by John Saul
A car pulled into the parking lot next to the school, and Cal saw Lisa Hartwick get out, glance at him, wave, then follow the last of the stragglers up the steps. He twisted the key in the ignition, put the car in gear, and was about to pull away when he saw a man waving to him. Lisa’s father, apparently. Cal put the car in neutral, and waited.
“Dr. Pendleton?” Tim Hartwick was leaning down on the passenger side of Cal’s car, his hand poking in through the window. “I’m Tim Hartwick.”
Cal forced himself to smile genially and take the outstretched hand. “Of course. Lisa’s father. You have a wonderful daughter.”
“Even when she lies about being sick?”
“They all do it,” Cal replied. “Even Michelle did her best to stay in bed a few extra days.”
“But there was something wrong with Michelle,” Tim reminded him. “Lisa was out-and-out faking. Thanks for not letting her get away with it.”
Cal shrugged. “Actually, she owned up to it herself. I was about to stick a tongue depressor in her mouth, and she decided the truth was better than choking on the lie.”
“How’s Michelle getting along?” The question caught Cal off guard, and he hesitated for a second. Then, too quickly:
“Fine. She’s doing just fine.”
Tim Hartwick’s brow furrowed. “I’m glad to hear it.
Corinne—Miss Hatcher, Michelle’s teacher—was a little worried. Said something about yesterday being hard for Michelle. I thought I might have a chat with her.”
“With Michelle? Why?”
“Well, I’m the psychologist for the school, and if one of the kids is having a problem—”
“Your own kid is the problem, Mr. Hartwick. She lies, remember? As for Michelle, she’s fine. Just fine. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some appointments waiting for me.” Without waiting for a reply, he put the car in gear and drove away.
Tim Hartwick stood thoughtfully on the sidewalk, watching Cal’s car disappear down the street. Obviously, the man was under strain. Too much strain. If Michelle was, indeed, having problems, Tim was sure he knew where they were rooted. He made a mental note to talk to Corinne about it, and, if necessary, Michelle’s mother.
It was even worse today. Michelle felt like an outsider, a freak, and by the time the last bell rang, she was glad that her parents were coming to get her.
She made her way slowly down the hall. When she reached the front steps, all her classmates had disappeared. She halted at the top of the stairs and looked around.
There was still a group of little girls, the third-graders, playing with a jump rope. With her parents nowhere in sight, Michelle settled on the top step to watch them. Suddenly one of the little girls left the group, came to the bottom of the stairs, and looked up at Michelle.
“Do you want to play with us?”
Michelle frowned at the child. “I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I can’t jump anymore.”
The little girl appeared to consider this bit of information. Then she brightened.
“Well, you could turn the rope, couldn’t you? That way I’d have more turns.”
Michelle thought it over. The little girl didn’t seem to be making fun of her. Finally, she stood up. “Okay. But promise me you won’t ask me to try to jump.”
“I won’t. My name’s Annie Whitmore. What’s yours?”
“Michelle.”
Annie waited while Michelle came slowly down the stairs.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“I fell off the bluff out by the cove,” Michelle said. She watched Annie carefully, but the child’s eyes held nothing but curiosity.
“Did it hurt?”
“I guess so,” Michelle replied. “I don’t remember. I fainted.”
Now Annie’s eyes fairly bulged with excitement. “Really?” she breathed. “What was it like?”
Michelle grinned at the wide-eyed child. “I don’t know—I was out cold!”
With that, Annie ran off, skipping ahead of her, and rejoined her group of friends. As Michelle approached the little girls, she could hear Annie saying excitedly:
“Her name’s Michelle. She fell off the bluff, and fainted, and she can’t jump, but she’s going to turn the rope for us. Isn’t that neat?”
Now all the little girls stared at Michelle. For a moment she was afraid they were going to laugh at her.
They didn’t.
