“Well…” Laura searched her memory, finally shaking her head in defeat. “I can’t think of other specific examples. But he loved her. I don’t think he would have treated her any differently if she’d been his own flesh and blood.”
“Did he take her places—other than the streets of D.C.? Play games with her? Teach her to ride a big wheeler?”
“No. Not those things, specifically. But he…” She gave up in frustration. “Sorry. My mind is a blank.”
“You know…” Heather’s voice was gentle. “We all have a tendency to idealize our loved ones who’ve died.”
“He married me,” Laura said. “He took Emma on and gave her a father. He didn’t have to do that.” She had to admit that Ray had never given Emma much of his attention, and when he did, it was with his own agenda in mind. He would occasionally read to her, but the books he’d select were about little homeless children. She couldn’t bring herself to share that fact with Heather, though.
“Any chance there might have been some molestation going on?” Heather asked.
“No!”
“I need to ask,” Heather said with a hint of apology. “I didn’t pick up on anything, but we need to rule that out.”
“No. Ray was not a very…sexual person. He was wrapped up in social issues, as you can tell. On every committee for social change you can imagine. He worked with the homeless. He was as driven in that as I am in astronomy. And he suffered from depression, obviously. That’s what led him to kill himself.”
“What was he like when he was depressed?”
Laura did not have to think hard to remember. “Sometimes he’d simply sink into a black hole and withdraw from the rest of the world. Other times, he’d be impatient and irritable. He could be short with Emma when he felt that way.” She didn’t like acknowledging that fact. “He’d yell at her. She could get on his nerves. But that wasn’t too often.” It had been more often in the period before his death, though. She couldn’t deny that.
“How do you think you’re doing as a mom?” Heather asked, and Laura was surprised by the sudden change in her focus.
“To be honest,” she said, “I don’t think I’ve handled motherhood very well. Or marriage, for that matter.” A professor had once told her that as women moved into male-dominated fields, such as the sciences, they tended to lose their “people skills,” their innate ability to nurture, to intuit and meet the needs of others. She was afraid that’s what had happened to her. “Can I be brilliant in one realm of my life and a complete idiot in another?” she asked.
Heather laughed. “Most of us are, I think.”
“I had one parent most of my life. I knew he loved me, and he was always very attentive to me, but he taught me more about the planets than he did about people. So what do I do? I get pregnant by some guy I barely know. I marry someone more for security and companionship than for love. I turn out just as nerdy and head-in-the-clouds as my father was. And that’s what Emma’s stuck with. She has no one else. No brothers or sisters or grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins. And now no father. Just me. And I don’t quite know how to do it. I’m worried I’m ruining her.”
Heather smiled. “She’s not ruined, Laura. You’ve described her as happy, inquisitive, strong-willed, outgoing and personable. You obviously have done something very right with her. Now she’s experienced a trauma. We have to help her get through that, and then you should have your happy daughter back. The daughter you’ve raised better than you think.”
Laura let out a sigh.
“You’re carrying a lot around with you, aren’t you?” Heather said. “I mean guilt. A sense of responsibility. Fear.”
“I’m feeling overwhelmed these days, yes. So much going on in my life this past year. Losing Ray, and before that, my dad was sick, and…” She thought back to the news segment she’d seen on TV the week before. Loneliness in the elderly. It had been troubling her for days.
“And…?” Heather prompted.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with Emma.”
“That’s all right.”
“My father made me promise I’d take care of an elderly woman.” She explained the situation to Heather, and how her visit to Sarah Tolley had triggered Ray’s suicide.
“It was unfair of Ray to ask you not to go,” Heather said sternly.
“Well, maybe, but he—”
“Are you going to make a hobby out of defending him?” Heather asked. “It was unfair of him to put you in that position. Period. So, do you want to see her again?”
