Yes, she said. I heard about it.
Colleen lowered the newspaper. It’s a shame what can happen to young girls, she said. She looked up at Emily. Did your mother ever tell you about why she left here, about what happened? Emily shook her head.
She didn’t tell me much about living here, Emily said. I was hoping to learn more from anyone who knew her.
Colleen pursed her lips and shook her head, disagreeing with whatever Emily might have said, not listening to the actual words.
Whatever she told you, Colleen said, she didn’t tell you everything. Emily opened her mouth to speak, but Colleen interrupted her. She didn’t tell the whole thing, Colleen repeated. Girls don’t usually tell everything. They keep secrets. Not like boys, all out in the open.
Emily’s stomach lurched. She tried to speak quietly and calmly, as she would to a skittish animal.
So you knew my mother? She asked. And why she left? Colleen had to be in her seventies. She would have been a young woman when Connie was a teenager. How old had Connie been when she’d left? Emily couldn’t remember exactly. Her mother never told the stories straight. She’d gone to high school in the Midwest, though, Emily remembered that much, those stories of flat planes and farms and trucks parked in cornfields as a backdrop to her exploits smoking pot and failing geometry. So she’d left with her family during or before high school.
I knew her a little bit, Colleen said. Everyone did. All the Collinses were wild. Colleen looked down at the floor and clutched the paper to her chest. Shame they all left, though, she said. It’s a shame when anyone has to leave.
But why did they have to leave? Emily asked.
Colleen looked at Emily, her eyes wet and unsteady. We like to keep our people close, she said.
Col! The young woman behind the counter called, standing on tiptoe. Your burger’s ready.
Colleen walked away without saying goodbye. Emily stood with her roll of toilet paper and half-gallon of milk in her hand, not sure what to do. She could follow Colleen and demand answers—finally, somebody who had known her family, who might know what had happened—but the old woman had seemed agitated, and now she hurried from the door, not looking back at Emily as she got into the backseat of an already-running car. One of the young men from the church was in the driver’s seat.
Emily tried to imagine her mother as wild. She had been paranoid, secretive, but never wild as an adult. She told high school stories about driving cars through cornfields and smoking weed, but she seemed to have been genuinely uninterested in true wildness. Despite her problems, Connie hadn’t been an alcoholic—she didn’t like to be out of control, to be made stupid, and so she limited her drinking to her rare nights out at bars with a boyfriend or a glass or two from a bottle with a screw cap, which she’d keep in the refrigerator for months. Her only major vice was smoking, which she did alone in the living room while watching television or reading horror novels, which she liked because they helped her to understand human behavior.
Everybody is secretly like the people in these books, she’d tell Emily. She’d point to the lurid cover, a figure in black against the red backdrop of a sunset or a hatchet in relief against the paperback page, the title of the novel in letters formed from splatterings of blood.
Wild. She’d never been wild.
Jonathan had said that Emily’s family history in Heartshorne had started with the Tower, with some event like lightning that had sent her family flying from their place of security, an event that had dashed them to the ground and left them below, praying for it all to be over. Emily picked up a copy of the local newspaper and placed it on the counter with her milk and toilet paper.
And I’ll take a pack of Marlboro’s, too, Emily said, imagining all of the possible towers that her mother might have lived through to make her the woman she had become.
10
The quiet around her house was a quiet she had never heard before. No human sounds cut through the dark, but the night was filled with as much noise as any city street during rush hour. The cicadas made their usual steady hum with a spikier cricket accompaniment. Sometimes birds erupted from the trees, roused by a sound or movement she couldn’t hear or see. Small animals rooted in the dry leaves. They crunched away when she clapped or threw a rock into the tangle of bushes. She was spooked by their noise, though she knew she shouldn’t be afraid. The only dangerous animals were cougars or mountain lions, and those walked heavily through the woods and screamed like a woman. She’d listened to a recording of a mountain lion scream on YouTube, a keening, enormous sound that announced itself immediately. She had grown used to the sounds and kept a flashlight and pile of rocks on the porch to throw at the woods or road if she was afraid. She knew that the rocks probably didn’t help, but they relieved her fear for a moment, and that was all that she really wanted. She smoked her Marlboros on the porch, one per night, just to be safe from the perils of addiction, and imagined the ways her life might turn out now.
