The universal voice: “Information, for what city, please?”
“Crediton.”
“For what name?”
“March. George, I think. George.”
“One moment. Here’s your number.”
It’s that simple. That possible and near. What must it be like to go through your entire adult life with one phone number? She thinks of Mr. Froelich with his “old phone number” tattooed on his arm. His chalky fingers and kind face, blackboard full of hazardous fractions behind him as he bends to touch her forehead, “Was ist los, Mädele?” Why is that man no longer in the world? She keys in the area code, then the number — it plays a tune, “Camptown Races.”
The beauty of the evening finds its way into her empty living room, touches the mouldings of the high Victorian ceiling, medallion at its centre. The phone rings at the other end of the line. So empty. The sound of a chain in a dry well.
“Hello?” An older lady’s voice, tentative.
“Hello … Mrs. March?”
“Yes?”
“Hi, I’m an old student of Mr. March’s.”
“Oh.” The guard drops, Madeleine can hear the smile.
“I wondered if I could speak with him.” She hears her own voice trembling, as though she were speaking into the blades of a fan. She feels herself growing smaller and smaller, will he even be able to hear her when she finally speaks the words? And what will they be?
“Oh I’m sorry, dear,” says the lady, “George passed away.”
There are landmarks we use without thinking. You can never get lost if you can see a mountain. Now Mr. March is gone. And Madeleine no longer knows where she is; or how to get back to where she came from. Oh dear! cried the child when she realized she had lost her way, Whatever will become of me?
She could have got back through him. Through the bad time to the blessed, last good time. Centralia. But the door in the mountain closed before she could reach it, and she can detect no opening or notch in this implacable surface.
“Are you still there, dear?”
“I’m sorry.”
The elderly voice aspirates, “Yuh, yuh,” and there is a cherishing quality to her next words. “Eighteen months ago now.”
Madeleine does not reply.
“What did you say your name was, dear?”
“That’s okay.”
“Oh, I wish he could have talked to you, he loved his pupils.”
Mrs. March is saying something, her voice still fluttering from the earpiece, as Madeleine guides the receiver gently to its cradle and hangs up.
It’s over.
She carefully lies down, curled with her head by the phone. She hears her own voice softly moaning, “Oh no-o-o, oh no-o-o-o,” like poor Grace, poor Grace, poor Grace. She observes herself stroking her own forehead as though her curled fingers belonged to someone else — a grown-up, preoccupied but able to spare some absent comfort. She is grateful to be alone on the rug. She wishes it were the cool Centralia grass. The smell of earth, the tickle of an ant crawling up a curving blade, crackle of countless lives beneath her ear. She wishes she could feel a pink tongue, like a slice of ham, warm against her cheek, Rex panting, dog-laughing. Wishes she could smell the sun on her arm, hear kids’ voices from many backyards away, watch the wheels of her brother’s bike ride up. She would give anything to see his high-tops, one poised on his pedal, the other planted on the ground, to hear him say, “What do you think you’re doing, stunned one?” turning to call, “Maman, she fell asleep in the grass.”
Where are you, Mike? My brother. Gone, gone to grass.
The kind disinterested fingers press against her eyes, because Mike is dying now too, finally, and again. He is part of the earth, part of the lush forest that is slowly healing itself over there. His bones, fragments of his uniform, tattered green, the chain he wore, metal dog tags, one of them his name. I love you, Mike. Rest.
Where have all the children gone?
She lies weightless on the carpet, arms and legs, hands and head like a loose collection. If she got up, half might remain, scattered on the rug.
Once upon a time there was a mountain cave. The Piper led the children into it, all except one who was lame and could not keep up. By the time that child arrived, the door had vanished and she was forlorn, never knowing whether she was lucky or just lonely. Who was that child? The lame one. The one who became a grown-up.
Through closed eyes, Madeleine can hear the voices of children from inside the mountain. Hers is among them. The wool of the carpet bristles her cheek, she keeps her eyes closed, listening.
How can a grown-up ever gain entry? Unless you become as one of these…. Not “innocent,” just new. Raw and so very available to life. Why do grown-ups insist on childhood “innocence”? It’s a static quality, but children are in flux, they grow, they change. The grown-ups want them to carry that precious thing they believe they too once had. And the children do carry it, because they are very strong. The problem is, they know. And they will do anything to protect the grown-ups from knowledge. The child knows that the grown-up values innocence, and the child assumes that this is because the grown-up is innocent and therefore must be protected from the truth. And if the ignorant grown-up is innocent, then the knowing child must be guilty. Like Madeleine.
She left something back there, dropped it in the grass.
Where?
In the meadow.
If she could go back and find herself at nine, she could ask and she would listen. The pieces would become a story and lead back here to where she lies on the rug at thirty-two. And she would be able to get up again.
CLAIRE MCCARROLL Murdered
MADELEINE MCCARTHY Murdered
MARJORIE NOLAN Murdered
GRACE NOVOTNY Murdered
JOYCE NUTT Murdered
DIANE VOGEL Murdered
BLUE EGG
AFTER JACK GOT HOME from the hospital, he gave his wife a gift. Unlike the mink coat, it was something she still wanted very badly. He passed it to her carefully. She received it as the precious and fragile object it was. Like a Fabergé egg, sapphire-blue in her hands:
I never touched Karen Froelich.
Here is how you will know I am telling the truth.
It was I who waved.
This is what a good wife could do for you if you were of that generation. She could take something terribly dark. Terribly heavy. Corrosive. And in her hands it could shine like a jewel, simply because you had shared it with her. Your Secret becomes Our Secret.
But few people are ever lucky enough to have such a marriage. And while his gift was not, and now never could be, the third child that Mimi had prayed for, it was precious nonetheless. And it made her weep because he was and always had been hers. Always would be. She longed to give him something in return. It wasn’t your fault our son went away. I forgive you. But the two statements didn’t add up, so she kissed him instead, stroked his face and put the kettle on.