“Judge’s coming,” he lisped. “Go out, you can’t come back.”
Evelyn’s apartment was the attic of an old gabled house, the only house on a street lined with larger, newer buildings. The house had once been grand, but now sat shabby, nests in its gutters, shingles missing across its roof. Miriam climbed the fire escape, knocked on Evelyn’s door. Waited, knocked again. The apartment’s windows hung out over nothing, too far from the stairs to peek through.
Miriam returned downstairs and walked around to the grand stone porch and rang the bell. Lights inside shone through the door’s frosted glass. Miriam heard someone shuffling with the locks, a woman’s voice asking her to be patient.
The door opened and there stood Mrs. Jamison, who owned the house, frail and stooped, her ashen skin crinkled like wet paper.
“Mrs. Jamison,” she said. “It’s Miriam Swenson. Evelyn’s mother.” The old woman dressed in a skirt and a heavy wool sweater, wore patent-leather shoes. Miriam tugged the hem of her sweatshirt, as the woman’s eyes grazed her up and down.
Mrs. Jamison grinned, her dentures stained the color of tea. “Yes, yes,” she said. “Come in, dear.”
Miriam stepped inside, but didn’t move from the doorway. “I’ve come to see my daughter.” She pointed upward. “Don’t have a key. Was hoping you’d let me in.”
Mrs. Jamison waved a hand. “Sure, sure,” she said, turning. “Let me get the keys.” She toddled off toward the back. The house lay quiet but for the ticking of a tall wooden clock. Pale blue carpets covered the polished floors. It reminded Miriam of a dollhouse, with its delicateness and shadows.
The old woman called for Miriam. Miriam crossed into a room with a long oval table and newspapers stacked head high all along one wall. The woman struggled carrying a paper grocery sack. Miriam took the sack from her. It was filled with mail, envelopes and catalogs, a little package set on top.
“Didn’t know what to keep or throw away,” Mrs. Jamison said. “Not that that’s for me to decide.”
Miriam stared into the sack.
“Kept it all since Evelyn went home.”
Miriam, a bit confused, nodded. “Thank you.”
“Good, good,” Mrs. Jamison chirped. She retrieved a ring of keys from her sweater’s pocket. “She’s coming back soon, then?”
A deluge of thoughts flooded Miriam’s mind. “She’s going back to school,” she said, at last, watching the woman’s narrow lips.
“Oh, wonderful,” Mrs. Jamison gushed. “It’ll be so nice to see her. I’ve missed our little chats. She’s a wonderful old soul, that Evelyn.”
Mrs. Jamison let Miriam into the apartment. Alone, she roamed the attic, one long room of brick walls and exposed beams. A bottle of diet soda, filmed with dust, sat out on the counter. In the refrigerator she found a sack of moldy carrots, a brown head of lettuce, a rancid tub of cottage cheese. When she turned on the kitchen tap, rust-water spat until the stream ran clear.
At the far end of the room sat the bed, its covers undisturbed. Miriam sat on the bed and dumped the sack of mail. Just bills, junk mail. Miriam held the wrapped package, decided to open it. Inside was a box of checks in Evelyn’s name, vanity checks depicting the planets in their orbits around the sun.
Outside a tall window stood a giant locust tree, its wet branches black, its leaves shimmering gold against the gray. Miriam watched the boughs sway and called Evelyn’s cell phone, listened to her daughter’s voice-mail message, cherishing each spoken word until the beep and the white silence.
Miriam woke on Evelyn’s bed, the tree outside etched into the night. She left without locking the door behind her, drove the near-empty city streets, passed semis on the highway, the slipstream pulling her toward the centerline. Coming into town, the half-light of dawn bled over the rolling hills. As Miriam pulled into her drive, the risen sun spilled a silvery sheen over her bald field.
Miriam crossed the wet yard. Up on the porch, two dogs stirred, knocking into her legs, wagging their tails. Their coats were caked in mud, cockleburs matted into Wooly’s tail. Miriam crouched and petted them. They licked her face, trembling, their skins loose.
She knew they must’ve been on their own, must be famished. The dogs followed her into the house, whining as she hurried into the pantry. She found cans of beef hash on a high shelf. Then she glanced at the sugar, the flour.
