Beyond Midnight

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "I understand your concern, Mrs. Evett, but it's unwarranted," Peaches said, throwing her a bone of reassurance. "It was a simple misunderstanding. Mr. Byrne never thought twice about it afterward."

  "Are you sure?" Helen asked guilelessly. "He seemed so upset."

  "Not at all," Peaches answered. She glanced up in time to see Nathaniel Byrne come into the music room, looking for a report she knew he'd left behind.

  Peaches motioned silently toward the low table where it lay mixed in with Katie's coloring books, and then she said briskly into the phone, "I'm sorry. We're simply not interested," and hung up.

  "Who was that?" Byrne asked, picking up his document.

  "Another telemarketer," said Peaches with distaste.

  *****

  Helen had no intention of letting Peaches Bartholemew speak for her employer.

  "Call me a snob," she told Becky later that night, "but I'll be darned if I take a ‘no' from the baby-sitter. This is too important to Katie's welfare. If Nathaniel Byrne doesn't want her in my preschool, he's going to have to tell me that himself."

  Becky was in her pajamas, scouting the kitchen for a bedtime snack. She settled on a banana, although her sigh seemed to say potato chips. "You're really into this Katie kid, aren't you," she said, peeling back the fruit.

  "I guess," Helen agreed. "I feel so sorry for her." Becky took a big bite of her banana and said with a full mouth, "You talk to Aunt Mary?"

  "As a matter of fact, I did. She's been inside all day, finishing an afghan for the Senior Citizens' Jumble this weekend. She wasn't on our side of the house—and she seemed absolutely fine."

  Becky shrugged. "Oka-ay." Obviously she didn't believe it.

  Helen was well aware that her aunt had been slipping a bit; but it was normal slippage for someone her age. Absolutely normal. And today she seemed vital and enthusiastic. Yes. Normal.

  "So what do we think the smell was?"

  Helen was ready for that one. "Between you and me, I wouldn't put it past your brother to pull a stunt like that. He's still mad at me for going through his room on that search-and-destroy mission for moldy clothes."

  Blame it on Russ. It was the easiest thing for now. Helen preempted any more questions by fishing noisily through the silverware for the can opener, which she used on a can of gourmet fish blend for poor starving Moby. The cat was brushing relentlessly back and forth against Helen's jeans, leaving a swath of black fur on her pant legs.

  "All right, all right; hold your horses," Helen scolded. "God. The more I feed her, the thinner she gets. I wonder if she's hyperthyroid?"

  "Maybe she's bulimic," Becky quipped.

  Helen looked at her daughter sharply. "Why do you say that? What do you know about bulimia? Are your friends doing that? Are you—?"

  "Muh-ther! I am not bulimic. And yeah, I know people who're into that. I think it's disgusting," Becky said, sliding off the marble countertop where she'd been perched.

  "Good. You just stay disgusted," said her mother as she rinsed the smell of fish from the can opener. She wiped her hands on a checkered towel and said softly, "You know how you want a normal mom? Well, I want normal kids. So please, honey," she said with a wistful smile. "Stay just the way you are."

  "I will if you will," Becky said without missing a beat. She tossed her banana peel and resumed her search through the cabinets. "I'm still hungry," she whined. "How come we never have anything good to eat around here?"

  Smiling to herself, Helen hung up the towel and threw the bolt on the kitchen door. There was nothing more normal than a ravenous teenager.

  Helen went to bed in her freshly aired-out room, slept soundly through any tappings and jiggles that may or may not have occurred, and the next morning drove to the preschool filled with determination to pin down Katie's arrogant, misdirected father.

  After calling the Columbus Fund and picking her way through a bewildering maze of electronic directions, she was finally delivered over to a live human being at the other end of the line. Helen gave the assistant her name, along with a brief—and no doubt unprofessional—message that the call concerned Katherine Byrne. Sometime after lunch Byrne returned her call.

  "I'm sorry I wasn't available earlier," he said without sounding sorry at all. He was definitely still angry. It occurred to Helen that Peaches was either unobservant or very diplomatic. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

  Helen had decided beforehand not to mention her call to his house; it was simpler just to plow forward in ignorance.

