I stared, not sure what to say.
“The first time, maybe the second, they come to me and ask,” he went on. “I have to say no. Some of them give up then, but others, the desperate ones, the ones with a little fire left, they go off and get it done anyway. They end up my patients again, bleeding to death or hideously infected. I don’t know what’s right anymore.”
In school, we had been taught that even therapeutic abortion was at best shakily justifiable. I had heard ugly rumors, of doctors who flouted the law and lost their licenses.
“If it were legal,” I said. “You’d do it?”
“I have four children myself,” said the old man. He looked at me. “Three of them girls, and my wife and I have tried to bring them up sensibly. They have fine futures.” He sighed. “I don’t know, Maxwell,” he said. “But I ask you this. Why am I the one to choose? That was a full-grown woman in there; I’ve known her since she was a child, and know her to be highly intelligent and reasonable. She’s twenty-six years old; she knows her mind, and her life. But she cringed before me like a beggar. Why? I’m not God.” He looked fierce as any god, saying it. “I know,” he went on, in a kinder voice, seeing my confusion. “You think I’m not playing my part right. I’m supposed to be the wise old doctor, who knows right from wrong, who can solve everything. When I was your age, I thought that’s what I’d be someday. If only,” he patted my arm. “If only it were that easy.”
I worked for him for six years, until he retired. And then I stayed on. Somewhere in that time, my dreams of a city practice dwindled and disappeared. I don’t miss them. I hardly remember what it was like to have them. Not that the life I have chosen is perfect. If I had it to do over—I’d do the same again. The thing is to choose knowingly, right or wrong, to look things in the face. Then you can’t regret; you can say, ‘I chose the best I knew at the time,’ and let it lie.
There’s always doubt, young man. Greene was right about that. It doesn’t go away. But if you make a choice, and stick to it, and take the good with the bad—you’ve done all that you can do. Otherwise, you are nothing, and your life counts for little. Every life is a statement, right or wrong; conviction won’t make your life smooth, but it will make it meaningful. That’s all the wisdom I can offer you, as a wise old country doc.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Good and Evil
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, JOAN and I took a drive.
“Where to?” I asked, when we’d strapped ourselves in, with the picnic basket behind us.
“Anywhere but here,” she said, and her hand fluttered up toward mine where it rested on the wheel.
I drove north and west, picking up the Skyline Drive near its southern end. Suddenly we were on a trail through wilderness, following the path where it climbed the belly of the valley, the mountains watching us on either side like parents.
“Beautiful,” said Joan.
It was; a man-made beautiful thing. People had died here, during the War, and some sixty years later, during my infancy, the path had been cut for cars, hundreds of hungry men working again. Hoover had started it, Roosevelt finished it, giving it over to the CCC. Government funds had flooded out over the impoverished land. Money spent on luxury during hard times: apparently incongruous, it had had a rejuvenating effect on the sagging spirit of a country.
I pulled off the road, bumping along to a campsite.
“Where are we going?” asked Joan.
“Surprise,” I said, and we pulled into the campsite. Stone outdoor grills were scattered at intervals; two tents were set up, but there was no evidence of their occupants.
When I popped the trunk and brought out the tent, Joan’s eyes widened.
“Well,” she said.
“Just like we were kids,” I said, grinning. “We missed all that hippie stuff.”
“Gil,” she said, laughing. “I’ve never slept in a tent.”
“It’s like a house,” I told her, punching the canvas, “only uncomfortable.”
She watched me struggling with it; a few minutes later, a man appeared from the direction of the other tents.
“I’m Bob Howard,” he said. “Need a hand?”
“Mine don’t seem to be doing me,” I said. “Much good.”
The man turned and shouted back toward the place he’d come from.
“My son,” he said proudly, as a stocky boy appeared. “Bobby.”
“Easy to remember,” I said, and the three of us set up the tent.
“We come here every year,” said Bob, when we were finished. “We belong to the birder’s club.”
“I bet you get to see some here,” said Joan.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Bobby. “It’s a good place to come.”
We thanked them for their help, and I invited them to share our picnic basket.
“I didn’t pack much,” whispered Joan. “And what about breakfast?”
“Don’t look in the big cooler in the trunk,” I told her.
“Aren’t you the magician today,” she said, squeezing my arm happily. Competence always pleased her.
A little while later, we were joined by a couple from the other tent, a boy and girl, not long out of high school. They’d been hiking, they told us, flopping down. The girl had short shorts on, and long red scratches on her legs.
“I’m not much of a hiker,” she said. “Cal’s the outdoor nut.”
“Women,” said Cal, looking to me for sympathy. I gave him a level look, which might have been taken as agreement. He was so young yet; he didn’t know the character of the battles to be fought. Unless he wised up early, he’d come to at fifty to realize that he’d misidentified his enemy, and that it wasn’t this girl beside him, nor any of the other girls he’d bring up here.
Without planning it, we all joined for supper, and afterward we sat around looking into the Howards’ efficient campfire.
“Thank God it’s too early for mosquitoes,” said Joan.
