Missing Mom: A Novel

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Five weeks, three days before the trial of Ward Lynch on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, etc. was scheduled to begin, a call came from the Chautauqua County prosecutor’s office with the news that it had been postponed to March 30.

  I listened. I didn’t reply when the voice at the other end of the line asked if I had any questions.

  “Miss Eaton? Are you still on the line?”

  I didn’t slam the receiver down. Quietly I replaced it. I had no questions.

  Noting the date on Mom’s ASPCA calendar: March 30 *TRIAL*.

  The March photo was “Sybil the black-faced goat with her two kids Easter and Lester” who’d been rescued from bad living conditions on a farm but are now “well and thriving” at the Mt. Ephraim Animal Shelter. For a long time I stared at Sybil, Easter, and Lester and thought how lucky they’d been, to be rescued. And how, before they’d been rescued, they could have had no idea what “rescue” was. If they could have thought, they would have thought that the “bad living conditions” were life, and not bad luck. Or, maybe, they’d have thought that they deserved it, their bad luck.

  Jan. 6, 2005

  Dear Ms. Eaton,

  Just to say that I am sorry about the trial delay. This is not uncommon in capital cases and does not reflect a lack of interest or respect in the case quite the opposite in fact, I hope you and your family can understand.

  Also just to say that the case is in my mind though I am working on others of course. You also are in my mind. After your testimony at the hearing your words were much in my mind and this has not lessened over the months.

  My interest in this is professional purely, I need to make clear. There should be no misunderstanding here.

  Well—that is all.

  Like before, Ms. Eaton please call if you have questions or wish to talk on any aspect of this case. As I have told you it will be ended soon, the trial I mean and you will then get on with your life as they say. In saying such a thing people mean well and it is true, what they say, mostly.

  Sincerely

  Det. Ross Strabane

  Det. Ross Strabane, Mt. Ephraim Police

  P. S. Here is my updated card.

  DETECTIVE ROSS J. STRABANE

  MT. EPRHRAIM POLICE DEPARTMENT

  TEL: (716)722-4186 EXT. 31

  HOME: (716)817-9934

  CELL: (716) 999-6871

  E-MAIL RSTRABANE@MTEPD. COM

  On the reverse of the card, neatly hand-printed:

  3817 North Fork Rd.

  Mt. Ephraim

  “it all came out in blood”

  A few days later there came, to ring the doorbell at 43 Deer Creek Drive, a stocky man of late middle age who walked with a cane, in a black overcoat that fell past his knees like a robe. Behind him at the curb was parked a shiny black Lincoln Town Car that looked like a compact hearse.

  The man was Father Brendan Dorsey.

  Dropping by to “pay his respects” to me, though we’d never met. To express his “shock, grief”—“sorrow”—to ask me to accept his “heartfelt condolences.” Since he was in Mt. Ephraim visiting his widowed mother.

  “Naturally, I’d heard. Some months ago. The terrible news. My mother saves newspaper clippings for me…”

  I invited Father Dorsey inside. I took his coat from him, that was softly heavy black cashmere. On his rotund near-bald head, a black fedora I took from him as well. Brendan Dorsey! I was stunned to see him: the man who, long ago when he’d been a boy, my mother had loved.

  The man who’d impregnated my mother. Might have married her, if he’d wished to. Thereby supplanting my father, and Clare and me.

  If you’d been nicer to Mom, I wouldn’t exist. What do I owe you!

  I wondered if Mom would recognize Brendan Dorsey, after so many years. This worldly man in his late fifties with a boiled-looking face, a slightly swollen flushed nose. Something boyish and spoiled about his mouth. His eyes were startlingly pale, a washed-out blue. Brendan Dorsey had been handsome, you could see, before he’d gained weight and authority. One of those men-in-power who, so long as you don’t contradict them, are utterly charming, gracious. When I asked Brendan Dorsey what I should call him, he surprised me by saying, with an air of subtly offended dignity: “‘Father Dorsey.’”

  Strange! If you aren’t Catholic. Calling an utter stranger “Father.” And this least fatherly of men, with pale staring eyes and steel-rimmed glasses, black clerical clothes and gleaming black cane. Brendan Dorsey was impeccably dressed, from his starched white priest’s collar to his expensive-looking black leather shoes. Though clearly he was a man who ate and drank well, his face fleshy and a sizable belly protruding over his belt like a kangaroo’s pouch. Almost, you’d expect to see a pert little face peeking out of that pouch.

