Missing Mom Read online

  Strabane was hunched forward awkwardly, elbows on his knees. His scruffy appearance contrasted strangely with his eyes that were unexpectedly clear: as if you could see deeply into those eyes, so dark as to appear black, into another place in which things made sense and were all right and you should not worry.

  Strabane was saying there would be a trial, after all. It looked pretty definite now.

  A trial! For a moment, I didn’t know what trial he could be refering to.

  “—his lawyer’s been trying to tell him, explain to him, the guy is plain stupid, he can avoid the death penalty if he pleads guilty and accepts a sentence of life in prison without parole, but, no!—he wants to plead ‘not guilty’ and have a trial. So, there you are. Like I say, most criminals are missing part of their brain. Especially a meth-head like Lynch who hadn’t much brain to begin with.”

  Strabane spoke vehemently. The dream shimmering around us careened in and out of focus. I’d been hearing words but couldn’t seem to process them. My mouth twitched in a smile, as if I’d been nudged.

  (By Mom? Wasn’t it time to smile? When your visitor seems discomforted, if he has brought you bad news and is very sorry and you owe it to him, to assure him he has not?)

  Numbly I said, “I see. A trial.”

  “Asshole’s firing his lawyer! That shows you how stupid he is.”

  Strabane’s nostrils flared in indignation. The lapels of his ill-fitting sport coat bunched up as he leaned forward, fists on his knees. Vaguely I wondered: is he carrying a gun? In our house, on this ordinary weekday afternoon? This house, the Eatons’ house, in which nothing much had ever happened, in all our memories?

  “It’s rotten for you and your sister, everybody in your family, this dragging on. You’re really nice people, decent people not like any kind a guy like Lynch deserved to mingle with for five minutes. The thing is, the defense always tries to stall, that’s to their advantage. They figure, witnesses might move away, or die, or change their minds, or forget. They figure, time is on their side. ’Cause the defendant won’t be going anywhere. In a capital case, the idea is there’s so much at stake, a ‘man’s life,’ everything has to be done by the book ’cause there will be an appeal if he’s found guilty which in this case, for sure Lynch will be.” Strabane paused, incensed. He was clenching and unclenching his fists like a man yearning to fight. “Worst thing, Lynch was a suspect in a case ten years back, ‘home invasion and sexual assault’ in Niagara Falls, except there wasn’t evidence enough to charge him, the Falls PD had to let the bastard go, and that time, too, a woman was hurt, so bad she couldn’t remember a thing that’d happened, a woman sixty years old! Now an informant, Lynch’s own cousin down in Erie, tipped off police about Lynch involved in that. So there’s that, Nicole, that if Lynch had been charged, and put away for a long time like he deserved, he wouldn’t have been out to hurt—well, anybody else.”

  Through a ringing in my ears I wasn’t hearing this. So much information, so quickly! Like Mom’s albums crammed with snapshots, clippings, mementos of long-forgotten occasions: each item was precious as each moment in our lives is precious but there was too much, you felt the terror of falling.

  “Could be a year, maybe.”

  “Year…?”

  “Before the trial.”

  “I…I see.”

  What was this insipid I see I kept repeating! This was no way of speaking natural to Nikki Eaton.