Laura was unsettled by Heather’s bluntness. Still, she remembered the pleading, desperate look in her father’s eyes when he’d asked her to take care of Sarah. That memory had tortured her for the past six months.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Then go,” Heather said. “That’s your assignment for next week.”
7
THE PATH CIRCLING THE LAKE WAS SO HEAVILY FORESTED THAT walking on it was like walking through a tunnel, and Laura slowed her pace to enjoy the effect. Emma, though, did not seem to notice. She trotted ahead of Laura, carrying her blue plastic case filled with her Barbie dolls and their requisite paraphernalia, eager to get to the Beckers’ house.
Five-year-old Cory was in the Beckers’ front yard, and she ran to meet Emma, her wild red curls bouncing around her face.
“I got a Dentist Barbie!” Cory shrieked. She grabbed Emma’s arm, and Emma ran with her up the porch steps, past Cory’s mother, Alison, who held the screen door open for them.
“Sorry about that,” Alison said to Laura with a smile. Her own short red hair framed her face, and freckles dotted her nose. “Now you’ll have to get Emma Paleontologist Barbie or something so she can keep up with the neighbors.”
Laura laughed. She stood in the yard, shading her eyes against the rays of sun shooting through the trees. “Thanks for watching her,” she said. “I should be back by four.”
“Take your time.” Alison folded her arms across her chest. “If I can tear them away from the dolls, I’ll take them to the playground for a while.”
Laura walked back to her own house, feeling fortunate that the Beckers were at the lake again this summer. Cory amazed her. She’d accepted Laura’s explanation that Emma wasn’t talking this summer with a simple “oh,” and she did Emma’s talking for her when they played. Cory’s father worked in D.C. and came to the lake only on the weekends, so Laura and Alison had found a resource for child care in each other.
The drive to Meadow Wood Village took her a little over thirty minutes. Thirty anxious minutes, as Laura tried unsuccessfully to forget the toll her last visit to Sarah Tolley had taken on Ray, and on Emma.
Once in the retirement home, she found Sarah’s apartment by hunting for the door bearing the silhouette of the projector. Sarah answered the door and smiled at Laura. “Yes?” she asked. She was dressed in a pale blue plaid cotton jumper over a white blouse. Her silver hair looked newly styled.
“Hello, Mrs. Tolley.” She could see the lack of recognition in the older woman’s face. “I’m Laura Brandon. I came to visit you here last January.”
Although her smile remained, Sarah looked puzzled as she let Laura into the living room.
“My father had asked me to see you,” Laura said. “Do you remember?”
“Your father? He was deceased, is that right?”
“Yes!” Laura was excited that Sarah remembered that much. “And you couldn’t recall who he was. But I brought a picture with me today to help you remember. And I was also wondering if you might like to go for a walk.”
“A walk? Outside?” Sarah looked as though she didn’t quite trust the invitation.
“Yes.”
“Oh, I’d certainly love that.” Sarah clapped her hands together in a small show of joy. “They don’t let me outside anymore. Keep me locked up in jail here.” She chuckled.
“It’s quite warm out today,” Laura said. “Will that be okay for you?”
“W
arm, cold or in between, just get me outside.” Sarah was already walking toward the door.
“Do you have some shoes that would be better for walking?” Laura asked.
Sarah looked down at her beige pumps. “Good idea,” she said. “Don’t go away.”
She disappeared into the bedroom. Laura’s eyes fell on the picture of Sarah’s husband. Joe. Was that his name? A nice-looking young man. She pulled the picture of her father from her purse.
After a few minutes, Sarah reappeared in sturdy-looking walking shoes, and Laura wondered if her father might have been responsible for Sarah’s wardrobe.
“You have such nice clothes,” she said. “How do you get out to buy them? Does someone take you shopping for them?”
“I love nice clothes,” Sarah said as she headed for the door again.
“And how do you go shopping for them?” Laura asked.
Sarah stopped walking, apparently confused, but only for a moment. “Oh, they take us,” she said. “Once a month, we can go on the bus to…the place with all the stores.”
