The God Project

by John Saul

  In two days Sally Montgomery had changed in ways that the people close to her had not even begun to understand.

  Chapter 8

  EASTBURY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, its whitewashed exterior turning gray and its grounds unkempt, sat defensively huddled in the midst of a small grove of maples as if it was faying to hide. As Lucy Corliss approached it, she found herself feeling oddly sorry for the bedraggled building—it was almost as if the school itself was aware of the fact that it was on the edge of ruin, and was hoping that if no one noticed it was there, someone would forget to tear it down. As Lucy passed through the front door, she could sense that the depressing appearance of the school’s façade had permeated throughout. There was a feeling of gloom that the dim lights in the corridor did nothing to dispel. It was nearly four o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, and the silence of the place made her wonder if anyone was still there. She walked purposefully toward Randy’s classroom, her heels clicking hollowly on the wood floor.

  Harriet Grady, nearing sixty but carrying the strain of her thirty-five years of teaching as gracefully as anyone could, was preparing to leave for the day when Lucy appeared in her classroom. She recognized Lucy immediately and rose to her feet. “Mrs. Corliss,” she said warmly. “Please come in. Is there any news about Randy?”

  Lucy glanced around the room. It, too, needed a coat of paint, and there were several cracked panes in the large casement windows that broke the west wall. She walked to one of the windows and stared out, not seeing anything really, but trying to decide where to begin. Now that she was here, she was no longer sure why she had come. “Do you think Randy ran away?” she asked at last. A moment later she felt the teacher’s hand touching her arm.

  “I don’t know,” Harriet replied. “It’s so hard to know the children these days. They all seem—what? Older than their years, I suppose. So many of the children just don’t seem like children anymore. If’s almost as if there are things in their minds they don’t want you to know.”

  Lucy nodded. “Randy’s been that way since he was a baby. I always have the feeling I don’t quite know him. I suppose it’s because I don’t get to spend as much time with him as I should.”

  “Children need their parents,” Harriet commented, and Lucy sensed a trace of condemnation in her tone.

  “Unfortunately, marriages don’t always work out.”

  “Or people don’t work them out,” the teacher countered.

  Lucy’s eyes narrowed angrily. “Miss Grady, I didn’t come here to talk about my marriage. I came here to talk about my son.”

  The two women’s eyes met and Harriet Grady’s expression softened. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose I’m getting to be a crotchety old lady. I can’t get used to the fact that most of my children have only one parent. It seems such a pity, and I always wonder if it isn’t one of the reasons so many of the children have problems.”

  “Like Randy?” Lucy asked.

  “Randy, and a lot of others.” Harriet Grady appraised Lucy Corliss carefully and decided there was no point in mincing words. “But of course you know that Randy’s been more of a problem than most.”

  “How?”

  Harriet moved back to her desk, sat down, and pulled a file folder from the top drawer. She began glancing through it.

  “Discipline problems. Except it’s not quite that easy.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Lucy said. She reached out to take the file, but Harriet Grady held on to it.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m afraid I’m not supposed to let you see these.”

  Lucy stared at the teacher, trying to grasp what she was saying. “Not let me see them? My God, Miss Grady, my son is missing! And if there’s information about him in that file that I need to know about, you have no right to keep it from me. I’m his mother, Miss Grady, I have a right to know everything about my son.”

  “Well, I really just don’t know,” Harriet Grady fretted. “You have to understand, Mrs. Corliss—files on students contain all kinds of information, much of it quite objective, but some of it purely subjective. And we just don’t like anyone to see the subjective portions. Anyone at all.”

  “Except the teachers,” Lucy interjected, her voice grating with anger.

  “Except the teachers,” Harriet agreed. She leaned back in her chair and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “Mrs. Corliss,” she went on, “I know how you must feel and I wish I could tell you something to make you feel better. But what can I say? Randy has tried to run away before.”

  “He was going to see his father,” Lucy protested. “And he was only gone a few hours.”

