“Of course I’m listening.”
“So you’ll be coming by the house, then?”
I thought we were talking about what I should wear…Sarah scrambled to figure out what her mother had been saying.
“You mean bring him by?” she finally asked.
“I’m sure your father would like to meet him.”
“Well… I don’t know if we’ll have time.”
“But you just said that you weren’t even sure of what you were going to do yet.” “We’ll see, Mom. But don’t make any special plans, because I can’t guarantee it.”
There was a long pause on the other end. “Oh,” she said. Then, trying another tack: “I was just thinking that I’d like to at least have a chance to say hello.”
Sarah began sorting through the mail again. “I can’t guarantee anything. Like you said, I’d hate to ruin anything he might have planned. You can understand that, right?”
“Oh, I suppose,” she said, obviously disappointed. “But even if you can’t make it, you’ll call me to let me know how it went, right?”
“Yes, Mom, I’ll call.”
“And I hope you have a good time.”
“I will.”
“But nottoo good a time-”
“I understand,” Sarah said cutting her off.
“I mean, it is yourfirst date-”
“I understand, Mom,” Sarah said, more forcefully this time. “Well… all right, then.” She sounded almost relieved. “I guess I’ll let you go, then. Unless there’s something else you’d like to talk about.” “No, I think we’ve covered most everything.”
Somehow, even after that, the conversation lasted for another ten minutes.
***
Later that night, after Jonah had gone to sleep, Miles popped an old videotape into the VCR and settled back, watching Missy and Jonah frolic in the surf near Fort Macon. Jonah was still a toddler then, no older than three, and he loved nothing more than to play with his trucks on the makeshift roads that Missy smoothed with her hands. Missy was twenty-six years old-in her blue bikini, she looked more like a college student than the mother she was. In the film, she motioned for Miles to put aside the videocamera and come play with them, but on that morning, he remembered he was more interested in simply observing. He liked to watch them together; he liked the way it made him feel, knowing that Missy loved Jonah in a way that he had never experienced. His own parents hadn’t been so affectionate. They weren’t bad people, they just weren’t comfortable expressing emotion, even to their own child; and with his mother deceased and his father off traveling, he felt almost as if he’d never known them at all. Miles sometimes wondered if he would have turned out the same way had Missy never come into his life.
Missy began digging a hole with a small plastic shovel a few feet from the water’s edge, then started using her hands to speed things up. On her knees, she was the same height as Jonah, and when he saw what she was doing, he stood alongside her, motioning and pointing, like an architect in the early stages of building. Missy smiled and talked to him-the sound, however, was muffled by the endless roar of the waves-and Miles couldn’t understand what they were saying to each other. The sand came out in clumps, piled around her as she dug deeper, and after a while she motioned for Jonah to get in the hole. With his knees pulled up to his chest, he fit-just barely, but enough-and Missy started filling in the sand, pushing and leveling it around Jonah’s small body. Within minutes he was covered up to his neck: a sand turtle with a little boy’s head poking out the top.
Missy added more sand here and there, covering his arms and fingers. Jonah wiggled his fingers, causing some sand to fall away, and Missy tried again. As she was putting the final handfuls in place, Jonah did the same thing, and Missy laughed. She put a clump of wet sand on his head and he stopped moving. She leaned in and kissed him, and Miles watched his lips form the words: “I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you, too,” she mouthed in return. Knowing Jonah would sit quietly for a few minutes, Missy turned her attention to Miles.
He’d said something to her, and she smiled-again, the words were lost. In the background, over her shoulder, there were only a few other people in view. It was only May, a week before the crowds arrived in full force, and a weekday, if he remembered correctly. Missy glanced from side to side and stood. She put one hand on her hip, the other behind her head, looking at him through half-open eyes, sultry and lascivious. Then she dropped the pose, laughed again as if embarrassed, and came toward him. She kissed the camera lens. The tape ended there.
