“Chad,” Ellen whispered. Chad made a noise in his sleep, and we held our breaths, but he didn’t wake. I peeked into the room behind the kitchen that had been my little studio; it was now a playroom, strewn with dolls, parts of dolls, plastic toys, coloring books, markers. Magnetic letters on a board spelled out JENNY. There was a tiny TV in one corner, a VCR, a pile of videos. “I’m sorry you missed my girls,” Ellen said. “They’re in school.”
“How many?”
She smiled. “Three. Ages six, eight, and nine.”
An overflowing laundry basket sat at the foot of the stairs to the second floor. Ellen hesitated. “Do you want to go up?” she asked.
“No, that’s okay.” I could tell she really didn’t want me to see it. I thought of my pristine white bedroom at the end of the hall, my parents’ lofty room with its brick fireplace. I had once painted the two of them sitting side by side in bed, reading: the fire banked, my mother in her red nightgown, my father’s glasses slipping down his nose, their books propped on their knees.
The old dog heaved himself to his feet and followed us as we walked back through the house. There was no longer a Franklin stove in the kitchen, and the floor was covered in blue-patterned vinyl tile. Underneath it somewhere, I knew, was the honey-colored pine planking my mother had loved so much. I had a sudden memory of her sweeping it one day and stooping down to pick up an earring that had fallen through the cracks. “The valley of lost things!” she had cried happily, and laughed.
“We’ve been here two years, and we love it,” Ellen said. “We put in the new wall-to-wall in the living room, and we’re trying to fix up the bedrooms—wallpaper, carpeting.” She sighed. “It’s a slow process. I’m sorry the place is such a mess. This one is a lot bigger than our last house, and I keep trying to get a handle on it, but it’s kind of hopeless. Brant’s working two jobs. He helps out all he can, but when he’s got the time, I want him to play with the kids, not do housework.”
“I don’t blame you.”
We paused at the front door. Ellen said, “I wish I could ask you to stay for a cup of coffee, but it’s one of those days. I wouldn’t mind hearing some stories about this place. Somebody told me a toymaker used to use the barn for his workshop.” She smiled. “The kids love that. They think it was Santa Claus.”
I chuckled. “It was my father.”
“That must have been great for you kids.”
“There was only me,” I said. “But yes, it was great.” We stood smiling at each other. Then I said, “Well, thanks for letting me track snow all through your house.”
“I didn’t mind one bit. Thanks for not waking the baby.” She hesitated. “What do you think of the place now? Or maybe I shouldn’t ask.”
“It’s a lot more lively. Things were pretty quiet in my day.”
She rolled her eyes. “Lively. That’s a polite way to put it.”
“I mean it as a compliment,” I said. There was no way I could convey exactly what I meant, and how much I liked her house. “It looks great, it really does.”
“Well—thanks. You in town for a visit, or what?”
“I came to look up an old friend.”
“Wow! That sounds like fun. I hope you have a super time. And it was awfully nice to meet you.”
I realized suddenly that I was hungry, so I drove into town to Louie’s Diner, where Marietta and I used to put away huge piles of French fries and talk about boys. But Louie’s was gone, replaced by a Dunkin’ Donuts. The ice cream place was gone, and so was the sub shop run by the Hauser twins’ father; a big discount store had obliterated them both. I walked up and down the two blocks of Main Street: Virtually everything I had known had disappeared except, in the distance, the dark slope of the nameless mountain that was crowned by the Erlings’ house, the Castle. I could just catch a glimpse of its two turrets, the gray stone vividly pale against the surrounding trees. The mountain was bigger, more impressive than I remembered, maybe because the town at its feet seemed sad and diminished, a place of seedy, deserted stores and boarded-up windows. The valley of lost things.
I ended up having lunch at the motel, and then, in my room, I paged through the skinny local phone book. I hadn’t necessarily expected to find Mark himself—had hoped, at most, to locate his parents or his brother or an old friend who could tell me how to contact him. But, incredibly, there was his name: Mark V. Erling, with an address on Mountain Road. Just below it was another listing: M. V. Erling Enterprises.
