the full attention of two grown women with nothing else to live for, who spent their days dreaming up entertainments for her. Like three little girls, they hunched over dolls and jacks, Parcheesi and checkers and Saturday-morning cartoons. Summer brought picnics and croquet and rides on horseback—with both aunts, when Rosalie was still able, and later with Virgie alone.

  At fourteen Sunny was sent, as her aunts had been, to Miss Porter’s in Connecticut, an endless train ride. She was an excellent student, well rounded and popular; a thoroughly well-adjusted girl, until she wasn’t. Halfway through her final year at Miss Porter’s, a nurse was sent by train to bring her back to Bakerton, the first of many such rescues. In later years nurses would be dispatched to New York; to Atlantic City; to Berkeley, California. Each time the mission was the same, to calm and cajole and, if necessary, sedate her; whatever was necessary to bring the last Baker home.

  The men took the long way out of town, with Dick Devlin—president of the Bakerton Borough Council, owner of the reopened Commercial Hotel—at the wheel. Beside him sat Chuck Helsel, a bigwig with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections; in the backseat, Dominic Nudo of Nudo Construction, the state’s contractor. They looked uncertainly out the window as the Jeep roared up the hill, its old engine straining.

  “Man, these Jeeps are something,” Nudo said.

  “I’ll say.” Helsel shifted in his seat. “I drove one in the army. I swore never again.”

  Dick kept quiet. His new son-in-law drove a Land Rover made by Mitsubishi. Matt claimed they were all over the roads in Maryland, where he and Katie lived. Dick had driven it once and was impressed by the smooth ride but couldn’t bring himself to buy one. A lifetime ago, after high school, he’d spent three years on an assembly line for Fisher Body, making chassis for Chevys. He bought American. He was, he knew, a dying breed.

  “Wears like a tank, though,” he pointed out.

  “Rides like one, too,” Helsel said.

  It was a false spring day in March. Garman Road—a rocky trail marked out with red dog—was sloppy with snowmelt. Rust-colored mud spattered the Jeep’s winter tires.

  “Not much of a road, is it? Hard on the vehicle.” Helsel was big and blond, a former police officer or maybe a prison guard. Dick could spot the type a mile away—the sort of man who drove his vehicle to his residence; who lived his whole life in the language of cops.

  Dick gave his politician’s smile. “Won’t be bad in summer. If it ever comes.” The weather, a safe topic. “I guess the little bastard saw his shadow.”

  Helsel frowned. “Does that mean spring or more winter? I can never remember.”

  “More winter,” Dick said. Punxsutawney was just fifty miles away; as a boy of ten, he’d been taken to see the groundhog come out of its hole. He’d expected a silent snowy forest, the creature, driven by some ancient instinct, popping furtively from the ground. The reality—the noisy crowd, the stunned rodent tossed out in front of a throng of cameras—depressed and perplexed him. Why go through the motions if everyone knew it was a sham?

  As an adult, he understood the reasons. Punxsutawney—like Bakerton, like the entire western half of Pennsylvania—was down on its luck, its population dwindling, its mines and mills closed. All of Punxsy’s businesses, in fact, were struggling. (Dick’s own restaurant was outfitted with secondhand ductwork from a failed Punxsy diner. He’d saved himself a bundle there.) But for a few days each February, every motel in Punxsutawney was booked; at the Mobil station, a dozen rental cars idled in line. The TV crews bought breakfasts and newspapers, coffee and cigarettes. When Groundhog Day coincided with a lake-effect snowstorm, the local True Value sold out of ice scrapers and rock salt. It was no replacement for real industr
y, the union jobs that once supported local families. But a few days each year, the groundhog nonsense attracted national attention, a chance for Punxsy to trumpet its other virtues: low cost of living, tax breaks for new business, a heartbreakingly eager workforce. For Bakerton there was no TV coverage, no famous rodent, but Dick trusted in the resiliency of the American economy. He believed—he had to—that deliverance would come.

  At the top of the hill, he parked. The proposed site was fifty acres, half covered with forest. The land was bordered to the north and east by pastures belonging to Dickey’s Dairy. The owners—the former Marcia Dickey and her husband—had promised their support.

