Swallowing Stones

by Joyce McDonald

  Somewhere in the distance, she heard her mother’s voice, felt a hand gently shaking her shoulder.

  Jenna felt as if she were caught between two worlds. She struggled to answer the voice, but it was as if she were underwater and trying to talk to someone on the surface.

  Someone was rocking Jenna back and forth. In the dream it was Amy who, more persistent than ever, was pushing her forward. But it was her mother’s voice that Jenna kept hearing. She tried to open her eyes. Her lids ached with the effort.

  “Jen?”

  Jenna forced her eyes open and blinked.

  Her mother was sitting on the edge of her bed. “I heard you cry out. I thought something was wrong.”

  “I did?” Jenna’s tongue felt thick.

  “Were you having a bad dream?”

  Jenna closed her eyes and once again saw her father waving to her from beneath the Ghost Tree. “Yes. A bad dream.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head. “I’m okay.” Still disoriented, she began to massage her eyes. “What are you doing up?”

  Her mother shrugged. “I was watching an old movie.” She stared into the dimly lit hallway. “I don’t seem to be sleeping very well these days.”

  Jenna didn’t know what to say. So she simply put her hand on her mother’s.

  Meredith patted Jenna’s hand and stood up. “I’d better try to get some rest. I’ve got two major meetings tomorrow morning.” She stopped in the doorway. “If you need to talk, though, just wake me, okay?”

  Jenna nodded. “Thanks.”

  Images of the dream continued to haunt her. So when she still hadn’t fallen asleep an hour later, she crept downstairs to make a cup of herbal tea. She turned on the light above the stove and put the water on to boil, all the while thinking about this latest dream.

  She rummaged through the numerous boxes of herbal tea, but nothing appealed to her. Instead she decided to make a cup of hot chocolate, although she could not have said why. Hot chocolate was for frosty nights. It was only early September.

  Minutes later, sitting at the oak table, watching the steam rise from her cup, inhaling the rich smell of chocolate, she had a sudden vision of a younger Jenna holding out a gloved hand to take a Thermos mug of steaming hot chocolate from her father. She closed her eyes, and suddenly she was eleven years old again. She could see the Ghost Tree up ahead just as it had looked on that day four years before, the bare, mottled white branches shooting skyward in the frosty evening, made even whiter by the snow.

  Her father had brushed the snow from the spot where three trunks grew out of a base that was as big around as a large kitchen table, making a seat for her. She had climbed into the tree and sat while he made a tent of bare branches and loose bark beneath a tight huddle of pine trees. The snow wasn’t at all deep there. And when he was finished building the small shelter, he placed alfalfa and apples inside.

  They had come to the Great Swamp to feed the animals, as they had every winter since she could remember. But this particular winter had been unusually harsh, and the deer were having a hard time finding food. Her father had wanted to create someplace sheltered to leave the apples and alfalfa so that if it snowed again, they wouldn’t get buried. It was almost sundown, and he was hurrying because he didn’t want them to be in the woods when it got dark.

  The cold had chapped her cheeks, and her fingers stung inside her wool gloves, even though she held the steaming cup of hot chocolate her father had given her. But there in the cradle of the tree, watching the fiery glow of the setting sun as it dipped below the horizon, Jenna had felt warm and happy.

  And later, as she and her father headed back to the car, he had told her the legend of the Ghost Tree. He said that no one really knew where it had come from. Some people claimed the Native Americans from the area, the Lenape tribe, had started the legend over three hundred years ago. The tree was that old. Even older, maybe.

  The Lenape supposedly believed it was a sacred place where you could communicate with the spirits of your ancestors. But no one had the slightest idea whether the legend was true or not, because it was the white settlers who had given the old sycamore the name Ghost Tree. Legends sometimes got mixed up that way.

  But her father had told her that according to the legend, if you spent the night in the cradle of the old sycamore, the spirits of your ancestors, all of them, from the beginning of time, would form circles around the tree, chanting their stories and sharing their wisdom with you as they danced through the night. It was, her father said, a place of healing.