I was surprised that he had settled in his hometown and was living in his old house. I remembered the lovely, remote woman, the overbearing man in the seersucker suit, my humiliating half-hour in their frigid living room. Mark was the only Erling in the phone book, so I assumed his parents had died or moved away. It was difficult to imagine Mark, the wastrel jock, heading a company with the grandiose handle Enterprises attached to it. But the years had changed us all. There was Marietta, with her divorces and her film career. Marietta’s old love, Keith, was a recording engineer in Australia, and her brother David, who had taught me how to kiss, had become a Franciscan monk. I’d heard that Deirdre Coyle of the wild parties was a commodities trader in Manhattan.
It was just after two in the afternoon. Mark would be at work. Before I could think about it much, I dialed the number of his company.
“Good afternoon.” A woman’s crisp voice. “Erling Enterprises.”
“Yes. Hello. I wonder if I could speak to Mark.”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“This is an old friend of his from high school.”
“No kidding!” The voice warmed, sounded delighted. “Hang on.” Whatever Erling Enterprises was, this was still small-town Maine, and she put me through.
“Erling here.”
Erling here. Crazy laughter bubbled up in me. “Mark?”
“Yes, this is Mark Erling.” I hadn’t been aware that I remembered Mark’s voice. I couldn’t recall his face exactly, but I could see his blond sideburns.
“Mark, it’s Wynn Tynan. From Dunster High. I know it’s been a long time, but—”
“Wynn. My God. Wynn Tynan. Where on earth are you?” he asked.
“I’m at the Ramada Inn. I’m going to be here for a few days, and I was wondering if we could get together.”
I had rehearsed this speech along with everything else, and it came out smoothly, as if we were indeed just two old pals and I was passing through on a business trip. But my throat was tight with nervousness.
“You’re in town? You’re in West Dunster?”
“Yes.” I sank down on the bed and stared at a painting on the wall of a French street scene. Shops. A poodle dog. BOULANGERIE. CAFÉ. “Mark,” I said. “I’m here because there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“There’s something you need to talk to me about.”
I couldn’t tell if his voice was hostile or just puzzled or something else entirely. I didn’t dismiss the idea that he had reached the same conclusions I had when he saw the Molly McCormick story on television. I thought it was more than likely that he despised me.
“Yes,” I said. “Would you have time to meet for a drink, or a cup of coffee?”
There was a pause, longer than was polite. I was about to speak again when he said, “Wynn Tynan. Jesus.” He stopped. “This is unbelievable.” I didn’t know what to say. I just waited. I imagined him remembering everything. “Of course. Yes,” he said finally. “How about later today? I could come out there, I could meet you in the cocktail lounge at the Ramada.”
He said he could be there shortly after five. He didn’t say much more, only that he would be glad to see me. I was sure it was my imagination, but it sounded like he was trying to hold back tears.
• • •
I had nothing to do, and so I spent the rest of that afternoon driving. I went by my old elementary school, which had been transformed into housing for senior citizens. Then I drove into Dunster and out past the high school. Yellow buses in f
ront. Kids in bright winter jackets, defiantly hatless in the frigid air. Not much seemed changed, except that there were some black faces. Twenty-odd years ago, there had been only one, an exchange student from Ghana. I stopped the car for a few minutes and sat with the motor running, watching the kids board their buses. I had forgotten how loud teenagers are, how the drama of adolescence demands noise. I noticed wire cages on the school windows. I wondered if they had a weapons detector, gang problems, if knives were drawn in the stairwells. It was hard to imagine. I thought about Mark Erling’s famous fight with George Fisher, when George had reportedly been taken to the emergency room with a broken nose and a gash that needed stitches—how shocking that had been.
And I remembered how my pregnancy had to be lied about. Now they probably had support groups, a nursery, classes in child care, free condoms. At least, I hoped they did.
