“Is there anything over there you want, Viney?” Gaelan asks.
“Over where?”
“At Dad’s house.”
“Oh, that’s sweet of you, honey. Uh, I don’t know. I don’t really know.”
“You should go over and take a look,” Larken says. “I expect we’ll try to sell the house as is, with the contents and all, so if there are things of Dad’s you want, you should take them.”
Viney nods. “Can I at least wrap up some of these brownies and cookies and things to send back with you? Larken, how about for that little girl you babysit for? Wouldn’t she like some cookies?”
“She’s lactose intolerant,” Larken mutters.
“What?”
“Sure Viney, that would be great. We can talk about this later, I guess.”
Gaelan gets up and looks out the window again. “You really don’t think we shouldn’t be worried?”
“No,” Viney says. “This was hard on her—she and the mayor weren’t on the best of terms, you know—and I’m sure she’s just having some alone time, you know, on her bike the way she likes to.”
They do know. They know all about their sister’s special relationship with bicycles—a relationship that began the minute she learned to ride a two-wheeler, at the startlingly early age of four.
After she got out of the hospital, she started sleepwalking; Larken and Gaelan would find her outside in all kinds of weather, sitting on the brand-new Schwinn that was donated by the Lincoln bicycle club, balanced on her tiptoes in the dark. Larken was so terrified that one night her baby sister wouldn’t just sleepwalk to her bike but start riding it that she gave it to the Goodwill. She’s not sure Bonnie has ever forgiven her for that.
Everyone in Emlyn Springs has seen her often enough on the back roads, as far away as thirty miles in all directions. They don’t exactly know what she does out there, although they’ve all seen her crouched by the side of the road or in the drainage ditches, picking up trash, stowing things in those saddlebag contraptions. Whatever she’s up to, it’s her business. Odd perhaps, but certainly not disruptive. She rides in all the town parades, and she’s been leading that caravan of children up to the cemetery at the conclusion of every Gymanfa for several years now. The dead fathers may not unanimously approve, but most everyone else is used to it.
Larken and Gaelan are not used to it. They’re afraid of what Bonnie is turning into, cooped up in this small, dead-end, dying place, captive to her own failures and to the way she’s perceived by the small-minded people who live here. They do not want their sister to be the kind of person who is described as “eccentric.” She’s young, but not that young. In three years, maybe even less, eccentricity will cease to be a charming attribute.
They worry about her. They worry incessantly.
“I’d know if there was something wrong with her,” Viney goes on, and although neither Gaelan nor Larken understands why that should be so, they believe her, and are temporarily reassured. They notice that Viney has dismantled the village of food containers and found room for everything back in the fridge. There is something of the miraculous about this achievement.
“Gaelan, honey,” Viney says, “you should head back to Lincoln. I’ll call you, or Larken will, the minute she gets here.”
“I think I’ll wait just a few more minutes.”
“Well,” Viney says, “that’s your decision.” She succeeds in wedging the tub of macaroni salad into place, closes the fridge, and yawns expansively. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m bone weary, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna head up to bed.” She pads across the kitchen and gives Gaelan a long hug. “Drive safe, sweetheart,” she says. “I don’t like you leaving so late at night. Call when you get home, okay?”
“I will.”
She leans down to give Larken a kiss. “Sleep tight, honey,” she says. “See you in the morning light. And don’t worry about your sister.”
I’m not worried about her, Larken thinks. I just want to kill her. “Sleep well.”
Viney starts to shuffle toward the living room and up the stairs. “My, oh my,” she says, sighing. “It certainly has been an allergic week. Good night, dear ones.”
“Good night, Viney,” they answer.
Once she’s out of sight, Gaelan whispers, “So? What does she mean?”
Among the Jones siblings, Larken is the only one who has ever been able to decipher Viney’s mispronunciations. “Elegiac. An elegiac week.”
“What’s that?”
“As in ‘elegy.’”
“Ah. Well …”
“This is ridiculous. It’s almost ten-fucking-thirty.”
Gaelan looks at his watch once more and then gets up and dumps the rest of his coffee into the sink. “I hate to go without seeing her, but …”
And then they hear the sound of bike gears being downshifted on gravel, followed by quick light footsteps. The screen door creaks open, and Bonnie enters.
She is filthy. She is ecstatic. “Hi, guys!”
Her obliviousness is astounding. “Where the hell have you been?”
Gaelan touches his sister’s shoulder. “Larken …”
“Oh, God,” Bonnie says, earnestly. “I’m sorry. What time is it? Were you worried?”
“Were we worried? Were we worried? You disappear for almost six fucking hours and you ask me if we were worried? Jesus Christ.”
“Please don’t use the f-word.”
Gaelan intervenes. “Where have you been, Bon?”
“I was out riding is all. One of the kids strayed from the caravan, and …”
Larken gets up, making a lot of noise with her chair, and clears her place at the table. After casting her cutlery and dishes into the sink and dousing everything with soap, she turns on the hot water. “I cannot fucking believe this,” she mutters.
“Watch your language!” Bonnie shouts.
