Skylight Confessions

by Alice Hoffman

  Sam had been even more withdrawn lately. He was leading a parallel existence while living in the same house as the rest of his family. They didn’t bother him; he didn’t bother them. Worked out just fine. Fewer fights, fewer scenes. Live and let live. But there was always that worry that something would snap. Something he did would break their calm life apart and leave them whirling through the dark.

  “We don’t want him upsetting John’s mother,” Cynthia said.

  Diana Moody had managed to come up from Florida for the party, though she was ailing. Her stroke had slowed her down, and she’d recently been diagnosed with diabetes.

  “We were thinking of committing Sam to a drug rehab center before the event, it just made sense timewise, but Diana got wind of it and got all upset. She thinks of him as a child.”

  “I don’t know what will happen to him if he doesn’t get help soon,” Meredith said. “Once he turns eighteen, you won’t have the legal right to make those decisions.”

  “I just want to have this party without incident, then we’ll think of what to do next.”

  “I thought I could save him,” Meredith said.

  “No one could,” Cynthia said. “But at least you tried.”

  It was Blanca who called when it happened, the sudden snap, the crack in their lives that broke the quiet in two. It was the day of the party, naturally; a Saturday. Meredith and Daniel were in bed. They had planned to sleep as late as they could, until Meredith was due at the Moodys’ to help with the party. The phone rang at 6:30 a.m.

  “Don’t answer,” Daniel told Meredith.

  She did it anyway. “What if someone’s died?”

  “Then we’ll find out later. Or tomorrow.”

  Meredith said hello into the mouthpiece. She could hear breathing. She knew Daniel was probably right.

  It was Blanca. A very quiet Blanca. “He’s disappeared.”

  Meredith was looking at sunlight coming in through the shutters. The air was filled with swirling dust motes.

  “He does that, Bee. You know he does,” Meredith assured Blanca. “He’ll be back.”

  “This is different. Cynthia found drugs and she flushed them down the toilet. Sam went crazy. He was so mad it was scary. He said she had no right to throw out something that belonged to him. It was a violation of his personal rights. He pushed her down. Not on purpose or anything. He was just trying to get past her. She was standing in the doorway refusing to move, blocking his way. He told me he was going to New York. He’s never coming back. He said he had to fly away. It was in his bloodline.”

  “Shit,” Meredith said.

  “My grandmother got so upset, they had to call a doctor. She told Cynthia she’d never even tried to understand Sam. Now they’re not speaking, either. He left Connie. I don’t know what to feed him.”

  “Give the parrot a cut-up apple and some of the seed in the bag in the kitchen,” Meredith told her.

  Daniel was wide-awake now: Sam? he mouthed. When Meredith nodded, he said, “Tell Blanca to press redial on the phone in his room to see what his last call out was.”

  Blanca did so and called back with the number her brother had last dialed.

  “Is your dad out looking for him?” Meredith said.

  “Are you kidding? When Sam pushed Cynthia down he hit Sam.”

  Blanca had begun to cry. She was hiding it, but Meredith could hear her snuffling.

  “Blanca, calm down. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I don’t think you can.”

  “I’ll come by the house to talk to your dad before I go searching. I promise.”

  Meredith hung up and went for her clothes.

  “Maybe it’s time to call the police,” Daniel suggested. “For his sake.”

  “He hasn’t committed a crime. Anyway, you don’t know him — the harder you chase after Sam the farther he’ll run.”

  “Then try the number Blanca gave you.”

  No one answered the first call. But it was not yet 7:00 a.m. Meredith tried again.

  At last a young woman picked up. A sleepy hello.

  “Can I talk to Sam?”

  A pause. Something muttered. Then, “Sam who?”

  “Sam who belongs to a race of people who live in Connecticut and can fly.”

  “Sure. If you say so.”

  There was some background noise, then Sam got on the phone. “I’m not going back,” he said. No hello, of course. No Who is it? And most assuredly, no apologies for all the worry caused.

  “Okay, but can I bring you your clothes? And you’re not leaving Connie, are you?” He did love that parrot; she had to get to him however she could.

