by Joanna Scott
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a gray November day, they borrowed the Pontiac from Mole’s brother.When Mole asked her where they were going, she said, “Nowhere.” He said something about how there was always somewhere up ahead and left it at that.
The road was still damp from the previous night’s rain. Sally was at the wheel and drove south along Route 36 in the direction of Amity. She knew from the map to make a sharp turn just north of Amity, where they’d turn onto Route 253, and on the outskirts of Fishkill Notch she would take the right-hand fork onto County Road 27.
The few straggling leaves on the maples along the road were a charred dark red. Brown bristle filled the cornfields. Most of the pastures were empty, and the barns were shut up tight against the damp cold. There weren’t many cars out, and the only other signs of activity Sally noticed were the muddy tractor lines crisscrossing the road in front of the farms, along with white smoke rising from some of the chimneys.
Although she’d passed along this same route once before, in a bus and mostly in the dark, she had the vague feeling that she knew this scenery from earlier in her life, as though she’d seen it as a child or maybe dreamed about it repeatedly and in her dreams had gotten hopelessly lost here.
But she wasn’t lost. She’d studied the map back at Gladdy’s and memorized the directions. It was less than fifty miles from Helena to Tauntonville, a distance that should have been impossibly long given all she’d been through since she’d run away. But how easy it was to return, miraculously easy, really — a left turn, a right fork, a few stoplights, and on toward nowhere.
“That’s the Patterson estate, Benny Patterson’s place,” Mole announced. They were passing fields lusher than the others, carpeted in velvet green, mounded with hillocks and divided into rough squares by pine brakes. The fields close to the road were empty, but cows could be seen grazing farther away, on the slope above the barn. Down a long drive lined by sycamores was the homestead, a fancy, pink-bricked Georgian mansion. The scene suggested prosperity and ease, and yet there was something desolate about it all, with the land like wind-whipped water surrounding the island of the house, a building that looked out on the world with a squint of contempt. Sally was glad to drive past and leave it behind. Once the estate was out of sight, she thought to herself about how she didn’t need much in the way of material goods. She didn’t need a big house or a fancy car, she didn’t need jewels or minks, she didn’t even need the money that was in the paper bag she’d stuffed into the old purse she’d found in Gladdy’s rummage box. That she could so readily give the money away to her son, as she was intending to do, seemed the simplest of the choices available to her. But someone — her sister Tru, probably — would have to counsel the boy on how to spend the money responsibly, to offer the guidance that Sally wouldn’t have the time to give him. It would be hello and good-bye when she saw him; she planned to stay just long enough to be reassured that he was getting proper care, but then she would disappear before her parents could catch her and make her answer for the scandal she’d caused.
Wretched Sally Werner.
Run, Sally.
Where’s Sally? Has anyone seen Sally?
There were patches of brown loosestrife along the roadside. The smell of burning leaves hung in the air, though they didn’t see any smoke. The shadow of a hawk crossed a field and disappeared into the shade of a cloud.
Passing by, mmm-hmmm.
“Hey,” Mole said.
“What?”
He ran his hand along her right thigh, gliding over the ribs of her corduroy skirt, smoothing it against her skin. “You look lost in thought.”
“I’m thinking about how I wish we could just drive and drive,” she said. “I wish we could keep on driving till we reached the gates of heaven.”
“And what if those gates were closed?”
“Why, I’d do this!” She blared the horn as she sped along the road, filling the gray expanse of sky with the noise. “Open the gates!” she called. “Come on! Open the gates or I’ll crash down the doors!” She pressed the pedal to the floor, sending the car into such a fast surge forward that the tires squealed, and an acrid smell filled the interior. But there was no real danger. Sally easily slowed the car and drove calmly along the next stretch of road, the horn quiet again, the radio crackling, in search of a signal, and Mole measuring her with a wondering stare, as though he had just realized that the girl at the wheel was a stranger.
Which of them was it who asked, “Do you love me?”
Which of them replied, “You’re crazy”?
Or countered, “You’re crazy, too,” providing all the proof they’d ever need that they were made for each other.
He slid closer toward her and stretched his arm across her shoulders. She stayed focused on the road, both hands gripping the wheel, while he ran a crooked finger against the back of her neck, collecting loose strands of hair and pressing them up against the underside of her ponytail. His touch blended warmth with a shivery lightness, and Sally felt soothed and grateful. When a car passed in the northbound lane, she was certain that the driver had seen enough of them at a glance to feel envious. Who wouldn’t feel envious of two young lovers who looked so sure that they’d never need more than each other?
They reached the turnoff onto Bluff Road shortly after four o’clock. Mole had been dozing on and off for the last twenty minutes and didn’t open his eyes to see where they were. When they drove beneath the bare-branched canopy of red oaks and onto the dirt drive leading to the Werner farm, he fell into a deeper sleep, lulled by the boatlike motion of the car. And when Sally stopped and turned off the engine at the point where the mud was furrowed with the deep ruts from her father’s tractor, Mole murmured from the depths of his dream, shifting his torso, tucking his hand behind his own waist, hugging himself in sleep.
