“No. I don’t.”
“Here on business?”
“No.”
“Friends?”
“No.”
“Just traveling then? Passing through?”
“Not really.”
Confounded, the desk clerk could think of no further inquiry. With a deeper frown she checked her computer, yes there was a room. Non-smoking, double bed, river view, fourth floor.
There was an air of reluctance in this disclosure. Naomi wondered if there were, in fact, many rooms available in the stolid old Muskegee Falls Inn. Many vacancies mid-week.
At the interstate exit some miles away there’d been a cluster of motor hotels, motels, fast-food restaurants, gas stations. These facilities seemed to have been laid upon bare, scoured earth as one might set similar facilities upon the most barren landscape, the moon for instance, or Mars, with no attempt at fixing them in place. They were generic, interchangeable. Yet she’d thought it might be better for her (emotionally) to drive back to the exit, to stay the night in such a place and to return to Muskegee Falls in the morning, than to stay in a hotel in Muskegee Falls.
Naomi asked the price of the room. It was not so high as she’d expected.
The desk clerk seemed to misunderstand her silence: “There’s a room on the second floor, without a river view, if you’d prefer a room at a lower price . . .”
Politely Naomi said that she would prefer a room with a window view. “But I would like to see the room first, please.”
“Of course! I can show you.”
In the elevator the big-haired woman asked Naomi if she’d ever visited Muskegee Falls before. Naomi told her no.
“But my mother visited here. About ten years ago.”
“Did she!” The woman seemed stymied by Naomi, uncertain how to interpret her tone. The affable exchange of banal pleasantries to which she was accustomed as a hotel employee was thwarted here and the result was awkward. “She had relatives here, did she?—your mother?”
“No.”
The room was high-ceilinged but not large: at once, Naomi felt a shiver of claustrophobia.
Quickly she went to the window—the room had but a single window—to draw back dark purple velvet drapes and let in sunshine.
She stared out, leaning her face close to the glass, at the river a quarter-mile away, over a scattering of rooftops and water towers.
“There’s a nice sunset, on the river. You can see it from this floor.”
Adding then, when Naomi seemed not to have heard:
“There’s new TVs in all the fourth-floor rooms. Flat screen.”
But Naomi paid no heed to the flat-screen TV. Nor the minibar. She was far more interested in the view from the window though she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.
“Excuse me, is that the courthouse? Over there?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Where is Howard Avenue? Can you see it from here?”
“I’m not sure . . .”
The address she had for the Broome County Women’s Center was 1183 Howard Avenue.
“Can you see Shawnee Street from here?”
“‘Shawnee’? I don’t think so . . .”
“Front Street?”
But the woman had not heard of Front Street.
Naomi heard herself say, as if she were thinking aloud, “My mother once attended a trial here in Muskegee Falls, in the courthouse.”
“Did she!”—the woman smiled uncertainly.
“It was in 2000. The trial of Luther Dunphy. Do you remember?”
“‘Luther Dunphy.’ Oh yes. Everyone remembers that trial.”
“What do you remember about it?”
“It—was a sad case.”
“Why was it sad?”
“Because Luther Dunphy killed two people—just shot them down on the street. Two doctors.”
Two doctors. Naomi considered this.
“Did you know either of the men who were killed?”
“I didn’t. But my husband’s sister lived next-door to one of them. He was a nice guy, a Vietnam vet.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“‘Barron’—I think. Tom, or Tim.”
“And the other man’s name?”
“N-No . . . He wasn’t from Muskegee Falls, I think.”
“Did you know Luther Dunphy?”
“Oh no. Of course not. Nobody in my family knew him.”
Naomi turned her attention away from the big-haired woman who’d begun to frown, so interrogated. Since working as a documentary filmmaker Naomi had become far more aggressive with strangers than was natural for her; it was not a personality trait she admired in others, or in herself.
She noted: a scent of air freshener in the room. A cushioned chair with curved legs, covered in dark purple velvet. A small writing desk with a top that quaintly opened and shut, not very practical for one with a laptop. Queen-sized bed with brass headboard and eggshell-white coverlet upon which a half-dozen pillows had been artfully arranged.
Above a bureau a large mirror framed in eggshell-white in which Naomi Voorhees and the big-haired woman appeared. The younger with a baseball cap shielding half her face, the other a woman in her early or mid-forties, with bright-dyed russet hair.
Naomi asked: “Do you remember much about the trial?”
“Well—no. Not really. I never got to it, I had to work. Some of my friends went, and relatives. But you had a hard time getting in—getting a seat. The courtroom isn’t large. The trial drew a lot of attention. It was in the papers and on TV. And all these people picketing outside the courthouse . . .”
“Picketing? Why?”
“I think they were anti-abortion people. Some of them were Catholics. I mean, Catholic priests and nuns. But there were others too—all kinds. They came in buses. There was an abortion clinic here, where the doctors were shot.”
The woman was speaking carefully now, aware of Naomi’s interest.
Naomi asked if she remembered how the trial had turned out.
“He was found guilty—I think. He was sentenced to death.”