  To Mom, when she’d been Gwen Kovach, this man had been a boy named Brendan. Now he’d aged into Father Dorsey, a figure of importance who informed me that he was “assistant to the Bishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul.” He was “co-chairing” a conference of Catholic theologians at Canisus College in Buffalo, and, as he’d explained, visiting his mother who lived, with his younger sister Ethel, in the family home on Ridge Road.

  I’d asked him to call me “Nicole” and not “Miss Eaton” as he’d been doing. I told him that Mom had had two daughters, that she’d married a man named Jonathan Eaton and they’d lived in this house together for almost thirty years until he’d died in January 2000. Graciously Brendan Dorsey murmured, “I am sorry to hear that, Nicole. You must miss both your parents very much.”

  For a moment I couldn’t speak. It was as if the priest had reached out to touch my raw, beating heart I’d imagined was safely hidden inside one of Mom’s cable-knit pullovers.

  I didn’t doubt that Brendan Dorsey had plenty of practice comforting the bereaved but I had no intention to break down and cry so that he could comfort me more. I said, “We’ve never met, Father Dorsey. But I have heard of you.”

  “Have you! That’s kind to say, Nicole.”

  He was thinking I meant his prominence in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy. When I said, “I mean, in a personal way. In a Mt. Ephraim way,” he blinked at me, startled. A slow flush lifted into his face.

  “Ah! I see.”

  “Not from Mom but from Mom’s friend Alyce Proxmire. Do you remember that name, Father Dorsey?”

  Brendan Dorsey, seated in Dad’s old, favorite leather chair in the living room, shifted his bulk awkwardly, fussing with the cane between his legs. He frowned, to give the impression of trying to remember the name of an individual who, forty years before, he hadn’t given a second glance to. “‘Alyce Proxmire.’ A friend, you say, of Gwen’s?”

  Gwen! The name seemed almost to have slipped from his mouth, inadvertently.

  “Mom’s ‘oldest girlfriend,’ she used to call her. They were in the same class at Mt. Ephraim High.”

  Brendan Dorsey smiled, as if he’d solved the riddle. “I didn’t attend public school, Nicole.”

  The old Nikki would’ve said something bright and brash to make this fat old guy who’d broken Mom’s heart squirm with discomfort in her house, but the newer Nikki, having taken Mom’s place in the house, only just smiled and said, innocently, “Oh, I know, Father! ‘De Sales High.’ The best school in the Chautauqua Valley. Exclusively for Catholic boys whose parents can afford the tuition.”

  Even before Mom’s long-lost first boyfriend arrived on my doorstep, it had been a complicated morning.

  I’d driven to Chautauqua Falls, as I did from time to time, to meet with my employers at the Beacon. (Who was still hinting, in the most tactful of ways, that a “personal piece” on my loss would be welcome in the paper; better yet, a “personal piece” on the upcoming trial.) Afterward, I dropped by my apartment to check it out. (When it seemed that I wouldn’t be returning immediately, I’d given away my potted plants to my downstairs neighbor. I was careful to keep the thermostat at a high enough temperature to prevent pipes freezing. Since I
’d never exactly decided to move into Mom’s house, I’d never gotten around to filling out a post office change of address form, so mail continued to accumulate for me, kindly deposited on a table in my apartment by the downstairs neighbor. Not much of this was first class mail, and all of it was disposable.)

  My landlord waylaid me on the stairs: when was I coming back? Was I coming back? My lease would expire in June, and rent was being raised by fifteen percent.

  Fifteen percent! I tried not to wince.

  I told my landlord that I hadn’t been thinking about the future, much. “When I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  The last time I’d visited Chautauqua Falls, I’d spent the night with Wally Szalla. This time, no.

  I didn’t make a sentimental journey driving past Riverview Luxury Apartments. Still less was I tempted to drive past the big red-brick colonial on Ashburn Avenue. But I did drive past the WCHF AM-FM radio tower outside town. There were a half-dozen vehicles parked there but Wally Szalla’s trademark old tarnished-brass Buick was missing.

