by Robert Elmer
“In so many words?”
The questions didn’t get any easier from there, couched in body language that said “I care” but tossed her way with enough barbs to sting. No, they had not heard about Rita Fedrizzi in Italy before they made their decision. No, they were not a member of a cult. But yes, her faith had everything to do with deciding to keep the baby. Had this woman been listening to the Ross Aden show on the way to Kokanee Cove?
Ms. Tomkins paused for a moment and glanced at the porch before revealing the full extent of her fangs.
“I hate to ask this at such an obviously emotional time, but you must have discussed it: Did you make this decision with your children in mind? And do they understand? Do they agree with your decision?”
Merit felt the grip on her shoulder tighten just a little, as the question hit Will just as hard. The reporter waited without a word, confident that the editors would cut out all the dead air they wanted. Will’s touch reassured her, but Merit’s self-control dissolved like sugar in hot coffee.
And still the camera stared, unblinking.
“They understand,” she finally whispered, and the boom mike lowered toward her face.
“Could you say that again?” asked the reporter. “I’m not sure we caught that.”
“I said, they understand what’s going on.” But her voice couldn’t carry the load and cracked under the weight. Did Abby and Olivia understand the grief their mother carried? How could they?
With camera still rolling, Merit collapsed into Will’s arms, hit by the same grief these two innocent ones would have to carry long after their mother was gone.
“Oh, Will.” She buried her face in his chest and sobbed, holding even more tightly as her knees gave way. “Will, it’s no good. It’s not fair to them. It’s not…”
“Shh.” Will cradled her head in his strong arms and stroked her hair, turning her away from the camera.
“Can you turn that thing off now?” Will asked.
From the corner of her eye, Merit could see that Abby had retreated to the corner of the porch, arms crossed. In a moment, Merit felt another set of arms around her waist.
“It’s going to be okay, Mommy.” Olivias sweet voice wavered too.
They held fast to the life they’d been dealt, crying out the pain, but holding tight even so.
Merit heard the reporter ask the cameraman if he was getting all this, and of course, he was. He circled eighteen inches away, probably looking for the perfect angle with her beautiful lake in the background.
And…who knew? Maybe Liwy was right.
twenty-seven
As the poet said, ‘only God can make a tree—probably because
it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
WOODY ALLEN
will popped his head into the snack bar. “Got a minute, Stephanie? I need a hand hauling a trailer from Ed Nieback’s place behind the Mercantile.”
“Uh, sure. Be right there.” She could do that. Since Mrs. Sullivan had gotten sick, she’d been doing just about everything around this place anyway. Not just watching the snack bar, but calling in orders and pumping gas, helping fix docks, and even painting a few boats. Funny thing was, she kind of liked it. Or she would have, if things had been different.
She locked the cash register till, hung the hand-printed Back in 15 Minutes sign on the door, and shut it behind her. Up in the parking lot, Mr. Sullivan waited in his Land Rover.
“Thanks.” He put the car in gear and they started down the gravel road. “You know how it is getting one of those things hooked up. One person can do it, but it’s much easier if someone else is behind the wheel.”
“Not a problem, Mr. Sullivan.”
He’d never asked her to call him by his first name, which made working for him more comfortable. Calling Mrs. Sullivan “Merit” was one thing; calling Mr. Sullivan anything else would have been entirely different.
Halfway to town they passed another network TV van with it’s satellite dish on the roof. A reporter stood by the edge of the road talking to a cameraman.
Mr. Sullivan moaned and slumped in his seat. “This past week has been a little different, hasn’t it?” he asked, slowing for a curve.
They passed Tom and Marcia Urban’s cabin on the outskirts of town. Tom attended their church, but Marcia watched TV preachers and UFO shows behind the drawn curtains of their cabin and might be mistaken for an alien herself.
“Different?” Stephanie watched the TV crew. “You can say that again. I don’t think Ive ever talked to so many television reporters in my life. I mean, I never have, before this.”
“Yeah, neither have I. But Merit and I really appreciate having you around with all this going on. Otherwise, I mean… And the girls, you’re their idol.”
