Idyll Hands

by Stephanie Gayle

  “I’m fine, Mom.” I patted her arm and looked past her. “Dad around?”

  “He’s teaching, and then he’s got a faculty committee meeting, poor sod.” Mom’s speech included Briticisms when she wrote about them.

  “I thought he’d sworn off faculty committees.”

  She laughed. “He tried, bless him. But it was rejoin the committee or let Old Klepper have a seat at the table.” Old Klepper was a fellow philosophy professor my father loathed. He’d taken on an almost-mythic presence in our household. When things were broken or malfunctioning, we’d shake our heads and say, “Old Klepper’s at it again.”

  “How old is Old Klepper?” I asked. “He must be ninety.”

  “He’s seventy-six, only six years older than your father.”

  “Huh.” Maybe it was the name. He’d been “old” to me for so long that I assumed Klepper was ancient.

  “What brings you here?”

  “Can’t a son surprise his mother?” I countered. “Nice flowers,” I said, noting the bouquet on the dining table. “Dad do something wrong?”

  “It was a thank you from a colleague. I caught a typo before his book went to print.”

  “He sent flowers?” Seemed excessive for a typo.

  “The typo was on the cover. Have you had lunch yet? I’ve got some leftover pastrami from Loeser’s.”

  “Ooh.” Idyll might have its charms, but a good pastrami sandwich wasn’t one of them. I grabbed the mustard and pastrami from the refrigerator. “Where’s the bread?”

  “Here.” My mother handed me half a rye loaf.

  She poured me a glass of ginger ale and set out a plate. It felt like I’d come home after school, and she was fixing me a snack. “Thanks,” I said. Seated, with my mouth full of delicious pastrami, I hummed contentment. “Idyll’s ideas of deli meats are piss-poor, and don’t get me started on the bagel situation.”

  She patted her hair. Felt the pen and pulled it from her updo. “One of these days I’m going to impale myself.”

  “Please don’t. We’d have to keep explaining to Dad that you’re dead, and that would be awkward.” My father was absentminded. He’d once famously returned from the park without my younger brother. Nowadays, he’d be in serious trouble for that. Back then, a neighbor just brought John home.

  “How’s things?” she asked as I chewed. “How’s the house coming?” She found it amusing that I’d become handy in my middle age. It certainly wasn’t anything she or my dad had passed on to me. As New Yorkers, they believed any and all problems were the building super’s area of expertise.

  “I should tackle the bathroom next, but it’s gonna take forever. And I don’t have a second one, so I’d be without one while it’s renovated. You know, if you ever came and visited, you could see for yourself.”

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  I stopped chewing. “Really?”

  “Don’t talk while you’re eating.”

  I finished my bite and said, “Sorry. You’re really going to come see my house?”

  “Of course! We’ve been waiting for an invite for two and a half years.”

  “Waiting?” Since when did my family wait to be invited?

  “Sweetie, I respect your privacy. We thought maybe you wanted to get settled, or maybe you were ashamed of your big-city family.” She pouted.

  “Right.” I didn’t buy that act for a minute. “Hey, did you and Dad ever have … a misunderstanding?”

  “Ha!” The laughter erupted from her. “Oh, you’re serious. Sorry. Honey, why? Did you and Matthew have a disagreement?”

  I’d leaned backward, in my chair. “Uh-huh.”

  She patted my hand. “All couples fight and have misunderstandings. It’s the human condition. Plus, your father’s an idiot at times.” She gazed at me with so much love I had to duck my head and look at the bread crumbs on my plate. “Did you mess up or was it him? Because he seems perfect,” she said.

  “Hey!”

  “I was kidding, sort of. What you have to do—and you’re going to hate this, but listen to me: You have to talk.”

  “Talk.”

  “About your feelings.”

  “Sounds like therapy.”

  “Communication is the bedrock of a good relationship. That and sex.”

  “Mom!”

  She laughed. “You’re too easily embarrassed. When we visit, we should bring you a housewarming gift. What would you like?”

  “More pastrami from Loeser’s.”

  “Done.”

  “Bagels, too.”

  “Of course.”

  I turned my head and sneezed. “You getting a cold?” Mom stood up. She hated germs.

  “No. Allergies. Idyll is filled with things that are trying to kill me, slowly.”

  “Your grandfather had hay fever something awful.”

  “Really?”

  She smiled. “He used to say Nature was out to get us all.”

  I glanced at my watch.

  “You got to be somewhere?”

  “Habit,” I said. “I should be at work. I played hooky.”

  “You played hooky?” She looked scandalized. “I don’t think you’ve ever missed a day of work in your life. You’re too much like your father and me.” Huh. I always thought John was their mini-me, the child formed in their image, what with his academic career and heterosexuality. She did the creepy mother mind-reading thing, and said, “You always worked hard, even at things you didn’t like. John would give up on things he wasn’t good at. You’d plug away at them.”

  “Feels like I’m plugging at the moment.”

  “On what?” She got up and brought the cookie jar from the counter to the table. I opened the lid and peered in.

  “Are those rugelach? From Zabar’s?” I ought to play hooky more often.

  She smiled. “I’ll send you home with some if you don’t eat them all now.”