  She cut right to the chase. "One of our three-year-olds won't be able to attend the summer session. The slot is available for Katie if you'd like it. I'm referring, of course, to the summer of this year," she couldn't resist adding through a grim smile.

  He surprised her by saying in a halfway friendly voice, "Gee, that's too bad. I've just made plans to send Katie for a stay with her grandmother in Zurich."

  "Zurich, Switzerland?" said Helen, hoping for his sake that there was a Zurich in Massachusetts.

  "Yes. Linda's people are from there."

  Helen knew that, of course, from the obituary, and still she couldn't believe it. His own daughter! She tried to keep her tone reasonable as she said, "No doubt you've thought about this long and hard."

  "It's a safe assumption."

  She could picture him so clearly as he said it: the clean-shaven jaw set in annoyance; the intense, laser-beam focus on the subject at hand. Damn his blue eyes!

  "How can you do that?" she blurted, despite herself. "How can you just ship Katie across an ocean?"

  "Oh, I won't box her up or anything," he said with brutal irony. "I'll probably pay for a plane ticket and let her sit with Peaches and me."

  "Don't do it! It's a mistake!"

  "Says who?" he snapped. "Look, Mrs. Evett. I read your brochure. I understand that your preschool is approved by every organization in America except maybe the U.S. Artichoke Association. I understand that you have dual master's degrees in education and psychology. I even understand how little I know about childrearing. What I don't understand is how you get off butting your nose in my business."

  "I—"

  She sucked in a breath of air, then let it out in a deflated sigh. "I don't know either. I have no right to say any of this, but ... I just know that Katie needs to be around you. It's very important," she said with soft urgency. "You must believe me, Mr. Byrne."

  Something in her voice—probably her begging tone— made him actually try to reassure her. "You know, Katie's grandmother sounded genuinely thrilled when I called this morning," he said. "She has a house on Lake Constance with dogs and a cat and swings ... Katie has some cousins over there; they all speak English. I think. It'll work out. You'll see.

  "Besides," he added, "it'd be embarrassing as hell to call it off now. I'd really look like a jerk."

  "You don't have to call it off, then," Helen said, seizing on the opening. "Just go for a short time. Then come back. Before you know it, the summer session will have begun."

  It was all she needed, that "hmmm." It meant he was coming around to her view. Helen had no idea why she was being so pushy. But something deep inside leapt up in joy at the thought that Katie would be snug with her father instead of shunted far away from him.

  "I wouldn't be able to stay with her there, no matter how short the visit," he confessed. "It can't be done."

  "Oh."

  "But I reckon Katie'll survive a two-or three-week stay. I'll go out and bring her back, naturally. And after that, well ... you're sure you have a slot?" he added in a voice that was amused, skeptical, and persuasive all at once.

  "As sure as April means rain," said Helen, overjoyed.

  ****

  The plane took off in a torrential downpour, then bumped its way through its ascent to smooth air above the clouds.

  "Next stop, Switzerland, Katie-pie," said her father as he opened a carton of chocolate milk that Peaches had brought in her ample carryall.

  Katie, dressed
in daffodil yellow, was leaning out of her car seat next to him with her hand flattened against the window. "I can't see it," she said, disappointed.

  "That's the ocean," said Peaches. "It doesn't look like much from up here. Switzerland is still kind of far away. You'll know we're there when you see big, big mountains sticking up in the clouds."

  "In the clouds!" said Katie, scandalized. "What if we could hit them!"

  "Not a chance, punkin," said her father. "We'll just fly around them and between them. C'mon, turn back around and you can have your milk and—oh, shit!"

  He'd knocked the milk from his folded-down tray directly into his lap, leaving a giant stain. Good, thought Peaches. Let him know how inept he was at nurturing. It made her that much more indispensable.

  "What's ‘shit,' Daddy?" asked Katie with wide-open eyes.

  She'd never heard the word before; Linda wouldn't allow it.

  Byrne, frantically dabbing his crotch with a handkerchief and paper towels that the first-class attendant had produced out of nowhere, said, "What? Oh, that. It's not a nice word, Katie. I shouldn't have said it."

