One down.
The boutique sounds busy when I call. I can’t decide if that is good or bad. Like I had imagined, Antonia is not pleased when I tell her I am accompanying my grieving friend to a childhood home in another state for a visit.
“I can’t believe you are doing theez to me at the beginning of the season,” she says, like spring arrives at Linee Belle and nowhere else.
“Just give Elena more hours, and maybe hire that girl from the school of design who came sniffing for a job last week,” I say. “Maybe she won’t mind taking something temporary. I took her resume to be polite, Antonia. It’s in the desk. Third drawer.”
“I hate training new people!” she says.
“Let Elena do it,” I reply. “Antonia, it will be all right. And I simply must do this for my friend. She just lost her husband.”
“Sheez most likely better off without him,” Antonia says gruffly, ever the believer in the carefree, single life.
“Antonia, I promise I will come back as soon as I can.”
“I won’t be able to juz do whatever I want when you are gone. I will have to be in charge!” she says in a resigned tone that lets me know this is her final volley.
“Then you will appreciate me that much more when I come back,” I say, hoping my return volley will come across light and casual.
“So what is in Arkansas?” she finally says after a pause. “There is nothing in Arkansas. Why don’t you take her to New Orleans or Miami or New York? Why you take her to Arkansas?”
“It’s where we met. There are a lot of good memories, there.”
And some troubling ones, too, but I don’t mention this.
“You call me the minute you get back, yes?”
“I promise.”
“Okay, okay. Ciao.”
“Ciao, Antonia.”
Two down.
I dial our number at the apartment and there is no answer. Simon must be putting in a full day at work. That’s a good sign. I dial his cell phone, hoping he has started charging it again and using it. After four rings, he answers. I hear the sound of a moving car beneath the sound of his voice.
“Simon, it’s me. Are you driving somewhere?”
“Hey, hi. Yeah. Just leaving O’Hare. I picked up your car today at the park and ride.”
“Oh. That’s great.”
It’s actually astounding. Simon is not only driving a car but he is also using a cell phone at the same time. I am amazed.
“So, you’re just getting off then?” I continue.
“Yeah. I worked a full shift today.”
“I am really glad, Simon.”
“Me, too. But I don’t want to talk too long, okay? Traffic is bad. It would be better for me if we didn’t.”
“Of course,” I say quickly.
“So the funeral went okay today? Do you know when you’re coming home?”
Well, here goes.
“Yes, the funeral was very nice. But, um, Simon, Blair told me something afterward that kind of changed my plans for coming home right away.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she found out the day after Brad died that he was having an affair and was getting ready to file for divorce.”
“Oh man, that’s… that’s terrible.”
“No one else knows, so we can’t tell anyone.”
“Sure, sure.”
“But Simon, Blair has it in her head that God is punishing her,” I say, wondering what Simon will think of this.
“Punishing her? For what? What did she do?”
“Well, it might sound a little outrageous but, do you remember me telling you that when I was thirteen, Blair, Jewel and I found a baby on Jewel’s church’s doorstep?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Blair had found a note and a locket in the box we found the baby in. They were from the baby’s mother. The note explains why the mother left him. It wasn’t because he had a deformed foot. She was just too young to be a mother. And the note says that she will always love him. But Blair never told anyone. She still has the note and the locket. She showed them to me.”
“And Blair thinks God is mad at her for keeping them and not telling anyone? She thinks that’s why Brad was having an affair and why he died? Because God is mad at her?” Simon asks.
“Well, yeah. Pretty much.”
“Tess, that can’t possibly be true!”
“I know, but that’s what she thinks,” I say.
“Well, did you tell her that’s not true?”
“Simon, she wouldn’t listen to me. She has it in her mind that she needs to find this child and give him the note and the locket because she thinks he has grown up his whole life thinking his birth mother rejected him. She says she has to let him know his mother loved him.”
“So that God will stop bullying her.”
Simon makes it seem like Blair is naive. It makes me feel like I am naive.
“She’s been through a lot. Maybe she isn’t seeing this clearly, but I have to say, I can see how finding this child could have an enormous healing effect for her.”
“Well, you’re probably right there.”
There is a slight pause. I am trying to think of a way to tell him that I am going with Blair but he beats me to it.
“And I suppose she has asked you to help her find him.”
“Yes, she has.”
“And you’re going.”
“I feel I owe it to her.”
I say nothing of how this quest fits my own agenda.
There is a measurable pause before he speaks.
“How long will you be gone?”
“I’m not sure at this point. I have my doubts we will be able to find him. But we have to try.”
“And what about your job?”
“I already called Antonia. She was a bit miffed but in the end I think she understood.”
“So you called her before you called me?” he says, sounding a little hurt.
“Simon, calling her was easy. Calling my Dad was easy. I knew calling you would be hard. I really don’t care if Antonia or my Dad thinks this is crazy. But I do care if you do. Please don’t tell me you think we’re crazy.”
Simons sighs and I hear the rush of passing cars.
