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by Joanna Scott


  She was inclined to let her thoughts circle around imagined conversations in order to avoid the implications of her uncertainty. She told herself what she wanted to hear: her child had not been harmed by her neglect. She wasn’t to blame. If Daniel Werner couldn’t handle him, then he’d done what Tru had suggested and given him away. It was the scenario that made the most sense. Of course Daniel Werner couldn’t have raised a child on his own, so he’d given the baby up for adoption. And wasn’t it likelier than not that the boy had grown up into a healthy, good-looking young man, a redhead just like her brothers?

  In the first few weeks following her sister’s departure, Sally caught up on some of the chores she’d been putting off. She cleaned the carpets, washed the windows, and hosed down the siding. At work she stayed late to sift through papers and reorganize files. Because it was summer, she saw less of Arnie than she did during the rest of the year. He took Fridays off and spent the long weekends with his family. But he came to Sally’s for dinner on Mondays, and he’d stay with her through the evening. Penelope was usually out with Abe, and after dinner Sally and Arnie would close themselves in the bedroom and fall into each other’s arms.

  Arnie’s most vocal expression to Sally was gratitude. He couldn’t thank her enough for putting up with him, for being steadfast in her love despite the difficult circumstances. His wife was more dependent upon him than ever. If she suspected his infidelity, she gave no sign. Over the years she’d withdrawn from interactions and spent most of her time in bed, where she’d sleep for long stretches at irregular hours, eat her meals from a tray, and when awake knit a plain white scarf that just got longer and longer. She repeatedly reassured Arnie with a dreamy smile, insisting that she was contented with her life. Still, there were times when he became so overwhelmed by shame that he would arrive at Sally’s unannounced, with the intention of breaking off the affair. In response, Sally would agree and even go so far as to say that nothing good could come of their cheating ways. All it took, though, was the prospect of saying good-bye to each other for their resolve to weaken. Their love, they’d decide, was not something they could just turn off with a switch. They were doomed to love each other. They’d become convinced of this all over again, and the affair would continue.

  Despite her love for Arnie, or rather, because of it, she couldn’t bring herself to confide in him about the mistakes of her youth. She kept her thoughts to herself. And as she pondered the news her sister had brought, her responses evolved. Her parents were gone, and she would never persuade them to forgive her, nor would they ever tell her about the fate of her child. They’d taken their secrets to the grave. For a while Sally just filled in the blanks and imagined a rich life for her son: he was movie-star handsome; he worked in a fancy office in a distant city; he lived with his lovely young wife in a big house with a three-car garage.

  It was Abraham Boyle who kept reminding her that she couldn’t keep entertaining herself with fantasies. All he had to do was push the front door open and call, “Anybody home?” for Sally to be reminded of other possibilities. That he looked more like a Werner the more she stared at him… why, what an absurd idea, to think… she couldn’t even allow herself to articulate it, not at first. But the absurdity presented itself for her perusal every time Abe arrived at the house. Just by being present and available for observation, he made it necessary for Sally to wonder if there was more than a coincidental resemblance.

  She invited him to sit. She offered him a beer and took the opportunity to examine his features with more than just a glance. She noticed the dimple above the scruff of his beard, the line of his eyebrows, the curve of his nostrils, and his eyes, those green eyes speckled with flecks of brown. He was different from the other boys her daughter had brought home. It was a difference hard to define but apparent in his obvious devotion to Penelope. Sally saw why her daughter might come to love him, if given the chance. And she understood something about love, didn’t she? Sure she did. She understood that the experience of love could be as vexing as it was rewarding. Love could be dangerous and beautiful at the same time, hurtful and healing, impossible and necessary. That’s what Sally would have warned the couple if she’d had the courage to be frank.