Instead, they seemed to think she was lucky to have something so exciting happen to her. A few minutes later she was standing with her back braced against a tree, turning the rope, and chanting the rhymes along with the rest of them.
June had let the silence between her husband and herself remain unbroken as they drove into Paradise Point. She could sense Cal’s hostility, and didn’t need to hear him tell her that he thought she was being foolish. Only when they were in front of the school did he say anything, and when he spoke, his voice was triumphant.
“Take a look at that, will you? And tell me if you think she’s a ‘recluse.’ ” He spat the word out as if it was something bitter.
June followed his gaze and saw Michelle, leaning against a tree, merrily swinging the rope for the younger children. They could hear her voice, louder than the others, carrying across the schoolyard:
“Call for the doctor,
Call for the nurse,
Call for the lady
With the alligator purse …”
She stared at the scene, almost unable to believe what she was seeing. I was wrong, she told herself. Everything’s going to be just fine. I was overreacting. Today, in the clear sunlight of the fall afternoon, everything seemed perfectly normal.
Michelle saw them, waved, and handed her end of the rope to Annie Whitmore. She started toward them. When she reached the car, she paused, a smile lighting her face.
“Hi! What took you so long? I was getting worried. But not very worried.” She climbed into the backseat of the car.
“Everything’s fine, honey,” Cal said. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
But as he spoke, June wondered. His voice, though she knew he was trying to control it, was shaking. Not much, but enough so she knew he was lying. Her worries flooded back to her—perhaps Michelle was getting better. But was her husband?
Michelle turned restlessly in her sleep, moaned a little, then woke up.
It wasn’t a slow waking, the kind that makes you wonder for a few moments if you’re still asleep. It was, rather, the instant awakening that comes with a disturbance, an unusual sound in the night.
And yet, there had been no sound.
She lay very still, listening.
She could hear only the steady crashing of the sea against the bluff, and an occasional rustling as the autumn winds brushed branches against the house.
And Amanda’s voice.
The sound was comforting to Michelle. She snuggled deeper into the bed, listening.
“Come with me,” Mandy whispered.
Then, more urgently: “Come outside with me.”
Michelle threw off the covers and got out of bed. She went to the window and looked out.
The moon was nearly full, casting an ethereal glow on the sea. Michelle let her eyes wander over the scene. Finally they came to rest on the studio, sitting small and lonely on its perch at the edge of the bluff. Then, as her eyes remained fixed on the studio, a cloud seemed to pass over the moon, obscuring her sight.
“Come on,” Mandy whispered. “We have to go outside.”
Michelle could feel Mandy pulling at her. She pulled on her robe, tying it snugly at the waist, put on her slippers, then left her room, walking slowly, carefully, listening to Amanda’s voice.
In her room, her cane was still propped next to her bed.
She moved through the darkened house and went out by the back door. Steadily, Mandy’s voice guiding her, she walked across the lawn and let herself into her mother’s studio.
A canvas, the seascape her mother had b
een working on for so long, stood on the easel. Michelle stared at it in the gloom, its colors faded to shades of gray, the whitecaps appearing as strange points of light in the foreboding picture.
She felt herself being drawn away from the easel, and moved toward the closet “What is it?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
She opened the doset door and stepped inside.
“Make me a picture,” Amanda whispered to her.
Obediently, Michelle reached for a canvas and took it to the easel. Setting her mother’s painting on the floor, she replaced it with the canvas she had brought from the closet.
“A picture of what?” she asked.
In the darkness there was a silence, then Amanda’s voice, suddenly dearer, spoke to her once more.
“What you showed me. Make me a picture of what you showed me.”
Michelle picked up a piece of charcoal and began sketching.
She could feel Amanda’s presence behind her, watching over her shoulder as she worked.
She drew quickly, as if some unseen force was guiding her hand.
The figures emerged on the canvas.
First the woman, just the bare outlines, her limbs stretched languidly on a studio couch.
Then the man, above her, caressing her.
