I then phoned Marcia Wengleman. A woman of wisdom and foresight, she had given me her private cell phone number, which I took the liberty of using. She greeted me eagerly. ‘I saw the newspaper. You aced it, Beverly! You didn’t let the cat out of the bag at all; you covered our mutual ass beautifully.’
‘Whoa, Marcia! Can anyone overhear us? I mean, is it OK for me to talk about stuff?’
She chuckled. ‘The minute I saw your name on the phone, I retreated to a very private bathroom. Any responses to your ad?’
‘Not any live ones, not yet. Marcia, I called to ask you about something different. Can you recommend a good lawyer who won’t bankrupt me?’
‘Lawyer?’ Her tone switched instantly from chipper to concerned. ‘For what?’
‘For a court appearance.’
‘What? Beverly, what’s going on?’
I told her.
‘Great galloping cooters,’ she said, clearly stunned, ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Why not? Given a skeleton in my backyard and so on, what’s a little ol’ psych hold?’
‘It’s nice you can keep a sense of perspective, Beverly.’
She paused, and I kept my mouth shut, because I seemed to hear her thinking, although I suppose really all I heard was the ghosts that always seem to gibber within telephone lines.
‘Beverly,’ she said finally, ‘I’ve been thinking of all the lawyers I know, and, frankly, they’re all more or less assholes, at least in this area, and – do you think I’m crazy, or might you be better off without one?’
‘Nobody thinks you’re crazy.’
‘Right. Dumb choice of words. Listen, Beverly, what we’re talking about is not a trial, full of legalese; it’s an informal court hearing. But a lawyer would get between you and the judge, trying to portray you as a stereotypical little old lady, just a bit scatty and a Sunday School teacher. What if you just talk with the judge yourself?’
I said, ‘Hoo boy.’
‘Within reason,’ Marcia said. ‘Practicing a certain degree of diplomacy. You can pull it off. Can’t you?’
‘Let me think about it.’
Actually, I tried not to think about it for the rest of the day. This approach to problems, artistic or otherwise, had worked well for me in the past.
For purposes of thinking about something else, I went back to the junk-cum-craft room and started looking through a big cardboard carton of pictures I had bought at yard sales and thrift shops. More accurately, I should say I had bought good wooden frames fitted with glass; the pictures themselves I would discard, often with a shudder.
I pulled out several frames that were the right size, laid them on the floor and looked at them, feeling very choosy, even more so than usual, for the child. I wanted to frame his portrait. Temporarily, I told myself and/or the child. Just to safeguard it until I was ready to send it to Cassie.
I personally tend toward ornate, Victorian-style frames, but eventually I chose a plain, sturdy, burl oak frame I thought the boy might like. Not bothering to put the others away, I took it out to the table in the Florida room and got to work. After ripping off the backing and pulling out the old brads, I got rid of a fairly hideous still life (sunflowers drooping over the bulbous fruit of the eggplant) and settled down with a soft cloth and some Murphy’s Oil Soap to clean the frame’s fine wood.
At random intervals the phone rang, and of course I answered it each time, hoping for some helpful response to my advertisement.
I got responses, all right, but not helpful. Sheriff Pudknucker: ‘Mrs Vernon, you got something you need to tell me?’ Wilma Lou: ‘I seed you’re home and I seed your phone number on that heathenish pitcher in the paper and I don’t know but maybe you should be put away like your family said.’ Anonymous female: ‘What for relation is that child to you-all?’ Anonymous male: ‘How come you looking for this here kid? You offering some kind of reward?’
After I had shined up the frame to my satisfaction, I took the glass to the kitchen sink and cleaned it with dish soap and running water, dried it with a clean dishtowel, then kept at it until there was not a speck or a fleck of dust or lint on it anywhere. The main reason I did my framing in the daytime was so I could see for sure that the glass was crystal clean.
The phone rang again. I was becoming reluctant to answer it, but I picked up anyway, then smiled; it was Cassie. ‘Hi, Mom, my plane just set down, so I’m fine and how are you?’
‘Coping.’
‘With what?’
‘Crank phone calls.’
‘Oh. Because of your ad?’
‘Yup.’
‘Bummer.’