Maybe she could go back to church, make it a habit; it wasn’t so bad to have something to organize your life around, even if you couldn’t believe in it completely. She’d meet a young man. She’d let him move in—after they married, of course—and they’d have a baby. The baby would cry in the small kitchen as she fed it mush from a tiny spoon. He would be tired and would smell of sweat and come home wanting nothing but quiet and the sounds of beer moving in his mouth. She would cry in the bathroom as he strenuously avoided seeing her tears. She knew this pattern from her mother’s life—the tears and the boredom, if not the marriage, which Connie had been smart enough to avoid. Or maybe she’d be like Frannie, alone until she died by herself in her living room, nobody with her in her last moments but the cats licking her blood until somebody found her body. Or she could be like Jonathan and his sister, running an occult shop, living at the edges of completely acceptable society. But there were other options. She could become an artist, an eccentric. She could make art out of deserted cars and trash she found in the ditches between the pavement and the woods.Or she could devote herself to some cause: orphans or pit bulls or recycling.
It occured to her that by now, she should know better the kind of person she really was.
She finished her cigarette and sat in the dark, listening to the bugs and the animals. I won’t be afraid, she thought. This is where I live. I belong here. Whatever I choose to do, I belong here.
She threw a rock into the dark. It bounced dustily into the underbrush, scaring away something small and light, a bird, maybe. She went inside, taking her pack of cigarettes and flashlight with her.
She decided to call Jonathan.
Jonathan didn’t ask her why, which she appreciated. It was the kind of thing best to explain in real life, preferably over something involving alcohol.
Of course, he said. Of course I’ll help.
•
Emily sat in Jonathan’s car, stiff by his side. Now that she had actually called and they were together in his car, she wanted to sink into the sticky plastic fabric of the car seat. She had been forward. She had asked him to do something silly and he probably regretted giving her his phone number.
I’m sorry, she said, to ask you to do this. I know you don’t know me very well, and this isn’t—
It’s fine, he said. It sounds fun, even. He wrapped both of his hands around the steering wheel. He was a careful driver, good at navigating the roads. I wouldn’t have given you my card if I didn’t want you to call, he said. She looked away when he turned to look at her.
Thank you, she said. When you showed me that Tower, during the reading, I wanted to know more, but I figure I need help.
I met a woman when I was at that church thing in Heartshorne, she told him. She knew my family. She hinted that something had happend, something that had made them leave. It made me think of what you said, that whatever it was had probably shown up in the papers.
He nodded. We’ll see what we can’t find. If it’s something as big as the cards say, then
we should be able to find it.
So the cards might be wrong? It might not be that big?
He shrugged. Please don’t take me too seriously, he said. Really, they’re only cards. They’ve helped me before, but they’re just paper.
The library was one of the oldest buildings in town, flanked by the courthouse and an old hotel, all made of the same white stone. Inside, the woman at the periodicals table motioned them toward the back, where the enormous encyclopedias and reference books sat on sharp metal shelves, rust eating away at the corners, a lightswitch on each shelf that turned on a row of ancient flourescents above the books. As they walked past rows of books, dust-covered and untouched for years, the woman at the periodical desk switched on the lights just above them. They kicked on gradually, growing into their full light only after Jonathan and Emily had passed on to the next row. Each light made a small humming sound: together, they reminded Emily of the sounds throbbing around her house every night.
Back here, the woman said. She pointed to a door, unlabeled, windowless. That’s where we keep the microfilm machines, she said. Hardly anyone uses them, so we got them off of the floor to make room for computer stations.