  Jenna stared down at her hot chocolate. She had taken only one swallow, and now it was lukewarm. She thought of going back to bed, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. It was pointless to try to shut out the image of the Ghost Tree and the memories it had awakened. She wanted to understand why she was so haunted by this place. Because, in a strange way, she felt as if her life depended on it.

  the next morning Jenna was surprised to find her mother still at home. It was Friday, a few days before Labor Day, and her mother had said she had important meetings that morning. Jenna stood in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom, watching her fold a sweatsuit and put it in a large trash bag.

  The windows were open, and the curtains swelled like gently billowing sails in the breeze. She welcomed the sounds of the traffic below as they mingled with the chirping of birds, grateful that the house no longer had the mausoleum chill of central air-conditioning.

  “How come you’re still home?” she asked.

  When Meredith Ward looked over at her, Jenna saw that her eyes were puffy and wet. “I’m having a bad day.”

  “What about your meetings?”

  “I asked someone to fill in for me.”

  Jenna sat down at the foot of the bed.

  Her mother sat down next to her, clutching a sweater she had started to fold, and put her arm around her daughter. “It’s so hard,” she said. “So much harder than I ever imagined.”

  Jenna rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Maybe you could talk to somebody, a—” She had been about to say a minister, but suddenly felt like a hypocrite. Her own feelings about God were still all mixed up with her anger and resentment. Even now, weeks after the accident, when people tried to comfort her with idiotic statements, telling her that her father’s death was simply part of God’s plan, she wanted to grab them by the shoulders and shake them until their eyes popped out.

  She looked up at her mother’s face and for the first time realized how terribly lonely her mother must be. It wasn’t that she didn’t have friends; she did. She went shopping at the mall with them, or to shows, or out to dinner. In fact, it seemed at times that there was some kind of conspiracy between them to keep their widowed friend busy. But Jenna knew that her mother’s friends could never fill the void left by her father.

  Her mother wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the sweater. “My friends have been good listeners,” she said. A strand of damp hair clung to her cheek. She pushed it behind her ear and smiled. “And I have you.”

  Jenna lifted the balled-up sweater from her mother’s hands. It was a burgundy wool crewneck Jenna had given her father two Christmases ago. She could still see him putting the sweater on right over his bathrobe, as if he couldn’t wait to try it on. He had always made a big deal of her gifts.

  Jenna was suddenly aware of the piles of clothing stacked all over the room: on the bed, the dresser, and even the floor. A trash bag sat on the floor by her mother’s feet. “You’re not throwing Daddy’s things away, are you?” Jenna asked, alarmed.

  “I’m not throwing his things away,” her mother said. “I’m giving them away. To people who can use them. It’s better than having them collect dust in the closet, isn’t it?”

  Jenna stroked her father’s sweater as if it were a kitten curled up on her lap. She supposed giving her father’s clothes to charity was the right thing to do.

  She set the sweater back on the bed and wand
ered over to the walk-in closet. Her father’s suits and shirts still lined one entire wall. Two months had passed since the accident. Yet it had never occurred to her that there would come a time when they would be giving away his clothes. “What about all Daddy’s tools?” she asked. The workshop, his sacred space—were they going to pack that up, too?

  Even with her back to her mother, Jenna heard her heavy sigh. “Maybe Mr. Krebs next door will want some of them, or maybe his son,” she said. “Or I suppose we could have a yard sale or something.”

  Of course they wouldn’t keep the tools. What would they do with them? Still, the thought of some stranger using them made Jenna want to cry. Brushing back tears, she lifted two of the suits from the metal bar, carried them over to the bed, and began to fold them.

  “I think we should save the tools for a while.” She glanced over at her mother. “Who knows, maybe I’ll turn out to be pretty handy at fixing things. Maybe it’s hereditary or something.”

  Meredith gently ran her thumbs over Jenna’s damp cheeks. “I guess we could keep them for a while longer,” she agreed.