The dogs sniffing about her feet, Miriam regarded the tins. She slid aside the flour first. Then the sugar. She took down the pipe and felt its weight in her hand. Light-headed, she passed into the kitchen and set the pipe on the counter and opened the hash and poured the meat into bowls for the dogs. The dogs ate greedily, bumping their bowls as they lapped up the meat.
Miriam watched them awhile, then grabbed the pipe and left again into the hall. She’d not even taken off her jacket, the truck keys still in her pocket, and though her mind was a mess and she was not sure she was fit to drive, her body moved, as if without her, toward the door.
6
Miriam sat parked in front of Freely’s General, the bottom floor of a three-story brownstone, staring at the length of pipe laid across her lap. A knock came on the passenger window. There stood Walt Freely, in a red nylon jacket and feed cap. He motioned for Miriam to roll down the window and she did.
“Hello, darlin’,” Mr. Freely said, and from under one arm he lifted a pumpkin and reached through the window to set it on the truck’s seat. “On the house,” he said, then slapped the truck door.
The pumpkin was bright orange, almost perfectly round. A white scar marred its flesh near the stem. Miriam laid the pipe on the seat beside it, then opened the door and climbed down from the truck.
Light from the store shone onto the walkway. In the front window hung butcher-paper sale signs, and smaller signs, an artist’s rendering of the missing boy. She stood pretending to study the sale signs in the window, stealing glances at the boy’s picture. The artist’s rendering didn’t look a bit like him.
She meandered to the end of the building, then turned down the alley. A set of wooden steps led to the second and third floors, the third floor where Helen Farraley lived, the second being the sheriff’s office. The office door was locked, and through the glass Miriam saw it was dark inside. She glanced up to Helen’s apartment, light shining warm from its windows.
Miriam was about to start up the stairs, when a shadow moved in the office. She tapped the glass, and moments later Helen was opening the door. Miriam and Helen nodded to each other, and Miriam stepped into the room, which had a desk, a coatrack, a treadmill, a metal door at the back that was the jail.
Helen’s face was slicked with sweat, her hair mussed. She was dressed in a tracksuit, a towel around her neck. “Was just working to get my old pants to fit,” she said, and took her officer’s hat from the coatrack and placed it gently onto her head. “You hanging in there?”
Miriam stared at the hat as if to see into Helen’s thoughts. “Was shopping,” she said. “Thought I’d come see you.”
“What a nice surprise.”
“Was wondering what happened. With the boy, I mean.”
“You haven’t heard?”
“No.”
The sheriff chuckled. “Our grapevine needs watering.” She stood quiet a moment, then walked behind her desk. “You want coffee?” she asked. “I’ll put a pot on if you want?”
“I’m fine.”
Helen sat at her desk. She blotted sweat from her chin, tossed the towel on the floor behind her. “No regard for humanity,” she said. “None whatsoever.” She looked up at Miriam. “You know him well?”
“The boy?”
“The father.”
Miriam thought a moment. “No.”
Helen motioned to a chair across the desk from her, and Miriam sat. “Talked to his kin yesterday,” Helen said. “His cousin lives out by the Prospect Dairy. Says McGahee used to live down by Petersburg. Says he moved here to get away from things, that his wife died giving birth to that youngest
one. Says he might of been all right if she’d of lived.” The sheriff leaned over her desk, rubbed her knuckles against her chin. “Don’t know how much I believe it, a man like that.” She dug a piece of paper from the mess on her desk. It was the same picture that hung in the store window. “Didn’t have a single photo of the boy.” She studied the picture. “What kind of man doesn’t have a picture of his own boy?” She set the paper back onto the pile. “Though I guess it all makes sense, really.”
Miriam didn’t understand, but stayed quiet.
“Anyway, we went to ask about what happened with that older boy. Was smart enough to bring Harvey and Sid Bandy along. But then I forgot who it was, just went in like I was going to chat over tea.” She chuckled sadly. “Ol’ Seamus come at me with a kitchen chair.” Then the sheriff took her hat off, winced, set the hat onto the desk. “Miriam?”
“Yeah?”
“I always liked your mama,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. It just never seemed a good time to get it said, like if I liked your mama it might hurt you more somehow. But I did. You always knew where you stood with her.”
