Return to Little Hills

by Janice Macdonald

  “Rain?” Peter said distractedly. “Sorry again, Edie.” He held a hand over the mouthpiece and addressed the janitor. “Would you mind telling them that I’ll be outside in about fifteen minutes and then we’ll all walk down to the river.”

  “Daddy…” Natalie sidled up to the desk and brought her face to his ear. “Tell the twins they can’t swim in the river,” she whispered. “They’re both wearing their bathing suits under their shorts.”

  “You want to call me back?” Edie inquired. “Sounds like you’ve got your hands full.”

  “I do, but that’s all right. Hold on.” He turned to speak to Natalie, “I’ll take care of it, sweetheart,” he said and then spoke into the phone again. “All right. I’m trying to reduce a mountain of paperwork that I can never find time to tackle during the day,” he told her. “And my daughters are here—”

  “You bring them to school?”

  “Not during normal hours. They’re just keeping me company while I work. It’s rather nice, really. Companionable.” As he spoke, Abbie pulled Kate’s hair, causing Kate to squeal loudly and launch a retaliatory attack. “Girls,” he said. “Companionable,” he told Edie, “if not tranquil.”

  “It sounds chaotic,” she said. “I can’t imagine trying to write with a bunch of kids in the room.”

  Peter felt a mild stab of disappointment. “The reason I called,” he said, “was to let you know what a success your talk was with the students. I’d meant to mention it before, but the days get a little hectic. Anyway, I think we have at least three or four fledgling journalists, all eager to hear more from you.”

  “Terrific,” she said, sounding genuinely pleased. “Right now, that’s exactly what I need to hear.” A pause. “You caught me in the middle of a massive attack of self-pity.”

  “Really?” He could see her, tall and supremely self-assured, the glint of sun on her hair. The admission startled him, until he thought of her outside the restaurant that day. “I can’t imagine it. What on earth would produce that?”

  She laughed. “Oh…I let my rabbit starve to death.”

  He hesitated a moment. And then, “Before or after you killed your father?”

  Silence. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Therapy’s always a possibility.”

  “You’re saying I’m crazy, is that it?”

  “I’m saying that you appear to be carrying around an awful lot of guilt. Needlessly, I’m sure.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “It would have been kind of awkward if you’d believed me. That I’m this maniacal killer, or something.” Another pause. “Listen, forget this whole conversation, okay? I’m fine. Too much time on my hands is the problem. Fortunately, I’m usually too busy for introspection. Socrates was wrong. The unexamined life is really the way to go.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” Peter said. “And I’d love to pursue this, but my daughters are getting restless and three students are waiting outside for me to walk them down to the river. An impromptu, after-hours field trip. We’re all going to spot butterflies, if you’d care to join us.”

  EDIE AMBLED SLOWLY along the narrow cobbled streets of Little Hills’ historic downtown, thinking about Peter’s invitation and the excuse she’d given him: polite, careful not to hurt his feelings, something about work to do.

  Would I like to spend a few hours with four small children and a bunch of hulking adolescents? Hmm, let me think about it. Nah, I think I’ll chew my toenails. Difficult choice, though.

  Still, it was sweet of him to call and say kind things. She did feel better. He was a nice guy. Attractive and interesting. Just not attractive and interesting enough to compensate for the fact that he had four small children. No man alive was that attractive or interesting. Just her opinion, of course—obviously, one not shared by Beth Herman. Good for Beth, though; tall, handsome widowers with four small children were created for women like Beth. Women who were warm, generous, unselfish. All the things I’m not, she thought. Which was fine. Like Popeye, I yam what I yam.

  She stopped to look in the window of Ye Olde Little Hills Bookstore, all done up with back-to-school posters and books artfully displayed in red and green knapsacks. Moved on, past Gently Used, an upscale secondhand clothes boutique that had been a small general store when she was in high school. Past Olde Towne Bakery and Granny’s Sugar Plum Treats, where she and Maude had bought their ice cream cones. Even the newer shops along River Street were designed to suggest Little Hills’ origins as a Missouri River trading post, although Edie observed that Victoriana had improbably infiltrated the neighborhood.