  In his haste to contain the mess he knocked over the carton again. "Oh, shit!" he said. "Ah, sorry, Katie. Peaches, trade places with me while I go off to hose myself down, would you?"

  Peaches let him go. By the time he returned, carrying his jacket strategically across his arm and over his pants, Peaches had got Katie nicely settled in with an oatmeal cookie and a carton of white milk.

  Somewhat sheepishly, he took the aisle seat. Heaving a sigh, he said, "Tell me this isn't an omen."

  Peaches laughed and said, "You'll get the hang of it."

  He shook his head. "Obviously I should leave this stuff to more experienced hands." He added unnecessarily, "Like that Evett woman. I have to admit, I feel good about Katie going to The Open Door this summer. How about you?"

  "It couldn't have worked out better," said Peaches with a careful smile.

  "That's what I thought." He stretched his legs and said, "I had my doubts there, of course. But I have to say, she wasn't about to take no for an answer." He let out a short, bemused laugh. "She was pretty feisty on the phone, though she doesn't look the type at all. Funny ... something about her reminds me of Lin—"

  He glanced at his daughter, then shrugged and said, "Anyway, all's well that ends well. I'll get to score some points with Katie's grandmother. You'll get to visit a gorgeous country for a couple of weeks. And Katie will get to meet her family, which is only right."

  "And we won't be gone so long that Katie will have— quite—forgotten you, sir."

  He winced. "Et, tu, Peaches?" he joked. In a more serious vein he said, "I'm sorry I didn't consult with you before setting up the trip. I meant the call to be exploratory; but Linda's mother just took the ball and ran. The way she always does. At least I was able to cut back the length of the stay."

  Peaches said softly, "It's not a problem, Mr. Byrne. Really."

  "For pity's sake, call me Nat," he said. "It's so much easier than this sir-and-Byrne business."

  Peaches glanced shyly at him, then looked away. "All right," she said, her cheeks coloring attractively. She took Katie's empty carton away before the child could rearrange it into an alpine cottage. "I will."

  * * *

  Katie's grandmother liked to sleep in, and her grandfather liked to hike in the morning. The maid had cleared away the breakfast things; Katie and Peaches would have the next hour all to themselves.

  The child had slept badly the night before. Peaches sat in a rocking chair and held her in her lap and they gazed languidly at the serene lake, framed by budding trees, that lay shimmering in the morning sun like a picture postcard.

  Peaches said softly to the child, "Who has crystal balls, Katie? Do you know?"

  "Um ... no-o ...," said Katie.

  "Do you remember in the Wizard of Oz? Who had the crystal ball in the Wizard of Oz, Katie?"

  "Um ... the witch. And she was bad. She wanted to catch Dorothy and ... and ...."

  "And what did she want to do to Dorothy? Do you remember?"

  "She wanted to do bad things to Dorothy."

  "That's right. Very, very bad things. And what did she use the crystal ball for?"

  "I don't know."

  "What did she see in the crystal ball, Katie? Remember?"

  "She saw ... she saw when Dorothy and the lion and the other ones were coming."

  "That's right. She could tell because she saw it in the crystal ball. Who else has a crystal ball, Katie? We saw one in real life, didn't we? You wanted to pick it up, but she wouldn't let you. Who wouldn't let you touch her crystal ball?"

  "Um ... Mrs. Evett."

  The child looked distressed. She became quiet. After a long, thoughtful moment she snuggled closer to Peaches and said, "Is Mrs. Evett a witch?"

  Peaches wrapped her arms around Katie and drew her closer. "I'm afraid she might be, sweetie," she said, running her fingers through the child's brown curls. "Mrs. Evett might be a witch."

  Chapter 8

  Helen was losing a game of Scrabble to her aunt Mary— and feeling tickled to bits that her aunt was so sharp about it—when the phone rang. It was ten o'clock, too late to call for a lighthearted chat.

  Russell.

  She was right. Over the thundering of her heart, Helen listened to the measured reassurances of a Salem police officer calling from the emergency room of Salem Medical. Her son had been in a car accident, her son was fine, the young driver was not so fine, but the others were okay and so was her son, really, a sprained ankle is all, nothing to worry about, could she pick him up, he was fine, her son was fine. It's good he belted; too bad the driver hadn't. But you know kids.

