Missing Mom: A Novel Page 23

  “I thought I smelled home-baked bread…”

  “More like home-baked lead.”

  Wally stroked the back of my head, my tense shoulders. In his arms he gently rocked me. “I didn’t think this was a very good idea, Nikki. For you to move into your mother’s house in this way, and for you to invite me here tonight. On the phone, you’ve been sounding—well, too ‘upbeat.’ And I’ve heard about the trial. I mean, that there will be a trial. God damn!”

  I drew back to look at Wally. My face felt stung, as if he’d slapped me.

  “But—who told you?”

  Wally shrugged. Silly of me to ask. Wasn’t he Wally Szalla, one of a network of individuals, primarily men, whose business it was to know.

  Szalla. In the Chautauqua Valley, the very name vibrated with significance. I had to wonder if, in my wish to become Mrs. Wally Szalla, there wasn’t a childish wish to acquire some part of that significance.

  But I loved Wally, too. This kindly/sexy man. So elusive, even when he was with me. Like the gravelly-voiced host of “Night Train” sounding so lonely, you wanted to cradle him in your arms.

  Except, since I’d opened the front door to Wally, there’d been strain between us. A charged feeling as in the air before an electrical storm. I’d been wanting to think that the sensation was sexual, purely erotic: we hadn’t laid hands on each other in so long.

  But now it seemed, this sensation might be springing from the house itself.

  “Wally, I want you here! I’m not thinking about the trial, or—anything. I’m thinking about you. I want you to spend the night, I’ve been missing you. I…” Wanting to say I love you. But the words stuck in my throat.

  “Nikki, are you sure? Tonight?”

  “Yes!”

  We tried again. Outside the screened window, nocturnal insects were singing in a quivering web of sound. Frantic coupling, mating. From somewhere in Deer Creek Acres, the beat/beat/beat of rock music humping through backyards. I shut my eyes thinking Upbeat: I’ll give you upbeat, mister. Thinking Kiss! must kiss! even as the curiosity of kiss struck me for the first time: what a weird custom. Was kiss natural, or acquired? A ritual? I must’ve learned kiss from TV and movies. Deep kiss I’d certainly never witnessed in Deer Creek Acres.

  Wally was perspiring, a burlier man than I’d recalled. Hugging him, I was reminded of one of the last times I’d hugged Mom: the startling slackness of her formerly trim body, small pads of flesh at her waist, and in her upper back. But Mom had been a petite woman, compared to Wally Szalla who was twice her size.

  Wally was fumbling to pull off my shirt. (Why hadn’t I shaved under my arms, when I’d showered earlier that day? And my legs were so carelessly shaved, the swirling pattern of tiny brown bristles looked like some avant-garde Braille.) My fingers worked to unbutton Wally’s shirt. (Why did Wally Szalla insist upon wearing long-sleeved white cotton dress shirts in the muggy summer of upstate New York? Why did the man never wear comfortable sports clothes, like shorts? And what is the protocol of removing a man’s shirt for him, are you expected to unbutton the ridiculous little cuff-buttons, too? A riddle!) As we were kissing I had a flash of how, years ago, not in this room but down the hall in the TV room, thinking that my Mom and Dad were equally involved in a front-yard conversation with neighbors, my high school boyfriend Dick Gurski and I were stealthily making out while ostensibly watching a PBS documentary on the Civil War, and just as Dick shoved his clumsy hand beneath my shirt to clamp onto my cotton-bra-breast, and shoved his clumsy tongue into my mouth, there came a rush of footsteps in the hall and my father’s indignant uplifted voice in the doorway: Ex-cuse me? Am I interrupting something here?

  Again I laughed. I was shivering, and laughing.

  Wally said, hurt, “Nikki. Really, you don’t want me here.”

  “But I…”

  “Not here. Not now.”

  With as much dignity as he could summon, flush-faced and breathing through his mouth like a winded dog, Wally heaved himself up out of our tangled embrace, that must have looked, from the doorway, like a cubist sculpture of misaligned heads and limbs. Wally shoved his arms into the shirtsleeves he’d just worked his way out of, and began to button the shirt, but crookedly, so that, wiping tears from my face, I had to stop his fingers, and make the correction. We hadn’t gotten around to pulling off Wally’s trousers, only just his hemp belt, that had fallen to the floor to tangle about his feet like a mischievous snake.