Adding, “There was a lot of upset over that. It was thought to be a harsh sentence. People who knew Luther Dunphy and his family, worked with him or belonged to the same church. In the paper there were interviews with people who knew him and all of them saying what a good man he was, a good husband and father, how he’d done carpentry work for his church. One neighbor said how after a windstorm, when some shingles on her roof were blown off, Luther Dunphy replaced them for nothing—no charge . . .” Pausing as if unsure what this might mean.
Good man. Husband, father. Carpentry. No charge.
There was a ringing in her ears. She was not hearing this.
“Does the Dunphy family still live here?”
“I don’t know.”
The woman spoke sharply. A faint flush came into her face.
“Miss, are you a—reporter?”
“No.”
“Not a reporter? You ask questions like they did. There were lots of them here during the trial. TV people, with cameras, in the street . . .”
“I am not a reporter.”
Naomi noted: on three walls of the room were framed daguerreotypes depicting scenes on the Muskegee River, of another century. On the floor was a deep plush rug, that had been recently vacuumed. The small bathroom appeared to have been remodeled with shining fixtures and a bathtub that looked as if it were made out of white plastic.
A fleeting face in the bathroom mirror. Naomi felt a touch of panic—her mother had stayed here, in this room. She was certain of this.
In a conciliatory tone the desk clerk was describing features of the “historic” Muskegee Falls Inn of which she seemed to be proud. Its restaurant, its pub, its room service. When the breakfast room opened in the morning, how late the restaurant served. Naomi listened politely, while returning to the window. She saw that the afternoon was waning. The river was luminous as shaken foil and at this distance it
appeared to be without motion.
“Well, miss! It’s a nice room, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“Do you think you will be taking it?”—the question was awkwardly phrased.
“No.”
Naomi heard the other draw in her breath, sharply. But she had not meant to say no, she’d meant to say yes.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry. I meant to say yes.”
In the elevator descending to the lobby neither woman could think of a thing to say.
Downstairs at the front desk Naomi provided the clerk with her name and with a credit card. It was a relief to her, though also a disappointment, that the name Naomi Voorhees seemed to make no impression.
She was given her room card. She was given a key for the minibar. She was about to leave, to bring her car around to park at the rear of the hotel, when the big-haired woman said suddenly, as if she’d just thought of exciting news, “You know—there’s some relative of Luther Dunphy we’ve been hearing about. A female boxer—‘D.D. Dunphy.’”
Naomi was intrigued. Female boxer?
“One of the Dunphys. Luther’s daughter. I think she just won some championship. Not sure but think it was in Cleveland. We saw an interview with her by accident on TV. My niece says she went to school with her.”
“Do you mean Dawn Dunphy? She’s a boxer?”
“Well, one of them is. One of the daughters.”
Naomi was mildly incredulous. Dawn Dunphy, a boxer! And on TV.
Yet, it should not have surprised her. From photographs she recalled the graceless smirking Dawn Dunphy, the murderer’s daughter whom she’d particularly hated.
IN MUSKEGEE FALLS, her compass needles spun.
She was here, at the site. Here, where the death had occurred.
Therefore, she did not want to call anyone from Muskegee Falls. She did not want to acknowledge Muskegee Falls.
She did not want to utter the words—“Muskegee Falls.”
She no longer called Darren except if it was an absolutely necessary call, and there were fewer and fewer of these. For she was a fully adult woman now. She could not be burdening her brother with his younger ghost-sister.
She did call her mother Jenna, from time to time. And (unpredictably) Jenna called her. But she did not want Jenna to know that she’d resumed working on the archive, for the archive had seemed a very bad idea to Jenna.
Please do not put me in this “documentary.” Please do not quote me.
I can’t forbid you and I don’t want to censor you. But I beg you.
Of course, Jenna did want to censor her. She had no clear idea why.
“Isn’t my grief as legitimate as yours? Why is it not as legitimate?”—she could not demand of her mother.
Instead, she would call Madelena Kein. Though she was apprehensive of what she might hear in her grandmother’s voice that might be faint, weak. Not the warm and assured voice of Madelena Kein that had long been the woman’s public voice but the voice of a woman who has been made to feel her mortality.
Hello! It’s me—Naomi.
I am in—well, that place. I am recording with my camera.
I will call you again, Lena.
I hope—I hope you are well.
Not able to bring herself to say, even in a rushed murmur—I love you.
AT 1183 HOWARD AVENUE, painted a cheery canary-yellow and decorated with colorful cutouts of cartoon animals, was the PEONY CHRISTIAN DAYCARE CENTER.
Naomi sat for a moment in the rented Nissan. Her brain felt as if a black wing had brushed over it.
“A daycare center . . .”
She thought—But he died here. In the driveway, here.
She would have to record what she found. The camera eye is neutral and unjudging.
The driveway beside the Peony Christian Daycare Center was cracked, and in cracks grew small hardy weeds like lace. There was no sign of blood in this ordinary setting, no sign of death. Too many days, years, weather had intervened.
In the camera eye, the very ordinariness of the scene would comprise a mystery. Why are we looking at this?