  To pass the time, she asked Abe about his parents. His father, he said, had died when he was a boy. She expressed her condolences. His mother lived on Long Island. She’d come down with some sort of flu, he said, a summer flu. Well, that was too bad. Sally hoped his mother recovered quickly. Mrs. Boyle lived on Long Island? She needed to hear him confirm it: yes, Long Island, though she was originally from Pittsburgh, that’s where she’d grown up, as did Abe’s father. Really? And they met there in Pittsburgh? Yes. And then moved to Long Island? Yes. And Abe was born on Long Island? Well, no, in fact, he’d been adopted. Sure, Sally murmured, he’d mentioned that before. So he’d been born… in Pittsburgh? He been adopted through the Roman Catholic Diocese in Pittsburgh. That’s all he knew for certain.

  She could see he was getting jittery. He was nervous, like a witness under cross-examination. She guessed that he wanted to hide the fact that there were missing pieces in the puzzle of his life. But he couldn’t help it. She wanted to reassure him, to point out that he wasn’t to blame for not knowing things he’d never been told. There were blanks in her own life story, as well, though she didn’t come right out and admit this. She didn’t mention that she had a son. He’d be about Abe’s age, yes, just about, give or take a few months. Of course she didn’t say this. Her daughter didn’t know that she had an older half brother, and it was too late to tell her the truth. Sally had secrets; maybe Abe could find them just by searching her face, as she searched his.

  “There’s Penny. Ah, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Sure, go along.”

  There he went, looking more like a Werner than ever.

  That’s because all redheads look alike.

  Who are you?

  Every question has an answer.

  An answer is true until proven false. Or is it false until proven true? And what role does intuition play in the construction of the stories we tell ourselves? Guess.

  Could you be…?

  Try out no. It felt thick and heavy, unproductive, pointless. Then try out yes.It was so much brighter, like the underside of a leaf turned up by a summer breeze. Yes was more appealing than no. But she had to be honest with herself and admit that it wasn’t convincing. Yes was the sound of a whim.

  Then how about maybe, with its respect for mystery and its promise of resolution? Try it out. Test the word for its resilience. Maybe. It was a hopeful word and for that reason alone was the best answer to the question Sally couldn’t ask. Maybe. And out of maybe, she could begin to solve the riddle of her life and identify the consequence of that first decisive action she’d taken, when she’d given herself the chance to start over again.

  Running, running, running.

  Out of maybe, Sally Werner might learn who she’d been all along. Maybe seemed the most honest option and at the same time the most encouraging, giving her direction. She didn’t bother to consider that it was the same direction she’d already allowed herself to follow in her imagination. It was the direction she’d come from, a return to the past. She told herself she’d go back and find out the truth about the child she’d abandoned, and maybe, just maybe, she’d learn that Abe Boyle was her son. She had figured out the right questions to ask, at last. She didn’t stop to consider that she was framing the questions to produce the only answers she was prepared to accept. There wasn’t time to reject the promise of her hunch. Maybe hid the truth, the ridiculous, exhilarating truth, which had to be disclosed if her daughter and Abe Boyle were going to be spared from making a terrible mistake.

  Thinking back to that summer, Sally would remember that there was a sense of change in the air. The jobless rate was up across the country, car sales were falling, and in Washington senators were talking about impeachment. Sally sat transfixed in front of the television, smokin
g her Lucky Strikes. And then she’d spend the nights tossing and turning, her thoughts racing.

  She planned to drive to Tauntonville in mid-July, but that was the weekend Abe Boyle’s mother took a turn for the worse. Abe’s car was in the repair shop, so Penelope borrowed Sally’s car to drive him to Long Island. That same week Arnie Caddeau took his family down to the Jersey Shore. Sally waited restlessly, counting the days. Once, just once, she met some of her girlfriends at Typhoon Sam’s, and after too many gin daiquiris she showed off her talent with a song. She sang “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”

  In your dreams, whatever they be…

  She could still belt it out. The noise in the bar subsided as everyone stopped talking to listen to Sally sing. They listened politely, and at the end there was scattered applause, but Sally could tell that she’d made a bad choice with that song. It was Mama Cass’s hit, and anyone trying to outdo Mama Cass or even match her was bound to sound foolish.

  Back home, with the song running through her head, she remembered the good times singing with Penny Campbell in Tuskee. She’d lost touch with Penny; she told herself that when she did go to Tauntonville she’d stop in Tuskee and look up her old friend. She’d be sure to bring along a photo of Penelope to show her that her namesake had grown up into a real beauty.

