After a few minutes, she put the car in gear again and started slowly down the driveway. When she reached the mailbox topped with the wooden hot air balloon, she stopped again. She pulled Emma’s photograph from her shirt pocket, turned it over and jotted her number on the back. Then she got out of the car, walked over to the mailbox and slipped the picture inside.
13
DYLAN WAS TURNING THE SALMON STEAKS IN THE MARINADE when he heard the front door open. He peered from his kitchen into the living room.
“Hey!” He smiled at Bethany. “Good to see you, Beth.”
“Good to see you, too.” Bethany walked into the galley kitchen, her arms wrapped around a paper grocery bag, and gave him a kiss.
“Can’t hug you,” Dylan said. “Got marinade on my hands.”
“Well, I brought dessert.” She pulled the cartons of Ben & Jerry’s from the grocery bag, and Dylan smiled. Bethany knew his weakness.
“I also picked up your mail for you, since you obviously haven’t made it to the end of your driveway today.” She put the stack of envelopes and junk mail on his counter.
“Thanks.” He washed his hands at the sink, then gave her a proper kiss.
“So, what’s this?” Bethany picked up the photograph lying on the pile of mail.
Dylan looked at the picture just long enough to feel the return of his anger from that morning.
“Where was that?” he asked. “In the mailbox?”
“Uh-huh. Just lying loose. Who is she?”
“I don’t have a clue.” He tossed the picture upside down on the stack of mail, noticing that Laura Brandon had written a phone number on the back.
Bethany looked as though she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t press him. He could count on her for that.
Of the women he’d gone out with over the past few years, Bethany was his favorite. She was beautiful. Besides running her own photography business, she modeled part-time, and he loved finding her face and body in the pages of Washingtonian magazine. Her shiny, short hair was as black as a raven’s wing and she wore a perpetual tan. More important than her looks, though, was the fact that she understood him better than anyone else he’d dated. She understood that he didn’t want to be tied down; he was always honest with her about that. She understood that he needed to see other women, and she dated other men. Still, Dylan feared that Bethany’s carefree facade masked her real yearnings. She was only thirty-one. He knew she wanted marriage and a family, while he wanted neither. She wanted to be loved, while he knew his feelings for her would never move beyond affection. He was brutal in his honesty about that, and while she accepted his words on the surface, he worried that she expected him to change. He’d told her many times that if marriage and commitment were what she was after, she had the wrong guy.
One concession he’d made to her was that she be his only lover. She could not have a physical relationship with more than one man at a time, she’d said, and she needed to know the same was true for him. It was true, not because of the emotional complications more than one lover could engender, but because of the physical risk. He was enigmatic that way. He wanted to live from day to day, without a care for the future, but damned if he was going to get AIDS or something else in the process. He and Bethany had been tested. They were monogamous—sexually, anyway—and he took comfort in that.
Bethany made the salad and microwaved the potatoes while he grilled the fish on the deck. They ate at his picnic table under the thick canopy of trees, burning citronella candles to keep the bugs away.
It had been two weeks since Dylan had seen Bethany, and she looked great. He could barely take his eyes off her while they ate, and when dinner was over, he left the dishes in the sink and ushered her into his bedroom. They made love, but he sensed something was wrong. She’d been quiet at dinner, quieter still now that they’d made love. And although he was sorely tempted to simply fall asleep, he thought he’d better ask.
He propped his head up with his pillow so he could see the aquarium on the wall opposite his bed. He’d built the huge tank into the wall between the bedroom and the living room so he could see the fish from either room. Right now, the tank diffused the light from the living room, sending shimmering blue waves across the ceiling of the bedroom.
He put his arm around Bethany. “Is something bothering you?” he asked.
She nestled closer to him. “No. Not really.”
“Don’t believe you.”
She drew in a long breath, and he braced himself for whatever was coming.
“Well,” she said, “I feel a little spooked by that picture in your mailbox.”
“Spooked? Why?”
“I just don’t understand why it was there. Who put it there?”
He sighed. One of the angelfish darted toward the surface of the tank, then down to the bottom, where it swam in and out of the ceramic castle. “This woman made an appointment to go up in the balloon today,” he said. “Alone. When she got me up there with no place to hide, she told me I’m her daughter’s father. I didn’t even recognize her—the woman. Not her face or her name. And I was royally pissed off. Took her back down after only ten minutes in the air. She must have stuck the picture in my mailbox on her way out.”
“So…” Bethany said.
“So?”
“Could it be true?”
“I don’t know what her scheme is. Her daughter’s five, so it would have been six years ago. You’d think I’d at least remember something about her, wouldn’t you? And you know how obsessive I am about birth control.”
Bethany was quiet for a minute. “That was your bad time, though.”
He hadn’t wanted to think about it, but she was right. It was possible he might have fathered a child back then. He might have fathered any number of children. And although he liked to think of himself as cautious, he’d been drinking a lot in those days. Anything was possible.
“Yes,” he admitted. “That was my bad time.”
“So, maybe she’s yours.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it even if she is? The woman says she’s not after money, which is good since I have none to give her. But I have even less to offer on the fatherhood level.”