  “And to the west?” Helsel asked.

  “A private landowner,” Dick said. He charged ahead, preempting further questions. Water and sewage would be handled by the borough, the roads serviced in winter by Carbon Township. The township owned just three plows but would gladly buy another, to be used solely on the roads around the new prison.

  “We’d need to get that in writing,” said Helsel.

  “No problem,” Dick said.

  They piled back into the Jeep. “I’m not thrilled about this road,” said Helsel.

  “We could have it paved inside a week.”

  “Still, it’s pretty narrow. All these sharp curves.”

  Nudo looked up from the topo map in his lap. “Looks like there’s a more direct way back to town. What’s Deer Run?”

  “An old mining road,” said Dick. “Needs some patching.”

  “Is it paved?”

  Dick nodded.

  “Let’s take it,” Helsel said.

  Later, back at the Commercial, Dick’s wife brought out their lunches: burgers for Dick and Nudo; a chef’s salad for Helsel, who’d had one coronary and was watching his weight.

  “Geez Louise,” said Nudo. “That was some spread. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’s a mess,” Dick agreed.

  “You never tried to make her clean it up? Send an officer out to the residence?” Helsel salted his salad. “I’m surprised the neighbors haven’t complained.”

  “There aren’t any neighbors. I think that’s why she bought the place.”

  “What’s the matter with her? A woman, especially. She must be crazy to live that way.”

  “She’s had her troubles.” It was known in town that Sunny Baker had spent time in Torrance and, later, a private mental hospital. Though what had precipitated these stays, the exact nature of her affliction, no one could say.

  “How long has she lived out there?” Nudo asked.

  “Twenty years. Maybe longer.”

  Helsel clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “I’m surprised you let it go on that long.”

  For Pete’s sake, Dick thought, who’s she hurting? It’s her own business if she wants to live like a pig.

  “We can’t be running a state facility next door to that.”

  It’s a prison, Dick thought.

  “I don’t think the inmates are going to complain,” he joked.

  Helsel did not smile. “Well, we can’t have the COs driving past that every day to work.”

  “Of course not. She’ll clean it up, of course.”

  “She’ll have to,” Helsel said.

  The Bakerton Borough Council met the first Monday of each month. A century ago they’d been called the Town Bosses, eight men handpicked by the Brothers themselves. (All of Bakerton, in those days, spoke the language of mining, in which every sort of authority was conveyed by the title Boss.) Under Chessie Baker, the system was codified, the Bosses duly elected. But by then the town was full of immigrants who viewed voting with suspicion. The voting minority—English-speaking males—chose people like themselves, the same Bosses Chessie himself might have picked.

  In the spring of 2000 the council included two women, a fact that would have shocked Chessie. Neither would he have chosen Leonard Stusick, the town doctor, with his foreign-sounding name. Davis Eickmeier, who’d taken over Dickey’s Dairy after marrying Marcia Dickey, was at least a businessman, though his surname, too, was troublesome. (Chessie’s brother had been killed by Germans.) The other councilmen were even more objectionable. Leo Quinn was a barman, naturally. (In Chessie’s view, the Irish were constitutionally alcoholic.) Eleanor Rouse wore trousers. The undertaker, cop, and beautician were all Italian. To Chessie, it was nearly the same as being black.

  The council met in a conference room at Saxon Savings and Loan, by long tradition: in Chessie’s day, the Bosses also meted out the mine’s payroll, and it was deemed safest simply to meet at the bank. Ruth Rizzo, the beautician, read the minutes. So little had happened at the last meeting that her report lasted, in fact, just a minute.

  “That’s it?” Dick asked when she’d finished.

  Ruth nodded.

  “Well, then. On to new business. I’ve been in touch with the Department of Corrections.” He paused, savoring the moment. Like his father—a long-standing president of the Mine Workers’ local—he was a natural public speaker, happiest in front of an audience. “We took a walk of the proposed site. They had some questions about snow removal, which I answered. Also, they want Garman Road paved.”

  “Hang on there,” said Davis Eickmeier, the dairy farmer. A famously slow talker, he needed a moment to formulate his question. “How come you took them up Garman? Deer Run goes right to the highway.”