“They’re sweet.” She smiled. “But you know, a lot of people around here are praying for you.”
As if to prove her point, they passed the Mercantile. Mr. Mooney stretched from the top of his stepladder, adding another letter to his sign.
Pray FOr the SULlivans.
Mr. Mooney apparently didn’t have enough lowercase letters, but that hadn’t stopped him. Another TV crew filmed the mans every move.
“Don’t you guys have a war to cover?” Mr. Sullivan grumbled as they passed. “Terrorists? Car crash? Something dangerous?”
His mention of the war made Stephanie think of Michael. She couldn’t help wondering what he was doing or if he was happy with his life in California. She might have worked up the courage to ask his father if Mr. Mooney hadn’t shouted.
“Whoa!”
Almost in slow motion, he waved his arms and lost his balance as one of the ladder legs gave way. Either he hadn’t extended or locked it properly, or he’d been standing on the step that said Do Not Step Here, and the ladder just folded underneath him. Sign letters fluttered everywhere as Mr. Mooney fell.
Mr. Sullivan brought the Land Rover to a screeching halt.
“Mr. Mooney!” Stephanie sprinted around the car, praying with each step that her friend wasn’t hurt too badly. Mr. Sullivan nearly beat her there, but not quite. Noah McHenry from the Buttonhook Inn restaurant across the street jogged over. Even Mrs. Sullivan’s sister, Sydney Olson, burst out of the store to see what all the noise was about.
And the TV cameraman just kept rolling.
“You okay, Foster?” Noah McHenry kneeled by the stricken shopkeeper, who had landed on his back in a bright yellow forsythia bush.
“I think the forsythia might have cushioned his fall,” Will said. Stephanie helped him extricate the ladder from the mess of arms and legs and lay it to the side. Mr. Mooney said nothing, however—just moved his mouth like a fish and blinked his eyes.
“I think he got the breath knocked out of him,” guessed Noah. The Harley-Davidson biker tattoos on his arms flexed as he gently moved Mr. Mooney’s arms and legs. “Didn’t you, bro?”
“You want us to call George?” asked Will, looking up at his fellow rescuers. “That’s the volunteer medic fireman, right?”
“George is in Alaska fishing for a couple weeks,” reported Noah. “But the good news is he always comes back with a freezer full of halibut and salmon. Best stuff you ever tasted, except for lake trout. In fact—”
“Uh.” Stephanie didn’t want to interrupt, but when guys started talking about fishing… “Don’t you think we’d better get him inside or something?”
Mr. Mooney recovered enough to sit up on his own, and he waved off their help.
“I’m just clumsy,” he wheezed. He breathed slowly at first, then nodded and rose to his feet, dusting off a few yellow blooms as he did. “Clumsy and not very good with that old ladder.”
“You sure you didn’t break anything?” Will asked.
Mr. Mooney smiled back at him. “I’ll let you know. But I do appreciate everybody running over to give me a hand.”
Which reminded Stephanie: what had happened to…
“That’s enough!”
&nbs
p; They turned to see Sydney Oison advancing on the cameraman, a rolled-up newspaper held high like a club.
“You’re like vultures,” she screeched, “circling our town, waiting for someone to die. Just like the multinational corporations you work for.”
“I’m with Fox, lady.” The camera guy backed up and lowered his camera for safety. The red light told Stephanie he was still capturing this attack on film, probably for broadcast on tonight’s news. “We report, you decide.”
“No kidding?” Sydney didn’t lower her weapon. “Well, I’m deciding it’s time for you to take your negative aura and leave. You brought it in with all your equipment, and it’s polluting the town. Do you understand me?”
“Whatever, lady. I have just as much right to be here as anybody else.”
Will tried to break up the unlikely fight. But instead of retreating peacefully, Sydney pulled her arm away from his grip and turned to confront her brother-in-law.
“And you!” she shouted, continuing to set the world and it’s multiple conspiracies in their places. “You’re the one who’s killing my sister!”
Will flinched and turned pale. He opened his mouth to reply but must have changed his mind. He took a deep breath and turned to walk away.
Sydney wouldn’t let him. “Don’t you run away from me. I have something to say!”