  Oh, it was ridiculous! I felt a pang of loss. If the Buick had been there, I wasn’t going to stop in.

  Maybe Wally had sold the car, at last. Maybe one of the new, shiny vehicles was his.

  Returning home, I drove a mile or two out of my way to take North Fork Road into Mt. Ephraim. I seemed to be taking this route unconsciously, for no reason. Since I hadn’t made any attempt to remember the detective’s address, I had no way of knowing which residence was his.

  Any time. Day or night. Just to talk.

  Have faith!

  North Fork Road was two-lane blacktop, a road of no special distinction. Like most roads in the foothills of the Chautauqua Mountains it was steeply hilly. It ranged from beautiful rural stretches passing through rolling farmland with views of the Chautauqua River in the distance, to eyesore stretches of run-down houses in littered yards, trailer courts and boarded-up old farmhouses and barns waiting to be razed by developers. There were small ranch houses with asphalt siding, middle-income colonials and Cape Cods, subdivisions with names like Fox Hill Acres. Just outside Mt. Ephraim there was a scattering of pretentious brick Georgians on newly landscaped lots, like those in the Chisholms’ neighborhood. And there was, ideal for singles, North Fork Villas (1- & 2-Bedroom Apt’s Now Renting), a decidedly downscale version of the Riverview in Chautauqua Falls.

  I felt a sudden happiness, driving my car past snow-heaped fields, on a brightly sunny winter morning. How like the opening credits of a movie. As the camera soars and sweeps along the roadside. The suspense of not knowing where the camera is headed. What the story will be, who it will involve. And what will happen.

  “May I?”

  Brendan Dorsey was asking if he might take, as a memento, one of the cheerleader photos of “Feather” Kovach. Sweetly smiling in her trim maroon jumper, blond hair flying and face blandly pretty as a doll’s. I checked to see if there were other, similar photos, and told him yes of course. His eyes welled unexpectedly with tears as he thanked me.

  “She was the very spirit of joy, wasn’t she! Of course, you never knew her then.”

  “Only from others, who did.”

  Brendan Dorsey was peering at other photos on the table, blinking and staring. A look of hurt and yearning and a kind of greed came over his face, I knew he’d have liked to ask for more photos of my mother but damned if I would give them away to this stranger.

  “‘Feather’ they called her. Ah, she was so—young. We were both so young.” Brendan Dorsey sighed heavily. “Different people, really.”

  Because I didn’t like Father Brendan Dorsey, and didn’t trust him, I was trying to be extra-nice to him. Thinking Mom would wish this, Mom forgave him long ago. I could imagine her in the doorway watching anxiously.

  I had to wonder if he’d loved her. If an eighteen-year-old boy can love. I had to wonder if, through his life as a priest, and what looked like the success of his career as a priest, he’d remembered her sometimes, and regretted his behavior. But he’d never tried to contact her, evidently. He had certainly returned to visit his family from time to time but he’d never contacted my mother through forty years and now she was gone and he was blinking back tears, looming over the dining room table in her house.

  I asked, a little sharply, “Were you very close friends with Mom?”

  “Quite close. At one time.”

  “You…‘dated’?”

  It was the speech of that era: “dated.” A cruder sort of speech came to mind but I refrained from using it.

  Brendan Dorsey sighed, pushing his steel-rimmed glasses against the bridge of his nose. The glasses had become too tight for his spreading face, pinching his flesh. “In a way, yes. For a brief while.”

  “When was the last time you saw my mother, Father Dorsey?”

  “I…I’m not sure.”

  “Before you went away to college?”

  “It would have been then, yes. And the seminary.”

  “You went to St. Bonaventure?”

  Brendan Dorsey glanced at me in mild surprise, that I should know this fact. Yet, being a man of prominence, if not himself a bishop in the Church, it might make sense, that a complete stranger knew something of his background.

  “Yes. And then to Holy Redeemer Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.” Brendan Dorsey paused, as if hesitant to continue, for fear of seeming boastful. “Also, two years at the Vatican studying church law. An extraordinary experience.”

  “You didn’t keep in touch with my mother, I guess.”

  “Well, no.” Brendan Dorsey paused, as if he had more to say, but thought better of it.

  How provincial Mt. Ephraim would seem, to one who’d studied at the Vatican! And sweet little Feather Kovach, utterly outgrown.