  “You’re tricky.” Sam sounded very far away. Wasted.

  “Who’s the girl who answered the phone?”

  “And nosy. Nosy Merrie who wants to change the world. Okay, you can bring everything here if you promise to stop asking stupid questions. And you can’t tell the old man where I am.”

  Meredith wrote down the address. Manhattan. Nineteenth Street. Apartment 4C. She quietly got dressed.

  “You don’t think I’m letting you go alone, do you?” Daniel was already out of bed and pulling on his pants. “I don’t even know why we’re so involved in these people’s lives.”

  “Because I know what happens when you’re not involved.”

  “I’m sorry.” Daniel went to her and pulled her close. She hadn’t even bothered to brush her hair. She just wanted to go. “Everything bad that happens in this world isn’t necessarily your fault, you know.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I am,” Daniel said.

  They went to the Moodys’ house. The tents were already set up on the grass, yellow and white, floating like clouds. But the very tops of the tents were coated with soot and the caterer was having a fit — every dish that had been brought over the night before was now broken. Plus, half a dozen birds had been caught in the tents and no one could manage to chase them out.

  “Birds, ashes, dishes,” Daniel said. “This party appears to be doomed.”

  Cynthia came out to the drive. Her face was chalky. The dog followed at her heels.

  “I won’t have him coming back here and John agrees,” she said. “He pushed a pregnant woman. What will he do next?”

  “Fine,” Meredith said. “I can understand.”

  Daniel waited in the driveway while Meredith went into the house. Blanca and her grandmother were sitting on Sam’s bed. Blanca was already wearing her ice blue party dress and her hair was in a long braid. Just recently her legs had gotten longer. Diana Moody was still in her bathrobe. She hadn’t been looking forward to this event, and now she thought she might beg off and stay in bed even though she’d traveled all this way.

  “That damn Cynthia,” Diana Moody said. “I never thought John should marry her.”

  John had sent the children to visit his mother during Easter vacations until Diana’s health began to fail. Surprisingly, Sam always went. Diana still saw him as the little boy she hadn’t liked who had won her over in a cemetery. She was mad for him, no matter his flaws.

  Diana was ridiculously fragile these days. She didn’t care about much anymore, other than her grandchildren. She wished Arlyn hadn’t passed on so young. Every now and then she dreamed about the day she found Sam hiding in the backseat of her car. She dreamed about watching him climb that big tree while his mother was at home dying.

  “I’ll go pack up a basket of food for Sam,” Diana said. “I know what he likes.”

  While Diana went down to the kitchen, Meredith and Blanca filled a duffel bag with clothes.

  “I don’t want to live here if Sam’s not here,” Blanca said. “I’ll run away.”

  “Sam’s almost a man. He needs a place of his own. Maybe he’ll straighten out if he’s in a different environment.” The parrot was squawking like mad. “Shut up,” Meredith said.

  “Get out!” the parrot told her.

  The bird had a mournful voice and
was used to being ignored; no one but Sam listened to him. Connie’s vocabulary hadn’t progressed much; he had only a few random words to repeat: Hey, Awesome, Get out. Much to the dismay of Dusty the basset hound, he had a ferocious bark.

  Meredith grabbed sneakers, jeans, and a heavy coat, along with chalk and watercolors. She took Sam’s wallet from the desk, and his electric toothbrush. She tossed the parrot’s supplies into a tote bag. Blanca had gone to the closet; her head was down. But that didn’t cover up the fact that she was crying. Meredith suddenly felt exhausted. She hadn’t had time to have a cup of coffee. Her hands were shaking.

  “Sam is Sam,” Meredith told Blanca. “He’ll do what he does and we’ll love him anyway. The way we always have.”

  Blanca nodded in agreement. Her shoulders were still shaking. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her skirt. She hated her dress. She’d been thinking of cutting her hair or changing her name. She was sick of being so good all the time. She was sick of being twelve.

  “I’m taking this.” Blanca grabbed the old sneaker box crisscrossed with tape and stuffed it into the duffel bag. “He told me he had all his treasures in it.”