  So funny! Mortification and regret would come later for me, that night.

  As with my boyfriend Dick Gurski, with whom I’d broken up soon after that terrible scene, mortification and regret had been immediate, and laughter much later.

  “Wally! I’m sorry.”

  I wondered if it was too late to suggest going out to dinner, after all? One of our romantic inns on the Chautauqua River? The mood Wally was in, scowling and panting, I guessed maybe not.

  I followed Wally into the hall, clutching at his arm. He was too gentlemanly to throw off my hand as I knew he’d have liked to. Ahead of us was a frantic scuttling, a furry gray shape fleeing into the shadows. I heard my lover mutter under his breath, exasperated: “Damn cat I could wring its neck.”

  In this way our lovers’ tryst in the house at 43 Deer Creek Drive ended much earlier than we’d expected: not yet 10 P.M.

  He would call me in the morning, Wally said.

  He’d brought two bottles of our favorite Chianti, and when he left, I asked him please to take the second, unopened bottle with him, not to leave it with me that night.

  I’d caught up with him at the curb, where he’d parked the chunky tarnished-brass Buick. Why a man with Wally Szalla’s money drove such a car was a riddle, you’d think.

  Unless Wally Szalla didn’t have all that much money? There were hints.

  Now we were out of the house, and now it had been decided, no man would be sleeping in my “girlhood bed” that night, we were slightly calmer. Wally was saying how his day had been long, complicated and exhausting, and I was saying how since I’d be driving to Chautauqua Falls early next week, to drop by the Beacon office, I could see Wally then?

  “Sounds good, Nikki. Yes.”

  We kissed. We were sleepy, strangely exhausted. As after a strenuous lovemaking.

  The subdivision of Deer Creek Acres had no streetlights. On moonless nights like tonight it was alarmingly dark. Lawns that by day were vivid neatly tended patches of green resembled tar pits by night. The only lights were from houses, and some of these were set back from the road, obscured by trees and overgrown bushes. Few vehicles passed. When Wally switched on his headlights swaths of light sprang out onto the shadowy pavement.

  The house where the lady was murdered was also the house where Gwen Eaton had lived, and her family had lived with her, and their memories of the house were happy ones, and did not deserve to be obliterated. The house was my house now and I would not shun it, as I would not shun my mother. I wanted to explain these things to Wally Szalla because he was my lover but more than this, I wanted Wally Szalla to know, without my needing to explain.

  As I wanted him to know that I loved him, without my needing to explain.

  A final time we kissed, through the car window. Our mouths tasted of wine. I stood in the road watching Wally drive away. Winking red lights disappearing from Deer Creek Acres. I’d lifted my arm to wave, not that Wally could have seen. Now I would be lonely, oh God.

  I felt a nudge against my ankles, there was Smoky pushing his furry head against me. Petulantly he mewed Come back inside! What are you doing out here! You have me don’t you!

  Aug 5, 2004

  Dear Ms. Nicole Eaton,

  I have been thinking about our conversation and want to tell you how sorry I am that I would seem to you the “bearer of bad news.” I know this is my work and it is expected of me, a homicide detective as I am, but it does not make my work easier to bring bad news to those who have had too much bad news already and who do not deserve mor
e.

  Here I will enclose my card if you have lost the other. Remember you can call me any time day or night at these numbers. (The “home” number has been changed. The cell phone is the same.)

  Yours sincerely

  Det. Ross Strabane

  Det. Ross Strabane, Mt. Ephraim Police

  August 13, 2004

  Dear Ms. Nicole Eaton,

  On the card I sent to you last week, I forgot to include my home address. This is a permanent address now: 3817 North Fork Road, Mt. Ephraim

  Tel. number & cell unchanged.

  I understand (I think) why you have moved back into your old house. It is something I might also do, I mean in such circumstances.