  “The D.A.’s office should be keeping you better informed, Nicole. It’s lucky I can intervene. I have taken a special interest in this case, see. ‘Gwendolyn Eaton’: I think of that lady a lot. I think that your mom was a wonderful decent special person and him, that piece of garbage, hurting her like he did, that upsets me pretty bad. I should be used to it by now. In theory, I am. I mean, I am a professional, don’t get me wrong! We don’t have a lot of violent crime in Mt. Ephraim, though. This is more what you’d get in Rochester or Buffalo. I never went into police work for any kind of glamour. You know, like on TV. It’s more like Cops, on TV. That kind of routine. Mostly you follow procedure, it’s familiar. I’m a detective for any kind of case needing to be investigated, not just homicide. We have like one homicide in five years! What I hate is being the bearer of bad news. I wish I could be the bearer of good news for once! To people like you, Nicole, and your sister. When I signed up for the police academy, after the army, this was in ’85, I’d been influenced by a thing that happened in my uncle’s family. Not to go into details, but there was a violent crime. This was over in Lackawanna. And there was a death, of somebody who deserved better. And this detective, in the Lackawanna PD, was instrumental in helping us through it. I mean, his spiritual person, not just his police work. He was a professional but it went beyond that. Helping people through a bad time. You never know when you will need that kind of help. Thank God if there is somebody who can give it. I vowed I would be of that type. I mean, I would try. It doesn’t always work out, people don’t always want you. And things get screwed up. It’s nobody’s fault, the way the courts are. ‘Criminal justice system’—it’s a lottery. I’m kind of clumsy, I guess. I can see I’m embarrassing you. Hell, I’m embarrassing myself. I need to leave you alone, I guess. You will want to call your sister probably. You will want to commiserate. But the trial will be all right. There’s no bail for Lynch, he’ll stay where he is. After the trial, he’ll be shipped to Attica. ‘Death Row.’ I vow that. Whatever I can do, I will. We’ve got the evidence, it’s airtight. You don’t argue with DNA. You don’t argue with so many witnesses. We will get justice for your mom, Nicole. I vow!”

  Strabane’s face had darkened with blood. His eyes shone with a startling lustre. I stared at him, astonished at this outburst. In his left eyelid a tiny nerve twitched.

  “Hey. I’m sorry, Nicole—Ms. Eaton. Got carried away.”

  Strabane stood, embarrassed. He looked like a man who has stepped into an empty elevator shaft and is still falling.

  Shakily, I got to my feet. For a fleeting moment I felt that Strabane might grip my hand, to help me up. If he thought that I was feeling weak or light-headed.

  If he’d touched me, his hand would have closed tight over mine.

  I knew this. The sensation was so powerful, afterward I would feel that it had happened.

  Strabane asked me if I had any questions. He wasn’t eager to leave but clearly it was time. I wanted him gone yet as I walked him to the door I heard myself ask, as if casually: “Why are evil people ‘stupid,’ Mr. Strabane? Why do you think so?”

  Strabane blinked at this. As if I’d reached out and poked him.

  I knew, I should have called him Detective.

  He said, sucking at his lower lip, “Well. ’Cause they don’t know how they hurt other people? They’re missing a part of their brain that would let them know.”

  “You’re sure of this.”

  “Ma’am, I’m not sure of anything, much. But this has been my experience, I think.”

  “You don’t believe in ‘evil,’ then.”

  “Like ‘good and evil’? Like, God?” Strabane laughed uneasily, running a hand through his bristly-porcupine hair. I wondered, if I came to know this man better, would I dare tease him about this hair; or would I find it weirdly attractive. I wondered if there were women who found Ross Strabane weirdly attractive.

  He was saying, “Hey, I don’t know! I’m not—what’s it—‘theological.’ That’s a total different line of thinking from mine. I see what’s to be done, and I do it. I see connections between things, to relate how they make sense. If I look back, it’s to look forward. To see where to go next. My thought about guys like Lynch is, like Hitler, or some terrorist blowing up innocent people, if they could feel it, the way you or I would feel it, the actual hurt they do to other people, they wouldn’t do it. They would not commit their crimes. That, I believe.”

  It was an amazing speech, from Strabane. I had no wish to argue with him. In a way, I wanted to believe that he was right.
/>
  On his way out, Strabane fumbled to hand me his card.

  “Call any time, Ms. Eaton. Day or night. If you need me, or—just to talk.”

  Just to talk! I would pretend I hadn’t heard this.

  As the detective walked away I saw a glaring red Post-it stuck to the back of his wrinkled sport coat.

