The Time Telephone

by Connie Lacy

  Another pause.

  “Yes, I’d like to ask you about that. Can you hold on for just one quick second? Thank you so much. I’ll be right back.”

  Then she returned to me.

  “Megan, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you in a couple of days. Toodles.”

  And the line went dead. A buzz filled my ear. And that was it! Game over. I returned the receiver to the hook in slow motion and set the telephone on the table. I wiped my eyes and nose on the backs of my hands and on my sleeves. I felt like limp lettuce. Cold limp lettuce. “I can’t just drop everything and rush home.” That’s what she said. Like I was her dog or something. The more I thought about it, the more it totally ticked me off.

  How dare she hang up on me? How dare she dismiss me with “I’ll call you in a couple of days?” It was the first time I had ever called my mother while she was on assignment. The very first time! All those moments in the past when I wanted to call her, I resisted temptation, knowing she was busy. And when I finally did, she acted like I’d broken fifteen laws or something. Like her work was way more important than I was. I was trying to save her life and she hung up on me! I couldn’t believe it. She hung up on me when I called her as a kid. She hung up when I called her as a teenager. And now that she knew who I was – her own daughter – she hung up on me when I called to save her life!

  Then Kieran was standing right in front of me.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  And I snapped.

  “What a stupid question! You can see I’m not all right. My mother just hung up on me. Again!”

  “Megan…”

  “Leave me alone!”

  And I headed toward the front door.

  “Megan, wait,” he said, putting his hand on my arm.

  I yanked it away. I couldn’t stop the tears and that made me even madder.

  “Megan, I hate to say it, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Excuse me?” I whirled around to face him.

  He scrunched up his face like he was in pain.

  “Well, I think your mother lived the life she wanted to live and you keep calling on that… that… time telephone or whatever it is.”

  “Whatever it is?”

  “Well, sometimes I wonder, you know, if it’s not just all in your head. You know, like you’re trying to work through all your feelings with these… conversations.”

  “You mean imaginary conversations?”

  “Well…”

  “Well, you, sir, can go straight to hell!”

  “Megan, it’s just that your grandmother is the one who loves you and you give her the cold shoulder, you know? It’s like she can never measure up to your mother. Which is kind of ironic, you know, from all I’ve heard. No offense.”

  And I slapped his face.

  He was stunned and so was I. But I was so angry, I knew if I opened my mouth I would cry. So I turned and yanked the door open and stepped onto the warped front porch. But before I could take another step, two boards beneath my right foot gave way. The other ends of the boards popped up and hit me in the head. My foot sank into the hole and I fell. Instead of landing on the wooden floor, the other boards gave way and I was pitched downward into the dark, cobwebbed space below. I let out a scream as I tumbled through the hole and landed in a heap, with the rotten boards clattering down on top of me.

  ~Thirteen~

  Rescue

  My head throbbed, my right ankle felt like it had been hit with a sledge hammer and my back and neck hurt. And, as if that wasn’t enough, I was scared out of my wits lying on the hard ground under that rotten old porch, the air thick with dust.

  I started to push the boards off me but I heard footsteps and yelled as loud as I could, which caused me to wince in pain.

  “Stop! Stop! Don’t get near the…”

  Too late. I watched helplessly as Kieran rushed through the doorway, stopping on the edge of the hole. But the rotten boards splintered under his weight. All in one motion, he plunged through the hole in the floor like he was leaping onto a water slide at Whitewater Park. He tried to catch himself, but no way. I braced myself as he came bouncing down onto the pile of rotten wood, barely missing me. He let out a groan that scared me good.

  “Kieran!”

  I touched his arm.

  “Kieran?”

  More footsteps coming.

  “Stop! Stop!” I screamed, looking up through the hole. “Stop! Don’t come through the door! Stop! Don’t come through the door! Stop!”

  I just knew Grandma and Aunt Libby were going to step into the gaping hole and land on top of me and Kieran.

  “Stop! There’s a hole!” I shouted. My throat burned from yelling.