Michelle began to feel a certain excitement as she drew, an energy flowing into her from the presence at her shoulder.
“Yes,” Amanda whispered. “That’s the way it was … I can see it now. For the first time, I can really see it.…”
An hour later Michelle took the canvas off the easel, put it back in the closet, and replaced her mother’s picture exactly as it had been before.
When she left the studio, there was no sign that she had ever been there. No sign at all, except the charcoal sketch buried in the jumble at the back of the closet.
When she woke up the next morning, Michelle wondered why she still felt tired.
She had slept well that night.
She was sure she had.
And yet she felt tired, and her hip was throbbing with pain.
CHAPTER 16
June’s eyes filled with concern as Michelle came into the kitchen. In silence, she noted the pronounced increase in her daughter’s limp. There was a tiredness in the child’s eyes that worried her.
“Are you all right this morning?”
“I’m all right,” Michelle replied. “My hip hurts, that’s all.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go to school,” June suggested.
“I can go. I’ll ride in with Daddy again, and if my hip isn’t better this afternoon, I’ll call you. Okay?”
“But if you’re too tired …”
“I’m all right,” Michelle insisted.
Cal glanced up from the newspaper he was reading, and gave June a look of warning, as if to say, If she says she’s fine, she’s fine—don’t push it. Reading the look, June turned her attention to the eggs she was scrambling. Michelle eased herself into a chair opposite her father.
“When are you going to finish the pantry?”
“When I get to it. There isn’t any hurry.”
“I could help you,” Michelle offered.
“We’ll see.” Though Cal’s voice was noncommittal, Michelle could feel his rejection of her offer. She opened her mouth to protest. then thought better of it. She decided to drop the subject.
Upstairs, Jenny began crying. At the stove, June glanced upward, then turned to her husband and daughter. “Michelle, do you think you could …?”
But Cal was already on his feet, starting toward the stairs. “I’ll take care of her. Be back in a minute.”
June watched as Michelle’s eyes followed her father out of the kitchen, but when her daughter’s gaze shifted and she seemed about to speak, June quickly busied herself with the eggs. There just wasn’t anything she could do. She felt helpless, and inadequate, and angry—at herself, and at Cal.
“Here’s my girl,” Cal said as he returned to the kitchen, Jenny cradled in his arm. He seated himself at the table and began bouncing the baby gently, making her laugh and gurgle with pleasure.
“Can I hold her?” Michelle asked.
Cal glanced at her, then shook his head. “She’s happy where she is. Isn’t she beautiful?”
Without answering, Michelle suddenly rose from the table.
“I forgot something upstairs. Call me when it’s time to go, okay?” Cal nodded absently, still engrossed in Jennifer.
“That was cruel,” June said when Michelle was gone from the kitchen.
“What was?” Cal looked up from the baby, surprised at the expression on June’s face. What had he done?
“Couldn’t you have at least let her hold Jenny?”
“I beg your pardon?” Cal’s baffled look told her that he hadn’t the vaguest idea of what she was talking about.
“Oh, never mind,” she said. She began serving the eggs.
As they drove into Paradise Point that morning, neither Cal nor Michelle spoke. It was not a comfortable silence, not the kind of close, companionable silence they had enjoyed back in Boston; instead, it was as if there were a gulf between them. A gulf that was growing wider, which neither of them knew how to bridge.
Sally Carstairs tried not to listen as Susan Peterson’s voice droned on.
They were sitting under the maple, eating their lunch, and it seemed to Sally that Susan just wouldn’t shut up. It had been going on now for nearly fifteen minutes.
“You’d think she’d go to another school,” Susan had begun. They’d all known whom she was talking about, since her eyes were fixed on Michelle, sitting by herself at the top of the steps. “I mean, do we really have to look at her, gimping around like some kind of a freak? Why don’t they send her to one of those schools for special children? If you can call retarded special.”
“She’s not retarded,” Sally objected. “She’s just lame.”