Gaelan continues. “We just … there were things we needed to talk about, and now I have to get back to Lincoln so …”
“I found something,” Bonnie announces. “That’s why I was gone so long. It was buried and I had to dig it up.”
Larken turns to face her. “What?”
“It’s really, really important. An artifact. You need to come see. I left it outside ’cuz it’s pretty muddy, but—”
“Bonnie!” Larken says. “Listen! There are things we need to discuss.”
“Don’t talk to me like a child.”
“Oh? Why would I talk to you any other way?”
“Excuse me?”
“Girls,” Gaelan says.
“Why would I talk to you as if you were actually a responsible, accountable adult? You’ve done nothing but fuck, screw off the entire time we’ve been here.”
“And you’ve done nothing but try to impress on everyone what a big brain you are, how beneath you we all are.”
“Girls! Knock it off. We need to talk about the house before I leave.”
“The house?” Bonnie asks. “What house?”
“Dad’s house,” Larken replies.
“What about it?”
“We need to decide on a price, on whether we want to go the FSBO route or get it listed with a real estate agency.”
“I’m thinking we should use somebody from Lincoln.” Gaelan interjects.
“We also wanted to find out if you’d be willing to share the proceeds four ways, with Viney. Dad didn’t make any kind of provision for her in his will, so Lark and I were thinking—”
“No,” Bonnie says, using a clear and emphatic voice that startles her siblings into a momentary silence.
“No, what?”
“We are not selling Daddy’s house.”
“Of course we are,” Larken counters. “What else are we going to do with it?”
“Well, we’re not selling it.”
“It’s a nice house, Bon,” Gaelan says.
“And it’s entirely paid off,” Larken adds. “Dad didn’t owe anything on it. We�
�d get the entire proceeds from the sale.”
“Is that all you think about? Money?”
“Oh, let’s not,” Larken says. “Let’s not really start talking about money.”
“I know what you both think,” Bonnie goes on. “Now that Dad’s gone, you think you can just cut all your ties to this place and never come back here again—”
“Bonnie.”
“—when you know that’s the last thing Mom would have wanted. We are not selling Dad’s house! I might even want to move in there myself.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Gaelan takes up his shoulder bag. “Okay, girls. I’ve stayed as long as I can. I’m leaving.”
“Oh, perfect,” Larken says. “That’s just perfect. I cannot believe this!”
“Lark, I’m not gonna stay here while you two fight. You’re not listening to me anyway. You never listen to me. Look out. The sink’s about to overflow.”
“Shit!” Larken cries, turning off the water.
“Gaelan, that is so not true,” Bonnie interjects, her voice placating. “I listen to everything you say.”
“Well,” Gaelan goes on, “in any case, I’ve gotta be at the station and in makeup by three-thirty, which is exactly four hours and fifty-three minutes from now, so you two just … duke it out or whatever it is you have to do to settle things, and let me know what you decide.”
“I cannot believe you’re leaving,” Larken repeats.
“Call me, okay?” Gaelan says. “Bye.” He gives each of his sisters a kiss on the cheek and leaves.
They stand listening to the sounds of Gaelan opening and closing his car door, starting the engine, driving away. There’s a short silence, and then water starts cascading over the edge of the counter and onto the floor, a miniature Niagara.
Larken whips a couple of dish towels off the rack and throws them to the floor; the effort drains her completely. Suddenly she’s exhausted, so exhausted that she’s bereft of common sense: it doesn’t occur to her to pull the plug from the sink. She just stands, ineffectual and dazed, watching the water fall, watching connected pools form in the indented places on the fake brick linoleum of Viney’s kitchen. Isn’t that interesting? she thinks.
When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet. “How could you skip out on Dad’s burial service? How could you just wander off like that and not tell us where you were going?”
Bonnie kneels and starts trying to mop up the water with the soaked dish towels. “I know what you think. You think I’m a loser. You think that all of us, everyone here, we’re all just losers.”
“Here. Let me help.”
“I’ll do it!” Bonnie pulls several sheets of paper towel off the roll and layers them across the floor; they do not live up to their reputation for superabsorbency. “We’re not selling Dad’s house,” she repeats, glumly.
“It’s not about the money, Bon. Neither Gaelan nor I need the money. In fact, we’d really like it if just you and Viney split the proceeds of the sale.”
Bonnie looks up. “So you two have already talked about it?”
“A little, but not …”
“So you weren’t really going to include me in the decision anyway. All this bullshit about wanting to involve me is just … bullshit! Just like always, you guys made up your minds because poor little Bonnie can’t make any decisions on her own. She’s incompetent. She’s a failure.”
“Bonnie, please.”
“Have a great trip back to the city!” the wronged heroine cries, her voice breaking with emotion, and then storms out. Larken can almost hear the swelling music of the player piano. It’s a magnificent exit.
Outside, Bonnie pedals away with a furiousness that surely will have her airborne in no time.
Larken stands, transfixed by Bonnie’s performance and her own reaction to it.
It’s a wonder, really. Only Bonnie has the ability to render Professor Jones completely speechless. Whenever she’s in the same room with her baby sister, Larken loses words, loses them by the thousands, and those few words she is able to retain seem to have no meaning. She grows inarticulate—which, for Larken, is the same as growing stupid. Once again, she wishes for a different language, one that would never give rise to hurt feelings. It would require no subtext and allow for no misinterpretations.