  Then Grandma’s face appeared directly above us. She must’ve been lying on the floor, her face was so close to the floor boards.

  “Grandma, get back! The wood is rotten.”

  “Oh, Megan. I should never have trusted this old house,” she whispered. “Are you two all right?”

  Kieran’s eyes were clamped shut.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He moaned.

  “Kieran?” I said.

  “Not good,” he whispered.

  This was scary. Then I heard Aunt Libby’s voice in the parlor.

  “I’m calling 9-1-1.”

  “Yes, yes,” Grandma said.

  “What hurts?” I asked Kieran.

  “My knees,” he whispered. “My arm.”

  Then he sucked in his breath through his teeth.

  I looked up into Grandma’s anxious face, outlined by the jagged boards. So near, yet so far away. And then, another board came loose and fell, bouncing off one of the dangling planks. I held one arm above my head and one arm above Kieran. It crashed down onto the pile of boards, just missing our legs and then tipped away from us. Grandma gasped.

  It was then that it occurred to me that the whole porch might come crashing down at any moment with the two of us underneath. In fact, as I studied the underside of the floor, I realized that if the porch gave way, the whole house could be brought down to the ground.

  I looked toward one end of the long porch and then the other. Both ends had stone steps blocking our exit. My great grandfather must’ve built those steps. And across the length of the front of the porch there was a matching stone wall. There was no way to crawl out except to go under the house itself.

  The crawl space under the house was open on all sides. The shortest distance was straight back to where the driveway looped around the pecan tree in the back yard.

  “Grandma,” I said, looking up. “Wait for us out back. We’re gonna crawl out that way. If we try to climb up through this hole, we might cause the porch to give way. And, besides, I don’t think I could lift Kieran.”

  A cracking sound made her jump. She closed her eyes and nodded her head slightly.

  “Oh, Megan. I’m so sorry.”

  “Walk as lightly as you can,” I said.

  She nodded and then disappeared.

  I listened as her soft footsteps receded. She was talking to herself as she went, but I couldn’t understand her words.

  “Kieran?” I said.

  But before he could answer, a creaking noise broke the muffled quiet.

  “Kieran, let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered.

  I had to move some boards before I could inch my way closer to him.

  “Small problem,” he said.

  He took a slow, deep breath.

  “What?”

  “I think my knees might be broken.”

  Another board fell, glancing off my left shoulder. We both tensed. I realized he wasn’t going to be able to crawl at all. I gritted my teeth as I maneuvered myself behind him. Terrible pain was shooting through my ankle but I forced myself to ignore it.

  “Okay, listen,” I said. “I’m gonna pull you. Just let me get my arms under your arms.”

  “Too heavy,” he said under his breath.<
br />
  I positioned myself directly behind him and slipped my arms around him, clasping my hands on his chest. I had to keep my head down so it wouldn’t hit the exposed beams. I slid my knees a little away from him and heaved. I grunted as I strained to pull his weight. I heaved again. He sucked air through his teeth as his legs stretched out in front of him. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Grandma and Aunt Libby bending down to look at us under the house. They seemed so far away. Beads of sweat sprouted on my face and I felt hot all over. I ripped my fleece jacket off, throwing it to one side. The house groaned.

  I pulled harder and faster. I knew Kieran was gritting his teeth just like I was. My ankle throbbed.

  I kept scooting and heaving, scooting and heaving. I would’ve been gentle but I didn’t have time. I had to use every ounce of my strength. I knew he must’ve been in real pain every time I hauled him backwards across that cold, hard dirt. I was afraid he might pass out.

  And then, with about six or eight feet to go, another loud crack came from the front of the house and I could see boards dropping where Kieran and I fell through. Then a deafening slam as the whole front porch collapsed. A cloud of dirt and dust filled my nose and eyes and we both coughed and wheezed. I just knew the whole house was about to come crashing down on top of us.

  “Megan!” Grandma screamed.

  I didn’t take time to look at her.