  It was the first night of baseball season, Cleveland at Baltimore. Jerry Bernardi, the undertaker, looked at his watch.

  “They figured that out eventually.” Dick hesitated. “They got a good look at Sunny Baker’s.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Eleanor Rouse, the school nurse.

  “I tried taking them the back way, but they smelled a rat.”

  “Well,” said Eleanor, “it was worth a try.”

  “For the love of Mike,” said Leo Quinn. “They’re prisoners. What are they going to do, stage a walkout?”

  A few titters around the table, a shudder of mirth. Leo Quinn was a comedian the way Dick Devlin was a politician, by temperament and by blood. His physiology, even, seemed engineered for it: the broad pliable face, the twinkling blue eyes.

  Dick shrugged. “It’s the guards, I guess. The DOC doesn’t want them to drive past a dump on their way to work.”

  “They have a point,” said Ruth Rizzo.

  “They don’t, either, Ruth, and you know it.” Eickmeier sat back, arms crossed. He was known to be country-stubborn. “I drive past it every day, and it hasn’t hurt me any. Hell, I don’t give a care.”

  “How did you leave it with them?” asked Dr. Stusick, who could summarize a half hour’s worth of blather in a single terse sentence. This habit irked Dick Devlin, with his love of oratory, though no one else seemed to mind.

  “I said we’d make her clean it up.”

  A silence fell. Leo Quinn chuckled in disbelief. Ruth Rizzo put down her pen.

  “We will, will we?” said Leo, grinning broadly.

  Dick ignored the satiric tone. “Someone will have to talk to Miss Baker.”

  “Well, good luck with that.” Davis Eickmeier reached into his pocket for a tin of Skoal. Eleanor Rouse grimaced with distaste. “She’s been my neighbor twenty-five years,” he said slowly, his lip packed with snuff. “And I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen her come out of that house.”

  Another silence.

  “Anyone?” Dick glanced around the room, appealing for help. “Jerry?”

  “I got nothing to offer here,” said Jerry, who was missing the game.

  “The Bakers have always kept to themselves,” Ruth observed.

  The council remembered, all at once, Ruth’s special connection to the Baker family. Even in her old age, Rosalie Baker had kept up appearances. For many years she’d had a standing appointment on Monday morning, Ruth reporting to The Mansion by a back door to do Miss Baker’s wash and set.

  “I was hoping you could talk to her, Ruth,” Dick said.

&nb
sp; “Oh, I couldn’t. What on earth would I say?”

  There were nods of agreement. It wasn’t just a question of approaching a Baker, any Baker (let alone Sunny, who was known to be cursed). It would have made for awkward conversation between any neighbors: Your yard is a pigsty. Even rapists and murderers refuse to live beside it.

  “It’s private property!” Davis Eickmeier nearly shouted.

  The council started. Davis never raised his voice.

  He spat deliberately into a coffee mug he’d brought for the purpose. “Now, I don’t like looking at all that junk. I don’t guess Miss Baker likes smelling my cows, either, but in twenty-five years I haven’t heard a peep out of her. To me, that’s a good neighbor.”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Andy Carnicella said.

  Seven heads turned in his direction. He was the town cop, known all over Saxon County as Chief Carnicella, despite having no Indians. (The borough’s budget provided for a police force of one.) The youngest council member by twenty years, he’d been silent for the entire meeting. Dick had forgotten he was there.

  The chief leaned back from the conference table. He had a habit of rocking in his chair, like a restless schoolboy. “I can take the cruiser out there tomorrow. Write her a citation, if I have to. Should of done it years ago, if you ask me.”

  Ruth Rizzo looked aghast.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Dick.

  “Come off it, Dick. I don’t know what you’re all afraid of. To me, she’s just an old crazy lady. A crazy old drunk.”

  “Andy, that’s enough,” Dick said.

  There was silence.

  “Miss Baker has had her problems. We all know it.” Dick took his time, pleased to have regained the floor. “And it might not be so good for her to have a police car show up in her front yard with the lights flashing. I’m no expert, though.” He nodded toward Dr. Stusick. “Len, what do you think?”