Wasn’t it right and inevitable that her lover boy would sleep through the impending encounter? If only she were sleeping, too, and this visit was happening in some remote place in her mind, where memory could play its dirty tricks and turn the past into the present. It was the same house, unchanged by time, as decrepit as it had been, though no more, since she’d seen it last. It had the same shingle roof patched with tar, the same stained, peeling clapboard, the same sagging porch. And from the chimney came the same gray wisps, as if the old furnace had been burning and never stopped burning for the four years that she’d been gone.
With stringy briars blocking the view from the lower yard, it was possible that the car couldn’t be seen from the downstairs windows of the house or from the barn. But someone upstairs in the house might be able to spot it and alert the rest of the family to the arrival of uninvited visitors. Soon the activity would pick up inside the house, one voice would call to another, and someone, Loden or Clem probably, would come marching down the drive to see what the intruder wanted.
Sally waited, taking breaths that were too shallow to sustain her, until she had to inhale sharply, drawing the whole rotting spirit of the place into her lungs. She watched the windows for signs of life. The brambles brushing the car were overgrown raspberry bushes, and they reminded her of gathering berries when she was a young child. She loved pressing open the thicket to uncover the best berries, lifting each berry with a slight twist of its stem, picking with such painstaking slowness that her mother used to send her older brother, Loden, out to scold her. But her mother knew that at the end, Sally’s harvest would be perfect, the bucket filled to the brim with berries that weren’t too green and weren’t too ripe, their tender skin unbroken. That’s why she was always the one chosen to do the picking.
A big, bottlenose fly living beyond its season and worn out by the cold bumped against the windshield looking for a way into the car. At the same time, a crow landed nearby and bounced along the mud ridge of the drive. It hopped sideways, cast a glance at Sally as if to make sure that she was following, and then hopped toward the house, wings folded tightly against its sides.
The q
uiet here was the quiet of emptiness, of abandonment. It was the quiet of the dream that Mole was dreaming in the passenger seat. It was the quiet of her own indecision as she sat there waiting to decide what to do, watching the house, wondering if she’d been wise to return, regretting that she hadn’t sent a letter ahead to prepare her family. Despite the easy drive, they seemed so far away from where she sat, separated by the thick, oppressive silence. And yet how abruptly the silence was shattered when she opened the car door and swung it shut behind her.
She followed the crow for a few yards. As she gained on it, the bird hopped faster and finally began trotting across the grass to get out of her way. She felt angry at the crow, as though she knew it had something to do with the ordeal awaiting her inside the house. She tried not to look beyond the house at the barn. She wanted only to go back to the car and drive away. But the rhythm of her approach was too strong to resist, her legs were carrying her up the steps and onto the porch, her hand was knocking on the door, her face was suddenly crimson hot, and with her sight momentarily blurred by a watery haze she wouldn’t have recognized her sister Trudy if she didn’t hear her voice, a sandy sort of growl that came from trying to contain her shriek in a whisper.
“Dear Lord, is it really? Oh, Sally! Where were you all this time, where have you been, why didn’t you write, why did you go away, just go away like that, without saying good-bye?”
“I don’t know” was all Sally could manage to reply, though that wasn’t accurate. She did know why she ran away from home. Everybody knew why.
“Come inside, but don’t… oh, shhh. We can’t let the others know you’re here, not yet, not until we have a chance to talk.”
They had to squeeze through the narrow doorway of the foyer, across the hall, and into the small living room. Tru had gotten so much taller and rosier that the room seemed too small to contain her, too cluttered, with a fat box of a radio, Sally was surprised to notice, and a worn-out sofa that hadn’t been there before. But there were no toys scattered about, no hobbyhorse or puzzle pieces indicating that there was a young child living in the house.
Tru said her name again, called her “my Sally,” and threw her arms around her big sister, careening with her across the room. Sally wanted to ask about her child, but she couldn’t get a word in as long as Tru was going on and on, repeating that she couldn’t believe it, she couldn’t believe it, here was her own Sally, she couldn’t believe that just yesterday she’d put on a sweater that Sally had left behind, and now today here Sally was, under the same roof, her dear Sally, life hadn’t been the same without her, everything was so serious, and she hadn’t had a good laugh in who knew how long. But now here was Sally, and Tru couldn’t believe it!
It was all said in the same growling whisper, for as much as she loved her very own big sister, she couldn’t bring herself to tell the rest of the family that Sally had come home. She didn’t have to tell them, for while they were spinning around in that dance of greeting, their brother Loden appeared in the doorway and stood watching them.
He cleared his throat loudly. The sisters stopped their hugging, separated, and stared back at him. It took a moment for Sally to realize that he was her older brother and not a younger, thinner version of her father, his hair a sandy red instead of gray, with long sideburns framing his face. She was about to reach for him, to touch him on the arm just as a gentle way of making sure that he was real. But when he pursed his lips, she cringed, for she was sure he was going to spit at her.
Instead of spitting, he said, “Hello there.”
She said hello back.
He said, “You been gone awhile.”
She nodded.
He asked Tru, “Did you ask her to come?”
Tru said, “No.”