I watched until all the buses were gone, and then I drove to the outskirts of town, up and down the bare country roads. Forests of tall, straight pine trees rose up on either side, the landscape I had grown up with and that, at some level, I would always miss—the world of my mother’s stark photographs. Here and there was a clearing with a house on it, snow banked beside the front walk, a snowmobile or a pickup parked in the driveway. Osmar Lake was frozen solid, stretching out vast and gray, dotted with the huts of ice fishermen. Two young men in red hats with earflaps were skating near the shore. I wished I had a camera or a sketch pad, but I had brought neither. I hadn’t come to Maine as an artist. I had come as a penitent. I had come to confess.
Driving the familiar roads, my agitation left me, and I became strangely lighthearted, almost giddy—filled with an emotion I couldn’t really identify. It wasn’t happiness, certainly—nothing that simple. I suppose it was partly the excitement of opening a long-closed door and not knowing exactly what was behind it. And maybe it was partly the relief of the criminal who has been running and running, and who is about to turn herself in.
• • •
The Ramada’s cocktail lounge was dimly lit, but I immediately spotted Mark sitting at a table. I was early; he had been even earlier. There was a half-empty glass on the table in front of him.
When he saw me he stood up. We shook hands. He took mine in both of his. “Wynn,” he said. “You look wonderful.”
I doubted it. I had tried to tame my hair into a braid, but the static electricity in my room had thwarted me, and I had finally just pulled it back with a barrette. Otherwise, I hadn’t fussed. “I’m glad to see you, Mark,” I said. I thought I had prepared myself, but the sight of Mark brought back everything, and I felt suddenly sixteen again. I knew I was blushing fiercely. “Actually, I’m a bit overwhelmed.”
“I know what you mean.” He pulled out the chair for me, and we sat down across from each other. Mark was much heavier but still handsome; his receding blond hair was silvery at the temples, and he had a small mustache. He wore a corduroy jacket, a checked shirt, no tie, a wedding ring. He looked like a nice, ordinary guy. I imagined an attractive wife, good kids, a pleasant life. To drag out the terrible truth of years ago struck me suddenly as cruel. Now that Mark Erling was sitting across a table from me, I didn’t know if I could go through with it. And yet, of course, I knew I would, I had to.
He was staring at me, shaking his head. “This is amazing. After all these years. I pick up the phone and it’s Wynn Tynan.”
“I’m surprised you’re still living in West Dunster.”
“It’s a long story. We’ll get to it. We’ll get to everything, but at the moment—” He grinned, picked up his glass, and drained it. “Frankly, I think I need another drink.”
He signaled the waitress and ordered a whiskey on the rocks, and I said I’d have the same. When she was gone, he asked, “Where are you living now? And what the hell are you doing here in the boonies?”
“I live in Boston. I haven’t been back here in years. I drove by my old house this afternoon.”
“It’s a lot different now out on Brewster Road.”
“A little. Not really.”
“Must have been strange, seeing it again.”
“It was. But it was good. I’m glad I did.”
“So is that why you came? To look at the old hometown?”
“Sort of.” I clenched my hands together in my lap. I didn’t want to be making small talk. “But I’m mostly here for another reason.”
Mark gave me an odd look. “You wanted to talk to me.”
“Yes.”
His smile returned. “Well, I have to say that that is one incredible coincidence.”
“What do you mean?”
He put his elbows on the table, folded his hands together, and stared at me for another few moments. Then he said, “I’ve been looking for you for the last six months.”
At first I didn’t take it in. It seemed impossible that he had said what I thought I’d heard. “I’m sorry—you’ve been what?”
“Looking for you. But I kept coming to dead ends. Your parents apparently moved out of town years ago. I had great hopes for that thing on the Internet that searches phone listings. I had my secretary working on it for half a day. But you weren’t listed, and neither were your mom and dad. I got your father’s first name out of an old West Dunster phone book, and actually called quite a few James Tynans, but they weren’t the right ones. And I called some W. Tynans. Do you know how many W. Tynans there are in this country? And I tried calling a couple of the people we’d gone to school with, to see if anyone was still in touch with you. Nobody was. If you’d been trying to disappear, you couldn’t have done a better job.” He smiled. “Maybe you were.”