  Helen's hand was shaking violently as she hung up the phone. "It's Russ," she said to her aunt in a zombie voice. "He was in an accident. In a car. I can't believe it."

  Her aunt slapped a hand to her chest. "Oh, dear lord. Is he all right?"

  "Yes. A sprained ankle. He twisted it climbing out of the passenger window when the door wouldn't open," Helen explained in the same vacant tone. "He was wearing a seat belt. The officer seemed to think he deserved a medal for that. He could have been killed. Russell could have been killed."

  "But he's all right." Aunt Mary sprang up shakily and said, "We've got to go get him. Where are my shoes? Didn't I wear them here?"

  Her shoes were under the table on the rag rug, where she'd taken them off because her corns hurt. It was no big thing, that panicky lapse of memory—but Helen seized on it because it was actually easier to think about her aunt's senility than the thought of her son lying in a ditch.

  "Your shoes are right there, Aunt Mary," she said, pointing to the black Cobblers. "But you can't come with me. When Becky gets back you'll have to explain—no, on second thought, you should go home. It's better if you don't—no. Becky will wonder where I am. Can you tell her without frightening her?"

  The old woman was plainly trying her best to understand Helen's rush of instructions. She nodded vigorously, if cluelessly, at the end of her niece's hurried speech.

  And meanwhile Helen wanted to fly, not drive, to her son's side. "Just sit still. Right here," she said in a general's voice. She added more gently, "Make yourself a nice cup of tea. I won't be long. There won't be any traffic this time of night. I have to go. Really. I have to go."

  Leaving her shoeless aunt to fend for herself, Helen grabbed her trench coat and ran out the back hall steps to her car, parked on a cobbled square they'd carved from the garden. Thank God Becky wasn't using the Volvo tonight; what would she have done then? She drove through the streets like a madwoman, aware that this time she didn't have a troop commander to escort her, aware that a kid with a sprained ankle was not the same as a trooper shot dead.

  Russ had defied her. There was no other word for it. He'd done exactly what she'd told him not to do, and done it spectacularly well. Her heart seesawed between pity and rage. How terrified he must have been when the c
ar hit the guard rail, then skidded across both lanes into the median ditch. It was a miracle they hadn't hit another car. What were they doing? Horsing around? She didn't even know the driver; how dared Russ get into a car with him?

  Tonight, a friend's car; next time, a borrowed car; the time after that, a stolen one. In the mood she was in, it seemed inevitable. And she didn't know what she could do about it.

  If he had a father. Boys needed them so much. Ten was an awful age to lose one. At ten, Russ had been old enough to understand, young enough to resent the loss. Ten was awful.

  How would Hank handle this? She could almost hear him in the car alongside her: "I'll beat the living crap out of him, that's how." Not that he'd ever do it. He'd never raised a hand to his kids. Not once. But he might say it to her, to let off steam.

  She wished she could say it. She wished she could say to someone, "I'll beat the living crap out of him." It would make her feel so much better. But there was no one. All she could do was slam her hand on the wheel in frustrated fury.

  By the time Helen got to the emergency room she was a wreck. After the inevitable directions and delays, she found him: sitting on a blue plastic chair, his cool haircut looking mussed and uncool, with two aluminum crutches— crutches!—propped up beside him. Her little boy. Black and blue and lame. The sight of him ripped her heart in two; she could feel it tearing inside her breast. Her Russ. Their Russ. He might have died.

  "Hey, kiddo," she said quietly when he saw her. Striking a pose of nonchalance, she kept her hands in her coat pockets. She didn't dare throw her arms hysterically around him, not with Scotty sitting in the chair next to him, looking even more wary than her son. "Did they say you're gonna live?"

  His chin trembled. "I'm fine, Ma. Just a twisted ankle. I didn't even want it bandaged, but they wouldn't listen." The lips firmed into a macho sneer, then began to wobble again.

  She thought he might cry, which would've been a delight and a disaster, so she said briskly, "Well, then, let's get home."