“We need a guitar,” said Cal’s girl, Sandy, “to make this really perfect.”
“Well,” said Bob. “It so happens.”
“Dad,” said Bobby.
“Go on, son, get it,” said his father. “Make this lady’s night perfect.”
The boy fetched his guitar, and played us a couple of songs. Sandy took the instrument after a while; she was much more accomplished, and the two of them worked up harmonies while the rest of us listened.
“He came to see me yesterday,” Joan whispered.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I think he’s leaving soon,” she said. Her eyes glistened in the firelight. “I think he hasn’t gotten what he came for.”
Bobby and Sandy were singing “Barbara Allen.” Joan’s statement, coming as it did against a poignant patch of music, threaded with the rising and falling of the two young voices, seemed final and sad.
“I’ve been so afraid,” I said.
“I know,” said Joan.
Bobby hit a wrong note, and the singing broke off suddenly.
“What brings you two up here?” asked Cal idly, during the interval.
“We ran away,” I said, looking at Joan. “No one knows we’re here.”
“Hey, us, too,” said Cal, smiling. “Our parents would freak.”
“Hell, boy,” I said. “There’s better things than parents to run from.”
Construction on the Center had to be stopped for a while, of course, but within two weeks we were back at work. To make up time, we worked at full speed, six days a week, and with Devlin’s approval, I hired myself an assistant. At the end of the day I was exhausted but happy: everything had changed. The men had discarded their animosity as easily as taking off a hat: they looked at me now when they spoke; they called hello to me when I came on site; they told me obscene and complicated jokes. Somehow, I had gained their respect. I liked my work; liked being a boss, liked being accepted by the other men. We were all putting in overtime, but for me the
days were easier.
I was spending a lot of time at Stokes’s. Since that one sensational day, I had enjoyed a kind of celebrity in the bar, as though I had committed some heroic deed by happening upon Amanda Crawford’s dead body. Here, too, I was accorded greater respect than before. I was no longer on the fringes; the regulars moved their chairs so that I might join them; my opinions were solicited, and scoffed at; I was right in the thick of things now.
I was sitting at my regular table near the counter the day Sam and Ned came in. They were arguing about something, as usual; involved, they didn’t see me as they went up to Wallace. I caught shreds of their conversation as they went by.
“I tell you that’s what he said,” said Ned.
“Well, I don’t believe it,” said Sam. “Willie Kyle was never right about anything in his life.”
“… about this,” said Ned.
“… turn on a buddy …” said Sam.
“Not my buddy …” said Ned.
They stopped when they saw me.
“Shh,” said Ned, unnecessarily. “Hey,” he said to me.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s the fight about?”
“Nothing,” said Ned, quickly.
“You all are raising a ruckus about something,” I said, smiling.
“Nothing worth talking about,” said Sam.
I soon found out that what Sam and Ned had been so heatedly discussing was being passed around the whole town; everyone was debating the same matter, everywhere I went. And everywhere I went, a chorus of shhh went before me; and at my back, the buzzing started up again. I withstood it as long as I could, hoping to hear enough to explain; but it was no use. Something about a hair ribbon was all I understood, and that was because Effie Sweet was deaf, and didn’t hear the shushing in time.
“What the hell are you all whispering about?” I demanded finally one day in front of Purdy’s.
“Tell him,” said Lester Wilson. “Go on, somebody.”
“All right,” said Harry Page.
“What is it?” I asked Harry.
“Ask your brother,” said Lana Wilson, shrilly.
“Shush,” growled Harry. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. “We none of us believed it when it was only Willie saying it. But then some others, they seen it, too.”
“What?” I asked. “What did they see?”
“Your brother, Jack,” said Harry. “Well—”
“He’s the one stole the little girl,” cried Lana.
“What?” I said.
“Lester, hush your wife,” said Harry. He turned to me, apologetically. “Willie saw Jack with a whole bunch of baby things late at night. A long time ago, he didn’t think nothing of it but warnt it strange, until the little girl was found, and then he got to thinking.”
“Willie never did any thinking,” I said.
“Well, now, you’re right about that,” said Harry, agreeably. “I guess it was the rest of us did the thinking. But we only started thinking at all after it come out that Sarah Jane Turkel saw it, too.”
“What did Sarah Jane see?” I asked.
“Well now, this was a few days later. Jack gave her a ride home; and she saw a pink hair ribbon on the floor of the truck.”
“So what?” I said. A hair ribbon, to hang a man.
“Well, no one’s accusing anyone of anything, exactly,” said Harry. “We know there’s penalties for that. But it just makes us uncomfortable, like, not knowing.”
“I have a little girl myself,” said a woman.
“You’re his brother,” said Harry. “We want to do the right thing. What do you think?”
I stood there for a moment.
“Why would he do it?” I asked.
“We thought about that,” said Harry. “And about how he and Beth used to go together, and how they both got divorced around the same time. Acourse it could jes be coincidence, but—”
“Coincidence, shoo,” said Elva Wilson, behind Harry.
