They became aware of Clover standing a few steps away, her forehead wrinkled in a frown.
“Are you crying ’cause your mommy went away?” she asked, adding in an understanding tone, “I cried when my mommy went away.”
“Oh, sweetheart, c’mere.” Norah sniffled and she and Polly enfolded Clover in their arms. At that moment, Polly felt closer to the little girl than she ever had before.
“Sometimes crying helps, doesn’t it, honey?” Norah’s voice was tear-choked.
Clover endured the embrace for a few seconds, then announced, “You’re squeezing me too tight and I still gots to pee.”
Tears gave way to laughter as Clover scampered down the hall to the bathroom.
“She’s such a funny, sweet little thing, and I want to get to know her better, Polly. I’m starting my long break tomorrow. Would you mind if I had her for a couple days?”
Rubbing the thumb that still ached from Clover’s teeth, Polly decided to let Norah find out for herself that the kid wasn’t always sweet. "You free tomorrow morning, by any chance? I’ve got an appointment, and I was wondering what to do with Clover.” Their newfound intimacy prompted her to add, “It’s with Frannie, at the hospital. I need to talk to her again. I could drop Clover off at your place.”
“I’d be delighted.”
Having a sister who was also a friend was so comforting. Polly could tell by the warmth in Norah’s eyes that she felt the same.
But there was still the matter of Isabelle. “What the heck are we gonna do about Mom, Norah?”
“Go to the police, I guess. What else can we do?”
“I’d better call Michael first. I haven’t told him yet that Mom’s even gone missing.” Norah looked surprised, and Polly added, “We...haven’t been talking a whole lot lately. We’re having some problems.” It was as near as she could come to sharing the open wound that was her marriage.
Norah nodded, her gaze compassionate and warm. “You’ll work it out, Pol. You two are meant for each other.”
Not long ago Polly had believed that to be so. Now she wasn’t certain at all. She dialed the office number, and when Michael finally came on the line, her heart grew heavy at the weariness in his voice.
She quickly told him about Isabelle, the search they’d made of the house. “Norah thinks we ought to call the police.”
“I think she’s right. Polly, about last night... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know that.” Did she? She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, too.”
“We’ll talk later. Let me know what happens with the police. And, Polly? I do love you.”
Feeling lighter, Polly hung up and dialed the Vancouver City Police nonemergency number. The constable she spoke with asked if she and Norah could come to the nearest station and file a missing person complaint. It would help if they could provide a recent photo of Isabelle.
They dug through cardboard boxes of Isabelle’s photographs. There were dozens of Susannah but not a lot of Isabelle; she was always the one taking the pictures. Polly tucked several into her handbag; she’d make copies and give them back to Isabelle. Not that her mother would even miss them.
They finally located one of Isabelle and Susannah, taken at Christmastime. It was Susannah’s last Christmas. She sat curled beside her grandmother in the love seat in Polly’s living room, fragile, incandescent, smiling.
Polly stared at it, struck by the resemblance between her daughter and her mother. “I never realized before how much Susannah looked like Mom. I always thought she was the image of Michael.”
“She was, but she had lots of Mom in her, too. I always said they looked alike.”
“I never believed it.” Because of the way she felt about her mother, it wasn’t something Polly wanted to know, even now.
“I wanna see.” Clover reached for the photo. “Is that your girl with Auntie?” Clover studied the picture.
“Yup,” Polly said. “That’s Susannah.”
Clover nodded. “She gots a fish called Oscar, and he can talk.”
“Who told you that?”
“Doctor. He tells me stories ’bout Susannah and Oscar.”
Polly stared at Clover. Michael, who’d barely mention his daughter’s name, made up stories about her to tell Clover? All of a sudden Polly felt betrayed in a whole new way.
“Clover, get your sandals on.” Norah shot an anxious glance at Polly, sensing something was wrong. “We’re gonna go down to the police station now.”