  At the last minute Meredith took Sam’s pillow and blanket. Maybe he was cold.

  “Good thinking,” Blanca said. They looked at the collection of antique knives.

  “Let’s skip those,” Meredith said. They actually laughed then.

  When they went downstairs, Diana was waiting with a picnic basket. “Tell him I love him,” she said. She had fixed two peanut-butter sandwiches, Sam’s favorite when he was a little boy. There was also a box of chocolate-chip cookies, some cans of beans and soup, a bag of rolls, and a large wheel of cheese appropriated from the caterer.

  Blanca helped Daniel pack up the car. Meredith happened to spy John Moody out past the swimming pool. “I’ll be right back.”

  Meredith walked past the tents. A dance floor had been laid out over the grass. John was wearing a good gray suit. Meredith had lived with them for almost two years and John Moody was a complete stranger to her. She felt she knew Arlyn better, though Arlyn had been gone for twelve years.

  “I’m going to bring Sam some of his belongings. He needs time. I think you should help him out financially,” Meredith told John Moody. “If he’s desperate for money it will make matters worse.”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t think he meant to push Cynthia. Sam isn’t like that.”

  “Should I go with you?”

  “Given your fight, I think it’s better if I go.”

  John accepted this. He really didn’t know what to feel. He had never hit anyone before, and he’d hit Sam hard. He hadn’t known what to feel when Arlie was dying, either. He had come out to the lawn to this exact spot and he’d cried, even though George Snow was sitting at his wife’s bedside. Now he stood here again, still lost.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.

  “It’s a difficult situation.” Meredith looked out past the trees. There was the shape of a woman.

  “You see her, don’t you?” John Moody said.

  “I think I see her because you do. If that makes sense. I see how you miss her.”

  “I didn’t know that would happen. I wanted out of the marriage from the start.”

  “Do you think it’s a time or a place or a person that keeps her here?”

  “You’re asking the wrong man. I have no idea. To be honest, I’ve tried everything I could to get rid of her, but she won’t go. That’s all I know. I know Sam wouldn’t have turned out this way if she were still here. If you find him, can you tell him I didn’t mean to hit him?”

  Meredith went back across the lawn. When she reached the car, she saw that Blanca was in the backseat reading Magic or Not? The parrot was in a cage beside her, squawking.

  “You are not going,” Meredith told her.

  Blanca noticed the diamond. “Wow.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Meredith said. “We’re not engaged. It’s a friendship ring. And please put a scarf over Connie’s cage so he’s not freaking out. Then you need to go back to the house. You’re going to ruin that dress.”

  “I have to make sure that Sam is all right.” Blanca took one of Sam’s shirts and threw it over the cage and Connie quieted down.

  Meredith turned to Daniel. “How could you let her get in the car?”

  “I didn’t let her. She sneaked.”

  “I’m going,” Blanca insisted. “Our mother would have wanted me to.”

  “Good try,” Meredith said. “You’re still not going.”

  “But she would have. Any mother would.”

  “She’s got you there,” Daniel said.

  Meredith got into the passenger seat. “I give up. But if the place looks too shady, you’re staying in the car.”

  They drove to New York in silence, listening to the radio. Luckily, there wasn’t much traffic. On Twenty-third Street they didn’t have a single red light; Daniel drove so fast that Meredith couldn’t make out whether or not the tearoom where she’d first seen John Moody was still there. The street where Sam was staying was nice, although his particular building looked run-down.

  “It’s not shady,” Blanca said.

  “Maybe I should go in first, make sure it’s okay,” Daniel said after they’d parked.

  “It’ll be fine,” Meredith said. “Either way, we’re going in.”

  They grabbed bits and pieces of Sam’s belongings and trooped over to the dilapidated brownstone. The front door was unlocked; they took the stairs up to 4C and rang the bell several times. A young woman about Sam’s age opened the door. She was wearing jeans and a sweater and had short, choppy black hair. She let them in without asking who they were or what they were doing; maybe it was so obvious the girl didn’t have to bother. The family bearing belongings. They had the parrot with them, after all, which was muttering under cover of Sam’s shirt, You. You. You.