  As a kid, she’d truly thought Little Hills, with its steep streets of old-world houses running down to the river, was the best place in the world anyone could live. The exhilarating thrill of careening down the hills on a bike—an activity that, literally, came to a screeching halt when Vivian flew over the handlebars and broke two front teeth. Long, warm summer days with fireflies and sweet white peaches and the mysterious allure of the river. A proud past and a promising future, according to the chamber of commerce brochures. By her last year in high school, though, Edie had been less than convinced about the future the town promised.

  On Elm she glanced up at a French Colonial where her best friend in grade school had lived. Megan something or other. No idea what happened to Megan. Three kids, probably. Everyone her age seemed to have three kids. And there was the late Victorian mansion where she’d taken ballet lessons in a chilly studio that had once been a conservatory. Lots of architectural variety, she reflected. German here, Greek Revival there. What would her life have been like if she’d never left Missouri?

  She crossed Elm and started down the grassy slope to the river. When she saw Peter Darling surrounded by kids, another small blond child on his shoulder and a butterfly net held aloft, she swore to herself that she’d forgotten he said he’d be down here.

  “WELL, a butterfly’s wings are actually clear.” Peter looked around at the circle of faces, scanning the periphery of the group to make sure Delphina hadn’t wandered off, as she was apt to do. He spotted her, dark and bespectacled, standing beside Natalie. Both girls wore red shorts and striped T-shirts, and Sophia had braided their hair that morning. But while Natalie appeared engaged and interested, Delphina’s eyes were distant, her face so forlorn that he momentarily lost his train of thought. He would have a talk with Sophia tonight, he decided, although of course she’d insist that what Delphina needed was a mother, which would start up the whole find-a-wife matter again. “Right,” he said. “Where were we?”

  “Butterflies come from a chrysalis,” Abbie announced. With her arms locked in a stranglehold around his throat, her sandal-clad feet beat against his chest. “It’s also called a pupa.” This struck her as hilarious and she kicked harder. “Poo-pa,” she shrieked. “Poo-pa, poo-pa, poo-pa.”

  Peter grabbed her ankle. “Stop it, or I shall have to put you down.”

  “Mr. Darling,” a boy with purple hair yelled. “Come over here. I think I spotted a blue morpho.”

  “I rather doubt it.” Peter started over to the cluster of maples where Eric, the purple-haired boy, was waving his net into the lower branches. “Blue morphs are mostly found in Mexico and Venezuela, occasionally Costa Rica.”

  “I saw one this morning,” Abbie, still perched on his shoulder, announced. “It sat on my finger.”

  “Daddy.” Kate tugged at his fingers. “I want to sit on your shoulders.”

  “No. I am.” Abbie kicked again. “You’re a pupa. That’s why you can’t sit here. Pupa, pupa, pooooooo-pa.”

  “Right, that’s enough.” Peter set her down on the grass and peered up into the maple where Eric was still brandishing his butterfly net. “Can you still see it?”

  “Nah.” Eric lowered the net. “Probably took off chasing a lady butterfly.”

  Peter rejoined the circle of students standing under a tree, studying their guidebooks. “As I was saying…” he started again. “A butterfly’s wings are
actually clear. The color you see is the result of pigments on the underside of the tiny scales that cover the wing.”

  “I’m thinking now that wasn’t a blue morpho after all.” Eric’s purple head was bent over his book. “There’s this picture of one and its wings look kind of like metal, or something.”

  “Iridescent,” Delphina said shyly from the sidelines.

  Eric turned to glance at her. “Whatever.”

  “Delphina,” Peter said, encouraged by his daughter’s unusual show of participation, “can you tell us what makes the wings appear iridescent?”

  Her face flaming, she wrapped her arms around her knees and pressed her mouth into them. “Don’t know,” she said indistinctly.

  Peter felt the familiar tug at his heart. Certain that she knew the answer, he’d hoped to draw her out. Clearly a mistake. The students—laughing, boisterous fifteen-year-olds who must seem like another species to a quiet, withdrawn child of seven—were chasing one another with butterfly nets now and straggling off up the hill. Time to wrap things up, he decided as he got up and went over to Delphina. Natalie and the twins sat nearby, making daisy chains. He’d just crouched down beside Delphina and started to say something, when he saw Edie Robinson leaning nonchalantly against a maple.