“The mall.”
“Right.”
“Here’s a picture of my father.” Laura handed the photograph to Sarah before she could start for the door again. “Do you remember him?”
Sarah carried the picture over to the end table lamp and studied it carefully.
“His name was Carl Brandon,” Laura said.
“I don’t think I know him,” Sarah said with a shrug as she handed the picture back to Laura. “Can we go for a walk now?”
As she and Laura walked down the long hallway to the lobby, Sarah said hello to everyone, staff and residents alike. She had an “I’m gettin’ out, so there” attitude about her, and she walked fast, an expectant smile on her face. It hurt Laura to see that simply getting out of the building for a half hour could give Sarah such joy. She should have come sooner, she thought, grateful that Heather had encouraged her to make this visit.
Outside, Sarah took in an exaggerated deep breath of air. “Which way do we go?” she asked.
“Whichever way you’d like.”
That seemed to be the wrong answer, because Sarah’s smile faded and that look of confusion came into her face again. “I don’t know where anything is,” she said.
“Well, let’s just walk,” Laura said, turning left onto the sidewalk. “It doesn’t matter where we’re going, really.”
“That’s right,” Sarah said, the smile back, and she set out next to Laura at a strong, quick pace. Laura hustled to keep up with her. Whatever was wrong with Sarah Tolley was clearly confined to her mind and not her body.
A silence fell between them as they walked. It was not uncomfortable, and although Laura longed to break it with more sleuthing about Sarah’s relationship to her father, she hesitated to confuse the woman any more. Laura remembered what Carolyn, Sarah’s attendant, had said: Sarah loved to talk, but had no one to listen to her.
“What was it like working on cruise ships?” Laura asked.
“Nice,” Sarah said.
“How long did you do it?”
“I don’t know. A year. Maybe three or four.”
“Carolyn said you like movies,” Laura said.
“Oh, yes!” Sarah clapped her hands together again, a gleam in her eyes.
“What have you seen lately?”
“I like the movies from the old days.”
“Do you have a favorite?”
“Oh, yes. It’s…” Lines creased Sarah’s brow, and she pouted like an annoyed child. “I can’t remember what it’s called,” she said.
This conversation wasn’t exactly taking off. “Well, I told you all about where my father grew up and where he lived,” Laura said. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself? You said you grew up in Bayonne?” Maybe getting Sarah to talk about herself would give Laura the clues she needed to link the elderly woman to her father.
So, Sarah began to talk, and it was as though Laura had tapped into a deep well, a well that was far richer than she could have imagined.
Sarah, 1931–1945
The third-grade class was planning a production of the play Cinderella for the entire school to watch. Sarah loved plays. She longed to act the part of Cinderella herself, but even though she gave it her all when she tried out, that coveted role went to the prettiest and most popular girl in the class.
So Sarah tried out for the part of one of the stepsisters, a malevolent expression on her face as she attempted to make her voice sound sinister and mean, but she didn’t get that role, either.
“Who’d like to try out for the part of the evil stepmother?” the teacher asked, once the other roles had been assigned.
“Sarah Wilding should get it,” one of the boys said.
Sarah smiled. Her perseverance had paid off. She hoped the teacher would simply hand her the role, since she’d already tried out more than anyone else in the class.
“And why should Sarah get it?” the teacher asked.
“Because she’s the only one ugly enough to play the stepmother,” the boy said.
The other children laughed. Even the teacher bowed her head in an attempt to hide her smile, but Sarah saw it, and her cheeks and neck grew blotchy with color.
The teacher raised her head again. “That’s a cruel thing to say,” she scolded the boy, her face very serious now. “How would you feel if someone said something like that about you? I think you need to apologize to Sarah.”
The boy sheepishly turned around in his seat to look at Sarah. “Sorry,” he said.
Sarah looked away from him, swallowing hard to keep her tears in check.