“I don’t think you’re crazy. But I think you’re going to be disappointed. What’s going to happen to Blair when she can’t find him? How is she going to feel then?”
I want to say that Blair will become skilled at living with her regrets, because when you have no choice, you simply learn to breathe with your troubles pulling at you. It can be done. But this is not what I say.
“She will know she tried her best to make it right. Surely that counts for something.”
“I miss you,” Simon says in softer voice.
My throat feels thick as I tell him I miss him, too.
“Call me often,” he says. “Every day.”
“I will. I love you, Simon.”
“I love you, too.
I hang up the phone and sit sort of dazed in Brad’s expensive leather chair. Simon is probably right. God is not punishing Blair. But Blair is right, too. The child we found needs to see the message his birth mother left him. It could change his life. Maybe it will change Blair’s. Maybe it will change mine.
I rise from the desk and leave the study and its emptiness. Blair told me earlier that we would go through her closets and pick out some clothes for me to bring to Arkansas since I came with just a few things in my suitcase. It will be just like old times. Me, sitting on the bed, watching her pick out hanger after hanger and saying things like, “This will look good on you,” and “This is definitely not your color,” and “This one has always been one of my favorites.”
Just like old times.
It occurs to me as I climb the stairs to Blair’s room that I will be able to see Corinthia for the first time since I left Blytheville thirteen years ago. Hopefully, Jewel, too. I have the strangest feeling as I consider this. It is the feeling I wou
ld expect to have if I was planning a trip to my hometown, to the place where I am from.
Eleven
Blytheville, Arkansas
Our drive to Blytheville would seem uneventful to the unknowing observer. There is no map to turn to since Blytheville is a straight shot south from St. Louis on Interstate 55. There is no excited conversation about where Blair and I are headed, no hotel reservations to confirm or carefully-laid plans to discuss for the days that lay ahead. There is nothing to indicate that we are on a pilgrimage of sorts except for the suitcases in the trunk.
Despite my offer to drive, Blair insists on being at the wheel. She assures me she slept fine last night and that driving will keep her focused on what lies ahead and not what lies behind. I slept fairly well myself last night. The enormous house was like a tomb without the girls and Blair’s family sharing it with us.
For the first hour there is little conversation. We sip coffee that we bought at a Starbucks on our way out of St. Louis and Blair asks me little questions here and there about my life at the moment. I’m cautious about asking too many questions about hers. I don’t know what hurts too much to talk about.
“You know, I’m surprised you didn’t become a map-maker or whatever they are called,” she says getting an update on Antonia. “You were always so crazy about maps.”
“A cartographer,” I say, almost sheepishly. “I was crazy about them. I thought about it as a career for a while. I even changed my major to geography my sophomore year. Remember, I went to that island off the coast of Argentina to map its topography with a bunch of other students?”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I just got cold feet. Or lost interest. I am not sure. It was harder than I thought it would be.”
“So, you like what you’re doing now?” Blair asks.
“Well, yes, I do. I kind of have you to thank for it.”
“Me?”
“I never thought about fashion and style until I met you.”
Blair says nothing as she contemplates this. I meant it as a compliment but I am not sure she is taking it as one. The expression on her face is difficult to read.
“It just seems to me you’re too intelligent to be dressing mannequins,” she finally says. “You were always the smart one. Smarter than Jewel. A million times smarter than me. You should be doing something brilliant.”
“Well, like what?” I say, laughing nervously. I am completely surprised again by something Blair has said.
“Like making maps or solving mysteries or finding a cure for cancer. You’re too smart to sell clothes. I could do that. My mother could do that.”
I sit in wordless wonder. In the back of my mind I am aware that this is the conversation I had wanted my dad to have with me when I was twenty-three, living at home, and unable to motivate myself to go back to college and finish my degree.
“None of my St. Louis friends care what my degree is in, Tess. You know why? ’Cause it doesn’t matter. I went to Boston University to find a rich man to marry. And I did. I found Brad. Who cares what my degree is in? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t prove I’m good at anything or smart in anything. It just shows I went to a good East Coast school where I was lucky enough to meet a rich Midwest man.”
“Blair—” I begin, but she does not want to continue this conversation.
“Sorry I brought it up. Get me a bagel, will you? I don’t want to talk about this.”
I reach into a bag between our seats and pull a bagel out for her. As I hand it to her I see lines on her face and around her eyes that seem to have emerged overnight, like her woes have aged her. Then it occurs to me. Blair had only one day to grieve for the man she loved. Not even that. It was more like half an hour. In those hours between the time she called me in Chicago and I arrived in St. Louis she was still clinging to the hope that Brad would live. She was not yet grieving then. But then Brad died and her immediate sorrow was too much for her. Half an hour later, Blair had been sedated; medicated so heavily that she could not take my phone call. In the morning, before anyone else was awake, she had gone into Brad’s study, probably to recapture the feeling of being close to him. Perhaps she had been in there for ten minutes, maybe fifteen, when she opened a drawer or looked in his briefcase and found papers that Brad surely had thought were in a safe place until he needed them. Thirty minutes of grief the night before, fifteen minutes of grief the morning after. Then everything changed for her.