“Not always,” Miriam heard herself say.
Helen rubbed a hand over her hair. “Not always,” she repeated. “Ain’t that the truth of the world?”
Miriam regretted saying it. “Thank you, Helen.”
The sheriff sat still, her head lowered. “I’ve just been thinking about her a lot this week. About how you got to know people.” She looked up, peered deep into Miriam. “That’s my job, really. To know people. I realized this and now it’s got me all screwed up. Because it ain’t how they train you. All that innocent until guilty bullshit. ’Cause out here, some are guilty the moment you lay eyes on ’em, and what the law ought to do is to stop ’em ’fore they can do what they’re born to do. What the hell good am I otherwise? Serve and protect?” Her eyes peeled across the office. “I’m nothing but a broom. Someone calls in a mess and I go sweep it up.” Helen straightened herself, pushed at some papers on her desk. “I’m sorry, Miriam,” she said. “I shouldn’t go on like that. It’s been a hard week.”
“You’re so strong,” Miriam said.
“I’m a broom. A damn broken broom.”
Then Miriam wanted to confess everything, wanted to get it all out and be done with it. But the words stuck high in her throat, like a bone gone sideways.
“He going to stay in jail?” she mumbled.
“McGahee?”
Miriam nodded.
The sheriff’s jaw flexed. “He’ll die there if I get my way.”
Miriam licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “You think he killed that boy?”
Helen scooted to the edge of the seat. “Can’t see the wind, but you don’t have to think to figure what’s blowed off your hat.” Then she rose and walked to the window that overlooked the strip. “Had a hundred folks to look for a boy that might be alive. Made some calls the other night, seeing who might help look over that McGahee lot, and suddenly everyone’s busy. Not a minute to spare.”
A heaviness, like hands on her shoulders, pressed upon Miriam, and she had to push herself up to rise from her chair. Outside, the rain fell in fits. She stood behind the sheriff and watched the sky swirl above the rooftops. “What about the older boy?”
The rain hissed as static. Helen turned to Miriam, and through the gloom offered something just short of a smile. “He’s in the state’s hands now. Ask me, the boy hit the jackpot just to get out with a soul still in him.”
Miriam sat in her truck, the wipers shushing, the side windows fogged. The rain had dwindled, but the sky still churned. Her headlights shone onto the McGahees’ house, blankets covering its windows, yellow tape guarding the door. She felt oddly at ease, considering perhaps the others were right, that maybe somewhere in the bowels of that house, or buried in those weedy fields, they’d find a child.
She opened her door, stepped down into the dampness. She hadn’t planned it this way, didn’t think at all. She just chucked the pipe as far as she could, watched it thud beside the house, out in the open where anyone would find it.
Then Miriam climbed back behind the wheel and closed the door. The truck was warm. She set her palm against the side window, left a print in the hazed glass, clear but for a moment before it again began to fog.
Miriam unloaded the groceries she’d bought in town. She set the dogs’ dishes in the corner of the kitchen, let the dogs eat. Then, one at a time, she carried each to the upstairs bathtub. Afterward, the dogs lay shivering by the radiator in the front hall as Miriam picked up the house and loaded laundry into the washer. She changed the bed linens. Made chicken salad, baked a cake.
While in the parlor, ironing a blouse for church, Miriam heard the dogs rise in the hall, their nails scrabbling across the floors. The front door opened. Miriam moved, with great hesitance, into the foyer. There stood Evelyn, setting down her suitcase. A riot broke in Miriam’s chest. She braced herself against the wall. The dogs wriggled for Evelyn to pet them, but she only looked at her mother, dark crescents sagged beneath her eyes.
“I’m hungry, Mama,” she said.
Miriam led Evelyn back into the kitchen, sat her at the table. Hands shaking, she poured her daughter a glass of milk and made her a chicken salad sandwich.
Evelyn chewed, her head leaned on her fist.
Miriam busied herself at the counter, icing the cake she’d baked. They were silent awhile, everything stilted, everything not quite real. Then the cake was done, a white cake with strawberry frosting, Evelyn’s favorite. Miriam showed Evelyn and, mouth full of sandwich, she nodded.
She didn’t want to ask. She had to ask. “How was the city?”