  “But he still ran,” the teacher insisted. “There’s something about Randy—something odd. He doesn’t always seem to have good judgment.”

  “Good judgment?” Lucy echoed. “He’s only nine years old. What on earth are you talking about?”

  Harriet Grady sighed and fingered the file for a moment. “I wish I could tell you. It’s something I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s as if Randy thinks he can do anything any time he wants. He doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything, and it gets him into trouble.”

  Lucy frowned. “What kind of trouble?”

  “Nothing serious,” Harriet assured her. “At least not yet. But we’re always afraid that someday he’s going to hurt himself.”

  “Hurt himself? How?”

  Harriet Grady searched her mind, trying to think of a way to illustrate what she was trying to say. Finally, she gave up, and reluctantly handed Lucy the file. “Look at the top page,” she said. “And I suppose, if you insist, you might as well look at the rest of the file too. It’s all more or less the same.”

  Lucy took the file, opened it, and quickly read the first page. Her skin began to crawl, but she forced herself to finish reading the report, then glanced through the other pages. As Miss Grady had said, it was all the same. Her hands trembling, she returned the folder to the teacher.

  “Tell me what happened,” she whispered. “Tell me about that day.”

  Harriet Grady cleared her throat, then began. “It was last September. One of the children brought a black widow spider into class. It was in a jar, but I kept it on my desk, and let the children come up to look at it. I warned them that it was poisonous, and they were all very careful. Most of them wouldn’t even pick up the jar. Bandy not only picked it up; he opened it and put his hand inside.”

  “Good Lord,” Lucy whispered. “What happened?”

  “He started poking at it, and the spider tried to get away from him. But it finally attacked. I tried to take the jar away from him, but he wouldn’t let me. He didn’t seem frightened—he seemed fascinated.”

  “Even when the spider bit him?”

  “Fortunately, it didn’t I finally knocked the jar out of his hands, and smashed the spider. Then I took him to the nurse and had her look at the hand. There were no bites.”

  “It didn’t bite him at all?”

  “Apparently not And even when the nurse explained to him what a black widow bite can do, he didn’t seem worried. He just said he’d played with them before, and nothing had happened.”

  Nausea rose to Lucy’s throat as she began to realize what might have happened to Randy. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “Why didn’t someone—”

  Harriet Grady’s mouth twisted into a frosty smile. “Do what, Mrs. Corliss? Send a note home with Randy saying ‘Dear Mrs. Corliss, today Randy didn’t get bitten by a spider?’ You’d have thought I was crazy.”

  Lucy closed her eyes and nodded. “I probably would.” She thought for a moment, trying to decide what significance the teacher’s information might have for her. But there was nothing. Nothing but a history of dangerous stunts and pranks, any of which might have seriously injured or even killed Randy, but none of which, so far, had apparently harmed him. When she opened her eyes, Harriet Grady was looking at her with an expression that told Lucy the teacher was sharing her thoughts.

&nb
sp; “I suppose it’s possible that Randy could have gone off on some kind of an adventure and it went wrong,” the teacher offered. Then she stood up and began leading Lucy to the door. “I wish I could tell you more, Mrs. Corliss, but I never knew what Randy was going to do next. Now I don’t know what to think.” She squeezed Lucy’s arm reassuringly. “He will be found, Mrs. Corliss. And knowing Randy, whatever’s happened, he’ll come out all right. He always has so far.”

  But when Lucy left her classroom, Harriet Grady went back to her desk and scanned Randy Corliss’s file once again. To her, Randy was a hopeless case. If there ever was a boy who was going to get himself in trouble, it was Randy. She closed the file, put it back in the desk, and locked the drawer.

  Lucy was almost out of the building when she noticed the small sign identifying the nurse’s office. She hesitated, then tapped on the frosted glass panel.

  “Come in,” a voice called out. Lucy opened the door and stepped inside. A woman only slightly older than herself, dressed in a white uniform, was sitting at a desk reading a paperback novel She danced up and grinned.