  Penelope Bliss had plenty of talent to go with her looks, along with the good habit of persistence and irresistible charisma. For years, Sally had been convinced that her girl was a natural performer and would have grand success if she just set her mind to it. But being a star wasn’t in Penelope’s plan. Instead she’d been talking about law — a man’s career, in Sally’s opinion. In all her years as a secretary in the office of Kendycandyc’doo, she’d never met a single woman lawyer. It was true that she hadn’t met any celebrities either, but she’d spent a lot of time looking at their pictures. They had a good life, an easy life. Sally wanted to remind her daughter to watch for opportunity.

  Penelope thought she’d found an opportunity in Abe. No doubt about it — they were spending the week falling more deeply in love. They would come home from Long Island more attached to each other than ever, and it would be up to Sally to disclose to them the fact of their family connection, if there was indeed a fact.

  She awoke to a soft summer rain the next morning. She made herself a cup of Nescafé and turned on the radio. The dj was saying something about Mama Cass of the Mamas and Papas. She didn’t catch the details of his announcement. “Dream a Little Dream” came on, and as she blew out a stream of cigarette smoke she remembered with deprecating amusement how she’d tried to do justice to that song at Typhoon Sam’s the night before.

  She learned the sad news only at the end of the day, when she saw the headlines in the evening paper announcing that Mama Cass Elliot had been found dead in her bed in a London hotel room, clutching a half-eaten ham sandwich. What a lonely and humiliating way to go. How could a woman with a voice as delicate as Mama Cass’s come to such a sorry end? Sally was reminded of her beloved Dara Bliss and of fleeting time stealing the sweetest voices from the world. As she crossed over the Court Street Bridge, she started humming, and then she started singing softly.

  In your dreams, whatever they be…

  She sang the whole song through and at the end felt oppressed by the weight of loneliness. She stopped and leaned against the embankment wall to watch the rust-streaked Tuskee moving lazily, spilling slowly toward the lip of the falls. She was forty-three years old, almost forty-four, old enough to realize how much she’d squandered in her life. And yet she told herself that she’d made the choices she thought would be best. She’d had to grow up too quickly, that was the problem. She’d become a mother at sixteen, and she’d never had a chance to finish being a child.

  Shortly after she returned home, the phone rang. It was Penelope calling from Long Island to say that Abe’s mother had died. Poor Abe, then, was an orphan again. Or maybe not. Maybe another mother would take over for the one he’d lost.

  They’d be staying in Huntington through the funeral, which was scheduled for Wednesday, and would drive home the next day. By Friday, Sally would be able to track down the Werners and get some answers.

  ____

  She stood in the parlor of Loden Werner’s farmhouse. He’d purchased it more than twenty years earlier from his uncle, and from what Sally could tell, he’d let the fields lie fallow. He was telling her about the lumber company where he worked as a supervisor. Willy was a supervisor, as well, and Clem was a driver. Loden was cordial enough as he brought Sally up to date. He’d grown thick around the waist, and his hair had thinned, but she saw that his cheek still creased around the one big dimple, and his eyes were still the same green.

  He introduced Sally to his wife — Betty Werner, daughter of Patrick Shaunessy of Peterkin. Shaunessy. Sally didn’t recognize the name. She accepted Betty’s offer of tea. While Betty was out of the room, Loden called loudly for Bonnie. From the way he was calling the name, Sally thought Bonnie was his dog. When Bonnie didn’t appear, Sally asked about her and learned that she was Loden’s twelve-year-old daughter. She was probably out doing chores at the neighbor’s, Loden said. He explained that she was working hard to save up money to buy a pony. They couldn’t have a pony, he said, they couldn’t afford the upkeep. But he thought it was good to see his daughter working hard and saving money.

  Betty brought a striped mug with the Lipton bag floating in tepid lemon-colored water. Sally took a sip and set it on the mantel. She announced that she wasn’t going to beat around the bush. She reminded Loden that twenty-two years ago she’d come in search of news of her child. She asked him if he remembered that visit. He said no, he didn’t recall it. Then he didn’t recall telling Sally that she wasn’t welcome at home. He spoke sharply in denial — he never said that. Then he did remember that visit twenty-two years ago? “I suppose,” he admitted. Perhaps he might recall that when Sally had asked him about the whereabouts of her baby, he’d said, What baby? No, he didn’t remember saying that.