At the station, the young female constable was businesslike and sympathetic. She gave Clover apple juice while Polly and Norah answered dozens of questions and filled in forms. They were told that Isabelle’s picture and description would be circulated among all the Lower Mainland detachments immediately.
By the time they were done, Norah had to hurry to St. Joe’s to begin her shift and Clover was cranky and sleepy.
Polly drove home. She was just tucking Clover into bed, when the phone rang.
“Polly?” Isabelle’s voice came lilting over the line. “Hello, dear.”
"Mom, where the heck are you? Are you okay? Norah and I are half out of our minds worrying about you.”
“Of course I’m okay, why wouldn’t I be? And there’s no need to holler at me, Polly.”
Polly’s temper was slipping. She forced herself to lower her voice so as not to disturb Clover, but the urge to scream at her mother was almost overwhelming.
“You’ve been gone for three days, none of us had any idea where. Norah and I just spent all morning at your house looking for a note, trying to figure out what to do. Where exactly are you, and what in hell is going on?”
“I’m in Oregon. In a campground, outside of Eugene. It’s lovely here, lots nicer than Canada.” Isabelle sounded jubilant. "They have a little cafe and a pub, there’s live music and dancing every night, the beer is good.”
“And what exactly are you doing in Oregon?” Polly would cheerfully have throttled her mother at this moment.
“Surprise, surprise,” Isabelle crowed. “Eric and I got married. Eric Sanderson. You haven’t met him yet, but you’ll love him when you do. We eloped. I just thought it would be easier on you and Norah that way. No fuss about a wedding or reception, you’re both so busy. Besides, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. He has a travel trailer. We’re staying in that. We’ve decided to be snowbirds.”
Giddy laughter that made Polly want to scream followed.
“Eric’s very tidy and so romantic. He waits on me hand and foot.” Isabelle’s giggle was girlish, and Polly’s sense of outrage grew.
“You’ll have to call and tell Norah the good news for me,” Isabelle went on. “I tried to phone her a while ago, but she wasn’t home.”
“That’s because we were at the police station. We gave them a picture of you. They’ve sent out a bulletin. You’re officially listed as a missing person. You’re on their Wanted list." That gave Polly some small satisfaction. Her mind was reeling. “In fact, the first thing you’d better do after this is call the constable we talked with, her name is...” Polly fished in the pocket of her jeans for the card the officer had given her and read off the name and number.
“Oh, you do that for me, dear, won’t you?” Isabelle was unconcerned. “Tell them I’m on my honeymoon.”
Polly was furious. “You call them yourself, Mom. They’ll just think I’m trying to cover something up.”
Like matricide.
“Oh, all right. But there is something you must do for me, you and Norah. I want you to sell the house.”
“Sell...the...house?” Polly was no longer angry. Instead, she was utterly dumbfounded. It was the last thing she expected from Isabelle.
“We plan to travel. No point in paying taxes on a house we’re not going to live in. I’m mailing a list of things I need. You girls can send them. Other stuff has to be put in storage. I’ll sign whatever legal papers you need. Here’s my address.”
In a daze, Polly
found a pencil and scribbled it down.
"And of course you girls are to divide the family heirlooms between you,” Isabelle said magnanimously. “Now, I must go, but first Eric wants to say hi. Here’s Polly, lover,” Isabelle cooed.
Polly stood frozen into place as a hearty male voice with a pronounced English accent came on the line.
“Hello, Polly. I just want you to know that I plan to take good care of your mother. Don’t you girls worry about her for a moment. We’ll be traveling a fair bit, but when we get back to Vancouver I look forward to meeting you and your sister.”
Gruffly he added, “Always wanted daughters, never had any. Give your sister my love.”
Polly mumbled something polite and hung up. She stared blindly at the wall for a while, then dialed the obstetrical floor of St. Joe’s and asked for Norah.
“She’s with a patient at the moment.” Childbirth would simply have to wait, Polly decided. “Tell her it’s an emergency.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
There was a pause, and at last Norah came on the line.