Larken summons what little energy she has left to fetch a sponge mop from the broom closet and clean up the floor.
There is something she wanted to say, something she could not access when their energies were in conflict, something important. What was it? Could her body help her find the unsaid thing. If she gestures, will that bring the language forth? Larken can’t think of anything but to listen to the night, imagine that she can still hear Bonnie riding her bike back to her garage.
It is hard to accept the idea that her sister is insane. It is more than hard; it is heartbreaking. How can Larken help her? How can she speak about the pacifiers and unmatched baby shoes Bonnie has strung from the ceiling of her shed?—hundreds of them she’s picked up over the years. How can she tell her sister that most people do not share her obsession with what they find on the side of the highway? How can she explain that the grocery lists Bonnie tenderly salvages and pastes into the acid-free pages of her scrapbooks with the care of a museum archivist could not possibly have been penned by their mother’s hand?
She’s dead, Larken longs to say, but she made a promise long ago to never utter those words in Bonnie’s presence; she still feels bound by it. If anyone is to blame for her baby sister’s madness, Larken feels, it is herself.
She finishes drying the floor. She opens the fridge. The giant tub of macaroni salad falls out; when it hits the floor, the lid explodes away from the container with the force of a nose cone separating from a rocket launcher. Larken spends another thirty minutes cleaning up this new mess, and then, finally—after pulling a soup spoon from the silverware drawer and a gallon of fat-free rocky road ice cream from the freezer—heads upstairs to bed.
* * *
Alvina Closs—a woman who cannot technically claim to be either the widow of Dr. Llewellyn Jones or the stepmother to his children—goes to bed hoping to meet Welly in her dreams. Even more than that, she hopes that he’ll impart some guidance, a blueprint for how she is supposed to live her life now that he is gone, and specifically how she is supposed to manage all the information she’s safeguarded for the past twenty-five years.
She’d like the mayor to visit her the way angels are said to visit: heralded by bright lights and also if possible the blare of a trumpet (for Viney is normally a heavy sleeper). She would not be afraid. A supernatural occurrence would be quite welcome under the circumstances. She would like the spirit of the mayor to hover long enough to deliver a clear directive in his beautiful commanding voice. “DO THIS!” she longs to hear, followed by a monologue delivered in a plainspoken manner.
Ritualizing her readiness for such an occurrence, she places the spiral notebook she used during the Tridiau on her nightstand so that she’ll be prepared to take dictation—as she often did in her combined professional roles of nurse and medical secretary. Finally, she lays one of the mayor’s unlaundered shirts across her pillow.
Tell me what to do, she implores the spirit of her dear, dead, not-husband as she drifts off to sleep. Tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me …
But she doesn’t dream of Welly; she dreams of Hope.
They are the same age in the dream, in their early twenties. They’re both dressed in nurses’ uniforms, the old-fashioned kind: buttoned up, belted, and pressed shirtwaist dresses with short cuffed sleeves and modest collars, and on their heads those starched white hats that have always made Viney think of miniature baseball stadiums. There’s a large red cross affixed to the left chest pocket of Viney’s uniform; Hope’s cross is placed on the front of her skirt.
Viney feels proud to be dressed as a nurse in this old-fashioned way; after all, she has a good figure. She wonders when Hope received her nursing degree;
she’s proud of her, too. They’re wearing white stockings and white lace-up shoes. All white in those days, like brides, like novices, none of those brightly colored figure-hiding smocks the nurses wear now.
They aren’t working as nurses, though. They stand on either side of a very long conveyor belt contraption—it seems to go on forever—and Viney realizes that they’re on an assembly line at a factory. They each hold a baby food jar filled with red paint in one hand and a fine, tiny-bristled paintbrush in the other. They have an important job: They’re responsible for painting the red lips on baby dolls. It’s painstaking work, the kind of work that women are good at. The dolls arrive in front of them, the conveyor pauses just long enough for them to apply two quick curving strokes to the doll babies, one for the upper lips, one for the lower, and then the conveyor moves them along again.
“Bye-bye, babies!” Hope shouts.
There are boy and girl babies in approximately equal number, Viney notices; also, the babies are naked and anatomically correct, a fact that pleases her. She does find it troubling, however, that all of the babies are white.
“Babies come in all colors, you know,” she says.
“Not our babies,” Hope replies.
With that, real human babies start arriving in front of them on the conveyor belt. It’s delightful! Viney thinks. We must be in heaven.
The babies are not newborns, they’re Gerber-age babies, four months or so, at that wonderful learning-to-smile stage. And they are smiling, which makes Viney and Hope’s job even more challenging; it’s tricky, painting those moving, smiling baby lips, keeping their hands steady as the babies squirm and try to roll onto their tummies. But Hope and Viney are meeting the challenge, and they are laughing.
And then—oh!—their own babies roll into view: Viney’s three girls and Wally Jr. and Larken and Gaelan and Bonnie, and some other babies Viney doesn’t recognize who are sound asleep.
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