“I could ask my mom,” he said. “She’s lived here all her life.”
“Yeah. That would be good. Would you?”
“Yeah. Sure. Why not? And if she doesn’t know, well . . . if I were you, I’d go talk to Mrs. Flint.”
“How could she help?”
“She’s a reference librarian.”
“Well, I know, but . . .”
“They know everything.”
“But whatever happened, it’s not like somebody wrote a book about it or something. Or even if they did, I wouldn’t know the title or the author.”
“She knows about more than just books. They keep the newspapers there. And when they get too old and there are too many of them, they put them on microfilm. So if something happened around here, and it was in the paper, she could probably find it for you.”
“Oh. That’s actually a pretty good idea. Thanks.”
“But let me ask my mom first. Save you the walk down to the library if she knows.”
He handed me what was left of his ice cream cone in that long, dark front hallway of his house.
“Don’t let it drip on the rug,” he said.
There was a runner of Persian carpet nearly the full length of the hall. I happened to know it was passed down through Connor’s family on his mother’s side. Might’ve cost more than everything in my house put together. It made me nervous to be charged with protecting it.
“Tell me the lady’s name one more time,” he said.
“Zoe Dinsmore.”
“Right. Right.”
With that he walked down the hall and into the kitchen.
The kitchen had big windows that let in a spill of sun. It was the only fairly light room in the Barneses’ house. I could see the shadows of Connor and his mother stretching out halfway into the hall, enveloped in that wide beam of light, as he said hi to her and she said hi back to him.
Connor’s ice cream was already starting to drip. It didn’t seem right to lick it, so I let it drip onto my hand and then licked it off my hand before it could drip onto the rug.
“So, hey, Mom,” I heard him say. Timidly, I thought. “You know anything about something that happened a long time ago with a lady named Zoe Dinsmore?”
Silence. I moved down the hall a few steps in case she was speaking but too quietly for me to hear.
“You’re not saying anything,” Connor added after a time. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Was that something I shouldn’t have asked?”
“Oh, honey,” she said, and paused. Her voice sounded as though the question had rattled her. Or just weighted her down too heavily. I couldn’t tell which. I just knew she didn’t like it and was trying to wiggle past it and squirt out the other side. “I do wish you wouldn’t ask me about those kinds of things. You know I don’t like to talk about things that are so sad like that. Life is sad enough without dredging up the worst of the past. Those poor families probably never got over it. The whole town never really got over it. But it was before you were born, so can’t you just grow up and be happy?”
If Connor answered, I couldn’t hear him. But it struck me while I was waiting—and licking—that it was a ridiculous question. Of course Connor couldn’t be happy. He hadn’t been happy a day that I’d known him. And I’d known him since we were three.
I looked up suddenly to see him walk out of the kitchen and down the hall to where I stood.
I reached out to hand him back his cone.
“You didn’t lick it,” he said. “Did you?”
“No. I didn’t lick it. That would be gross.”
“Okay. Thanks. You’ll have to go to the library, I guess.”
“Thanks anyway,” I said. “You know. For trying.”
Mrs. Flint was an interesting character, I thought. She seemed to have studied books and old movies and absorbed every possible stereotype about small-town librarians—and then imitated them to the letter.
She had mousy brown hair, pulled back into a bun. Oversized tortoiseshell reading glasses. She wore gray or brown skirt suits over starched white shirts with button-down collars. She looked like the fictional librarian in just about every film or television show ever made.
I stepped up to her desk, and she whispered to me. Because you whisper in the library.
“Lucas,” she said. “I don’t see you in here very often. Can I help you with something?”
“I need some information,” I whispered back.
All of a sudden I felt deeply in touch with how uneasy it made me to ask about this situation. Whatever it was.
“That would be my department, yes.”
“I need to know about something that happened in town before I was born.”
“Okay. Do you have the date?”
“Um. No. I just know it was before I was born.”
“If we’re looking in the microfilm of the county newspaper, we’ll need a date.”
“I know the name of the person it happened to. Or . . . I don’t know. Because of. Or something.”
She made a discouraging little noise in her throat and shook her head.
“It’s not like we can scan every paper for years’ worth of articles just looking for one name. Although . . . if it’s important enough to you, I can leave you in there and you can hunt around as long as you like. What’s the name? Maybe I already know something about it.”
“Zoe Dinsmore,” I said.
The silence that followed was a stunning thing. It seemed to zoom around the room. Bounce off the walls. I watched her face get a little whiter and her lips set into a long, tight line.
“December 18th, 1952,” she whispered.
“You know the date?” I might’ve said it too loud.
“Hard to forget that date. It was exactly one week before Christmas. It was the last school day before the children went out on their holiday vacation.”
I opened my mouth to ask her to tell me about it. But she got up from her desk.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. And walked away.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I felt my heart bang around in my chest, but I wasn’t even sure why. I mean, this whole thing had nothing to do with me. Did it? I hadn’t even been born yet in 1952. Still I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in it chest deep now, whatever it turned out to be. Whether I liked it or not.