“Fine,” Evelyn said.
“Get things settled?”
Evelyn nodded, vacantly.
“For school?”
She nodded.
“How’s that woman? Your landlady?”
Evelyn took a bite, chewed. “Mrs. Jamison?”
“That’s right. How’s Mrs. Jamison?”
“Fine,” Evelyn said, swallowed.
Then Evelyn held up her empty glass, and Miriam took it and walked to the refrigerator. As she opened the door and took out the carton of milk, Evelyn shouted, “Damn it!”
Miriam spun to see Evelyn with her face buried in her hands. Her body shuddered as she sobbed.
Miriam rushed to her side.
Then she saw the sandwich, open-faced, a thick arc of salt trailing from the chicken salad on across the tabletop to the detached bottom of the saltshaker. Miriam took the empty shaker from Evelyn’s fist. She walked to the sink, wetted the sponge, waiting for the water to warm, listening to her daughter weep. Out the kitchen window, the rain fell as flurries, flakes sticking to the pane, melting.
“Where were you?” Miriam said, quietly. Evelyn fell hushed behind her. The tap was warm. Miriam squeezed the excess water from the sponge, and turned. Evelyn stared down into her plate. “Where were you at, hon?” Miriam asked again, louder.
Evelyn traced a thumb beneath her teary eyes, did not look up. “What’re you talking about?”
Miriam stepped to the table and swiped the sponge over the trail of salt. “You weren’t in the city,” she said, brushing salt off into her palm. “Where’d you go?”
Evelyn wiped her cheeks on her sleeve. “Don’t know what you mean.” She pressed the heel of her hand between her eyes.
Miriam wanted to touch her daughter, to hold her and make her feel right for what she’d done. But Miriam turned away, stepped again to the sink. She rinsed the sponge, watched the water flowing, the salt swirling down the drain.
She shut off the faucet. Snow striking the window was the room’s only sound. “Where’d you put him?” Miriam asked. “Where’d you put that little boy?”
Miriam listened as Evelyn heaved long sighing breaths, each slower, softer, than the last. “Does it matter where?” she whimpered.
Miriam quietly gasped. When she looked u
p from the sink, a face glared back from the window. Night had come early, and she gazed at her bleary reflection in the snow-streaked glass, stared at the room behind her, its faded wallpaper, its watery light, her baby girl slumped at the spot where each morning her mother had sipped her coffee and worked her puzzles.
Miriam set the sponge beside the sink, dried her trembling hands on the thighs of her jeans. Possessed by a great swelling of love, she went to her daughter and hugged her from behind, Miriam’s cheek pressed into Evelyn’s back. Evelyn clutched her mother’s arms crossed before her, gently kissed Miriam’s wrists.
Then it felt like victory, for they remained. They were still here while others were gone. Miriam pulled away from her daughter. She straightened her blouse and took up Evelyn’s plate.
“Would you like some cake?”
Evelyn gave Miriam her weary eyes, and nodded.
LAZARUS
The streets were plowed and salted, filthy banks of snow climbing the poles of lit signs before strips of bright shops. The high walls of the city airport stretched for blocks, a plane lifting off, its lights fading as it passed into the clouds. A day-glo truck pulled beside Vernon, its music thumping. Stoplight after stoplight, so many cars. A line of cars smoked in a chicken restaurant’s drive-through. In what looked like an old department store, a church lay between an insurance agency and a florist. Its sign by the road read:
THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL
THE KING THAT ROLLED THE ROCK
Vernon glided through it all, feeling as he imagined young David must have as he pushed his way through lines of soldiers, sling in hand. Then he turned onto Balmoral Avenue, its row of brick buildings and blazing squares of windows, selfsame apartments flanking a road marked by streetlights and beneath them the endless line of parked cars.
One block up, he turned into the parking lot of the Avemore Condominiums. Set back from the street, the complex was a horseshoe of blond-brick buildings, seven stories high, the windows spilling light into the branches of three huge sycamores in the courtyard. Vernon found Martha’s car, the old silver Cadillac that had once been his. Then he was at the end of the lot and issued back out onto the street. He trolled two more blocks before finding a break in the cars, and with great difficulty edged into the space.
Volt: Stories Page 15