  I didn’t have a big sweet tooth, but I made an exception for Zabar’s rugelach. “You know what’s wrong with Idyll? No Jews. There’s no good smoked meats or rugelach.” I hadn’t quite put my finger on it before. But it was clear to me that Idyll’s lack of diversity crippled its food production.

  “You were telling me about what you’re plugging on.”

  “Was I?” Ah, hell. What could it hurt to tell her, and for once, my work didn’t involve murder. “Missing person case.”

  “Another?” She meant like last year, with Cody Forrand.

  “This is recreational.”

  “Recreational Missing Persons.” She enunciated each word carefully. “Why not take up golf?”

  “Because I’d run into Mayor Mike every other day.”

  “You know, you talk about Mayor Mike the way Dad talks about Old Klepper.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “I guess we all have our Old Kleppers.” I finished my cookie. “If you really want to hear what I’m working on, here goes.” I told her about Finny’s missing sister, about her pregnancy, about our mistaken assumption she’d died during surgery, and then the revelation that she’d given birth to a baby boy.

  She asked, “Is it possible she died after giving birth? It happens.”

  “It’s possible, though the Boston cop who found the birth certificate was smart enough to look for a death certificate with the same name she’d listed, and he found nothing. Finny’s going to see someone in charge of the home soon. If she died while there, he’ll find out.”

  “But you don’t think she died there?” she asked, measuring my expression.

  I shrugged. “It’s possible. It would explain why she was never in touch. But why was there no death certificate? Plus, we have no idea who the father of her baby is, and it’s making Finny crazy.”

  “No ideas?”

  “There were a few boys questioned.” I summarized those interviews.

  She scratched between her eyebrows, her thinking face on. “It was 1972, and her parents would’ve been shocked, but do you think she didn’t tell them about
the pregnancy for a reason?”

  “What kind of reason?”

  “Maybe she felt ashamed, or knew that revealing who the father was would get him in trouble?” She frowned. “Or her family in trouble?”

  “How would her family get in trouble?” I stopped. “What if …?”

  “What?”

  “Well, the neighborhood. According to Finny, it had a lot of Mob activity back in the day. Supposing she slept with one of those boys, it’s possible she’d worry about her family. Her brothers find out and go after the guy, and then maybe their ‘associates’ go after Susan’s brothers.”

  “Would she have hung around those types?” Mom seemed doubtful.

  “If the neighborhood was full of ’em … I’m sure she wasn’t allowed to fall in love with one of them, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  “Fall in love, huh?” She smiled. “You always were the romantic.”

  “Me?” I snorted.

  She pushed another cookie toward me, “You.” I bit the cookie in half. “Now what about the guy at Bunker Hill?” she asked.

  “What about him?”

  “You mentioned she backtracked to go to the monument.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?” My mother had never shown interest in my work. Certainly, she’d never wanted to puzzle through a case with me before.

  “Maybe she was saying good-bye to the neighborhood historical landmarks before she left?” Out loud, it sounded nuts.

  “Or maybe she went to see him.”

  “The ranger?”

  “Anyone else there?”

  “No, but we know she didn’t leave with him. She made it to a corner store later.”

  “Where it looked like she was waiting to meet someone, right?”

  How did it play out? Susan stops by the monument to tell him she needs a place to stay overnight before she has the abortion? He closes up the monument and meets her later? It seemed like quite a stretch.

  “It could’ve been one of the altar boys,” I said.

  “Maybe Susan was inspired to lust by the sight of those surplices the altar boys wear.”

  “If Nana could hear you,” I said, “she’d be shocked.”

  “Oh, she hears me.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Mothers never stop listening.” She grabbed a rugelach from my plate. “Remember that.”

  DETECTIVE MICHAEL FINNEGAN

  THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1999

  1400 HOURS

  Gracie’s Place for Unwed Mothers used to be in Dorchester and was affiliated with St. Ann’s Hospital, where they sent their “girls” to the maternity ward. Six years ago, it moved to Brighton, incorporated into St. Ann’s Medical Center’s Women’s Health Pavilion. The word pavilion made me imagine a world’s fair, but nothing about the place looked like that. It looked like an administrative unit of a hospital. There was that Lysol smell and the floors shined. Inside, there were lots of women. Many in chairs, waiting, but some behind desks, answering phones and handling folders and scheduling appointments. I waited only five minutes in the company of all these women before I was escorted down the hall by a tall young lady named Beth. She brought me to the director’s office.

  I merited the director of the home? Well, well. My heart was all pitter-patter. Would she tell me Susan was dead? Surely that could be the only reason a director would be required to speak with me.

  “Detective Finnegan,” she said, standing behind a large desk covered with papers. On the neat scale, it fell between mine and Lew’s desks, skewing closer to Lew’s since there were no food crumbs on it.

  “Ms. Hoskins.”

  We shook hands and she said, “Please, sit.”

  I sat. Waited. She sat and drew in a breath. “I must say I was surprised to hear of all this. I became the director eight years ago, so of course I wasn’t around when your younger sister, Susan, came to the campus.”

  “No, I didn’t think you were.” Ms. Hoskins was my age. When Susan was there, Ms. Hoskins was probably in college.