“Polly?” Her voice was filled with concern. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
“Depends how you look at it. Mom just called. She’s alive and well and living in a travel trailer in Oregon. And...she’s gotten married. Eric Sanderson is our new step daddy. Such a trusting soul, he sends us his love, sight unseen. Mom wants us to sell the house, but first we get to sort through all her stuff, pack up what she wants, then send it to her. We’re to store the rest. Oh, yeah, we also get to divide the family heirlooms between us.”
After a moment of stunned silence, Norah used an expletive Polly would have sworn could never cross her sister’s lips. Then Norah started to giggle, and in a moment, Polly, too, was chuckling.
“I suppose you want the Geographies,” Norah gasped. “Which means I get the paperback Westerns.”
That set them off again. The laughter was like strong medicine, lifting Polly’s spirits.
That evening, Michael laughed, too, when she told him about her call from Isabelle. He brought her a clay pot filled with purple hyacinths, and he kissed her and held her close until Clover insinuated herself between them.
More than anything, Polly wanted to accept his apology, forget the angry words they’d exchanged. The trouble was, she kept remembering what Clover had revealed, that Michael had named a character in one of his stories after Susannah.
How could he do such a thing, yet coldly tell Polly she had to let Susannah go? She wanted to ask him, but the memory of last night’s devastating row was still too fresh and too painful to risk another. It felt as though she were walking gingerly across a minefield; there were so many places she didn’t dare step for fear of an explosion.
Michael asked if she’d go along to St. Joe’s to see Jerome, but Polly refused. Then, as he and Clover drove off, she couldn’t help the feelings of abandonment that swept over her.
She tried again to draw, using the photos of Susannah she’d found at her mother’s house, but that didn’t work. Her efforts had no life, no originality, and she tore the sketches to shreds, feeling a hopelessness that reached to the depths of her soul.
Michael came home and put Clover to bed. Feeling like a spy, Polly hovered in the hallway, waiting to hear the story he’d tell, but tonight Clover asked that he read a book about dinosaurs.
When Michael came downstairs, he opened a bottle of wine. Polly drank more of it than usual, and later, when he made love to her, she felt anesthetized enough to lose herself in the mindless pleasure of sex.
Don’t think, she told herself as his mouth brought her sweetly to orgasm. Don’t think, she warned as he touched her belly, kissed her breast, claimed the familiar space between her thighs. Don’t think—don’t think—it’s far too dangerous.
Thank God Frannie was back. She was seeing her the next day.
When the alarm sounded in the morning, Polly awakened with a sense of dread mingled with relief, and when she reached Frannie’s office at nine thirty, she sank into the familiar armchair, remembering how many times she’d sat there before, how frantic she’d felt most of those times.
“Morning, Polly. You’ve cut your hair. I like it.”
Frannie, tall and slender, looked striking in a simple peach linen dress. She sat beside the small desk, just a few feet from Polly. When she’d first started seeing Frannie, that easy physical proximity had been disturbing, but now it was reassuring.
“Is this a recent photo of the kids?” Polly reached for a framed snapshot on the desk. “Zoe is really getting big.” Zoe was Frannie’s stepdaughter. She was holding baby Harry.
“She’s seven. She’s so mature for her age I worry about her sometimes. She’s like a little mother to Harry.”
“He’s almost sixteen months now, isn’t he?
Next Tuesday.” Polly always knew exactly how old Harry was because Frannie had gone into labor with him during one of Polly’s counseling sessions, back when she was still trying to decide whether or not she wanted to go on living.
“He looks absolutely huge, Frannie. And so handsome.”
Frannie smiled, and pride in her son made her deep blue eyes glow. “Thanks, although I can’t take any credit for either his size or his looks. He’s the absolute image of Kaleb.”
Polly had met handsome Kaleb Sullivan at the St. Joe’s Christmas party. He was a fireman. His sister, Lily, was an ER nurse, married to ER physician Greg Brulotte.