I looked up to see Mrs. Flint motioning me into the back room.
I stepped inside and sat down in a hard chair in front of the microfilm machine. It was a big white box that projected one page of the newspaper onto a vertical screen in front of my face. It had a crank on either side to move the film from one reel to the other, a page at a time.
The headline of the article caught my eye immediately, along with the photo. It was the front page of the morning paper, the Taylor County Gazette. December 19, 1952. The day after the incident.
The photo was black and white and printed large. It was a school bus, partially submerged in the river. Upside down. It made me queasy to look at it.
I remembered a handful of nonredacted words from my brother Roy’s letter: “. . . in the trees, upside down . . .”
The font of the headline was huge and bold. “Tragic School Bus Accident Claims the Lives of Two Local Children.”
“This should be everything you need,” Mrs. Flint said, her eyes averted. From the news, and from me. Both. “I’ll just leave you alone with it.”
She walked out, closing the door behind her. Leaving me in a darkened room lit only by the glow of the screen against my face. Leaving me to learn what I had been so sure I wanted to know.
To say I was no longer sure would be an understatement.
I began to read. How could I not?
Yesterday tragedy struck the town of Ashby as a bus serving the Unified School District veered off River Road and rolled down an embankment, landing upside down in the river. The driver, Mrs. Zoe Dinsmore, suffered only minor injuries, and managed to pull
most of the children to safety, diving back in again and again and wading to shore with them two at a time. But two children did not survive the crash.
They are: Wanda Jean Paulston, 7, of Ashby and Frederick Peter “Freddie” Smith, 6, also of Ashby.
One child whose name has been withheld is hospitalized in stable condition and seven others were treated and released with injuries ranging from minor to moderate.
Mrs. Dinsmore has been driving a school bus route in Taylor County for well over twenty years. “Everybody loves her,” said Charlene Billings, the superintendent of schools, when reached for comment. “Students and parents alike, everybody looked forward to saying good morning to Mrs. Dinsmore. And she had a spotless driving record. Not even so much as a parking ticket.”
Mrs. Dinsmore was held at the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office for several hours, where she was subjected to questioning, as well as tests to assure that her blood showed no signs of alcohol use or other impairment. No such impairment was found, according to Deputy Leo Brooks.
Mrs. Dinsmore told sheriff’s deputies that her two young girls, Katie, 4, and Delia, 5, had influenza, and she’d been up most of the night caring for them. She said she thinks she fell asleep behind the wheel of the bus for less than ten seconds, and that it was the shrieking of the children that woke her. But by then the bus had begun to roll down the river’s embankment, and there was nothing she could do to bring it back under control.
The Gazette attempted to reach Mrs. Dinsmore for comment, but was told she had gone into seclusion and was speaking to no one.
The crash has been officially ruled an accident, and no charges will be filed.
The Gazette will announce the dates and times of the funerals and/or memorials for Wanda Jean Paulston and Freddie Smith when such information becomes available.
I read it completely through a second time. I really couldn’t say why.
Then I sat back and turned off the machine. The room went completely dark. There were no windows in the microfilm room, and the darkness all around me was a good match for my insides.
In that moment the whole world felt dark.
Chapter Five
You Know Now. That’s Too Bad.
When I returned the dogs to the cabin the following morning, I got into quite a back-and-forth with myself over whether I should knock.
I had run with them at least a mile each way up and down the River Road, and I was pretty convinced that Zoe Dinsmore’s daughter had gone home again. Because there had been no parked rental cars anywhere to be seen.
I was worried about the lady. You know, whether she had everything she needed. Whether she was feeling well enough to get everything she needed. That sort of thing.
I stepped up onto the porch. Walked boldly to the door. In that moment I was the very picture of decisiveness. I was actually proud of my courage. Noticeably proud.
Briefly.
I raised a hand to knock, then lost my nerve and turned away. Strode two steps to the edge of the porch. Stopped myself and turned back. Walked to the door. Raised a hand again. Spun away again.
I turned back to the door one more time, and this time I planned to force myself all the way through the thing. But I never got that far.
A sudden voice from behind made me jump out of my figurative skin.
“Make up your mind. You want to knock on my door or don’t you?”
I knew it was Zoe Dinsmore because no other voice sounded like that one.
I spun around to face the voice and saw, to my embarrassment, that she was just leaving the outhouse. She was wearing an old pair of men’s green plaid pajamas. Her hair was pulled back into a gray braid.
“Yeah,” I said, making my voice sound stronger than I felt. “Yeah, I was going to knock. Just to . . . you know . . .”
While I was stalling, she walked right up to me and stared directly into my face. It made me nervous, which made me lose my train of thought.
“No, I don’t know,” she said in that deep signature voice. “I barely know my own mind, kid. I wouldn’t even pretend to know somebody else’s.”