  There is a patrol in Dear Creek Acres now, you have probably noticed. But still you should keep all doors and windows locked esp. at night but it is advised during the day also, even in that neighborhood. Also, keep your cell phone close by, and in the car when you are driving. There is not likely to be anything to happen but you “never know.”

  Remember that I am your friend, you can call day or night. I want to stress that this is “professional” only. Some cases are special to detectives and this is, to me. I wish that I could help you and your family in some way beyond just the promise that “justice will be done” sometime soon.

  Sincerely,

  Det. Ross Strabane

  Det. Ross Strabane, Mt. Ephraim Police

  emergency!

  Fell and hit my head on the pavement. Fell off the bike’s pedals and somehow my legs got tangled in the pedals. Oh it happened so fast before I had time to draw my breath to scream. Somehow, my right leg was trapped in the spinning pedal, somehow I was dragged along the pavement for several desperate yards before toppling in a soft broken heap, not just my forehead was bleeding but my right knee through a tear in my jeans and the skin from that knee hanging in shreds, and I was too shocked at first to scream and the breath knocked out of me and it was several seconds before I was able to call Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!

  Could have been killed. Could have cracked your skull open. Could have fallen beneath the wheels of a car. Could have died right there on Deer Creek Drive in front of your house that afternoon in August 1984, aged eleven.

  If Mom hadn’t been home. If Mom hadn’t heard me. If Mom hadn’t been around the side of the house gardening. If Mom hadn’t come running. If Mom hadn’t had the car that day, to drive me to the emergency room.

  Oh it happened so fast: I’d been showing off.

  No one was watching but I’d been showing off.

  Riding my bike in the showy reckless way the boys rode theirs. Not sitting on the bicycle seat but standing on the pedals to make the pedals turn with more strength, to propel the bicycle faster. You stand on the pedals rising and falling with the swift turn of the pedals and it’s an excited feeling; a thrill in the pit of the belly because you know it’s dangerous, you know you can fall, you know you can hurt yourself, rushing down the hill from Deer Creek Circle to Pine Ridge Road so fast the wind makes your eyes tear. And suddenly—

  Somehow my foot slipped. Between the pedal and the bicycle frame my foot slipped, and my ankle was caught, I was dragged along the pavement as the heavy bicycle came crashing down onto me slamming my head against something hard. And I drew breath to scream in pain and shock and there came Mom to crouch over me her face drained of blood looking like a porcelain face finely cracked that might shatter into pieces except Mom’s hand pressed against my bleeding forehead was cool and calm and her voice quavered yet was calm Nikki you’ll be all right honey, Nikki don’t be afraid we’ll take care of you Mom would murmur such words to me to comfort me as I sobbed in terror as blood poured from a three-inch gash in my forehead Nikki it’s just a little cut honey, it hurts but it isn’t serious honey, we’ll take care of you, don’t be afraid honey wrapping my bleeding head in her sweater, tugging to extricate me from the twisted bicycle, and then half-lifting me in her arms, trying to set me on my feet but I was too weak and frightened to walk so Mom managed to lift me to carry me to the car, hoist me into her arms though I was nearly her size and Mom weighed hardly more than one hundred pounds and we were in the car, I was sprawled in the passenger’s seat slipping out of consciousness as Mom drove us to the hospital, two miles to Mt. Ephraim General, to the emergency room driving as fast as she could, braking at corners, skidding and accelerating and at the hospital sounding her horn loud and frantic and screaming for help as the car rocked to a stop in front of the automatic sliding-glass doors and as attendants rushed out to us shouting Help! help us! my daughter is bleeding from a head wound and I was lifted by strangers and borne away half-conscious uncertain where I was, what was happening to me, carried into a brightly lighted place and made to lie flat on a table and the blood-soaked material of my torn jeans scissored away to expose the shredded flesh at my knee and there was blood in my eyes, there was blood on my lips, blood soaking my cotton pullover, you would think that blood is warm but this blood was cold, the dampness was cold, I was shivering so hard my teeth chattered as my wounds were cleansed and stitched as if at a distance, I could hear voices at a distance, I could see the faces of strangers at a distance leaning over me and time must have passed, I must have fallen asleep because I was being wakened, called Nikki by strangers Nikki wake up your mother is here to take you home and there was Mom smiling though looking exhausted and her clothes were stained with something dark, Mom and one of the young nurses helping me to hobble out to the car, marveling what a good, brave girl I was, four stitches in my forehead and seven in my knee and a tetanus shot and a painkiller pill and my head swathed with white gauze and adhesive like the head of a mummy and in the car driving home Mom kept glancing at me, touching my hair, my hand, groping to squeeze my hand in her fingers that were strangely cold You’re safe now Nikki, God has spared us this time.