  The apartment wasn’t kept up — there were plates of food around and cups used as ashtrays and clothes and newspapers strewn about — but the space itself wasn’t bad. There were two people asleep in the living room, rolled up in blankets. It was impossible to tell their age or sex or even if they were alive. The smell of smoke and sweat lingered.

  “How do you afford the rent?” Daniel asked. It was a far better apartment than his place in New Haven.

  “It was my grandmother’s apartment,” the girl who had opened the door said. “Rent-controlled. I lived with her and took care of her. When she died it became mine.”

  Sam was in the bedroom watching television. He was sitting on the bed, his back against the wall; he seemed nervous and jumpy even before they descended upon him.

  “You brought her to this hellhole?” he said to Meredith when he saw Blanca. “Are you nuts?”

  “How about a thank-you for dragging all your stuff here?” Meredith said.

  Blanca put an armful of Sam’s neatly laundered clothes down and scrambled to sit beside him. Sam was pawing through his belongings. “My electric toothbrush,” he said cheerfully.

  “Is she your girlfriend?” Blanca wanted to know of the girl with the dark hair.

  “Her name is Amy,” Sam said.

  Amy came to stand in the doorway. “I’m rescuing him.”

  Meredith turned and looked Amy over more carefully. She was slight and wore heavy black boots; her sweater had holes in the sleeves. Her face seemed lopsided. She was a serious person. Not pretty, exactly, but inspiring confidence.

  “She thinks she can change me,” Sam said, amused. “She doesn’t understand that I’m doomed.”

  “Meredith’s getting married,” Blanca said. “Look at her ring.”

  “It’s a friendship ring,” Meredith told Sam.

  All the same, Sam took her hand and studied the ring. “Kind of small,” he said.

  Meredith noticed the bruise on his face. His father at his wits’ end. The pushing match that was bound to come to something, bu
t unfortunately it had come to this.

  “I wish you were still at home,” Blanca said to her brother.

  “You’ll have a new sib soon. Maybe it’ll be a brother. I can easily be replaced.”

  “I’ll hate it whatever it is,” Blanca said glumly. “Brother or sister.”

  “You sound like me. Stop it. Aha!” Sam had taken the old shoebox Blanca had brought him out of the duffel bag. He set it on his lap. “Good you brought this. Now I can give you something that’s meant for you. I was supposed to give it to you when you were grown up, but you’re grown up enough.”

  Blanca sat shoulder to shoulder with her brother as he opened the treasure box. She’d always wanted to look inside. It was a jumble of odd things, letters and photos and little bones.

  “My squirrel,” Sam said. “William.”

  “Yuck,” Blanca said.

  There was a photograph of their mother. Blanca held it up to the light. There were no photos around their house. It wasn’t that sort of home. “Look at all her freckles.”

  “Seventy-four on her face,” Sam said. “She told me. She’d counted them.” He took out something wrapped in tissue and handed it to Blanca.

  “Is this more squirrel bones?”

  “Dragon bones. I killed him one night on top of the roof and his bones were made out of stars.”

  “Very funny,” Blanca said. “Really.”

  Meredith had taken the opportunity to check out the room. There was a pipe and some marijuana on the bureau and several empty whiskey bottles. She opened a drawer. Underwear. Needles. She wished this girl Amy more luck than they’d had in rescuing Sam.

  “Stop doing that,” Sam said when he noticed her snooping. “You’re not in charge of anything here, Merrie.”

  Blanca unwrapped the folded tissue Sam had handed over. Inside there was a strand of what appeared to be black marbles. She lifted them and found they were surprisingly warm to the touch.

  “Mom’s pearls,” Sam said. “They got dusty.”

  Blanca held them up and blew on them. The black coating chipped away and flew off like ashes.

  “They’re so beautiful,” Meredith said. “Look at the difference!”

  They were cream colored, cloud colored, snow colored.