  Jenna suddenly remembered that she was supposed to meet Andrea. They were going to the pool later that morning. But somehow being here, packing up her father’s things, seemed more important. With each shirt she folded, with each sweater, with every pair of jeans, she found herself saying goodbye. Over and over, the silent goodbyes echoed in her heart, a goodbye to each and every thing, because she had never gotten the chance to say it on that fateful morning in July.

  20

  later that day, as Jenna and her mother were in the driveway loading up the Explorer with bags of Charlie Ward’s clothes, Annie Rico hit them with the news. She pulled right up to the curb in her Isuzu Trooper and announced she was on her way home from the pharmacy and just had to see how Jenna and her mother were doing, “especially in light of the new developments.”

  Jenna and her mother exchanged bewildered looks and an unspoken question: What new developments? But neither of them said a word. They did not want Annie Rico to think they weren’t up on things. So they waited.

  “And to think he’s only seventeen,” Annie said. She began to fidget with a car deodorizer, shaped like an evergreen tree, that dangled from her rearview mirror.

  Still they waited, although Jenna was beginning to think she might have to pull Annie right out of her car and shake her by the shoulders if she didn’t get to the point soon. It was obvious that Annie knew something important about the investigation.

  Meredith Ward smiled coolly. “Yes, it’s a shame he’s so young.”

  Jenna had to admire her mother’s finesse. She actually sounded as if she understood what Annie Rico was babbling on about.

  “Of course, they haven’t formally pressed charges.” Annie adjusted her rearview mirror and studied her bleached hair for a minute, tucking in a few loose strands that had somehow avoided an earlier assault from a can of hair spray. “But for heaven’s sake, the police came right to his house and took him down to the station. They haven’t done that with anyone else. So I’d have to say it doesn’t look good for him.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Meredith agreed.

  “Well, keep me posted,” Annie said, giving them a cheerful wave and steering her car away from the curb. As if Annie wouldn’t know what was happening before anyone else, Jenna thought.

  Jenna grabbed her mother’s arm and shook it. “Mom! They caught him!”

  “We don’t know that for sure.” Her mother stared down at the bulging plastic bag by her feet. Then, without warning, she bolted for the house.

  Jenna was practically on her heels. But her mother returned to the front porch, cordless phone in hand, before Jenna even made it through the door. She sat down on the top step next to her mother and listened impatiently as she talked to Chief Zelenski. The conversation on her mother’s end gave Jenna few clues. But she could tell that her mother was furious because no one had contacted them.

  “Annie Rico,” she was shouting over the phone. “We had to find out from Annie Rico. Can you imagine how we felt?”

  When her mother finally pressed the Off button ten minutes later, Jenna could tell she was still upset. She hadn’t seen her mother this angry in ages.

  “Well, they caught him, didn’t they?” Jenna had to fight back an urge to grab her mother’s arm again.

  “They took someone in for questioning, that’s all.” Her mother’s voice was flat. She leaned forward, elbows poised on her knees, her chin resting in her hand. “Dave Zelenski seemed annoyed that I even knew about it,” she said. “Can you believe that? He wanted to know how I’d found out.” She flung her arms out. “So I told him, and what does he say? He tells me they haven’t really arrested anyone. He said they’re questioning a lot of people. It’s routine.”

  “So they didn’t catch him, then?” Jenna was disappointed, but even more than that, she was confused.

  “I think they have a suspect, but they’re not going to say anything until they’re sure.”

  “So that’s it?”

  Her mother sighed. “For now, anyway.”

  Jenna picked up the cordless phone. “I’m going to call Andrea,” she announced, heading for the front door, although that wasn’t her plan at all. She was about to call Annie Rico, and she knew that if her mother found out, she’d be grounded for life.

  But she was prepared to take that chance, because she had to find out the boy’s name. Annie Rico had said he was only seventeen. Jenna realized for the first time that this boy could be someone she knew. Up until now her father’s murderer had been a faceless monster. What if he turned out to be a monster with a familiar face? But as disturbing as that thought was, not knowing was even worse.

