The Time Telephone

by Connie Lacy

I had a lump in my throat that was making it hard to talk. As I stopped to think what else I could say, I heard the flick of a lighter and the sound of inhaling.

  “A time telephone?” she finally said.

  “Yeah, I discovered it by accident the day… the day of your funeral. I found it in Pap and Granny’s old house. It’s the antique telephone in the parlor.”

  “That was disconnected several decades ago.”

  A crashing behind me made me jump. A picture had landed on the floor.

  “I don’t know how it works. But I’m talking on it right now. I’m standing here in this soggy old house, waiting for the walls to collapse on top of me. The front porch caved in yesterday.”

  “Megan, Megan, Megan.”

  She didn’t believe me.

  “Just promise me you won’t go to that market today, Mom.”

  She sighed.

  “What’s the big deal if you do your live shot from some other location?”

  I heard her drag on her cigarette.

  “It won’t hurt a thing if you do your report from somewhere else. Promise me, Mom.”

  “Okay.”

  “You swear?”

  “Yes.”

  I felt the floor shift beneath me ever so slightly, like a tremor.

  “Thank you.”

  There was a snapping noise. I turned and looked where the wall and the ceiling came together to the right of the fireplace. There was a crack big enough for rain to fall right in and splash on the floor. Was that space there before? I wasn’t sure. Then, another, stronger vibration beneath my feet. Not good.

  “Young miss, young miss!”

  It was the voice of the cabdriver in the distance.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “You won’t go, will you?”

  “I won’t go.”

  I heard another phone ringing in her room.

  “I’ll call you this weekend,” she said.

  “Just don’t go to that market today.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Her other phone continued to ring.

  “Love you,” she said. “Toodle-oo.”

  “Bye, Mom. I love you too.”

  And she was gone. I held my breath to see what would happen – if anything changed. But a noise from somewhere in the house intruded on my thoughts. It sounded like glass breaking.

  “Young miss, come now!” the cabbie called, louder than before.

  If I was still standing in the parlor, nothing had changed. Which meant…

  There was a wrenching noise from above. I hung up the phone and moved toward the hall, stepping as lightly as I could with the crutches. There was a popping behind me but I didn’t turn to investigate.

  As I reached the bedroom that led to the back porch a floorboard snapped in front of me, sticking up at an angle. Pressure was building. I let out a small shriek and stepped around it. There was creaking now from two or three spots and a kind of hum, like the whole place was trembling. I kept moving. Only six or seven feet to go. Another floorboard snapped on my left and then another. The vibration was growing. It was like the house was alive as it quaked and groaned. I could see the taxi through the torn screen and the driver craning his neck this way and that, his patriotic umbrella shielding him from the downpour.

  “Hurry, young miss! Hurry!” he shouted.

  If I was still inside this house and the cab was still outside, that meant my mother was still dead. She didn’t believe me. She ignored my warning and went to that market anyway and got herself killed. She was dead and buried on the other side of the field next to a bunch of regular old people who raised their kids the best they could. Grandma had her buried there as punishment for being a bad mother. I just knew it.

  Then the roof quivered and the walls heaved. I struggled to stay on my feet as the floor buckled beneath me. I knew I couldn’t make it to the door and dived instead into the fireplace close on my right, abandoning my crutches and straining my ankle as I lowered my head and covered it with my arms and hands. There was so much noise – crashing, groaning, creaking, snapping. A growling, thunderous roar filled my ears. It was like the house was in its death throes.

  Would this old stone fireplace hold? Or would I be buried alive? I wanted to scream but didn’t have the breath.

  I peeked through my fingers as the walls went from vertical to diagonal to horizontal in slow motion as the house pancaked on itself. The roof collapsed on top of everything with a deafening wham, sounding like an explosion. I screamed and closed my eyes, covering my head. A dirty, wet wind filled my nose so I could hardly breathe.

  Then the rain was soaking my hair and clothes. When all I could hear was the falling rain, I opened my eyes. It looked like a bomb had gone off. Boards were everywhere, lying this way and that.

  But it wasn’t over yet. What was left of the house shuddered as the floor sank to ground level. What had for so many years been a warm, nurturing home gave way, leaving me about three feet above the ground in my fireplace shelter.

  “Come now, come now, hurry, hurry!” cried the driver.

  I was afraid to move. But then a rock landed on my arm and I realized I was still in danger. The chimney was coming apart. A second rock fell. It was fist-sized and struck my shoulder. I gasped.

  I unfolded my legs and set my feet on the boards in front of the fireplace. I eased onto the pile of wood, which lurched beneath me. I got on all fours as two big rocks landed behind me. I crawled across the drenched wood as a large stone crashed down on my right and bounced against my sore ankle. I kept moving, breathing hard. Then the whole chimney collapsed. As rocks tumbled down I scrambled towards the driveway and the pecan tree, afraid to look back. I slipped and landed on my face twice and got splinters in my hands and banged my arms on my camera which was still hanging from my neck, but nothing slowed me down. I raced like a rat escaping a sinking ship.