  “Grit your teeth, Kieran, and lay down flat,” I yelled, jumping farther behind him to give him room.

  He flattened his body to the ground.

  “Give me your hands!”

  “My left one’s not good,” he grunted, lifting only his right arm towards me.

  I grabbed his outstretched right hand and pulled with all my might, dragging him in one continuous motion to the edge of the house. He was groaning and I was grunting and Grandma was screaming and Aunt Libby was praying. When I pulled him out from under the house, Grandma and Aunt Libby helped me drag him across the yard.

  “Farther,” I gasped.

  We struggled to pull him a few more feet until he was lying under the pecan tree on the far side of the driveway. His eyes were closed and his face was contorted in pain. I was totally out of breath and my chest hurt even more than my ankle. It felt like I was having a heart attack. I turned and sat hard on the ground as Grandma and Aunt Libby hovered over him.

  “Kieran, I’m so sorry,” Grandma said. “I didn’t realize…”

  “Where’s that ambulance?” Aunt Libby said.

  Kieran’s face was ashen and his eyebrows were creased.

  The sound of a siren in the distance sent Aunt Libby scurrying down the driveway.

  “I’ll flag them down,” she cried.

  The sound came closer and closer until the noise made me scrunch my eyes closed and hold my hands over my ears. Finally, the intense wailing stopped as the ambulance bounced up the rough driveway. What a stinking, rotten day.

  A man and a woman in blue E.M.T. uniforms jumped out, rushing past me. They knelt beside Kieran and asked him questions as the woman took his pulse. Moving quickly, the man trotted back to the vehicle and pulled a stretcher from the back. He rolled it across the yard and positioned it right next to Kieran. The two of them carefully slid a board under him. Then they lifted him onto the stretcher and rolled it to the ambulance.

  All the while, Aunt Libby kept saying things like: “Oh, my goodness,” and “Dear, dear, dear.”

  “Libby, I’m going to ride in the ambulance with Kieran,” Grandma announced, following the stretcher.

  “Yes, of course,” Aunt Libby said. “Poor boy, goodness gracious.”

  “You can bring Megan.”

  “We’ll be right behind you.”

  Grandma got her purse and stooped down in front of me.

  “You all right, dear?”

  “Yeah.”

  I felt like a pile of vomit.

  “I’ll see you at the hospital,” she said.

  She climbed in the back of the ambulance and they closed the doors and pulled away, easing down the driveway. The siren blared again once they were on the paved road.

  “Lord, I sure do hope Kieran’s gonna be all right,” Aunt Libby said. Then she backtracked like she’d said the wrong thing. “But, I’m sure he is. He’s a big, strong boy. They’ll fix him right up, I’m sure.”

  She gathered up our things.

  “Here’s Kieran’s camera,” she said. “Can’t believe it stayed around his neck through all that. My goodness.”

  When everything was in the car, Aunt Libby appeared in front of me.

  “Where’s your coat, honey? You must be freezing.”

  I was shivering. All the heat I’d built up dragging Kieran was gone. My ankle was definitely sprained. My arms and back and neck were so stiff I could hardly move. My feet were cold and sweaty in my boots. And the house was about to fall down with the time telephone inside.

  “Under the house,” I said.

  “Goodness gracious,” she said.

  She pulled off her huge white cape.

  “Here, put this on, you poor little thing.”

  She wrapped it around me. It was so big, it swallowed me like a queen-sized bedspread.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s go.”

  I stood up like an arthritic old woman. When I put the slightest pressure on my ankle, it sent a sharp, “get off me” message to my brain. I hobbled to the car, using Aunt Libby as a crutch, with her fretting over me every step of the way.

  “I didn’t know you were hurt, dear. I don’t think Kate knows either. Maybe they should’ve taken you in the ambulance too. Heavens to Betsy!”

  The house looked even sadder than before as we drove away. When the porch collapsed, the roof over the porch had collapsed with it. And now, with the windows hidden from view, the house looked more like an old shed. The petals of the wisteria that clung to the pine trees fluttered to the ground like falling snowflakes, creating a violet carpet.