She had forty-five minutes to mourn the death of the husband she loved. Less than an hour. And now it seems like she faces a lifetime of loathing the husband who was unfaithful to her, a lifetime of bitterness and resentment. I am thinking, as I look at her, that plain, uncomplicated grief would be less devastating.
We are quiet for the next ten minutes or so. Then Blair motions to an envelope by the bagel bag.
“Take a look in that envelope,” she says.
I pick up the envelope, place it on my lap and reach inside. I draw out a folded newspaper clipping. When I unfold it, I gasp. I haven’t seen this in years. It’s the article from the local Blytheville paper about the baby we found.
“Oh, my gosh! You kept it!” I say.
“Didn’t you?”
“I think it’s at Dad and Shelley’s. I’m not sure. I haven’t seen it in so long. I kind of forgot about it.”
“I read it again last night. It had been awhile.”
The photo of the three of us standing outside Jewel’s church is grainy with age. The baby isn’t in the picture. By the time the local press had heard what had happened it was close to four in the afternoon. An ambulance had come for the baby shortly after Jewel’s mother called the police—without its sirens blaring, thank goodness. That had been at noon, three hours after we found the baby. We told everyone we found him around eleven-thirty. Actually it was Blair who did the outright lying. No one asked Jewel or I to verify the time. But I know had someone asked Jewel, she would have told the truth. I still feel a pang of guilt just thinking about what we did.
I look at the photo next to the story. We are sitting on the steps where we found the baby. We have nothing to show to the camera. The baby was long gone and the police had taken the peach box and the soiled sweatshirt. Jewel and I didn’t know that there was, in fact, in our possession, tangible evidence of what our amazing morning had been like. We didn’t know that in Blair’s front shorts pocket there was a folded note and a locket on a chain.
I sit back in my seat in Blair’s car and read:
Infant Found on Church Doorstep
Blytheville, Ark—Local authorities are looking for the mother of a day-old infant found on the steps of the Church of the Beautiful Gate Wednesday morning. Three Blytheville teenagers, Blair Devere, Tess Longren and Jewel Mayhew, all thirteen, heard the baby boy’s cries while walking through Mayhew’s backyard. Mayhew’s father is Samuel Mayhew, pastor of the Church of the Beautiful Gate. The church adjoins the Mayhews’ home.
According to the police report, the girls were walking from Mayhew’s house to the Longren home next door when they heard a faint cry. Following the sound, the girls came upon a wooden produce box sitting on the church’s west entrance steps with the infant inside. Jewel Mayhew informed her mother, Corinthia Mayhew, who then called the police. The baby was taken to Chickasawba Hospital where he will be under observation for several days. Mississippi County authorities told the Courier News that the infant will be placed in foster care while the search for the infant’s parents or other family members continues.
“He is such a sweet little baby with such beautiful blue eyes,” Blair Devere told the Courier News a few hours after the baby was taken to the hospital. “We are so glad we found him before anything bad happened to him.”
The girls told the Courier News that they bought diapers and formula for the baby and that they wrapped the infant in one of the girl’s old baby blankets. The police report states the girls waited half an hour after finding the ba
by before telling Corinthia Mayhew.
“He was so hungry and he needed a diaper,” Tess Longren told the Courier News.
Police have the wooden produce box the baby was found lying in and a plain, gray sweatshirt that was also found in the box but no other clues. The infant is believed to have been less than twenty-four hours old at the time of the discovery. He is Caucasian, blue-eyed and has a clubfoot on his right leg. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the Blytheville Police Department or the Mississippi County Sheriffs Department.
“This was the first and only time I have ever been in a newspaper,” I say to Blair, looking at the article.
“It was my first, too. My second was when I got engaged.”
I put the article back in the envelope and help myself to bagel. We listen without talking to a Norah Jones CD until we cross the state line.
The transition from one state to the other is seamless. We cross into Arkansas and are promptly welcomed to the City of Blytheville. I cannot tell if it things look the same or if they look incredibly different. I didn’t pay attention to those details when I lived here. We take the first exit, one of only two, and see the first familiar sight, the Holiday Inn sign. Blair and I came here often for Sunday brunch with her parents. Blair managed to sneak a taste of champagne once when the buffet had been particularly busy. She had urged me to try it but I had been too scared.
We pull into the familiar parking lot and Blair and I get out of the car and stretch. She takes care of getting the room. I’m glad she wants to share a room with me. She can afford to get separate rooms, but I find it touching that she doesn’t. I wonder what it’s like for Blair to get a room in an ordinary Holiday Inn. She’s led a life of luxury for five years, but she says nothing about the commonness of the room when we step inside. We open our suitcases and wordlessly hang up the few things we brought. I am pretty sure Blair will waste no time in getting started on what we came here to do.
The Remedy for Regret Page 10