They were at the very back of the library now, far from the bright, new tables in the fiction section or the plastic-covered magazine stand between two aging leather couches, the old skin cracked. Two rows of cubicles lined the back wall, each with a hardback wooden seat. One was occupied by an older man, his hair gray and yellowing at his temples. The table around him was covered in balls and scraps of paper. On the floor around his feet were grocery store bags full of something, though Emily couldn’t tell what. His hands were red and peeling. He must have spent most of his time outside in the sun or the cold. He held a pencil in the fist of his left hand and wrote hurridly on a yellow legal pad. When they passed him, he moved the pad closer to his chest and bent his head, hiding his work from them.
Every library has them, women and men writing their manifestos or novels or letters of grievance to people dead or alive, real or imaginary, important (the president, God) or mundane (their fathers, mothers, daughters, men or women they have loved). They hunch over their words, afraid that other people might take them or see them and understand and use that knowledge against them.
Emily and Jonathan followed the woman into the small room. She switched on the lights. The room contained four enormous machines, all clearly from before the digital age, featuring enormous knobs and convex screens that reflected them back distorted, their midsections doubled and their heads small.
The microfilm is over there, the woman said, pointing one red nail at a wooden cabinet shoved against a wall. It used to be a card catalogue, but now it kept the boxes of microfilm and micofiche, each fragile, yellowing envelope of film separated by year and periodical.We have the Harshorne Star from 1935 to 1990, the Keno Gazette, too, the librarian told them. She looked up at the ceiling, wiping her hands on her navy skirt. The room as dusty, and each time she touched the surface of a machine or cabinet, dust stirred and coated her hands. I think we have some tribal papers, too. The Choctaw paper. And some from the City, of course, and Tulsa, but we keep them out there on the main floor.
Jonathan switched on one of the machines. It made a whirring, heavy sound, like an animal kicking inside the plastic box that held the machinery. A light illuminated the screen.
Let’s get started, he said. The librarian left them alone and Jonathan turned to her. How can I help? Emily’s head hurt from the dust and she felt small and stupid, as foolish and the man out in cubicle writing books that only he would read. The room was so small and shabby, the task so boring.
I’m sorry I brought you here, she said. She saw him in the dim room, his hands in his pockets, and imagined him gritting his teeth, balling his hands into fists hidden in his pockets, hating her politely. This isn’t any way to treat somebody who has been so—
He laughed. Jesus, it’s ok, he said. You don’t have to apologize. I’m the one that gave you The Tower. It’s my fault. He pointed at the cabinet. It’s interesting anyway, right? Who knows what kind of crazy shit we’ll find. The murders and the scandals and the accidents. And we’ll go somewhere else next time, he said.
He walked over to her and touched her shoulder. Hey, it’s okay, really, he said. Next time, it’ll be my turn to choose.
She nodded, unsure what to do with his hand. Ok, then. I’m officially done apologizing, she said. He slid his hand down and touched her elbow. He wore a gray, long-sleeved shirt with holes in the cuffs where he had pushed his thumbs through the fabric. In the small room, she could smell his aftershave, something cold-smelling, like mint.
Really, I’m happy to help, he said. I don’t go where I don’t want to go. She nodded and gently turned out of his touch.
That’s a rare thing, she said. Most people go where they don’t want to go all of the time.