  He grinned. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough to want to know why a butterfly’s wings look iridescent.”

  Peter put his arm around Delphina’s shoulders. “Any idea?” he asked softly.

  “I know.” Kate inserted herself between Peter and Delphina. “Because it makes them look pretty.”

  “Butterflies have a proboscis,” Abbie said. “Daddy told me. That’s how they drink nectar.”

  Natalie placed a circle of daisies on his head. “I crown you King Daddy.”

  “And they have pu-pas,” Kate said.

  “It’s an optical illusion,” Delphina said so softly it seemed meant for only Peter to hear. “Because of the light.”

  “Exactly.” Peter squeezed her close, kissed the top of her head and then looked up at Edie, who wore the cool, faintly amused look that he was starting to recognize. He’d seen it slip after the Burger Barn incident, but it was back in place now. Natalie was shooting her shy glances and the twins were flinging themselves around in an obvious attempt to gain her attention. He stood, remembering suddenly the daisy-chain crown on his head. “My daughters,” he told her, naming each girl. “And this is Edie Robinson.”

  Edie smiled at the girls but remained standing beneath the tree. After a moment or so, the girls, perhaps sensing her disinterest, dispersed. Peter felt a momentary let-down, a cloud drifting lightly across the sun. He remained standing, arms folded across his chest—mirroring, he realized after a moment, Edie’s stance.

  “I decided to take a walk after all,” she said after they’d stood in silence for a moment or two. “I like the way the air feels after a storm. I’d sort of forgotten it.” She glanced over at the girls, then back at him. “And I also have to tell you that I was quite fascinated watching your students—kids I would probably cross the road to avoid if I saw them approaching me after dark—utterly captivated by what you were telling them. I’m very impressed.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Actually, it took quite a leap of faith to suggest to a kid with purple hair and a nose ring that the study of butterflies might be a good science elective, but he’s one of the most enthusiastic in the group.”

  Delphina came back then, sidling up to his hip. He put his arm around her. “Delphina writes really good poetry,” he wanted to tell Edie, but found himself reluctant to expose his daughter to the woman’s cool amber gaze. “By the way,” he said instead, “I’ve got a date set up for the journalism group. Are you still interested?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I have to warn you, though, that I can talk your ear off about journalism, but I know nothing about working with kids.” Her gaze lit briefly on Delphina and then returned to him. “They’re like a foreign language I have absolutely no interest in learning.”

  HOURS LATER, in the darkened bedroom next to Maude’s, Edie punched her pillow into submission, turned onto her stomach and tried to make her mind a blank. They’re like a foreign language I have absolutely no interest in learning. She shot up, raked her hair back, lay down again. Why had she said it? You said it, she answered, because it’s true. Still, she’d noticed something in Peter’s face that she hadn’t wanted to see there. It was nothing like the way he’d looked at her after she spoke at the school. Then she’d seen respect. In the park, with his daughter beside him, a crown of daisies on his head, he’d looked at her and she’d seen…pity.

  To hell with it. She gave the pillow another thrashing, yanked the quilt around her shoulders and curled up on her side. He was the one who needed pity: four kids, pulling at his fingers, climbing over his shoulders, each demanding her share of attention. Who wouldn’t pity him?

  The whole incident left her feeling surly and unsettled, a mood that lingered the next morning as she stood in the kitchen making Maude’s breakfast. Maude had probably never been served breakfast in bed, Edie reflected as she cooked three strips of bacon. This would be a treat.

  “See, I do have the potential to be kind and generous,” she told Tinkerbell, who was snaking sinuously against her leg. “It just doesn’t shine forth very often.” For some reason, she kept seeing Peter’s dark-haired child—she’d forgotten all their names—standing at his side, Peter’s arm around her. The girl was probably seven or eight and obviously shy. For a moment, she’d found herself wanting to do something to connect to the child, but she could think of nothing and that’s when she’d blurted out that idiotic remark.