  Finally, I reached the edge of the huge pile of rotten wood, for that’s what it had become. I tumbled onto the muddy ground. My hands and arms were scraped and my ankles and knees were sore. My jacket and pants were ripped. I was soaking wet and shivering. And I was suddenly and overwhelmingly sick to my stomach. I rolled onto my side and hit my ribs on the camera as I threw up.

  “Young miss?”

  The driver leaned over me with his umbrella. I didn’t have the strength to speak.

  He helped me into the back seat of the cab. My crutches were gone, left behind in the remains of the old farmhouse that was now a sodden pile of wood. I could see the refrigerator poking up through the debris as we inched down the driveway. The fireplace that had been my refuge was gone – just a pile of rocks. The parlor fireplace still stood though, rising from the ruins like a beacon marking the spot, just a few feet from the time telephone.

  ~Sixteen~

  Demolition of a shrine

  I floated in and out of a dreamworld made of dark wooden planks. They morphed into shifting patterns around and above me, like I was inside a 3-D puzzle. There was an overwhelming scent of old wood mixed with a sweet odor that made me think of the tin of snuff I smelled when I was a little girl.

  Gradually, I realized I was lying in my bed at home. I sensed someone in the room with me. I opened my eyes just enough to see Grandma sitting in the rocker staring into her lap. For once she looked her age. But I didn’t want to talk so I closed my eyes again.

  I hurt all over. But it was my heart that ached most of all. I had failed. Utterly and miserably. I willed myself to go back to sleep and drifted again, this time among trees. In a clearing I could see my mother dressed in a pink nightgown, sitting on a violet bed, talking to a dark-haired man who reclined beside her. I walked towards her but it was like I was on a treadmill. I couldn’t get any closer. I called out but she didn’t hear me. And then all I could see was trees with shafts of light filtering through the branches.

  Then I was Jane Eyre stumbling through the forest in a storm with rain pouring down and the wind howling. B
ut the rain was violet and pink flower petals that covered the ground like a beautiful Oriental rug. I couldn’t find my way and all I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to become a missionary in India. I heard a voice call my name three times: “Megan, Megan, Megan.”

  I sat up in bed and opened my eyes.

  Kieran sat in a wheelchair beside my bed. He had a cast on his left leg, which was stretched out in front of him. His left arm was in a sling against his chest and there was a brace on his right knee.

  “So, you demolished the house yourself,” he said softly, giving me a half smile. “Maybe you can get a share of the demolition fee.”

  Oh yeah. Walls collapsing, the roof caving in. I lay down again and pulled the covers up over me.

  “I thought you were in the hospital having surgery,” I said, sounding like my mouth was full of cotton.

  “I was.” And he glanced at his cast. “But I escaped.”

  “I failed,” I whispered, sadness permeating every cell of my body.

  He took my right hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “You did everything you could,” he said.

  “She wouldn’t listen.”

  “She was determined to live life her own way. I think she knew who she was.”

  I thought about it. My mother never listened to anyone. Not her boss. Not her mother. Not me. Nobody. And nothing I said could ever change that.

  We sat quietly for a few minutes before he finally spoke again.

  “You know, we have something in common.”

  I waited for him to joke about how we were both klutzes or something.

  “Our names both come from two languages – Gaelic and another language,” he said. “Megan comes from Gaelic and Greek. In Gaelic it means strong or able. And guess what it means in Greek.”

  I didn’t care.

  “Mighty,” he said.

  I didn’t feel strong, able or mighty.

  “Isn’t that cool?” he said.

  “You made that up.”

  “Did not. Look it up yourself.”

  He gave me a hopeful smile.

  “Meggie,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Grandma used to call me Meggie.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Kieran, I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize,” he said. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  When he was gone I thought about what he said. He was right. My mother was determined to live her life how she wanted, regardless of what anyone thought, including me.

  I was gazing around my room at all the stuff she forced on me when Grandma arrived carrying a bed tray with a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup.

  “You don’t want to get too thin,” she said, setting it in front of me. Then she sat in the rocker as though she needed to keep an eye on me to make sure I ate.

  So I took a spoonful and blew softly to cool it.

  “Grandma,” I said, “why did Mom tell you to stop reading me bedtime stories?”

  “I guess she wanted to encourage you to read on your own.”

  I sipped the hot soup.

  “And another thing,” I said. “Why did Mom tell me to stop climbing in bed with you when I was scared at night? I mean, wasn’t I kind of young?”

  Grandma pursed her lips like she was figuring out what to say.

  “Was it because she didn’t want us to be close?” I asked.

  She lowered her eyebrows and sighed.

  “She was sending me on a guilt trip, wasn’t she?” I said.

  Still, she said nothing.

  “Like she had to be the star attraction,” I said, taking another spoonful of soup.

  Her silence said it all. My mother did her best to keep me from feeling close to Grandma. She intentionally drove a wedge between us.

  “Why didn’t you stand up to her?” I asked.

  “I did,” she blurted, then closed her eyes. “But you were eager to please her and you just told me you were a big girl.”

  Jesus. Here I’d been thinking Grandma was a cold fish when the truth was I’d been the aloof one. My mom tricked me into keeping Grandma at arm’s length. There was only enough room on my mother’s stage for two actors. Grandma was relegated to stage crew.