These tapes were precious to Miles. He kept them in a fireproof box he’d bought after the funeral; he’d watched them all a dozen times. In them, Missy was alive again; he could see her moving, he could listen to the sound of her voice. He could hear her laugh again.
Jonah didn’t watch the tapes and never had. Miles doubted he even knew about them, since he’d been so young when most of them were made. Miles had stopped filming after Missy had died, for the same reason he’d stopped doing other things. The effort was too much. He didn’t want to remember anything from the period of his life immediately following her death.
He wasn’t sure why he’d felt the urge to watch the tapes this evening. It might have been because of Jonah’s comment earlier, it might have had to do with the fact that tomorrow would bring something new into his life for the first time in what seemed like forever. No matter what happened with Sarah in the future, things were changing. He was changing.
Why, though, did it seem so frightening?
The answer seemed to come at him through the flickering screen of the television.
Maybe, it seemed to be saying, it was because he’d never found out what had really happened to Missy.
Chapter 10
Missy Ryan’s funeral was held on a Wednesday morning at the Episcopal church in downtown New Bern. The church could seat nearly five hundred people, but it wasn’t large enough. People were standing and some had crowded around the outside doors, paying their respects from the nearest spot they could. I remember that it had begun to rain that morning. It wasn’t a hard rain, but it was steady, the kind of late summer rain that cools the earth and breaks the humidity. Mist floated just above the ground, ethereal and ghostlike; small puddles formed in the street. I watched as a parade of black umbrellas, held by people dressed in black, slowly moved forward, as if the mourners were walking in the snow.
I saw Miles Ryan sitting erect in the front row of the church. He was holding Jonah’s hand. Jonah was only five at the time, old enough to understand that his mother had died, but not quite old enough to understand that he would never see her again. He looked more confused than sad. His father sat tight-lipped and pale as one person after another came up to him, offering a hand or a hug. Though he seemed to have difficulty looking directly at people, he neither cried nor shook. I turned away and made my way to the back of the church. I said nothing to him.
I’ll never forget the smell, the odor of old wood and burning candles, as I sat in the back row. Someone played softly on a guitar near the altar. A lady sat beside me, followed a moment later by her husband. In her hand she held a wad of tissues, which she used to dab at the corners of her eyes. Her husband rested his hand on her knee, his mouth set in a straight line. Unlike the vestibule, where people were still coming in, in the church it was silent, except for the sounds of people sniffling. No one spoke; no one seemed to know what to say. It was then that I felt as if I were going to vomit.
I fought back my nausea, feeling the sweat bead on my forehead. My hands felt clammy and useless. I didn’t want to be there. I hadn’t wanted to come. More than anything, I wanted to get up and leave.
I stayed.
Once the service started, I found it difficult to concentrate. If you ask me today what the reverend said, or what Missy’s brother said in his eulogy, I couldn’t tell you. I remember, however, that the words didn’t comfort me. All I could think about was that Missy Ryan shouldn’t have died. After the service, there was a long procession to Cedar Grove Cemetery; it was escorted by what I assumed was every sheriff and police officer in the county. I waited until most everyone started their cars, then finally pulled into the line, following the car directly in front of me. Headlights were turned on. Like a robot, I turned mine on, too.
As we drove, the rain began to fall harder. My wipers pushed the rain from side to side.
The cemetery was only a few minutes away.
People parked, umbrellas opened, people sloshed through puddles again, converging from every direction. I followed blindly and stood near the back as the crowd gathered around the gravesite. I saw Miles and Jonah again; they stood with their heads bowed, the rain drenching them. The pallbearers brought the coffin to the grave, surrounded by hundreds of bouquets. I thought again that I didn’t want to be there. I shouldn’t have come. I don’t belong here.
But I did.
Driven by compulsion, I’d had no choice. I needed to see Miles, needed to see Jonah.
Even then, I knew that our lives would be forever intertwined.
I had to be there, you see.
I was, after all, the one who’d been driving the car.