  She took the bacon from the pan, set it on a plate in the oven and beat two eggs into a bowl. Then she melted butter and poured the eggs into a pan. Kids are like a foreign language I have absolutely no interest in learning. Okay, put the damn remark out of your head. You said it and there’s nothing you can do about it. She glanced at the eggs, puffing nicely in the pan, then ran outside, picked a couple of pink rosebuds, found a vase in the kitchen, arranged everything on a tray and carried it upstairs.

  Maude’s bedroom door was pulled to but not closed. The tray in her hands, Edie nudged the door with her hip. Daylight coming from behind long chenille drapes hit the middle of the swaybacked old double bed. A clock ticked on the dresser, lending an oddly dreamlike quality to the room. Edie set the tray on the floor and pulled open the drapes. Maude lay on her back, her hands folded across her middle. Sound asleep still, cheeks sunken, lower jaw slack. Her teeth sat in a pink plastic cup on a wooden nightstand next to the bed. Edie’s heart skipped with the fleeting thought that Maude was dead. Then she saw her mother stir slightly, lips mumbling something indecipherable.

  “Surprise,” Edie whispered, setting the tray down on the bed.

  Maude’s white-lashed eyes opened and she looked blankly at Edie, shrieked and bolted up in the bed. “Who is it?” she breathed, her gaze darting around the room. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Mom.” Edie grabbed the tray, too late to stop the vase of roses from overturning and spilling across the food. “Damn.” She blotted the water with the folded napkin, straightened the rose vase and smiled brightly. “Hungry?”

  “I better take a blood pressure pill.” Maude had one gnarled hand across the front of her starfish-patterned nightgown. Wisps of white hair, not caught up in the pink foam-rubber curlers that lay like fat little pigs across her scalp, stood at attention in vertical tufts “You frightened me. Never creep up on me like that.”

  “I didn’t creep up on you. I whispered very quietly. Look.” She eyed the cooling omelet. “I made you breakfast.”

  “What’s that?” Maude frowned at the breakfast tray. “Where did those roses come from? You didn’t pick them from next door’s bushes, did you? She’s always complaining about people picking her roses. Don’t think it’s me picking them, I always tell her, I’ve got
plenty of my own, or I did until Vivian pruned them to a fare-thee-well, hardly any blooms this year. Last year, you couldn’t see the leaves for all the roses—”

  “Mom.” Edie nodded at the food. “It’s an omelet. Doesn’t it look good? Eat it now before it gets cold.”

  “I always have oatmeal. Every morning I have a bowl of oatmeal, been doing it for years. The doctor said that’s why my cholesterol is so good. Oatmeal, it’s good for you. Wouldn’t hurt you to start eating it, too, I said that to Vivian, I said—”

  “I thought you’d enjoy a change.” Edie picked up the fork, wrapped Maude’s fingers around it. “I don’t think you’ve ever had breakfast in bed before, have you?”

  “I’m not an invalid. I’ll get up and eat it downstairs.”

  Edie felt her patience ebb. “Mom, just eat it here, okay? By the time you get downstairs the food will be cold.”

  “I might be old—” Maude swung a leg off the bed “but I’m not an invalid. I never eat breakfast in bed.”

  “Well, how about making an exception, just this once?” Maude had set the fork down and Edie picked it up again and stuck it in Maude’s hand. “Come on, take a bite.”

  Maude surveyed the omelet with suspicion. “That a green pepper? I can’t eat green pepper, you ask Vivian. Makes me belch, I’ll be belching all day. Never liked green pepper anyway, can’t see the point of it. Tasteless, if you ask me, and it repeats. Belching like a trooper if I eat—”

  God, give me patience. Edie snatched the fork from Maude, flipped open the omelet and scraped away the green pepper from the congealing egg and cheese. “There, no green pepper.”

  “Still smell it though.” Maude had a note of triumph in her voice. “Can’t hide that smell.”

  “Oh yes you can.” Edie swooped the green pepper up in her hand, carried it into the bathroom next door and flushed it down the toilet. Back in the bedroom, she looked at Maude. “There, no green pepper. Now eat.”