  “My camera!” I blurted.

  “Did you lose it?” Aunt Libby asked.

  “I left it on the couch in the parlor.”

  She shook her head as she drove.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got some men coming over tomorrow to move some things out before the demolition company gets here Tuesday. I’ll tell them to get it.”

  “Demolition is Tuesday?”

  “Yes, they’re supposed to be out here first thing Tuesday morning with all their equipment.”

  Panic sat in my stomach, like that cantaloupe I’d swallowed was growing or something. Why had I opened that front door and walked out on that worthless old porch? I knew it was falling down. And why had my mother caused this whole mess in the first place? Why couldn’t she be like a normal mother? Why? I screamed these questions in my mind.

  I had to use the telephone again. I had to call my mother again. I had to. But time was running out.

  ~Fourteen~

  Solo

  My ordeal was nothing compared to Kieran’s. I just had a bad sprain and some scrapes and bruises. I only had to spend an hour in the emergency room, getting my ankle iced and having a brace put on, then Grandma drove me home. It wasn’t that simple for Kieran who had a broken leg, a torn knee ligament and a fractured left wrist. After his parents got to the hospital they had him transferred to Emory in Atlanta where the orthopedist decided he had to have surgery on his leg. So while I was sipping chamomile tea in my bedroom that night, poor Kieran was having knee surgery.

  And I can only imagine how his mom and dad must’ve felt. They let him go with us to take a drive to an old farmhouse and he ended up seriously injured. Grandma talked with them when they got to the E.R. but downplayed how upset they must’ve been. My grandmother is so calm.

  Flowers. I would send him flowers and maybe a box of candy. Something. And, of course, I would go see him. But not until after I went back to the farm house – alone. I had to call my mother again.

  It would be easy enough to skip school. Grandma
could see how swollen my ankle was. But it was my right ankle that was sprained, so I wouldn’t be able to drive myself.

  My sleep was shallow. It was like I was just skimming the surface of slumber lake. I dreamed our house caved in. I dreamed I saw my mother talking on the phone as she fell into a hole in the floor. I dreamed of Jane Eyre running away from Mr. Rochester, going hungry, falling down, crying.

  When I woke up, I could tell it was late. The house was quiet. I dug my old gray track pants and jacket out of the closet and got dressed as quickly as my stupid ankle would allow. Then I put on my big walking boot, got my hospital issue crutches and struggled down the hallway to the kitchen. A note was on the table.

  “I’ll call you later. Love, Grandma.”

  I’d never downloaded a ride share app, not trusting some random stranger to drive me, so I called the taxi company with the biggest ad in the phone book and explained I needed a cab to take me to Barrow County and back again. The man said the meter would continue running while the driver waited for me.

  I sent an email to Grandma telling her I was fine and that I would be sleeping a lot and that I would see her at supper. Then I got cash from my drawer. I put three hundred and fifty bucks in my wallet and a hundred more in my pocket. My ankle didn’t hurt too bad unless I put weight on it, so I tried not to do that. I grabbed a cereal bar from the cabinet and a Snapple from the fridge. While I was pretty sure I could find the way, I Googled directions, just in case. I was just getting my blue puffer jacket from the hall closet when the doorbell rang.

  I’ve got to admit I was kind of scared taking a cab by myself. And on such a long trip too. What if the driver was a killer or something? The doorbell rang again.

  When I opened it, I saw a man smoking a cigarette and holding a huge red, white and blue striped sports umbrella over his head. Light rain was falling and the sky was gray and dreary.

  “You call taxi?” he asked.

  Was that a Middle Eastern accent? He had black hair and light brown skin.

  “Yes.”

  I locked the door behind me and struggled down the steps. He held the umbrella over my head as we walked together to his yellow cab. He opened the rear door for me and waited until I was seated and had pulled my crutches in before closing it firmly.