And she’d have millions of viewers. The cameraman filmed the argument from a safe distance.
“I want to know how you think you can get away with this,” Sydney demanded, “forcing Merit to sacrifice her life on your altar of male domination.”
“Now wait a minute. It’s not like that at all,” Stephanie interjected. She knew it was none of her business, but she couldn’t just stand there and watch, the way the cameraman had done when Mr. Mooney fell off his ladder.
Will shook his head at her and held up his hand. “It’s okay, Stephanie,” he whispered.
Sydney continued, ignoring Stephanie completely. “She wasn’t like this,” she told Will. “Not before she met you. She used to have a head on her shoulders. Used to think for herself. She was just a girl, but we marched together in Berkeley, you know.”
Mr. Sullivan frowned. “Yeah, I’ve heard all those sixties stories.”
Stephanie blinked. Mrs. Sullivan wasn’t that old, was she?
“Then you should realize what you’ve done to her.”
“Look, Sydney,” Will spoke softly, trying to make peace, “I know you never liked me, and I know your parents never approved of me either. But—”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
Stephanie wasn’t sure how much sarcasm lay hidden in the strange woman’s remarks.
“Oh come on,” Will replied. “I wasn’t radical enough for them. I didn’t want to torch society, and I didn’t care about joining marches.” He glanced at Stephanie. “Pretty strange, huh? They almost wouldn’t let me date their daughter because I was too straight.”
“Well, they did let you date their daughter,” Sydney snapped, “and that was their—”
“Mistake?” he interrupted. “Is that what you were going to say? Their mistake, and her mistake. Is that why the two of you had your big blowup? I think everyone’s forgotten the reason, except you.”
Sydney clamped her lips together and didn’t answer.
Mr. Sullivan held out his olive branch again. “Look, Sydney, I didn’t come here to fight with you. In fact, why don’t you come back to the house with us? You haven’t seen what the resort looks like, have you? We could all talk.”
“No.” Sydney shook her head, her voice growing louder and louder. “Not after what you’ve done to her. Not now.”
“We’ll give you a ride, Sydney.” Stephanie stepped forward. “It’s okay.”
Sydney looked at Stephanie as if she were offering a dose of the Asian flu virus. She looked at Mr. Mooney’s sign and then back to Stephanie. She sneered. “And you Christians have the nerve to enable this fascism with your prayer meeting.”
Stephanie’s mouth dropped open. She’d known Sydney had some odd ideas, and that she never came to church, but neither did a lot of backwoods folks who just wanted to be left alone. But she hadn’t expected this.
“As if your prayers to a father would do anything but reinforces this… this…homicide!”
Sydney had run out of words but not out of bile, and she reeled back and swatted Will across the head with her rolled-up newspaper. He flinched but didn’t retreat.
“I hate you, Will Sullivan! Do you hear me? I hate you, and I hate what you’ve done to Merit!”
He didn’t answer, so she hit him again and again—on the shoulder, on the face, on the ear—but he stood his ground, not even holding up his hands for protection. When the newspaper finally unrolled from the beating, he took Sydney’s beating fists in his hands. Her screams faded to whimpers, and he held her in his arms. But the heartsick look on his face brought tears to Stephanie’s eyes, and Mr. Mooney and Noah McHenry turned away. Even the TV cameraman turned off his camera and retreated to his van.
I hate you, hate you, hate you…
Sydney Olson collapsed on her brother-in-law, whimpering softly and clenching her fists on his chest, and he held her as she sobbed.
Stephanie didn’t want to hear what he told Sydney, but she couldn’t help it as she turned to walk back to the Rover.
“I know, Syd,” he said, his voice soft and sad. “Sometimes I hate me too.”
No one spoke as they drove back to the resort—the trailer they’d come to town for replaced by an unlikely passenger in a tie-dyed dress. Sydney gripped the side of the door as if ready to bail out at any moment. It wouldn’t have surprised Stephanie if she did.
“I’m glad you changed your mind about coming out, Sydney.” Will navigated around a pothole, mostly missing it. Stephanie bounced on the backseat. “I know Merit’s going to appreciate it.”