I thoroughly agreed. Then she had to go; her flight was disembarking or debouching or whatever it is planes do. Back at the studio table, I rigged spacers around the edges of the glass so the painting would not touch it. Very lightly I taped the edge of the portrait to the top of the backing. Then I began putting my frame job together, super careful not to let any dirt into it – difficult in my less-than-pristine home. But I managed. I was even able to find my brad pusher, and some brads, and eyelets and new wire. Triumphantly, around supper time, I held the child’s portrait up to see how it would look in the middle of the space I had cleared on the front-room wall.
The phone rang. Carrying the picture with me, I answered. ‘Hello?’
Silence, except for a faint sort of whimper that sounded quite involuntary. At once I knew which caller it was. Gently, trying to sound like the nicest of all possible old ladies, I begged, ‘Please, talk to me. I don’t bite.’
But I heard only another muted sound – a gasp or choke or a throttled sob – before the line went dead.
Getting the child’s picture up on my front-room wall was not simple – one of the drawbacks of living in a house made of concrete. But eventually I found the electric drill and the masonry bit and the concrete screws, then managed to position the damage correctly on the first try, and hung the portrait that evening. Afterward I sat looking at it, feeling replete and needy at the same time. Such masterful art, worthy to be displayed in some Manhattan gallery. But such a messed-up ‘pretend’ grandchild I’d gotten myself. OK, I’d always believed in a spirit of goodness, and sometimes I had even believed in the soul, and maybe I was all wrong about an afterlife or even about resurrection, but I felt sure to my core my grandghost needed help. Having to be a ghost wasn’t right.
FOURTEEN
Maurie felt better driving home after two nights and one full day of healing seclusion in a place almost completely silent except for a heron’s crake, a kingfisher’s ratchety call and the occasional slap of a beaver tail. Sunup to sundown she had spent either swimming in the lake or paddling it in the kayak, chilly evenings reading by firelight, and now, enjoying the drive along secondary roads meandering through the upstate mountains, Maurie had time for unhurried mental rehearsal of re-entry. First, she had to return the rental car. Rob would pick her up, and she hoped they could eat out, catch up, reconnect before she actually got home, unpacked and tackled tomorrow’s schedule. And before she dealt with messages. There were sure to be scads of phone messages. And even if Cassie hadn’t called her, she had to call Cassie, to clear the air. And Mom, for the same reason. Meanwhile, she had plugged her iPhone into the car battery to charge. She noticed when, halfway home, it started murmuring like a contented baby waking up. Lying there on the passenger seat, it tempted her, but she knew better than to text and drive.
The phone chimed Chopin. All of Maurie’s ringtones were classical music, but Chopin was reserved for her husband. Her eyebrows shot up. Rob hardly ever called during work hours. Because the road was challenging, hairpinning down rocky terrain, Maurie did not pick up, but as soon as she found a place to pull over – a runaway truck ramp – she called him back.
‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.
‘Greetings and salutations to you also,’ he said, sounding a bit punchy. ‘Global warming is wrong, terrorism is wrong, North Korea’s having nuclear weapons�
��’
‘Get over yourself, Rob! You wouldn’t have called unless something was upgescrod.’ This was ‘German’ for screwed-up.
‘How well you know me,’ he said, sounding whimsical, not sarcastic. ‘You’re not driving, are you?’
‘I pulled over. What’s the problem? Is it about Mom?’
‘Yes and no. Somebody tried to have your mother committed to a mental facility, and Cassie thinks it was you.’
Gobsmacked, almost speechless, Maurie barely managed to squeak, ‘What?’
‘You need to straighten things out with your sister.’
‘Cassie, Schmassie. Is Mom OK?’
‘She sounds only slightly inconvenienced by the prospect of a court hearing next week. Listen, hon, I gotta betake my ass unto a meeting. Drive safely, OK?’
Maurie assured him that she would do so and that she loved him, but once Rob clicked off, Maurie did not move to get her car back on the road. Instead, she watched unidentifiable flits of motion in the trees – birds, squirrels, leaves in a mountain breeze? Her nights at the cabin, isolated from traffic noise, TV or light pollution, had been a poetry of primal darkness punctuated by the mystery calls of unidentifiable presences – foxes, frogs, insects, owls or why not ghosts? She could somewhat better understand now why some people might believe in ghosts.