  Back and forth they continued, Sally offering Loden prompts, Loden denying, then hedging, then denying again. She quit pressing him and tried a different tack. She asked him if he knew where their cousin Daniel was. He said he hadn’t heard hide nor hair of Daniel for years. Even his parents hadn’t heard from him. He disappeared. He didn’t even come home for his mother’s funeral, Loden said. Sally remembered that Tru had remarked upon the same thing, with the same words. She’d thought this meant his absence signified a turning point in their understanding of him. Daniel Werner hadn’t come home for his own mother’s funeral. But standing with Loden, she realized that he was conveying his disgust for Daniel Werner as a way of conveying his disgust for her, since Sally had failed equally. Her father had died, and then her mother had died, and their eldest daughter hadn’t come home for their funerals. The older generation had passed one by one, and Sally hadn’t come home. Well, here she was, too late to ameliorate her brother’s contempt for her.

  There would be no reviving whatever familial ease they’d shared as children. Sally was Daniel’s equal. Both were disgraceful in Loden’s eyes. Fine. She didn’t need his forgiveness. She just needed him to tell her what had happened to her baby.

  He didn’t know. Daniel disappeared, and he took the baby with him.

  Really? Was Loden absolutely certain? Sally tried a small lie to nudge him: “I heard that Daniel gave the baby away.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Loden asked sharply.

  “It doesn’t matter. I just want to know if it’s true.”

  “What’s true?”

  “That he gave the baby away.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it? It’s likely, eh?”

  Loden didn’t know. He couldn’t say for certain one way or the other. He advised her to go talk to Clem. Clem was living in a house on Mosshill Lane. “Go talk to Clem,” Loden advised.

  Sally bid good-bye to Loden and his
wife, Betty, with such abruptness that they didn’t even have a chance to show her out. As she approached the front door, she felt that peculiar awareness that comes from being stared at, and she glanced up the well of the staircase and saw a girl with her face pressed between the rails of the banister. Sally expected the girl to draw back in shyness, but instead she kept staring down at her, as if Sally were an exotic animal in a zoo.

  Sally offered a greeting in her friendliest voice. “I’m your aunt Sally,” she said.

  “Bonnie, come here!” At the sound of Loden’s angry voice calling from the parlor, Sally and the girl engaged in a silent, powerful exchange, with the girl expressing fear and Sally trying to convey with a slight nod that she sympathized, for she knew herself how difficult it was to be a Werner. Loden called again, the girl fled from the stairs into a bedroom, and Sally let herself out.

  From Loden’s house to Clem’s. What would her younger brother tell her that she didn’t already know? The hedging, the obdurate denials, the feigned confusion — the Werner men could make it difficult to track down the truth. But Clem had always been nicer to Sally than Loden had, or at least he hadn’t gone out of his way to humiliate her. And he was polite when he came home from work and found Sally talking to his wife, his gentle wife, who had gone ahead and invited her sister-in-law to stay for dinner. She’d made a meat loaf, enough to feed a crowd, she said. And those three boys of hers, Sally’s nephews, why, they made as much noise as a crowd with their shouting and brawling as they came up the back steps. They yelled at their mother. They yelled at their beagle, who stood thumping his tail, blocking the doorway. Though they were still young, ranging in age from ten to fourteen, they were big and forceful in their actions and already they had that Werner way of looking askance, with obvious suspicion, at their guest.

  Clem told Sally stories about the part of his growing up that she’d missed. He told her about the time he’d broken his arm falling off a tractor. He described how a tornado touched down in 1954 on the Jensons’ farm, cut a swath across the edge of the field, and blew a cow right over the electric lines. He told her how he’d met his wife, Eveline, waiting outside the movie theater in Lafayette. And he told her about her parents’ funerals, from the Gospel passages read right down to the meals that were served after the ceremony.

 

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