"Yeah, well… I'd better get going." He bustled around to cover the awkward moment, gathering up his jacket, quickly shrugging into it. "I've got a lot of homework." Two minutes later, he was gone.
Chapter 8
The following morning, when she should have been resting, Mary decided to make a long overdue visit. She rang the doorbell and stepped back, her heart beating rapidly as footsteps inside the house came closer. The door opened, and there stood Abigail Portman, Fiona's mother.
Abigail had always seemed a throwback to a delusional fifties mom, the mother who had turned her back on a career to stay home and raise her only daughter. She wore aprons and baked cookies, and all the kids in the neighborhood seemed to end up at her house. And no matter how busy she was with all that cooking, and running Fiona from piano to cheerlead-ing practice, no matter how busy she was with PTA and the latest school fund-raiser, she always looked immaculate.
Back then Mary had often regarded Fiona's life with longing and wished her own could be more like it.
Poor Mrs. Portman's once beautiful Betty Crocker hair was gray and frizzy, and her eyes looked out from deep, lined sockets. Her white sweatshirt was stained and ragged. On her feet were slippers Mary suspected rarely left her feet.
"Hello, Mrs. Portman. It's me. Mary."
The woman's blank expression disappeared. "Mary! Oh, Mary!" She opened the door wide and pulled Mary inside.
It was like stepping into a tomb.
The hallway was dark and stuffy, smelling as if fresh air and sunlight hadn't touched the house since Fiona's death.
Abigail Portman wrapped her arms around Mary, hugging her tightly. "You're so grown up!" she said, stepping back to look at her. "I can't believe it! I always think of you just like Fiona-a perpetual teenager. Are you still with the FBI?"
"Yes. Actually, I'm in town on a case."
The light left Abigail's face. "Those girls."
"Yes."
"I've read about them. I keep thinking of their poor mothers. I wondered about dropping them a note, but what words of comfort could I give when there aren't any? I would just remind them that they aren't in the middle of a horrible dream and that ten years from now they'll still be in pain."
"Is that how it is for you?" Mary asked, sad to see that things were so bad.
"Frank and I got divorced. He couldn't take it anymore. Said I was always moping around. He wanted to sell the house and move out West somewhere. He begged me to go. I thought about it, but I couldn't leave. It's different for men. He didn't understand that this house is my connection to my daughter. I can't imagine anybody else sleeping in her room. I can't imagine children running down the hall, laughing and screaming. I don't want happy children here. It wouldn't seem right. Like laughing at a funeral."
"I understand."
"I think you do." She waved her hand. "Come in and have a snack with me. Remember how you and Fiona used to charge in after school for milk and cookies?"
Mary smiled. "I remember. You made the best chocolate chip cookies in the world."
"I don't bake anymore." It was a statement of the way things were. "I don't cook at all."
Mary followed her through a living room that was frozen in time. Being in Fiona's house gave her a weird feeling of dislocation. Nothing had changed. The furniture. The curtains. Where the furniture was placed. All the same. She almost expected to pick up a newspaper to see that it was dated the day Fiona had died.
The kitchen hadn't changed either. Same wallpaper. Same laminated table and matching chairs with plastic-covered cushions that left strange designs on a child's bare legs. Same bland motel oil painting on the wall. Abigail may have been Betty Crocker, but she'd never had an esthetic eye.
"Take off your coat."
Mary removed her trench coat and draped it over a kitchen chair.
"You became an FBI agent because of Fiona, didn't you?" Abigail asked, tearing open a bag of ginger-snaps and getting two cans of diet soda from the refrigerator.
"I think you're right." Why not be honest? "I'm sure you're right."
They drank the soda and munched the gingersnaps, which turned out to be atrocious. Abigail talked about Fiona as if she'd been waiting for this day, for someone who would listen, for someone who would understand without telling her she needed to forget about what happened and move on-which was the last thing people like Abigail wanted to hear.
The conversation turned away from the tragedy to the sharing of fond memories of a girl who would always be sixteen. Abigail dragged out scrapbooks. Together she and Mary reminisced. They went through page after page of newspaper clippings about the spelling bees Fiona had won, and about recognition by the mayor for the money she'd raised for the homeless. There was a photo of her accepting a plaque for a state speech competition, another for Academic Bowl.
"She was such a special person," Abigail said, stroking the photo. "I never pushed her. I was never one of those mothers who pushed her kids to do things they had no interest in. She pushed herself."
"She had so much energy," Mary said. "She wanted everything."
"She wanted to be the first female president. Did she ever tell you that?"
"Yes. And I think she could have done it." Mary recognized an echo of the old enthusiasm she used to have for Fiona's ideas.
The last photos in the album were obituaries, cut from several papers. There was even a photo taken at the cemetery of the grieving mourners. With a weird jolt of recognition, Mary spotted her much younger self standing with Blythe. Gillian stood a little to one side.
Mary turned the page. Abigail had also cut out every single article about the murder and trial-and finally the conviction of Gavin Hitchcock. There was a four-by-five photo of him staring at the camera, looking both scared and pissed off.
"He's out of prison," Abigail said. "I can't believe he had the nerve to come back here and flaunt himself. You'd think he'd want to move to a town where nobody knew him, where nobody knew what he did."
"I was a little surprised myself when he didn't go somewhere else," Mary said. She didn't add that there was someone who'd encouraged him to return to his hometown, someone who'd helped him find a place to live and a place to work.
"He shouldn't have been released. He should have died. It's not fair that he's alive and running around free when my sweet little girl is dead. I have half a mind to drive over and see him someday."
"I don't think that would be a good idea," Mary cautioned.
"Tell him what a useless piece of work he is. He never even said he was sorry for what he did."
Mary waited until Mrs. Portman was looking at her. "Would you want that? Would it really make any difference?"
She thought a moment. "No, I don't suppose it would. But I'd still like to talk to him. I'd like to see his face when he opens the door and realizes it's me." She let out a burst of laughter, then pressed a hand to her mouth. "Can you imagine his expression? Oh, it would be priceless."
Maybe, Mary thought, she shouldn't have come. Her visit seemed to have set the poor woman off. She closed the book and stacked it with the others. "Thanks for letting me see these. I should get going. My mother's expecting me." No matter how old you got, mothers were still a good excuse when you needed to end a visit.
"Would you like to go upstairs?" Abigail asked. "To Fiona's room? It comforts me. Maybe it will comfort you."
Mary would never have thought, Gee, I'd sure like to see Fiona's old room. But now that the invitation was out there, something inside her was compelled to say yes.
The steps that led upstairs were covered with the same green carpet, and they creaked in just the same way.
Nothing had changed. Except for an underlying mustiness, Fiona's room even smelled the same.
On the walls were the posters of unicorns. There was her music box collection. Her stuffed animals, many of them huge, won at the fair by a legion of admirers. Her scrapbooks, her yearbooks. Tucked into the edges of the vanity mirror above a pink, skirted dresser were photos, many of Mary and Fiona. Hanging on a closet door hook was her cheerleader uniform, behind it her letter jacket.