Chapter 11
Friday brought the first truly crisp air of autumn. In the morning, light frost had dusted every grassy patch; people saw their breath as they climbed in their cars to go to work. The oaks and the dogwoods and the magnolias had yet to begin their slow turn toward red and orange and now, with the day winding down, Sarah watched the sunlight filtering through the leaves, casting shadows along the pavement.
Miles would be here before long, and she’d been thinking about it on and off all day. With three messages on her answering machine, she knew her mother had been thinking about it as well-a little too much, in Sarah’s opinion. Her mother had rambled on and on, leaving-it seemed to Sarah-no stone unturned. “About tonight, don’t forget to bring a jacket. You don’t want to catch pneumonia. With this chill, it’s possible, you know,” began one, and from there it went on to offer all sorts of interesting advice, from not wearing too much makeup or fancy jewelry “so he won’t get the wrong impression,” to making sure the nylons that Sarah was wearing didn’t have any runs in them (“Nothing looks worse, you know”). The second message began by backtracking to the first and sounded a little more frantic, as if her mother knew she was running out of time to dispense the worldly wisdom she’d accumulated over the years: “When I said jacket, I meant something classy. Something light. I know you might get cold, but you want to look nice. And for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t wear that big long green one you’re so fond of. It may be warm, but it’s ugly as sin…” When she heard her mother’s voice on the third message, this timereally frantic as she described the importance of reading the newspaper “so you’ll have something to talk about,” Sarah simply hit the delete button without bothering to listen to the rest of it.
She had a date to get ready for.
***
Through the window an hour later, Sarah saw Miles coming around the corner with a long box under his arm. He paused for a moment, as if he were making sure he was in the right place, then opened the downstairs door and vanished inside. As she heard him climb the stairs, she smoothed the black cocktail dress she’d agonized over while deciding what to wear, then opened the door. “Hey there… am I late?”
Sarah smiled. “No, you’re right on time. I saw you coming up.”
Miles took a deep breath. “You look beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you.” She motioned toward the box. “Is that for me?”
He nodded as he handed her the box. Inside were six yellow roses.
“There’s one for every week you’ve been working with Jonah.”
“That’s sweet,” she said sincerely. “My mom will be impressed.”
“Your mom?”
She smiled. “I’ll tell you about her later. C’mon in while I find something to put these in.”
Miles stepped inside and took a quick glance around her apartment. It was charming-smaller than he thought it would be, but surprisingly homey, and most of the furniture blended well with the place. There was a comfortable-looking couch framed in wood, end tables with an almost fashionable fade to the stain, a nicked-up glider rocker in the corner beneath a lamp that looked a hundred years old-even the patchwork quilt thrown over the back of the chair looked like something from the last century.
In the kitchen, Sarah opened the cupboard above the sink, pushed aside a couple of bowls, and pulled down a small crystal vase, which she filled with water. “This is a nice place you’ve got,” he said.
Sarah looked up. “Thanks. I like it.”
“Did you decorate it yourself?”
“Pretty much. I brought some things from Baltimore, but once I saw all the antique stores, I decided to replace most of it. There are some great places around here.”
Miles ran his hand along an old rolltop desk near the window, then pushed aside the curtains to peek out. “Do you like living downtown?” From the drawer, Sarah pulled out a pair of scissors and started angling the bottoms of the stems. “Yeah, but I’ll tell you, the commotion around here keeps me up all night long. All those crowds, those people screaming and fighting, partying until dawn. It’s amazing that I ever get to sleep at all.” “That quiet, huh?”
She arranged the flowers in the vase, one by one. “This is the first place I’ve ever lived where everybody seems to be in bed by nine o’clock. It’s like a ghost town down here as soon as the sun goes down, but I’ll bet that makes your job pretty easy, huh?”
“To be honest, it doesn’t really affect me. Except for eviction notices, my jurisdiction ends at the town limits. I generally work in the county.” “Running those speed traps that the South is famous for?” she asked playfully.