Loden said to Sally, “Well, why are you here?”
Tru said, “Shut up, Loden.”
Loden repeated, “Why are you here?”
“Can’t you guess?” It occurred to her that they might not want to let the boy meet his real mother. But she hadn’t come all this way just to be disappointed, and she announced in a way that made it clear she wouldn’t be defied, “I want to see my baby.”
Loden shot Tru a fierce, silencing glance. Tru looked down at the floor. Loden asked flatly, “What baby?” — a question so unexpected that Sally was dumbstruck.
“What baby?” Loden asked again.
“My baby. I don’t have to explain. I have something for him.”
“What are you talking about? What’s she talking about, Tru?”
Were they trying to fool her? Were they feigning ignorance, or could it be that the baby she’d left behind had disappeared before her brother and sister ever knew of his existence?
“Then let me talk to Mother.”
“She’s gone with Father to Aunt Lena’s. There’ll be a funeral soon. Aunt Lena’s failing, though I doubt you much care.”
“Of course I care. But I’ve come all this way to see my baby, and I’m not leaving until you tell me where he is.”
“What baby?” Loden asked once more, with such implacable bafflement that Sally had to face the fact that he wasn’t going to tell her where they’d hidden her baby. The Werner family was determined to pretend that Sally’s child had never been born in the first place. And if he’d never existed, then neither had his mother. She who had made a career out of running away — she’d left behind all evidence that she’d ever lived, her past like the footprints she’d made in the snow when she was racing her little sisters. If she’d even had little sisters.
On your mark, get set —
Wait for me, Sally!
Running through the storm, had they done it once or twice or hundreds of times? Running against the slanting snow, running ahead and away, stopping at the fence to let Tru and Laura catch up. Stamp, stamp, stamping her feet to get the blood moving, and while she was waiting, thinking about what she wanted for Christmas.
Penny candy, a felt pony with glass eyes, and a doll’s pie cupboard made of wood and tin. Hinky-dinky parlez-vous. This is the way we build a house, build a house, build a house. Funny to think that someday we’ll be all grown up. I’ll tell you about the man I’m going to marry. He’ll have straight brown hair, gray eyes, he won’t be too short or too tall, he’ll play the banjo, and he’ll always be stronger than the Sea Hag and her goons. Take that, umph, and that!
And then her cousin Daniel gunned the engine of his motorcycle, and she hung on for dear life.
Run, Sally!
Wretched Sally Werner.
And here she was back where she’d started, at the top of the slope of her life, her feet sliding out from under her.
“You poor girl.” Tru caught her in her arms and held her upright. Sally wanted to call out for her mother. Instead, she said, “I’m fine,” and left it at that, too stunned to say anything more, even to press the issue and demand to know what they’d done with her child. Tru’s concern was too much for her. Loden’s judgment was too harsh. The weight of the thick air made her weak. But she was still strong enough to separate herself from her sister and walk out of the room and out the front door. She wondered if they were waiting for her to change her mind and come back or at least call to them and say good-bye. But they must have known that Sally never said good-bye. She just squeezed her arm against her fat purse and left without telling her family where she was planning to go. And they didn’t try to stop her as she walked out the door. They didn’t come after her and weren’t going to explain why there was a tricycle resting on the lawn below the porch, with the back end hidden by the corner of the house so only the front wheel was visible. Sally hadn’t noticed it when she’d entered the house, but she noticed it as she left, and she knew what it meant: a tricycle meant that there was a young child nearby, a child the Werners were hiding from Sally.
“Where were you?” Mole asked. He’d moved to the driver’s seat and had started the car as he’d seen Sally returning.
He wanted answers to his qu
estions: Who lived here? And why had they driven all this way if they weren’t going to stay for dinner? But Sally had nothing to tell him, other than to insist that they had to get out of there now.
Mole put the car in reverse, backed toward the fence, then shifted to drive, rolling the wheels over the muddy ruts. As he headed out to the road, Sally looked over her shoulder to take one last look and saw a crow perched on the gatepost, maybe the same crow that had been hopping ahead of her earlier. Its black eyes stared at nothing and it sat there so still that years later, whenever Sally thought about her last visit home, she’d forget that the crow had been alive and would picture it as a painted figurine fixed there, nailed in place. It had been there, she’d believe, for as long as she could remember.
Coming from this direction, Sally wasn’t sure whether to go left or right when they reached the second main intersection, but she pretended to be certain when she told Mole to turn left. Left was wrong, they began to suspect after they’d traveled along the road for a good twenty minutes without seeing any landmarks she recognized. When they passed a long stretch of meadow crowned on its rise with a boarded-up, decrepit old mansion, Sally knew they’d gone the wrong way. But Mole didn’t complain; he just swooped the car around in a U-turn and headed back along the route toward Amity.
Sally closed her eyes for a while, trying to feel what Mole had felt when he’d let the bumping of the car lull him to sleep. But she couldn’t sleep because Loden and Tru and the rest of her family, along with a little boy whose name she didn’t know, were crowding her head, waiting for the opportunity to give her nightmares. Because of them, she’d never sleep again.