  “Oh, I forgot the crackers,” she said, jumping up and bustling from the room.

  As I continued eating the soup I studied all the pictures and baskets and figurines and dolls and trinkets. This was supposed to be my bedroom – not some international gift shop. Not a shrine to my mother.

  A shrine to avoidance of duty

  A monument to wanderlust

  A memorial to abandonment

  Exhibits of a payoff to a child

  I wrote it down in my poem notebook. But it wasn’t enough to calm me down. So I set the bed tray on the floor by the rocker and hobbled to the other side of the room and snatched the didgeridoo from the wall, flinging it on my bed. I tossed all the dolls from different countries there too, along with the Peruvian rug, the basket from the Philippines and the painting of Mount Fuji. I gathered up the Chinese scroll painting, the Hawaiian lei and the carved wooden mask from Africa. I hopped around the room, removing every last gift my mother gave me, piling them in a big jumble on my bed.

  I was just grabbing the corners of my Japanese bedspread when Grandma reappeared with a plate of crackers and cheese and two cups of hot tea on a tray. She stood there for a moment, taking in the scene. Then she set the tray down on my dresser and took the bedspread from me.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself,” she said.

  “Don’t try to change my mind.”

  But she pulled the loaded comforter off the bed and dragged it down the hallway, through the living room and through the kitchen to the garage. I followed her with my new crutches, still in my pajamas. She left the pile of stuff sitting in front of the cars and stepped back in the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

  That’s when I noticed the box on the kitchen table. It looked like one of the packages Mom used to ship me for my birthday.

  “This came while you were sleeping,” she explained, sounding like she wished she’d hidden it in the closet.

  Moving closer, I saw it was addressed to me. The return address was the network’s Kabul bureau.

  “You don’t have to open it right now,” Grandma said. “I’ll store it in your mom’s room.”

  “What is it?”

  “Some of her belongings, I guess.”

  Such a small box, I thought.

  “I’ll put it…” Grandma started.

  “I just want to get it over with.”

  I sat down at the table and laid my crutches on the floor beside me. She got a pair of scissors and cut through the tape that sealed the box, which was maybe a foot long by about eight inches high. She pulled the top open and put the scissors away, then sat in the chair across from me. I realized my jaw was locked, so I sighed, trying to relax. I looked at Grandma and she shrugged her shoulders.

  The package was filled with an assortment of items that must’ve been in the Kabul hotel room where Mom lived. A small wooden box, a camera, a framed photo of Mom and me taken when I was about twelve, another one of the two of us taken when she came home last Christmas, a Peabody award for her previous reporting from Iraq, a speckled brown seashell about the size of a walnut, and a large white envelope addressed to Jody McConnell from someone named Leilani Kanahele in Hawaii.

  The wooden box had a shiny lid inlaid with delicate flowers. When I opened it, I discovered it was actually a jewelry box lined with red velvet. Inside were several pairs of dangly earrings, a couple of fancy bracelets and some long necklaces. Mom would never have worn such jewelry on the air so I could only assume it was for special occasions.

  The letter hadn’t been opened and was dated only a couple of days before Mom died. It felt like prying to open it but I had to admit I was intrigued. I looked at Grandma and she shrugged again, but quickly jumped up to get her brass letter opener from
the hutch.

  I sliced the envelope open and pulled out a handwritten letter. When I unfolded it, there was a photo inside of two women and a man. One of the women was my mother. Judging from her appearance it must’ve been taken maybe ten years ago. The other woman had black hair and a round face. The man was a middle-aged white guy with shaggy gray hair, wearing a faded blue Hawaiian shirt. He stood in the middle with his arms wrapped around the two women. They were the picture of happiness. There was nothing written on the back explaining when it was taken or who the people were.

  I handed it to Grandma and opened the letter. But before I could start reading, she gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

  “What?” I said.

  Her eyes were glued to the photo.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “It’s Jack.”

  I took it back and studied it more closely for a moment. I was trying to recognize him, comparing his appearance with the old pictures of the younger Jack, without success. Then I turned my attention to the letter again.

  “I’ll read it aloud,” I said.

  “Dear Jody, I thought you’d like to have this picture. And I’m sending Jack’s favorite seashell. He didn’t have a lot of possessions but he cherished the few he had. I know he never wrote you but he really was glad you tracked him down. I wish I’d known about you sooner. If he’d used his real name I might’ve asked him if he was related to you because I saw you on the news now and then. Seems a shame not to know your own flesh and blood.

  “As I said before, Jack died doing what he loved. I kept asking him if he had a death wish because those monster waves are so dangerous. He always joked that he’d rather die really living than die of boredom. And, of course, he said he wasn’t in any danger just towing the surfers on the jet ski – that they were the ones risking their lives. But he was wrong.

  “You’re in a danger zone yourself. So be careful. And please come back to see me when you get a chance. It’s wonderful knowing…”

  I stopped reading and looked at Grandma in surprise.

  “What?” she said.

  I resumed reading: “It’s wonderful knowing I have a sister, especially one as smart and successful as you are. Love, Leilani.”