He took ’50 to ’65 and she took ‘66 to ‘85 of the Heartshorne Star. In 1965, her mother had been thirteen years old. She had been beautiful in that wholesome, cone-breasted way that girls had been in the fifties and early sixties, before women allowed their hair to fall down relaxed. Emily had seen pictures, the few that her mother had. The oldest picture was Connie at sixteen, taken with a polaroid. The edges had peeled up, the metal and plastic between the white sealant exposed. It was at home, in a pine box, along with the other things that Connie had left as a hint of what her life had been before Emily was born: a tarnished silver heart necklace (so cliché, so sweet in its simplicity, that it could be nothing but a love token), a birthday card that said “To Connie from Paul” with a bouquet of roses on the front and the words “Happy Birthday” in a calligraphic scrawl. The card had to be at least twenty years old. Emily didn’t remember a Paul. Her father’s name hadn’t been Paul. His name was Charles, and he lived in Troy, New York. She had never met him or tried to meet him: he had made a choice thirty years ago and Emily figured she had no right to take the choice away from him and force herself into his life. Now, she would be easy to find if he wanted to find her. She didn’t think much about it. After her father, Connie had dated a succession of men with names like Bill or John or Bob, mostly working-class men that Connie had met through friends or work, men that she invariably left because they lacked something: ambition, a sense of self, a spiritual side, something ineffable that she was searching for in other people but could never find.
That had been her mother’s problem, Emily thought. She always thought what was missing was in somebody else.
As she fed the microfilm into the machine, Emily felt the old twinge of shame that she always felt when she breached her mother’s deep love of privacy. Emily had had a desperate curiosity about her mother’s things—what she kept in the battered shoe boxes in her closet, the fancy clothes she kept under plastic in the closet, her jewelry boxes and stacks of letters still in their envelopes--but Connie’s anger teetered on the verge of violence whenever she found Emily in her things or even suspected that Emily had rifled through them.
Get out of my things, she’d shout. Stop snooping. Once, she had slapped Emily the face when she found her standing in Connie’s closet, a tube of red lipstick just touching Emily’s lips. Connie would be upset at what Emily was doing now, combing through the past, bringing along a stranger to help. That would be the worst part. Emily could almost imagine her mother coming through the door along with the smell of spearmint Certs and hairspray, her shoes hard and clicking, coming to shout at her for snooping. For bringing somebody else into her business. Emily fed the spool microfilm through the machine and the screen shouted a headline: Echo Lake Flood. A grainy newsprint of a flooded street was directly below the headline, and nothing more, the picture sufficient for the explanation. Below it, she read that the Heartshorne High School Bears had defeated the Broken Arrow Warriers and had taken their place at the state championships. A photograph accompanied it, the ink faded down to a uniform gray. A group of young men in shorts gathere
d around a plaque. One held the ball against his hip. It was March 15th, 1966. They were all old now, some maybe even dead. She tried to see the details of their faces: which boy was handsome, which was plain, which was pockmarked and which had a weak chin or protruding ears. They all looked the same, though—their hair short, their faces white without variation. She flipped through the paper, skimming the small tragedies: housefires and car accidents and inclement weather. That spring, a tornado had gone through the heart of Keno, throwing trailer houses and sheds and cars aside as it rolled down to the valley and exhausted itself just before Echo Lake.
Hey. Jonathan leaned back in his seat, the old wood creaking. I found a Collins in the paper. Look. She hung over his shoulder, squinting to see the print on the screen. His newspapers were even fainter, the pictures more grainy, rubbed down to shade. It was an article in the Births section of the paper, wedged between weddings and obituaries.
Mr. And Mrs. Edward Collins welcomed a baby girl,
Constance Beth Collins, on November 21st, 1952.
That’s my mother, Emily said. That’s her birthday. Emily stood, aware she was breathing close to Jonathan’s hair, her chin almost brushing his shoulder.
Edward. That must be my grandfather’s name, she said, excited.
You didn’t know him?
No. I didn’t know anyone but my mother. And I guess I didn’t know her very well, either. I didn’t know her middle name was Beth. Emily remembered the bracelet around her mother’s arm at the hospital, the “B” initial that she’d never thought to ask about, not at that point, when it was too late to ask anyway. Emily took a pad of paper from her pocket. I’m writing down all of the names, she said. Edward Collins, Constance Beth Collins. I wish they had my grandmother’s name here, a picture, something.
Echo Lake Page 9