“No, I—I don’t know, I’ve been married for a long time, and the phone was in my husband’s name.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t have expected that. I figured by now you’d be a pretty well-known artist. In fact, I tried some artist’s listing service I dug up, but you weren’t there either. Are you still painting?”
“A little—not really. I mean, not seriously, but—” The waitress brought our drinks, and I clutched mine gratefully, took a sip. I hadn’t drunk whiskey since I had last seen Uncle Austin, and the taste immediately brought back a confused collage of images: the long driveway, Patrick’s bare, sweaty back as he hurled rusty metal into the truck, Uncle Austin’s angry grip on my arm. For a moment, I lost my bearings. What was I doing here? Why was I talking to this smiling man? I set down my glass and took a breath to clear my head. I was suddenly filled with dread, with the old gnawing guilt. Why would Mark be searching for me unless it was about Molly McCormick? And yet he wasn’t acting like someone about to accuse me of a crime.
“Mark—”
“Wait. Let me just finish.” He wouldn’t stop smiling, but it wasn’t my imagination: There was a glimmer of tears in his eyes. “All I can say is it seems like a miracle that you’re sitting here across the table from me. I called my wife and told her and she couldn’t believe it. It’s—I don’t know what. The answer to a prayer.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He laughed. “How could you? I don’t know how to— Wait.” He dug into his pocket and brought out his wallet, flipped it open to a photograph, set it before me. “There.”
It was a formal shot, probably a yearbook picture, of a dark-haired young woman. I felt a stab of envy: He did have children, then. All those years I had been living with Alec, hoping and being rebuffed, Mark had been raising his family.
I studied the photograph. “She’s lovely, Mark. I assume she’s yours.”
“Wynn.”
His voice sounded so strange I had to look up at him. Yes, it was more than a glimmer; his eyes were wet, and as I watched, one tear spilled over and ran down his cheek. He wiped it away with his knuckle, a funny little-boy gesture that made me smile. “What?”
“Can’t you see it?”
“See what?”
“In the picture. Wynn! I’m trying to tell you—”
I looked again. An attractive girl with short curly hair, Mark’s wide gaze and direct smile. Dark sweater, string of pearls. I looked into her eyes: Was this girl supposed to tell me something? She looked sweet. She looked intelligent. She looked like Mark. “Okay.” I shrugged. “Let’s start again. This is obviously one of your kids.”
“The only one I’ve got,” he said. He reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “Wynn. This is what I’m trying to tell you. It’s our daughter. Yours. Mine.”
I stared at him. Madness. Tears stung my own eyes. “That’s not possible.”
He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “It’s not only possible, it’s God’s own truth! That’s why I’ve been looking for you. Her name is Kathleen. She wants to meet you.”
• • •
After high school, Mark had become a kind of hippie. He hadn’t had much interest in going to college, he said, but he had stayed in school—barely—to keep out of the army. He had done a lot of drugs, bummed around the country, hitchhiked across Europe, gone to India one summer with a girlfriend. His family hadn’t approved of him, but they supported him, grudgingly, until he came home the summer after he graduated and had a major argument with his father.
“It started with the usual fight over my hair,” Mark said. “I had a ponytail. And a beard. You wouldn’t believe how that bothered my parents. Or maybe you would. God, those were crazy days. Anyway, this time we got off the subject of my hair, and things became more serious. The Erling Paper Mills had branched out into real estate development. You’ve probably seen what happened to Burbank Mountain. And that’s not even the worst of it. You should drive out east of town, toward Hampton and Merrickville. That area has been changed beyond recognition. Acres of forest cut down and shoddy condominiums in their place.” Mark waved a hand. “I know it’s an old story. My father wasn’t the only fat-cat developer who took the opportunity to make a few quick bucks at the expense of the landscape. It’s happened all over this country. But this was the seventies, and I was an idealistic young pothead. And a prig to boot. I told Dad I didn’t like what he was doing, and it was for damn sure I wasn’t going into the business. We had terrible arguments about it, and the upshot was that they cut off my allowance, my father went into partnership with my brother, Jeff, and the whole family washed their hands of me. I didn’t have any contact with them for years.”
Five Questions Page 20