  “If you’re an irate taxpayer, I’m technically off duty. I just hang around most afternoons in case one of the kids hurts himself on the playground. Everyone says I’m dedicated.”

  Lucy laughed in spite of herself. The nurse had an open expression that was in sharp contrast to the stern visage of Randy’s teacher.

  “I’m not an irate taxpayer,” Lucy told her. “I’m a worried mother.”

  Immediately the grin faded from the nurse’s face, and she stood up.

  “Are you Mrs. Corliss?” she asked. “We’re all so worried about Randy. Is there anything I can do?”

  “I don’t know,” Lucy admitted. “I was on my way out, and I happened to see the sign. And Miss Grady was just telling me about something that happened last fall-”

  “The black widow,” the nurse interrupted. “Your boy was very lucky there.”

  “That’s what Miss Grady said. She—she thinks Randy ran away. Everybody does.”

  “Everybody except you, right?” The nurse gestured toward a chair. “Sit down. I’m Annie Oliphant, and I’ve heard all the possible jokes having to do with orphans and elephants.” Once more her expression turned serious. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for you. Randy was one boy I hardly ever saw.” She went to a filing cabinet, pulled out a thin folder, and glanced quickly through it.

  “May I see that?” Lucy asked, her tone deliberately sarcastic. “Or is it confidential?”

  Annie Oliphant handed her the file. “Nothing in there that’s a deep, dark secret. And I’ll bet there’s nothing in any of Randy’s other files that’s going to shake national security either. I think secrets just make everyone around here feel important.”

  Lucy flipped through the pages of Randy’s medical file. The information was sparse and mostly meaningless to her. “I don’t suppose any of this could relate to Randy’s disappearance, could it?” she asked.

  “I don’t see how,” the nurse agreed. “The only thing interesting about that file is that it describes a disgustingly healthy kid. If they were all like Randy, I wouldn’t have a job. Look at this.” She took the file out of Lucy’s hands and started from the beginning. “No major illnesses. No minor illnesses. No injuries, major or minor. Tonsils intact and healthy. Appendix in place. Even his teeth, for heaven’s sake! The lower ones are at least crooked, but not enough to bother with braces, and there isn’t a cavity in his head. What did you do, raise him in a box?”

  Again, Lucy couldn’t help laughing. “Hardly. I guess we’ve just been lucky. Up till now.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was lower. “Do you know Randy very well?”

  The nurse shook her head. “All I ever did was look him over once a year. He wasn’t one for getting sick in the cafeteria or banging himself up. I’m afraid the only kids I really know are the sickly ones, and as you can see, Randy can hardly be called sickly.”

  Lucy flipped through the file once more. “Could I have a copy of this?” she asked.

  “Sure.” Lucy followed her down the hall, and watched from the doorway as the nurse began duplicating the file.

  “I can’t imagine what good this will be,” Annie said uncertainly as she gave the copies to Lucy.

  “I can’t either,” Lucy replied, her voice suddenly quavering. “I suppose it just makes me feel as though I’ve done something. You don’t know what it’s like, having your child missing. I feel so helpless. I don’t even know where to begin. I thought maybe someone here might know something, or have noticed something—anything.” Lucy could hear her desperation in her trembling voice and was afraid for a moment that she was going to cry. She fell silent, fighting the tears.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Corliss.” The nurse’s voice was gentle as she guided Lucy toward the main doors of the school. “It just seems to be the times we live in. Things happen to children when they’re younger now. First the teen-agers started running away, and now it seems like the preteens are starting to do it. And they’re drinking and using drugs too. I wish I knew why.”

  Lucy’s tearfulness gave way to anger. “Randy doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t use drugs! And he didn’t run away!” Her voice rose dangerously. “Something happened to him, and I’m going to find out what!”

  She ran through the doors and down the steps, then hurried toward her car. She could feel the nurse’s eyes on her as she started the engine, but she didn’t glance back as she jammed the car into gear, pressed the accelerator, and sped away.