The phone rang, and Frannie apologized as she lifted the receiver. “I have to take this one call. There’s an urgent situation with a child.”
Frannie talked and Polly glanced around the small room, noting the homey touches and thinking about how much of her agony this room had witnessed, how much of her rage.
Today, her feelings were less extreme. She tried to sort through the hodgepodge of confused emotions so that she could be concise when she and Frannie talked.
There was the extreme antipathy she felt toward Clover; the sense of shame and self-recrimination this roused in her; the deep, gut-wrenching ache in her heart at the prospect of leaving the home she loved; and, underneath all of it, the terrible anxiety about her marriage.
Poor Frannie, Polly reflected with dark humor. What could anyone do in a single hour to solve such a mess?
Frannie hung up and programmed the machine so it would take any incoming calls.
“So how are things going with you, Polly?”
It was always difficult to begin, like wading into a cold lake, shocking and painful until her body adjusted to the water. Polly had learned the best thing to do was jump straight in.
“Not so good.” She swallowed hard and admitted it. “Okay, awful. Michael and I...we don’t seem to be able to talk to each other anymore,” she said slowly. “Not about stuff that matters. He’s so distant. I know he’s under a lot of pressure. He works more than ever these days. We’re having some financial problems. We...we’re going to have to sell our home.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Sad. Angry.”
She bit her lip and then, in a rush of words, the rest of it poured out. “Bitter. And there’s this kid I’m taking care of, Clover Fox.” Polly explained about Jerome and the accident. “Frannie, this is so hard. I thought I was doing okay about Susannah, but this kid just brings up such horrible feelings in me.” Shame washed over her, and she couldn’t continue.
“What sort of feelings, Polly?”
“She...she annoys me.” That was way too mild. She had to tell the truth, or how could Frannie help her?
She swallowed hard and forced it out. “I...I just don’t like her. I really don’t like her.” Her voice was shaking as she tried to justify her attitude. “Kids are people. There’re people I don’t like, and Clover’s one of them.”
“What is it about her you don’t like?”
“Oh, nothing in particular.”
Frannie waited, silent.
“Everything, damn it,”
Polly blurted. “She bit me, hard. She defies me. She won’t eat what I cook. She doesn’t talk to me. She doesn’t like me any more than I like her.”
Even to her own ears, it all sounded so petty Polly felt mortified. “Frannie, I resent her so much, and it makes me ashamed of myself. She’s only four, she’s a child. I shouldn’t feel this way about her. But...but I look at her and I think...”
Polly trailed off and tears burned behind her eyelids, then began to trickle down her cheeks.
Frannie handed her the box of tissues that were always on the desk. “What do you think, Polly?”
Her voice was gentle, encouraging.
The tears were scalding, like the pain in Polly’s stomach. ‘‘Oh, God. I...look at her and I think that my Susannah should have lived. Susannah deserved to live,” she wailed.
“What is it in Clover that you resent?”
“She’s...she’s...” Polly struggled to put it into words. Finally, slowly, she said, “I guess she’s the exact opposite of everything Susannah was. She’s...she’s bad-tempered and sullen, and...and unattractive. Susannah had so much to offer, and I see this kid and I wonder why she should be here and Susannah...not here.”
“So she reminds you of Susannah.”
“No.” The denial was explosive. “Absolutely not. Why do people keep saying such a thing? My mother said that—that Clover reminds her of Susannah, and it’s ridiculous. She’s nothing like her.”
“I meant that when you look at Clover, you think of Susannah.”
With great reluctance, Polly nodded.
“And what else do you think of?”
“What else?” Polly considered the question, and the answer came. “I guess I think of Michael,” she said slowly. “He doesn’t have any problem with Clover. At first I wanted him around more to take care of her. And then when he was, I was...” She could barely whisper the truth. “I was jealous.” She hastened to defend herself. “Not for me, but for Susannah. The attention he pays to Clover belongs to Susannah.”
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