No. No, she hadn’t just thought such a thing. It was insane.
The runaway truck ramp felt like all too fittingly ironic a place for her life to be parked right now. She wondered how her mother was doing, really and truly, whether she was delusional, whether it mattered if Mom was happy. After a moment, she listened to the voicemail message from her sister. Outside of her air-conditioned rental car, the weather was sizzling hot, but Cassie’s message was even more so – scalding, scorching, blistering. The accusation implicit in Cassie’s account of events and tone of voice impacted Maurie physically, making her gut knot and her butt tighten as if stung by a paddle. She dismissed her reaction as childish, like her urge to text back, I didn’t do it! Of more concern were the questions raised: was Mother in genuine danger of being labeled, packaged and shelved as insane? Would she, Maurie, have to go rescue her? Was Cassie in the air right now as planned, en route to Newark Airport, or was Mom’s situation actually dire enough to keep Cassie in Florida?
Either way, Maurie decided, she had to get home, back to her own turf, settled in with her back up against the wall of her own tastefully decorated living room, before returning Cassie’s call.
Sighing, double-checking for traffic both over her shoulder and in the rear-view mirror, Maurie eased back on to the road, driving safely.
Around suppertime, I heard somebody drive into my yard.
I put the microwave dinner I had just chosen back into the freezer, then hurried to look out the front-room window, where I saw, bumbling like a hamster over my uneven yard, an old car partly held together by duct tape – a practice not uncommon in Skink County. What color car? So faded by the Florida sun, I couldn’t say. The front bumper seemed to be sagging at one end, probably clinging to coat-hanger wire.
In other words, a pretty much representative sort of car for this area. In no way did I scorn it, because I foresaw that, after a few more years on social security, unable to make any art sales, I myself would probably be driving a car like that.
The junker stopped in front of my house, but nobody got out, not for a couple of minutes. Because of the way the light hit the windshield, I couldn’t see who was in there, and I started to wonder what was going on. But finally somebody opened the driver’s side door.
And as she faltered to her feet, I could see her.
A woman not much younger than I was, but a lot skinnier – not the stylish kind of skinny but the eroded-by-life kind – in T-shirt and shorts and flip-flops that showed some wear. No glints of polish on her nails, and nobody had ever taken much care of her rough feet or her dry hair frizzing out all around her plain, scared face.
Scared. Hesitating halfway between her car and my front door on my so-called lawn of wiregrass and pine bark.
It was so ridiculous for her to be afraid of me that I stopped wondering who she was or what she wanted; I just hurried to open the front door. ‘Hello,’ I called, friendly as a beagle.
She stared at me, apparently unable to speak but trying to smile. I felt a slight inward slosh as something about her bony, kind of square face gave me an inkling of déjà vu.
My interest heightened so that I positively radiated warmth and welcome as I asked, ‘What can I do for you?’
The weathered-looking woman managed to speak, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Um, hi, I’m Bonnie Jo …’
She stopped there, apparently running out of traction.
‘I’m Beverly.’
She nodded, still wordless.
And I knew. Even though knowing seemed an audacious leap in defiance of logic, I just knew, but I tried to keep my voice soft and supremely non-threatening. ‘Are you the one who’s been trying to phone me?’
Her clay-brown eyes widened, but I swear she looked relieved. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’m so glad to meet you!’ With acute effort, I remembered her name. ‘Bonnie Jo.’ I’m very bad at remembering the names of people I just met. Making welcoming gestures, arms lifting almost as if to hug her, I beckoned her to enter my house.
‘The picture,’ she said, her voice so low I could hear her only because she took a few steps toward me, ‘the picture in the newspaper kind of looks like …’
Silence, and she stopped where she stood. She seemed to have run into an invisible wall. ‘Come on in,’ I urged.
She did. She walked forward but then paused on the doorsill, eye to eye with me and close enough to touch. ‘I’m not sure, but it might be my brother.’ Her hands flew to hide her mouth; she acted like a child who has just blabbed. ‘I mean, my sister.’