  “Anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  Jim and Lucy Corliss stood facing each other. After a long moment Lucy stepped back to let him come into her house. He glanced around the dimness of the living room, then went to the window and opened the drapes. Evening sunlight seemed to wash some of the strain from his ex-wife’s face.

  “You can’t live in darkness, Lucy. That won’t help you or Randy.”

  Lucy sighed heavily, and sank into a chair. “I know. The truth is, I didn’t even realize they were closed. I guess I never opened them at all this morning.”

  “You’ve got to—”

  “Don’t lecture me, Jim. I don’t think I can stand it. Isn’t there any trace of him at all?”

  Jim shook his head. “Nothing. They’re doing everything they can, Lucy, believe me. I was with them all day. We searched the woods he got lost in last year, and talked to practically everyone on his route to school. No one saw him; no one knows anything. They’ll keep searching tomorrow, but after that—” He shrugged despondently.

  “You mean they’ll stop looking?” Lucy demanded. “But he’s only a little boy, Jim. They can’t stop looking for him, can they?”

  Jim moved to the sideboard and helped himself to a drink, and Lucy, even in the midst of her anguish, found herself gauging its strength. Surprisingly, it appeared to her to be fairly weak. “Fix me one?” she asked.

  “Sure.” He poured a second highball and crossed to her, handed her the drink, then retreated to a chair a few feet away. “You have to understand, Lucy. It isn’t that they don’t want to look for him. They are looking, and they say they’ll keep on. But they simply can’t keep doing it full-time. Eventually, unless there’re signs of violence, or a ransom note, they’re going to have to assume he ran away.”

  “But he didn’t,” Lucy insisted. “I know he didn’t. And please, Jim, don’t ask me how I know. I just do.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask you that,” Jim said gently. “I was going to ask you if you’ve had dinner.”

  Lucy looked at him sharply. Did he expect her to cook for him now? He seemed to read her mind.

  “I’d like to take you out, Lucy.” He saw her body stiffen and her eyes become guarded. “Don’t,” he said. I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering what I’m after. Well, I’m not after anything, Lucy. If’s just that-well, we’ve lost our son, and for some reason right now I’m finding it very
difficult to relate to anyone but you. “And I’m worried about you.”

  “About me?” Lucy asked, her skepticism clear in her voice.

  “I know. I know, I know, I know! I was a thoughtless inconsiderate selfish bastard, and I deserved to be thrown out In fact, I probably should have been drawn and quartered, then strung up for the vultures to feed on. Perhaps even keelhauled”—her lips were beginning to twitch just slightly—“or marooned on a desert island …”

  “I’d draw the line at the keelhauling,” Lucy burst out “You never could hold your breath for more than a few seconds.” She fell silent, examining him carefully, looking for a clue as to what was going on in his mind. She wanted to believe him, to believe that he wanted nothing more from her than company for dinner and the companionship that, right now, only she could give him.

  She made up her mind.

  “Do you remember the Speckled Hen?” she asked. It was a little place, a few miles out of Eastbury. When they were first married, it had been their favorite place, but she hadn’t been there for nearly ten years.

  “Is it still there?” Jim asked.

  “It was last week,” Lucy said. “I had a listing out there, and I almost went in for lundi.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  This time there was something in his eyes that made Lucy keep her own counsel. “I just changed my mind,” she said. She finished her drink and stood up. “Let’s go. I don’t promise to be great company, but you’re right. I need to eat, and I need to be with someone this evening.”

  “Even me?”

  “Even you. Maybe, tonight, only you.”

  As they drove to the restaurant, Lucy tried to analyze what it was about Jim that had changed. Several times she caught herself watching him out of the corner of her eye. The profile was still perfect, though his jaw seemed even stronger than it had been twelve years ago.

  No, the changes weren’t in his physical being; they were somewhere else.

  His manner had changed. He seemed, to Lucy, to be more aware of things beyond himself. Also, there was a stability to him, and a hint of humor that was unfamiliar to her. Oh, he’d always been funny, but it had always been at the expense of someone else, usually her.