  I said, “Of course, Mom wasn’t Catholic. You wouldn’t have had the church connection.”

  “Yes. I mean, no. There wouldn’t have been that connection.”

  I’d offered Brendan Dorsey coffee, and a cinnamon roll. Gratefully Brendan Dorsey accepted the coffee, but demurred at the prospect of the roll. When I told him that I’d baked the rolls that morning, from a recipe of my mother’s, he said, as if reluctantly, “Well, I could try one. Thank you.”

  Brendan Dorsey ate the roll slowly at first, then with more appetite. He was a hearty eater, who fears stimulating his appetite, for then he’ll have a hard time curbing it. We were sitting at an end of the dining room table. I’d set out Mom’s most exquisite embroidered napkins, which Brendan Dorsey used to wipe his mouth of sugar, and his sticky hands.

  I said, “It always seemed strange to me, in a way mysterious, that my mother wasn’t Catholic since most of the Kovachs are. They belong to St. Joseph’s parish.”

  “St. Joseph’s! Yes. There’s a new man there, I don’t believe I have met.”

  “At the time of her death, Mom belonged to the Mt. Ephraim Christian Life Fellowship Church. My father wasn’t religious and never went with her. They’re both buried in Mt. Ephraim Cemetery.”

  Only recently had I been able to speak like this, my voice not quavering. I was able to say such words as death, died, buried, cemetery. Like a small child just learning to speak, I was fascinated by the sounds of certain words.

  As I spoke, Brendan Dorsey nodded gravely. He was eyeing a second cinnamon roll in the way of a cat calculating a leap that might result in an ignoble fall, yet might be worth the risk. I said again, more pointedly, “I always wondered why. Mom wasn’t Catholic.”

  “My dear, did you ask her?”

  “Oh, you couldn’t ask Mom anything so serious! She’d float away like a feather, and turn it into a joke. I guess she said she ‘believed’ in God, and that was enough. The actual church didn’t matter.”

  “And what is your church affiliation, Nicole?”

  The pale blue eyes were fixed on me, behind the steel-rimmed glasses. For a moment I felt the powerful tug, the wish to please a man of such authority.

  “Nothing, F
ather Dorsey. But I ‘believe,’ too.”

  “Well, good. That’s good.”

  Brendan Dorsey had weakened, and was reaching for the second cinnamon roll. We watched his hand, stubby fingers yet neatly filed, impeccable nails. Eating, sighing, he said unexpectedly, “A heretic, my dear. Like your mother.”

  Heretic? No one had ever called Gwen Eaton a heretic before.

  “What do you mean, Father? I don’t understand.”

  But Brendan Dorsey wasn’t in a mood to discuss theology. In this middle-income ranch house in Deer Creek Acres, Mt. Ephraim. With the hippie-looking daughter of a woman he hadn’t seen in forty years and rarely gave a thought to, except at weak, sentimental moments. “Believing in human beings, and not God. Not Jesus Christ our savior without whom we are unredeemed.” Though licking cinnamon from his lips, wiping his sticky hands on the embroidered napkins, Brendan Dorsey didn’t look as if redemption was uppermost in his mind at the moment.

  Impulsively I said, “Thank you, Father Dorsey.”

  “But—why?”

  “For becoming a priest. For leaving Mt. Ephraim, and leaving my mother. It was the necessary thing.”

  Brendan Dorsey stared at me, uncertain. Possibly he’d detected a note of female mockery in my voice, not what you’d expect in Gwen Kovach’s daughter. He said, frowning, “My dear, it was. The ‘necessary’ thing: God’s will. The priesthood was obviously my vocation, not…” His voice trailed off. His sticky fingers gestured vaguely to indicate all that was not the priesthood: the dining room in which we sat, the tidy little suburban house, Deer Creek Acres, the world.

  Afterward I would realize, with a stab of hurt, that Brendon Dorsey hadn’t shown much interest in Mom beyond her cheerleader years. He’d done no more than glance through photos of her as a young wife and mother, he’d made no comment on our family photos, hadn’t asked a question about Dad. His interest in “Feather” Kovach had ended abruptly in the mid-1960s. By the time Mom had spent the weekend at Star Lake with her friend Alyce, this interest was extinguished.