“What’s the difference?” Susan said airily. “If you’re a freak, you’re a freak.”
She went on, her voice vibrant with malice, listing her objections to Michelle’s being in the some school with the rest of them, let alone the same classroom.
Sally kept trying not to listen, but Susan’s voice was like a bee buzzing in her ear. Every few seconds, she glanced over to see if Michelle could hear what Susan was saying, but Michelle seemed to be ignoring them. Then, just as Sally decided she’d heard enough, and was about to get up and go over to Michelle, she saw Annie Whitmore run up to her. She could see the two of them talking, then Annie took Michelle by the hand, and started pulling her to her feet. As the rest of the group under the maple became aware of what was happening, Susan’s voice fell silent. They watched as Annie led Michelle down the steps, then walked with her to a spot a few yards away, where the rest of the third-graders were gathered. A moment later Michelle was holding one end of the jump rope, Annie the other, and the littler girls were starting to take their turns in the middle.
“Don’t tell me she’s not retarded,” Susan Peterson said. Around her, her group of friends began to giggle.
Michelle tried to ignore the sounds, telling herself that they were laughing at something else. But she knew it wasn’t true. She could feel them: looking at her, whispering among themselves, laughing. As the first twinge of anger knotted her stomach, she tightened her grip on the jump rope and forced herself to concentrate on Annie Whitmore, whose feet were lightly skipping in rhythm to the chant as she began her turn.
But as the laughter from Susan Peterson’s group increased, Michelle found it more and more difficult to ignore it. Her anger grew; she could feel her face growing hot. She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that by shutting her classmates out of her vision, she could shut them out of her mind.
When she opened her eyes again, something seemed to have happened. The sun, so bright a moment before, was fading into a gray mist. And yet, it was too early in the day for the fog to be coming in. The fog always came in late afternoon, not lun
chtime.…
In her ears, Susan Peterson’s taunts grew louder, carrying through the mist, tormenting her.
Turn the rope, she told herself. Just turn the rope, and pretend nothing’s happening.
Her vision was fading rapidly, and soon she was aware of nothing but the rope in her hand. She increased the tempo of the chant, turning the rope faster to keep up with the rhythm.
The happy grin on Annie’s face began to fade as she tried to keep up with Michelle’s suddenly furious pace. She skipped faster and faster, and soon gave up using the little intermediate hop that filled the time between the rope’s rotations. She was jumping now, facing Michelle, trying to make up her mind whether she should keep going or try to run out. But the rope was going too fast: she couldn’t run out, nor could she keep up.
The rope slashed against her ankles, and Annie screamed in pain, tripping, stumbling to the ground.
It was the scream that got through to Michelle.
Drowning out the laughter from Susan Peterson, it cut through the fog, piercing the mist like a shaft of lightning.
The rope, jerked from her hand when it hit Annie, lay at Michelle’s feet. She couldn’t remember dropping it, couldn’t remember what, exactly, had happened. But there was Annie, rubbing her ankle and looking at Michelle with more reproach than fear.
“Why did you do that?” Annie demanded. “I can’t do hot peppers.”
“I’m sorry,” Michelle said. She took a step forward, but Annie seemed to shrink away from her. “I didn’t mean to turn it so fast. Really, I didn’t. Are you all right?”
Again she moved toward Annie, and the little girl, seeing nothing but concern in Michelle’s face now, let herself be helped up.
“It hurts,” she wailed. “It stings!” A welt was rising on her leg, and she rubbed at it once more before getting to her feet. A small crowd had gathered, watching curiously, pointing first to Annie, then to Michelle. As Susan Peterson approached, Michelle hobbled away as quickly as she could. She was at the foot of the steps when she heard Sally Carstairs’s voice behind her.
“Michelle? What happened?”
Michelle turned to face Sally. Though there was nothing but curiosity in Sally’s eyes, Michelle was distrustful. After all, only a few moments ago Sally had been under the maple with Susan and the rest of them.