  teasing mom

  Twenty years later I would remember: how Mom had lifted me in her arms. How Mom had carried me to the car, and driven the car to the hospital. How Mom had remained calm. How she’d managed to calm me. How at the entrance to the emergency room she’d leaned on the horn, she’d shouted for help, she’d been fierce in a way I had never seen her. And how, as soon as we returned home, as soon as it was determined that I hadn’t been seriously hurt, Mom became, well—Mom again.

  At the time, I hadn’t realized. Only now. Twenty years later.

  As the story of how Nikki fell from her bike and how Mom took her to the hospital was told, told and retold, in the way of family anecdotes, it would develop that Nikki had been “showing off” out in the street and in the hospital while waiting for her to be “stitched up” Mom and the emergency room receptionist had discovered they’d been neighbors back on Spalding Street as girls, the receptionist had been a year ahead of Gwen in junior high, in ninth grade she’d run away to Buffalo with an older boy and eventually she’d gotten married (though not to that boy, to someone else) and had children and gotten divorced and returned to Mt. Ephraim with her children and had been working at Mt. Ephraim General for years and living a few blocks from the hospital and on, and on. As Mom recounted the utterly ordinary life of her old girlfriend Elise Czekaj, Mom’s face took on a curious childlike glow of enthusiasm; until Dad would interrupt with a wink, to say, “Well! Poor Nikki was worried her mother had forgotten her, being stitched up like a mummy while Gwen was gabbing away with an old female friend. I’d say Nikki was lucky her mother didn’t drive home without her, having totally forgotten her.”

  And Mom would blush, and laugh. Shake her head in protest: No!

  Eventually, as the tale was told and retold, Nikki too would join in. At the point at which I was being “stitched up” (somehow, this expression makes people smile) I might interrupt, in the way of a sly tease, to say, “And when I came out of the emergency room, all bandaged up, there was Mom talking with this dyed-beehive-haired fat woman at the receptionist’s desk, and Mom squinted around at me like, almost, she didn’t want to be inte
rrupted, she’d gotten so involved with ‘Elise,’ catching up on thirty years of gossip, so I said, ‘Mom? You didn’t forget me, did you?’ and Mom said, embarrassed-like, ‘Nikki, no. But, goodness, what have you done to your head?’”

  This was silly. This was preposterous. But everyone would laugh. And Mom would blush, and flail her hands, and laugh in protest: “Nikki, what a thing to say! It wasn’t like that at all, and you know it.”

  We knew, we must have known. I knew, and Clare knew, and Dad knew. And our Eaton relatives knew. Except we laughed. And Mom laughed. And blushed with pleasure, being teased.

  If they tease me, if they laugh at me they love me. For I am only just Gwen, to be teased.

  rose of remembrance

  They were the happiest couple.

  They were the most blessed couple.

  They wanted to share their news with me: I would be the first in all the world to know.

  They brought a blooming yellow rose tree—“Rose of Remembrance”—in a clay pot, in honor of my mother who’d introduced them to each other in this very house.

  “Exactly twelve weeks ago, it was. ‘Mother’s Day.’”

  “It was meant to be, Sonny and me. Mrs. Aiten knew. Oh, your mother, in her heart she was so wise.”

  Sonja Szyszko and Sonny Danto. A couple!

  Holding hands, their faces suffused with joy. Sonja’s face was powdery-white, Sonny’s face was oily-dark. Both were smiling so radiantly I involuntarily took a step back from the doorway.

  My first impulse was to quickly shut the door. Run away and hide. Not just I wasn’t expecting visitors but I didn’t want visitors. Not just I wasn’t answering my phone but I’d unplugged it.