  DETECTIVE ROSS J. STRABANE

  MT. EPRHRAIM POLICE DEPARTMENT

  TEL: (716)722-4186 EXT. 31

  HOME: (716)817-9934 817-6649

  Cell (716) 999-6871

  Strabane must have forgotten he’d already given me his card. I had no idea what I’d done with it. Vaguely I recalled crossed-out numbers on the previous card and wondered if these were identical, or new. Like Wally Szalla, Ross Strabane had the harried look of a man between addresses. Unlike Wally Szalla, Ross Strabane hadn’t the look of a man for whom women are waiting to love in the night.

  I held the card between my fingers debating what to do with it.

  “As if I’d ever call you.”

  In the end I tossed it into the kitchen drawer with Mom’s accumulation of business cards, expired cat food coupons, ragged old grocery lists. I knew she’d have wished this.

  blaming mom

  why Mom? why Mom? why did you Mom? tell us why Mom? why you are not to blame Mom? because you are to blame! you are! YOU ARE TO BLAME! no one but you Mom! you, you are to blame! you brought him here! you brought him into your life! you brought him into our lives! you trusted him! you trusted everyone! you caused this! how can we forgive you! why Mom? why Mom? weren’t we enough for you Mom? you are to blame for what happened! what happened to you! what happened to us! you are to blame! you are to blame! you! you! no one else! Mom, why? Mom, why? why? why Mom? why Mom? WHY MOM? WHY MOM? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

  part three

  broken pieces

  This was the season, people said, that Nikki Eaton broke into pieces. To me, it felt like the season I put myself together, stronger than I’d been.

  The first thing Smoky did in his old house was to flop down on the kitchen floor in a patch of sunshine and roll over excitedly, showing his splotched-white tummy. His big-jowled face flashed from side to side and his tawny eyes glowed in unspeakable cat-ecstasy.

  The second thing, Smoky scrambled to his feet and investigated the corner of the kitchen beside the refrigerator, where his food bowls had always been set out, on neatly folded sheets of newspaper. These were missing, but I would soon replace them.

  The third thing Smoky did was to explore the house, cautiously. Peering into each room with his tawny-quizzical eyes, tail and ears pricked up, looking for someone who wasn’t there.

  maybe?

  Mornings waking in my old bed. In my old room. That Mom had transformed into a guest room. (Actually, I’d been the most frequent guest in this room.) Opening my eyes to see not the patchwork of rock star posters (the guys at crotch-level) and disintegrating cork bulletin board (tacked-up snapshots, clippings from the school paper bearing the byline Nikki Eaton, mementos of trips, dried wildflowers) and whirlwind of clothes, papers, books through which paths would have to be cleared from time to time, but, as in a dream in which years have passed within a few seconds, an “adult” room! Allowing me to know My God I must be an adult.

  Though it never seemed very convincing.

  Smoky slept with me. Smoky was lonely at night and not so bossy as during the day. Leaping up onto the bed with his grunt of a meow, settling at the foot of the bed on my feet, or, better yet, snuggling close beside my left side, or, with a grunting purr, onto my chest.

  “Just don’t smother me, Smoky. Promise?”

  A twenty-pound cat on your chest, oh my.

  When a twenty-pound cat decides to wash himself, licking every swath of fur with his deft rough tongue, rubbing behind his ears with his chunky paws, and this can go on for ten long minutes, oh my.

  But how happy I was, sleeping. The “grief counsellor” to whom I’d gone for a single session spoke of depression taking many forms and one of those forms exhaustion and a wish to sleepsleepsleep which seemed to me a very good idea except: “How?”

  That was before I’d moved back to 43 Deer Creek Drive. That was before I’d moved back into my old room. That was before I’d called the district attorney’s office to inquire (I was calm, I was polite, Mom would have been proud of me) if my mother Gwendolyn Eaton had been, in addition to being murdered, “sexually assaulted,” and was informed that the medical examiner’s report had not noted “sexual assault.” And I was suddenly happy, hearing this.

  Happy when waking in my old bed, I mean. Happy, as Smoky lapsed into a wheezing sort of purr on my chest.