“Sarah, would you like the part of the stepmother?” the teacher asked. “That part requires a very good actress. I think you’d be good in it.”
She didn’t know what to say. Of course she wanted the part, but not that way. Not because she was ugly.
“No, thank you, ma’am,” she said, her cheeks still burning.
When the play had been fully cast, the class was released for recess. Escape, finally. Instead of joining the other children on the playground, Sarah ran home.
She knew the house would be empty except for her aunt, and that was fine. Both her parents were at work in the family’s clothing store, but Aunt Jane didn’t work. She never went anywhere. She was always there for Sarah, and that’s what Sarah was counting on.
She knew she would find her aunt in her room on the top floor of the house, working on a quilt, as usual. Her quilts graced every bed in the house and many of the neighbors’ houses, as well. The colorful squares of material covered nearly every surface in Aunt Jane’s bedroom, and Sarah always found the sight of them comforting.
Aunt Jane looked up in surprise when Sarah walked into her room.
“You startled me,” she said, one hand on her enormous chest. “What on earth are you doing home so early? Are you ill? Are you crying?” Aunt Jane was up and walking toward her. “What’s wrong, precious?”
Sarah hugged her aunt, drinking in the familiar scent of the flowery soap she used. Aunt Jane was rooted like a tree, a solid, big-boned woman.
“Sit down on my bed and tell me all about it,” Aunt Jane said, moving some of her squares to make room for her niece.
Sarah sat down, but she was hesitant to relive the humiliation. Still, this was Aunt Jane, and she knew she was safe with her. If she’d told her mother, her mother would have said she deserved the taunting because she was sloppy about her appearance. It irked her parents no end that they owned Wilding’s, the most exclusive children’s clothing store in town, yet their own daughter looked like a tall, homely beanpole, no matter how carefully they dressed her. “She’s a poor advertisement for the store,” she’d once overheard her father saying. “Nearly as bad as your sister. Good thing Jane never goes out.”
She told Jane what had happened in her classroom and saw the sympathy in her aunt’s eyes.
“My poor darling,” Aunt Jane said, moving closer so she could put her ar
m around Sarah’s shoulders. “But you know what?” She waited for Sarah to look up at her. “Something good—something wonderful—will come out of this experience. Did you know that?”
Sarah was mystified. “What?” she asked.
“You are going to grow up to have a very thick skin,” she said, “and that is an important thing to have.”
Sarah looked down at her pale, bony wrist. “Thick skin?” she asked.
Aunt Jane smiled. “It’s an expression. It means that no one will ever be able to hurt you. You won’t be overly sensitive. What you’re going through now is hard, precious, but it’s good training for your future.”
Aunt Jane called the school then, and Sarah listened as she told the principal what had happened and that Sarah had left early and was staying home for the rest of the day. As she imagined what the principal was saying on the other end of the line, Sarah took comfort in her aunt’s theory that something good would come from this experience, and the image of her taunting classmates gradually grew hazy and indistinct in her mind.
When Jane got off the phone, she set aside her quilting and played canasta with her niece all afternoon. By dinnertime, Sarah was laughing again.
It wasn’t until Sarah was a teenager that she realized Aunt Jane was not like other women her age. Other women were married and had children. They went to the market. They shopped for clothes. They liked to go out to dinner or the theater. Not Aunt Jane, who would not even set foot in the backyard. She didn’t care about being married, she said, and what did she need her own children for when she had Sarah? But the truth was, ever since Aunt Jane had been a teenager herself, she had flown into a panic each time she ventured outside the house. It would certainly be hard to meet a man, and harder still to date, when you couldn’t go out your own front door.
Sarah liked that her aunt was always stuck at home, even though she knew she was selfish for feeling that way. Aunt Jane had been the one constant, loving person in her life. Always home, always ready with a hug and a loving word. But as Sarah grew older, she began to feel sorry for her aunt. People called her crazy, but Sarah knew that, like herself, Aunt Jane had a very thick skin.