Oh. Oh my God in whom I did not believe, she knew the secret. Feeling my heart beat fast, trying to hide my excitement, I guided her inside, babbling, ‘Well, I wish I could tell you my house wasn’t always this messy, but the truth is, it’s usually worse.’ I led her into the front room. ‘Here he is. I mean, she.’
It’s amazing how much more vital a portrait is than a print or a black-and-white photo, let alone a copy in a newspaper. From his place on the wall, the phantom child seemed to watch us walk in. I felt the impact of his scowling gaze.
I think Bonnie Jo felt it too. She stopped short when she saw him, her knobby hands still hovering near her mouth but not hushing her; a mewling sound escaped, then took shape in words. ‘LeeVon,’ she whimpered. ‘LeeVon!’ she cried aloud.
In the portrait’s eyes, tears formed and overflowed, slipping down his paper cheeks to become watercolor, part of the painting.
Bonnie Jo screamed, her arms flying up as if to fend off a blow, and she fled the house so impetuously that she tripped and nearly fell but darted away anyhow, her flip-flops slapping like an angry mother as she ran.
Being pretty damn poleaxed myself, I couldn’t stop gawking at LeeVon, at his tears drying on his stark, still face, until it was too late to stop Bonnie Jo. But her coughing old car backfired when she started it, and that jolted me out of my trance. I recovered just enough presence of mind to grab my camera and, through the picture window, take a few hasty photos as she slewed over sand and pine straw to the road, then sped away.
Once Maurie got home, once she had checked the mail, kissed her husband and debriefed him, prepared a healthy supper (breast of chicken in tomato and basil sauce, brown rice, asparagus) and eaten it with him, once she felt settled in and the sun had gone down, Maurie felt ready to call her sister – but she reached for her iPhone just a minute too late. It tootled Vivaldi, musical code for family. The caller ID made her cringe.
I am the clear-headed, logical one, she reminded herself, putting the phone to her ear. ‘Sis. Hi. I just got home a few hours ago. How about you? Are you home, or—’
‘Berthe, c
ut the bullshit. Of course I’m home.’
‘Your message had nothing “of course” about it.’
‘Do you blame me for being upset?’
‘Unclench your teeth, sis. I plead not guilty. How could you think—’
‘Well, the way you stormed out of there—’
‘I didn’t storm. I fled, I ran, I retreated in disorder. I admit, Mom’s most recent weirdness totally unwomanned me. But that doesn’t mean I would—’
‘Well, then, who did?’ Cassie sounded as if her bite was tightening by the moment. ‘Somebody had to tell Wilma Lou those things! Berthe, it had to be you.’
Maurie wanted to tell her to go get screwed. Instead, she took a deep breath, then spoke as if addressing freshman orientation. ‘Cassie, be reasonable. If you can believe Mom even halfway, why can’t you believe me? As if I spend hours on the phone every day with Mom’s neighbor? I didn’t call her. I’ve never called her. I didn’t tell Wilma Lou anything.’
‘Well, then, who did?’
‘I don’t know.’
There was a long pause, and then Cassie started talking again in a different, calmer tone. ‘OK, Berthe, I hear you. So who have you been talking to?’
‘Nobody!’
‘Come on, Berthe, get back in touch with your inner bitch. You were upset when you left, which makes it almost a sure bet that you spilled your guts to somebody. Who was it?’
Maurie opened her mouth but didn’t speak. Mom and Monday morning seemed so far gone. But …
‘Berthe?’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘And?’
‘You’re right. I remember now. I called Aunt Gayle.’
FIFTEEN
I forgot to eat any supper after Bonnie Jo bolted, which goes to show how preoccupied I was. More than preoccupied. Stunned. Dumbfounded. Unable to do anything except sit in the front room staring at the portrait – LeeVon. LeeVon had a name. LeeVon had cried watercolor tears. They were still there. I gazed at him in a trance of sheer wonder. The telephone rang repeatedly, but I did not get up to answer it. Just more crank calls about the picture in the newspaper, I figured, and anyway, in my humbled yet exalted state of mind, I barely heard the phone. I sat there in a sort of spiritual pregnancy, my heart swelling, yearning, tender.
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