Bethany stroked his chest. “You think you have nothing to offer, but that’s not true. Sometimes I wish…” Her voice trailed off.
“Wish what?”
“You’d make a good father, Dylan. You’re fun. You’re a kind and caring and honest person.”
He remembered Laura Brandon’s use of the word caring. Her daughter needed a caring male figure in her life.
“I’m not terrific at commitment,” he said, “in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Maybe someday you will be.”
“Bethany…I worry you’ve got plans for me that will never materialize.”
“Yeah. I worry I do, too.”
He touched her cheek. “I’ve been as honest as I can be with you.”
“I know.” Her voice was thick.
He wrapped both arms around her and held her close, knowing the gesture would have to suffice. There was nothing more he could offer her.
14
A CORNER OF THE BLACK MOVIE PROJECTOR CUTOUT WAS coming loose from Sarah Tolley’s apartment door, and Laura pressed it back into place before ringing the bell. She could hear the television set blaring, and it was a moment before Sarah opened the door.
“Hi.” Laura smiled.
Sarah smiled as well, although Laura knew from the blank look in her eyes that on this, Laura’s third visit, Sarah was still not certain who she was.
“Is today the walk day?” Sarah asked.
“Yes,” Laura said, pleased Sarah was able to make that connection. “I’m Laura, do you remember? I took you for a walk last week, and thought I’d see if you wanted to go for another one.” Maybe she should try to come on the same day each week so Sarah would have something to look forward to.
“Yes, very much.” Sarah stepped back to let Laura in
to the living room. “I remember you,” she said. “You had a picture of a man.”
“My father. Right. And I have some very old pictures of him with me, in case you might be able to recognize him from long ago.”
Sarah walked over to the sofa to turn off the TV with the remote, then returned to Laura’s side. She took the pictures from Laura’s hand, holding them in the light, squinting and frowning and shaking her head. Her frustration at not being able to place the man in the photographs was obvious, and Laura wished she hadn’t brought them.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, slipping the pictures back into her purse. She noticed that Sarah’s skirt was on inside out. “Let’s fix your skirt,” she said, “and then we can go for our walk.”
“My skirt?” Sarah looked down at the pale fabric. “Oh, is it wrong side out?”
“Yes. Can I help you with it?”
Sarah struggled with the zipper, and Laura lowered it for her, wondering how Sarah had ever gotten the skirt on this way in the first place. She slipped the skirt down over Sarah’s narrow hips and lacy white slip, and up again, right side out this time.
“There,” she said, “and I see you’ve got good walking shoes on today, so we’re all set.”
“I’ve been putting these shoes on every day in case the girl comes…you come to take me out,” Sarah said, and Laura’s heart tightened in her chest. Sarah had been waiting for her. She should have come sooner.
Outside the retirement home, they began strolling down the sidewalk.
“Where is your family?” Sarah asked, surprising Laura with a question about herself.
“Well, my husband died,” Laura said.
“Oh. Mine did, too.”
“The man in the photograph in your apartment?”
“Yes. At least I think he died.”
Laura was jarred by Sarah’s inability to remember such a crucial fact.
“I have a little daughter, though,” Laura said. “Her name is Emma.”
“Emma. How old is she?”
“She’s five.”
“She must miss her daddy.”
“Yes, actually, she does.” There was a moment of silence while Laura pondered the lucidity of Sarah’s comment. “My husband, who died, was not her real father,” she said, wondering if Sarah would be able to follow her. “Her real father doesn’t know he’s her father. I’ve been trying to talk to him to see if he might want to be involved with her.” She shook her head with a laugh. “It’s pretty complicated.” The explanation made little sense even to her. She imagined she’d lost Sarah sometime during the first sentence.
“So, what does he say?” Sarah asked. “The real father?”
“Well, I spoke to him on the phone and he wasn’t interested in meeting her. So then, yesterday, I went up in a hot air balloon with…this is confusing.”
“You went up in one of those balloons?” Sarah looked at the sky as though she might see a hot air balloon floating above them.
“Yes. He owns…he gives people rides in a hot air balloon. So, since he didn’t want to talk to me, I pretended to be someone else and made a reservation to go up in his balloon with him. When I was up in the air with him, I told him who I was and tried to show him a picture of his daughter—Emma—but he was angry and landed the balloon and that was the end of that.”
“Shame on you,” Sarah said.
“Shame on me?” Laura asked, surprised.
“Yes. You tricked him. You weren’t honest with him. About something as important as his child.”
Laura actually flinched at the reprimand. “I didn’t know what else to do. Believe me, I wish I could take back that balloon ride.”
“Well, now you’ll apologize to him, won’t you?”
“I figure I’d better just forget about him.” She was beginning to think Sarah was more lucid than she was herself. But then the older woman stopped walking and looked around her.
“Are we on a ship or land?” she asked. “Sometimes I just can’t remember.”
“We’re on land,” Laura said, putting her hand gently on the older woman’s back. “See? See the trees?”