  For when you wake up in your old girlhood bed there is a sweet bubble of no-time when you might be fourteen, or eight, or better yet four. In that luxury of thinking Nothing has happened yet. And maybe it won’t.

  squatter

  “Nikki! What have you done!”

  One weekday morning in July I was on the back terrace working with my laptop, trying to write a piece for the Beacon on a local sculptress that was already days overdue, when I heard my sister screaming before I saw her.

  “Nikki how could you! I let you out of my sight for a few days and you’ve moved the furniture back, the Post-its are gone, you’ve even bought new plants! New plants!”

  Clare had entered the house without warning. I’d had no idea she was coming. I’d called her a dozen times and left messages but she hadn’t answered. Now suddenly she’d turned up, screaming at me through the screened terrace door.

  For so long, Clare had avoided the house, and me. It was like her now to show up, indignant.

  It was like her to make me feel guilty. Damned if I would feel guilty.

  “Look, we’d let Mom’s plants die. No one watered them for weeks, all I’ve done is replace them.”

  “ ’Replace them’! Are you crazy! You can’t live here!”

  I was barefoot. I was dressed you might say casually. I hadn’t expected any visitors. I went to join Clare inside the house, where she was storming through the rooms.

  “Nikki, you’ve been unpacking boxes? These things we sorted through, I sorted through, I spent hours tagging, that need to be cleared out of the house? You’ve been unpacking? All that we did last month, to get the house ready to be sold, you’ve undone? I hate you.”

  I tried to calm Clare by touching her shoulder, and she threw my hand off in disgust. I hadn’t seen her in several weeks and was shocked at how puffy her eyes were, how middle-aged she’d become. There was a soft knob of flesh beneath her chin and her permed hair was looking limp in the muggy July air. I had to concede I hadn’t told Clare what I’d been doing; my feeling was, she’d abandoned the house and me, it was none of her business now.

  Nor had I told her about Strabane’s visit. My call to the district attorney’s office.

  I was saying hotly, “That isn’t true, Clare. I haven’t moved all the furniture back and I haven’t unpacked all the boxes. I brought some things over to Mom’s church, for their charity store in the basement. I’ve gotten rid of lots of things including most of Dad’s clothes and those old cane-bottomed chairs. If you’d looked more carefully instead of screaming at me—”

  Now Clare was truly incensed. I stepped back, anticipating a slap in the face.

  “Mom’s church? That church? That charlatan church, and that charlatan ‘reverend’? I told you, Nikki, we were taking Mom’s things to Good Will! I told you!”r />
  “Well, you weren’t here, Clare. You—”

  “We need to sell this house, Nikki. You know that, why are you behaving this way? This is an empty house, no one lives in this house, we must sell it.”

  “I live here, and so does Smoky.”

  Now it was as if I’d tossed a lighted match into a hornet’s hive.

  “You live here? You’ve moved in here?”

  “Not exactly. Not all my things. It’s just temporary, through the summer. Until—”

  “No! You have no right! This house belongs to both of us, Nikki! You’re squatting here! You’re a squatter, you’re crazy, and you’re going to drive me crazy!”

  Clare ran outside onto the front lawn. I had to realize how upset my sister was, running outside where any of our neighbors could see us, and hear us quarreling. The color was up in her face, she’d become an incensed schoolteacher challenged by a classroom of rowdy students. When she dropped her car keys in the grass we both stooped to retrieve them, and when I handed the keys to her Clare snatched them from my fingers and shoved me away with the flat of her hand.

  “Go away! Get out of here! Go back to Chautauqua Falls! You have your own life, Nikki, save it.”

  messages

  The phone began to ring frequently. You’d have thought that Gwen Eaton was still living here. Sometimes I answered, and sometimes I did not. Messages accumulated.

  Mt. Ephraim was such a small town, everyone knew everyone else and quickly it had become known that Nikki Eaton had moved back into her family house. Relatives called, a few friends called, Wally Szalla called and so did my brother-in-law Rob Chisholm.