  “I’ve had a time finding the records. Sadly, organization of files isn’t our number one priority, and it shows. But I was able to get my hands on her admission form.” She set her hands atop a folder. It had a label on it, typed on a typewriter and attached with tape. The tape was nearly orange with age. Susan Shaughnessy, the label read.

  “She used our mother’s maiden name.”

  “Yes. I’m still surprised they didn’t get the truth out of her.” She met my steady stare. “Lots of girls came into the home with false names and grand stories. The staff tried to help them by getting them to face the truth of their circumstances so they could best decide how to move on. Your sister must have been an accomplished … storyteller. She came here in October of 1972 and gave birth at St. Ann’s Hospital in April of 1973. She stayed five and a half days in the hospital, and then left.”

  “Left? You’re sure?” I leaned so far forward I nearly tumbled off the chair.

  “Yes.” She examined my face. “Oh, did you think—” She put her hand to her collarbone.

  “Yes.”

  She leaned forward. “I’m so sorry. No, your sister was fine when she left us. Her pregnancy went well. She had a bit of a crisis afterward. Her blood pressure dipped very low, but they gave her oxygen and she bounced back. She was healthy when she was released.”

  “It’s just, we never heard from her, after. I have no idea what happened to her.”

  “I’m sorry.” She nudged a box of tissues my way. “I truly am. We discharged her from the hospital on April 11th.”

  “Wait. Did someone have to accompany her? To bring her home?”

  “Yes. We don’t let the girls leave on their own. In extreme circumstances, where the family relations were irrevocably broken, we might allow a friend to pick her up. Or the father of the child.”

  “Who picked her up?” It wasn’t me, or my brothers. Not Carol or our parents. So help me God, if it was Lucy, I’d bawl her out. But no. Lucy hadn’t known.

  “I don’t know.” She opened the folder and turned pages. “Here it is.” Her eyes roved the page. She blinked. Scanned it again. Shook her head. “It says she was released to her brother, but the signature is illegible.”

  “Her brother?” No way. “May I see?”

  She hesitated. It was a medical record. There were rules. She turned the sheet so I could read it. Sure enough, the form said Susan had left the hospital in the company of her “older brother.” The scrawl was unreadable. A series of peaks and valleys that looked more like one name than two. But it wasn’t David’s signature. That much I knew.

  “Could I get a copy?” My mind was at work. Older brother. Likely the father of her child had been older than her. I’d taken it for granted, but now that fact seemed confirmed.

  “I really can’t—”

  “Ms. Hoskins, I’ve been looking for my sister for twenty-seven years. Until recently, I assumed she was kidnapped and murdered.” She winced. “Then I discovered she was pregnant and thought she’d bled to death on an abortionist’s table.” She bit her lip. “It’s very unlikely that my sister’s story has a happy ending. And the person who acted as her ‘brother’ may be the person who knows what happened to her, who made it happen.”

  “If she’s still alive …” she said. Still trying to do her job and protect the privacy of my sister’s medical files.

  “My sister was many things, Ms. Hoskins, including, as you noted, a gifted storyteller. But she wasn’t cruel. There is no way that she ignored my parents for over twenty years, that she missed my father’s funeral, that she chose to cut us out of her life completely.”

  She looked at the file. “And yet she told none of you about the baby. She could’ve stayed at Gracie’s Place and been in touch.” Her words stung like lemon in a fresh cut. Yes, Susan could’ve told us she was safe and sound and pregnant and living mere miles from us, and she hadn’t. It made us look like monsters, like we wouldn’t have ca
red for her in her condition. And it hurt, oh God, it hurt.

  “I’d like to talk to the girls who were there at the same time as Susan.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible. Patient confidentiality. Plus, many of those girls elected to give their babies up for adoption. Several of them hid the pregnancies from family and friends. We can’t share their details.” Her tone was certain.

  “What became of Susan’s baby?” I asked, switching topics.

  “It was adopted,” she said.

  “By whom?”

  “Detective, I’m sorry, but I can’t reveal those details. I know you must have a lot of questions, and I want to help, but the system—”

  “Give me the discharge sheet, and I’ll go.” I stood, a half-promise.

  “What?” My sudden shift, my quick bargain threw her, as I’d intended.

  “Give me a copy of the discharge sheet, and I’ll leave. No questions about the adoption asked.”

  “Well, I … one moment.” She had a copier in her office, a large machine that made a mechanical hum when it started. It took a minute to get the copy. I folded the sheet in half and carried it out with me.

  The women in the waiting room looked to be exactly where they were when I’d left them. I spared them a brief glance before striding outside. In the parking lot, my brother Bobby sat at the wheel of his minivan, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. He always did that when he was nervous.

  “Well?” he asked.

  I closed the door and settled myself into the seat. “She didn’t die in the hospital.” I handed him the discharge paper. “Some guy picked her up from the hospital. Claimed to be her older brother.”

  “Her brother?” His outrage was tangible. He read the sheet, slowly. “What the hell does that say?” he asked.

  “The signature? Hell if I know. Dickhead probably scribbled on purpose so he couldn’t be found.”