“I must be crazy,” mumbled the older woman. “But she is my little sister, no matter what you’ve done to her.”
Will didn’t reply.
“I can make us some sandwiches when we get there,” Stephanie said to fill the silence. “How’s that sound?”
“Yeah, I’m starving.” Will nodded and sounded cheerier than he had a right to. “How about you, Sydney?”
Sydney wasn’t so sure, especially when she heard what was on the menu.
“Well, we don’t need to have bologna and cheese.” Stephanie tried to figure out what else she could put together from the snack bar cooler. Not the ready-made burritos or the packaged deli sandwiches she often microwaved for their guests. “I think we have some turkey.”
Turkey was filled with artificial preservatives, Sydney said. So was beef. Eating meat destroyed the body’s natural rhythmic need for natural antioxidants.
“I’ve got it!” Stephanie smiled. “I’ll just make tuna fish with pickles. Everybody likes tuna, right?”
Not Sydney. Did they know what kind of damage the tuna industry did to the marine environment?
No, Stephanie couldn’t say that she did, but as they turned down the lane to the resort, she got a sixty-second ecolecture. Her stomach growled for a quarter-pound burger with cheese.
“So I can make us a lettuce sandwich.” Stephanie wasn’t serious.
“Perfect,” replied the eccentric older woman. “With sprouts?”
“I’ll see if we have any.” Stephanie knew they didn’t.
“I can teach you how to grow them for yourselves.”
“Would you look at that.” Will slowed the car and pointed ahead. Had he seen a deer? maybe a buck with an impressive rack of antlers? The dust swirled around them for a moment before clearing.
A silver Hyundai with a broken windshield and a dangling side-view mirror was parked next to the cabin, layers of bugs plastered on the front and crammed full of boxes and clothes and suitcases. The driver must have gone inside to say hello to Merit and the girls.
“You know who that is?” Stephanie aske
d. “Looks like a homeless person with all that stuff packed in the car.”
“He’s not a homeless person.” Will put the car back into gear. “Not anymore.”
He parked the Land Rover behind the visiting car, leaped out the door, and ran up to the porch.
Sydney turned to Stephanie with a puzzled expression on her face. “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”
“I think so.” Stephanie jumped out of the car, trying not to look too eager. She’d seen the California license plates.
Will found his guest on the front porch of the cabin. He locked his arms around Michael in a fierce bear hug and lifted him off the deck.
“Dad!” Michael warned. “You’re strangling me.”
But Michael was grinning just as much as his father, who slapped him on the shoulder blades in a fair imitation of the Heimlich maneuver before holding him out for a better look. Stephanie decided it was safe to approach the porch now.
“You’re really back?” asked Will, glancing at the car. “I mean, I assume you’re not just packed for another vacation.”
“Not a vacation this time.”
“But…so quick?”
“Yeah. Felt good, to tell the truth. I quit my dumb job, sold a lot of my stuff. I didn’t have much to begin with, so that wasn’t much of an…” His blue eyes met Stephanie’s as she stepped onto the porch, and his voice trailed off. “Wasn’t much of an issue.”
“You’re sure about this?” Will asked.
“Oh come on.” Michael’s eyes never left Stephanie’s, leaving her unsure who was he talking to. “I had to come back, Dad. You need the help. And there were a few things here I didn’t really want to leave after all.”
Stephanie felt her cheeks burning and looked away.
“Is your mom inside?” Will asked as he released his grip on Michael. “Have you—”
“She’s on the couch.” Michael’s expression grew serious. “I’ve already said hi. She was kind of asleep, though. And—”
“I know, Michael.”
“Everything you told me on the phone, Dad, is it still the same? Is she still…”
Will nodded. “That’s why I’m so glad to see you.” He mussed his son’s hair—Michael tried to duck—and finally noticed Stephanie. “Oh! I forgot to tell you. Stephanie’s taken up a lot of the slack while you’ve been gone. A lot of the day-to-day stuff, which she has no idea how much we appreciate. I know I haven’t made it easy, the way I’ve been…” His voice dropped off.