“Oh, yes.” Sarah looked at the sky again. “The first time I ever saw one of those hot air balloons, I was on a train,” she said.
“On a train?”
“Yes,” she said. “I was a stranger on a train.”
Sarah, 1955
“Look!” The little boy pressed his face against the train window, pointing toward something in the distance. The blond woman sitting with him followed his gaze.
“Oh, yes!” she said. “A hot air balloon. Why, there are two of them!”
Sarah sat across the aisle from the little boy and the woman she supposed was his mother, and could not help but overhear their excited conversation. Leaning forward in her own seat, she looked past them out the window. In the distance, she could see the two balloons, one yellow, the other blue, floating against the sunset. The sight nearly took her breath away.
“There are three, actually,” said a man sitting a few rows behind the woman and boy.
Sarah couldn’t resist changing seats now, moving across the aisle to give herself a better view. She took the empty seat in front of the man.
There were only the four of them in this car: the woman and boy, the gentleman who had spotted the third balloon, and herself. The gentleman had walked past her when he boarded the train in Philadelphia, and she couldn’t help but notice him because he bore a striking resemblance to Jimmy Stewart. He was in his mid-twenties, tall and lanky, kind-faced, and just shy of handsome. Sarah was on her way home to Washington after visiting family in Bayonne, where she and her cousins had seen Rear Window. She’d wondered if the Jimmy Stewart man’s voice would be like the actor’s. It was not. Instead, this man’s voice was deep and sure.
“See there?” The man leaned over the back of her seat and pointed a little to the north.
“Oh, yes!” she said as she spotted the third balloon. This one was purple and white, the colors of the sunset, and it nearly blended in with the sky. “It must be wonderful to be up in one of them.”
“Yes, I think it would be,” the man said, taking his seat again. She heard him open his newspaper, and she went back to reading her book, glancing out the window at the balloons until they disappeared from sight.
The sky had grown quite dark and Sarah was lost in her book when the car in which they were riding suddenly lurched wildly to the left. The little boy let out a yelp.
“What the…?” the Jimmy Stewart man said, but before he could even finish his sentence, the car lurched again, this time to the right, with an ear-splitting screech of brakes. Sarah felt the unmistakable jolt of the train jumping the tracks, and in an instant she and her fellow passengers were tumbling through the car, banging into seats and being pummeled by falling luggage. Sarah fell headfirst into the seat across the aisle. The man’s newspaper flew past her face, followed by the little boy’s toy truck. She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat. The lights in the car flickered several times before shutting off altogether, plunging them into darkness.
It was over in mere seconds. There was just enough light coming from outside the train window for Sarah to know they had landed upside down. She was sprawled on the ceiling of the car—now the floor—her skirt hiked up above her garters and her shoes missing.
“Is everyone all right?” the man asked. His voice came from somewhere behind her.
Sarah tugged her skirt down and tried to sit up, slowly, testing her limbs for breaks and sprains. “I think so,” she said.
“Donny?” the woman, crumpled in one corner of the car, called out.
“I can’t get out.” The little boy’s voice came from someplace near Sarah.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” The man started toward the woman.
“Yes.” The woman stood upright, balancing carefully on the ceiling of the car. “But the boy. Donny, where are you?”
“He’s here.”
Sarah got to her knees. In the dim light, she could see that the little boy was trapped between the luggage rack and the crushed ceiling of the car. “Are you all right, sweetheart?” she asked.
The woman and man awkwardly made their way toward Sarah and the boy.
“Oh, Donny,” the woman said. “Are you hurt, dear? Can you get out of there?”
The boy was crying. It was too dark to see if he was injured.
“I can’t get out,” Donny whimpered. “I want to get out!”
“We’ll get you out, son,” said the man. He tugged on the luggage rack, but it was immovable.
The boy let out a wail. “I’m scared!” he cried.
“You’ll be fine, darling,” soothed the woman.
“We need something to prop under here,” the man said.
Sarah remembered seeing her suitcase fly across the car. On her hands and knees, she clambered across the ceiling until she found it and dragged it back to the man.
“Perfect,” he said.
With her help, he began the slow process of lifting the luggage rack, wedging the suitcase between it and the ceiling, and moving it closer and closer to the boy to widen the space in which he was trapped.
“Was it the b-bomb?” Donny asked.
“No, dear,” the blond woman said. Under her breath, she spoke to Sarah and the man. “Someone told him the Communists are going to drop a bomb on us,” she said. “He’s always afraid.”
He’s not the only one, Sarah thought. Three families in her neighborhood had built bomb shelters in their backyards.
“Donny,” the woman said, holding the little boy’s hand. “Remember those beautiful hot air balloons? Let’s imagine we’re up in one of them right now. Okay?”
What a brilliant idea, Sarah thought in admiration.
“But we’re not,” Donny said, tears in his voice.
“You’re good at pretending, though, aren’t you?” the woman said. “Let’s pretend we’re up there instead of down here. We’re floating on air. The sun is setting around us and the colors are magnificent. What can you see from up there?” The woman’s voice was so soothing that Sarah actually felt a sense of calm surround her as she and the man worked to free the little boy.