  She headed up to her room, phone book under her arm, and when Annie Rico answered, all Jenna said was, “Do you know his name?”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Annie’s gravelly voice floated back to her. “Who is this?”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Rico. This is Jenna Ward.”

  “Oh.” There was another pause. “Whose name?”

  Jenna squeezed her eyes shut. She hated this. Hated having to go to Annie Rico for information that should have been hers first. “The boy the police took in for questioning,” Jenna said. “The police never told us his name. I thought maybe you’d know.”

  “Well, it just so happens I do.”

  Jenna stood there, twisting her hair around her finger, waiting. Was Annie going to make her beg, for pete’s sake?

  “Let me think, now. I know his mother. She comes into the pharmacy a lot. Buys a lot of herbs and vitamins. Real big on that health stuff.”

  Jenna was tapping her foot. What was this woman’s problem?

  “Ellen Sadowski. That’s his mother. I think her youngest boy’s name is Joe. Yes, that’s it. Joe Sadowski. You know him? He probably goes to your school.”

  “No.” Jenna breathed a sigh of relief, glad that the name wasn’t familiar.

  As soon as she hung up she began to flip through the telephone book again. Mrs. Rico had told them that this boy was the only person the police had actually taken to the station. That had to mean something. Jenna ran her finger along one of the pages. There was only one Sadowski family listed. They lived on Maple Avenue. Right in the four-block area that the police had been investigating.

  “How soon till dinner?” Jenna asked, sticking her head into the kitchen, where her mother was washing chicken parts.

  Her mother glanced up at the clock. “An hour, maybe. Depends on how long it takes to grill these.” She held up a dripping wet chicken breast. “Why?”

  “I’m going over to Andrea’s. Okay?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she headed out the sliding glass door and cut across the backyard to Andrea’s house, although she had no intention of stopping there. Once she was on Andrea’s street, Jenna began to run. Joe Sadowski lived on the other side of town. That was over a mile. And she had only an hour before she had t
o be home.

  thirty-three Maple Avenue. Jenna looked across the street at the modest ranch house. Much of the blue paint had been scraped away, and one side had already been repainted a pale yellow.

  She leaned against one of the large maple trees that lined the street, watching the front door. She was hoping to get a glimpse of Joe Sadowski, although she had no idea what he looked like or what she would do if he suddenly came through the door.

  Just then a boy rounded the corner, walking fast. At first she wondered if it was Joe; then she realized with a shock that it was Michael MacKenzie. He took off running across the Sadowskis’ lawn. But for one brief moment he slowed his pace and looked across the street. She wondered if he had seen her. If he had, he gave no indication. He simply bounded up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

  Jenna stepped behind the large maple. Her heart was thumping wildly. What was Michael MacKenzie doing at Joe Sadowski’s house? She knew they were both seventeen and going to be seniors. But were they also friends?

  She peeked around the tree to see what was happening. She felt ridiculous, as if she were playing some childish spy game. But she didn’t care. She had to know what was going on. She watched as another boy, who she decided was Joe Sadowski, came to the door. At first she couldn’t see him very well. But then he smacked the door open and stomped down the front steps, with Michael right behind him, and headed for the back of the house.

  It was happening. She was staring right into the face of her father’s murderer. Jenna could see that he was furious about something. He looked, she thought with a shudder, as if he could kill someone. And in that moment she realized she had seen his face before. She recognized the rolled-up bandanna he wore tied around his head. This was the boy who had been harassing Amy Ruggerio at Judd Passarello’s party.

  Jenna pulled back behind the tree to avoid being seen, then hid there until the two boys were out of sight. Michael, Amy, Joe … did they all know each other? She rested her forehead against the tree and closed her eyes. So what if they did? Did that really surprise her? After all, Briarwood was a small town; lives invariably collided, jostling other lives.