She looked even more deeply into my face for a moment, as if running after something she thought she’d seen there, and I averted my gaze to the point of stressing my neck muscles. As if I could run away from her without ever moving my feet.
“Oh,” she said. And she was disappointed in me. I only needed that one word from her to know it. “You know now. My daughter said you didn’t know. But now you do. That’s too bad.”
“I don’t know why you say that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“But I mean . . . how do you know that?” I realized, the minute the words were out of my mouth, that I had just admitted she was correct. I stood there with my neck craned away and felt my face burn.
“You think after seventeen years I don’t know the look on somebody’s face when they know? I wish I didn’t, kid, but I know it better than I know the inside of my own eyelids. And when I close my eyes, most times I don’t even see the inside of my eyelids, I see those looks. Well, if you came here to ask me about it, or offer your opinion on it, you’re out of luck. I’ve been there and done that, and I’m not going there again for anybody. It may be news to you, kid, but to me it’s anything but. I don’t exist to help you get things settled in your own head.”
When I was sure she was done, I adjusted my neck into a more normal position, nearly facing her, and defended myself with the truth.
“I didn’t come for that. Not at all. I was only about to knock on your door because it looked like your daughter had left again, and I was just going to ask if you were okay or if you needed anything.”
I waited, but she didn’t speak. I didn’t dare look at her face to try to get a bead on what she was thinking or feeling.
So I added, “Did she go back?”
“Yeah. She’s gone. Not that I blame her. She’s got an eighteen-month-old son. Babysitting me hardly fit in with her plans. So, okay, I’m not the best at apologies. Not my strong suit. But anyway, sorry I didn’t give you credit for trying to be helpful. Hope you can see your way clear to let that go by.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I felt all the tension leave my body, and I was stunned by how much tension it had been. I felt like I could float away after it lifted out. “So . . . do you need anything?”
I braved a glance at her face. Fortunately, she was looking away. Off toward the cabin, as though it helped her think.
“Milk was sour when I got home,” she said. “It was a little close to the line when I left, but if I’d been home, I could’ve finished it. And if I was feeling better, I could’ve gone out for more.”
“I could bring you back a quart of milk.”
She looked right at me, and for a split second I looked right back. And in that second, something was established. Some wall was broken through. We were no longer two wild animals who would spook and flee at the sight of each other, or try to claw each other apart for our own safety. We had made the initial connection on the assembly line of trusting each other.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll go inside and get you a dollar.”
When I got back with the milk and her change, she took it from me, but didn’t say much. I mean . . . she did say thank you. But not much more. She carried it inside. To put away in the fridge, I guess.
I waited on the porch with the dogs, but I wasn’t sure why. And I wasn’t sure if she’d meant for me to. I had asked her what she needed. She’d told me. I’d brought it to her. That should have been the end of it.
It wasn’t.
I sat down on the edge of the porch, poking around inside myself for the reasons I didn’t feel like I could leave. It was a sort of generalized paranoia. Something bad would happen to the lady if I left. And then for the rest of my life I’d have that thought in the back of my head. Or maybe it would be a ball of feelings in my gut. What if I’d played that day differently? What if I hadn’t left her alone?
&
nbsp; For the first time I truly understood how Connor felt.
Also it might’ve been a look through the window into what the lady had been going through for seventeen years. What if I’d called in sick that day? Had that extra cup of coffee? What if I’d pulled the bus over, even though that would’ve made the kids late for school?
I heard her footsteps on the porch boards behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder. The dogs jumped to their feet and wagged at her in greeting.
“I can’t help noticing you’re not gone,” I heard her say in that deep, rumbly bass voice.
“No, ma’am. I guess I’m not.”
She sighed deeply. It sounded like she was playacting some irritation she didn’t entirely feel.
She sat beside me on the edge of the porch, and the dogs settled around us. One in between, one on the other side of her. For a few minutes we all stared out into the woods and didn’t say a word.
She’d gotten dressed while I was running to the store, thankfully, and was now wearing denim overalls over a red plaid flannel shirt. Heavy work boots that laced up at the ankle.
“I keep forgetting to ask you their names,” I said after a time.
I felt alarm rise in her, even though I’m not sure how a person can feel a thing like that. But I did feel it. I’m just not sure by what means.
“Whose names?”
“The dogs. I still don’t know their names.”
The fear seemed to settle out of her. Drain away. I wondered if she had thought I was asking about Wanda Jean and Freddie.
“The boy is Rembrandt and the girl is Vermeer.”
“Rembrandt like the painter?”
“Actually they’re both painters.”
“Oh,” I said. “Like me.”
“You paint?”
“No,” I said. “No, I didn’t mean that. Just . . . Lucas Painter. That’s me.”
She said nothing, so after a few seconds I glanced over at the side of her face. She did not seem impressed by my small note of coincidence with the dogs. I think she would have liked it better if I had been an artist. But I wasn’t. And I’m still not. And that’s just the way it is.
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