“Hush, now,” said Harry. “Well, now, I’ll get to the point. It seemed likely to us that maybe Beth made Jack divorce Paula while she divorced Billy, and then she, I mean Beth, changed her mind and wouldn’t marry him, I mean Jack. That’ll make a man mad.” The crowd nodded. Harry went on, apologetically. “He’s a good fellow, is Jack, and I wouldn’t say nothing agin him,” and he looked at me. “But he’s strange. You know what I mean,” and I nodded. “Kinda unpredictable.”
That was true; considering, I could just barely believe that Jack might want to take revenge on Beth, after all these years. But in this way—? I couldn’t believe it of him. And then I was swamped by memory, the cold dank barrel of my childhood, the cold blood of my brother, leaving me to die. The child is father to the man.
“What do you think?” repeated Harry.
“I … don’t know,” I answered, finally.
“We’ve known Jack Corbin all our lives,” said Sam Lucas, pushing through the crowd to me. “Harry, you been hunting with him a dozen times. LuAnn, he fixed your car for free when you was hard up. And you,” he said, turning to me. “You oughta be ashamed.”
The crowd murmured, and there was a lot of scuffing of feet, while people decided whether they were going to stay or go. Then suddenly the cluster broke apart, like a seeding dandelion in a tornado, and I was alone on the street with Sam. He spat in the gutter and walked away.
Beth herself didn’t believe it.
“They’re saying the most terrible things,” she told me, when I dropped into the florist’s one afternoon.
“I know,” I said.
“Oh, G.I.,” she said instantly, disappointed. “You don’t believe them, do you?”
“Well,” I said.
“Shame on you,” she said. “You should know better.”
“They’re always gossiping about somebody,” I said. “It’ll blow over.”
“Ha,” she said. “Not the way this town talks. I’ll die before it will.” She brought her attention back to the matter of my treachery. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Honestly, Beth, I don’t know.”
“Well, I do,” she said. “My opinion ought to count for something.”
But it didn’t. It was the character of town talk that no one person’s opinion stood alone. No one person ever said anything, except Sam Lucas, who made his stance clear early on. The tale was told in whispers, gathering form with its passage in the way a snowball grows rolling down a hill. There was no recourse, no way to refute the accusations, because they were never actually made. It was innuendo and suspicion; and quickly Jack was an object of hatred.
He took it well; he had never much cared what people said about him, but I was surprised how well he stood up under the constant whirl of rumor. I couldn’t confront him, of course; how would it do to ask one’s brother if he had kidnapped and killed a little girl? And of course he didn’t volunteer any information. I didn’t understand him: in his place I would have been eager to defend myself. As they whispered, the people watched him, waiting to be released from their suspicions. One word from him could have stopped the rumors, but he did nothing. I watched him as he came alone to Stokes’s, taking the table near the window and drinking his regular quotient, neither hurrying through nor lingering there. I had the feeling that he hardly noticed that the men he usually sat with had moved, and were now surrounding me. I realized that his life was less changed than ours by the flurry of gossip. He was indifferent to us. Irritated, I began to hearken to the tales I was hearing, and gave them more credibility than before.
The long hours at work were telling on me; one Friday about a month after Amanda had been found, I left work early, putting my assistant in charge.
“Corbin, you lazy sonovabitch,” cried Walker as I left, and I waved a cheery good-bye.
It was her half day, but Joan wasn’t in the house. I wandered into the kitchen, looking for a note. I got myself a glass of water from the tap and drank it leaning against the closed porch door. Through the gla
ss and screen, I thought I saw a movement. I put my face close to the door to see.
It was Joan, striding away from me, away from the house, toward the bottom of the garden. I pushed the door open and called to her, but she didn’t hesitate. I went after her, still sipping from the glass, stepping carefully on my mother’s paving stones. Once they had been white, and the grass around them trimmed. Now they were overgrown and heavily mossed.
Where was Joan going? That way lay only the roses and the little birdbath, and far beyond those the old workshop. It had fallen into disuse since Jack had moved everything out; we stored old gardening tools there now, and things we no longer wanted but couldn’t bring ourselves to throw away. I hadn’t been out there in more than a year.
“Joanie,” I called, but there was no answer, just a glimpse of white blouse flashing through the trees. “Damn,” I said, brushing away a spider that had dropped engagingly onto the back of my hand. I quickened my pace.
I caught up to her at the rose border; she was sitting on one of the small stone benches flanking the birdbath, absorbed in examining something in her lap. Something red; I couldn’t see it.
“Hide-and-seek?” I asked, a little breathlessly, from five feet away.
She looked up, and her face changed. She dropped the item she’d been holding; I bent to pick it up. At first it didn’t mean anything to me: a red shoe, a little sneaker, the laces dirty, with a mashed blob of chewing gum on the sole. Then I realized.
“Oh, Joan,” I said.
She looked at me blankly.
“I didn’t hit her, they’re wrong about that,” she said. “She fell.”
“Oh, God.” I sat down on the bench beside her, a heavy thump, the glass I was still holding sloshing water into the weeds. I set it down, idiotically precise about it.
“She loved me,” said Joan. “She was happy with me.”
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