The neighborhood itself was hard to describe. Part-commercial, part-residential. A sprawling lumberyard on one side of Howard Avenue, a block of bungalows in tiny grassless lots on the other. A single large clapboard house with turrets and bay windows partitioned into apartments calling itself Howard Manor: Apt’s For Rent.
Peony Christian Daycare Center had a slapdash homemade look. Bright red letters painted by hand on the yellow background. The cartoon animals were clearly hand-crafted, and had large friendly brown eyes. There were no signs to indicate that the day care center was Christian. The atmosphere was lively, noisy. If you lived in the neighborhood you might smile seeing the bright primary colors every day or you might be discomforted, annoyed by such resolute and unwavering cheeriness.
Vehicles were parked at the rear of the single-story canary-yellow building. Mothers were arriving with very young children. It was a warm September morning: a number of the children and child-care staff were outside, in a small playground.
Cries of young children, laughter and excitement.
Seeing the children in the makeshift playground Naomi found herself smiling.
Nobody’s baby wants to die.
It was life always that would prevail. That was the singular lesson beside which all others are diminished.
“Hello!”—Naomi introduced herself to a harried-looking but friendly woman named Diana in jeans and knitted smock who told her yes, they were aware that the previous tenant of the building had been a women’s center but no, they had not actually seen the center because the building had been vacant for several years before they’d acquired it. And they didn’t know anyone who’d been associated with the Women’s Center.
“‘The Broome County Women’s Center’—has it moved to another location?”
“No. I think it was just shut down. Let me ask—” Diana turned to an older co-worker who provided the information that so far as she knew the women’s center had been absorbed into the hospital on East Avenue.
“There’s radiology there—mammograms. There’s doctors, physical therapy, classes in yoga, Pilates. Do you need directions?”
Naomi thanked her, no.
Naomi asked if they knew why the Women’s Center had been shut down and the women exchanged glances and said vaguely that they’d heard there had been “trouble”—“picketers.”
“You’d never heard that there were murders at the center? Because it was an abortion clinic?”
She’d spoken too bluntly. Belatedly she realized.
It was not the way of Muskegee Falls, Ohio, to speak so bluntly of ugly matters. Ugly local matters. Seeing the camera in her hands, the slant of the baseball cap on her head, the Peony Christian Daycare women looked uneasy. Vaguely they shook their heads, no.
Naomi wondered: no, they knew nothing of what had happened; or no, they did not want to talk about it.
She told them that the Center had provided other services beside abortions for women and girls but it had been under attack from pro-life protesters in the late 1990s and in November 1999 two men had been shot down in the driveway . . .
Diana said, pained: “Excuse me, are you a journalist?”
They were staring at her camera. They were staring at her, and they were not smiling now.
Naomi said: “No. I’m not a journalist.”
A young child came to pluck at Diana’s arm. “In a minute, Billy! Be right there.”
Naomi relented. She did not want to detain them further.
She did not want to upset these women, or annoy them, or harass them. She did not want to inflict upon them what they did not wish to hear on this mild dry September morning in 2011.
She said: “Your day care center looks wonderful. It must be great fun, and very rewarding . . .”
“Yes. It is.”
“ . . .hard work, but . . .”
“ . . .very rewarding.”
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She walked away, with a wave of her hand. She could see the relief in their faces. Several other women, who appeared to be mothers, were staring after Naomi too; she knew that they would excitedly discuss her as soon as she departed.
Journalist? Some newspaper? Taking pictures? Looking for the abortion clinic? Out-of-state? Pro-choice?
AT 56 FRONT STREET the Dunphys had lived in 1999. She had learned this fact.
Two-story clapboard house in a neighborhood of near-identical small houses and all of them dating back to—mid-twentieth century? The paint on the house was faded, weatherworn like something left out too long in the rain.
The windows were partly covered by blinds. Almost, you could imagine someone peering out one of the upstairs windows.
She saw: narrow driveway, single-car garage too crammed with things to accommodate any vehicle. Small front concrete stoop, small yard of burnt-out grass and dirt and at the curb a badly dented and stained metal trash can, empty.
Tricycle overturned in the yard. Dog’s red plastic water bowl, no water. Scattering of much-gnawed-at bones.
The neighborhood was quiet except for a barking dog. Children on bicycles calling to one another.
This is the house in which Luther Dunphy lived with his family in November 1999.
About four miles from the Broome County Women’s Center.
A middle-aged woman appeared in the driveway, in loose-fitting clothing. Flip-flops on her long-toed white feet. She was smiling in Naomi’s direction, unless she was scowling.
This was not a neighborhood in which strangers wandered into yards or stood at the end of driveways cameras in hand, staring.
Strangers live here now—of course.
Almost twelve years have passed.
“Excuse me? Are you looking for someone?”—the woman shaded her eyes, squinting at Naomi. Still she might have been perceived as friendly, curious.
“Oh, I’m sorry”—the intruder was trying for disarming frankness—“I don’t think they live here any longer. The Dunphys? I used to know their daughter . . .”
The woman had ceased smiling. Naomi saw her jaw tighten.
Naomi was holding the camera casually in her left hand. Unobtrusively recording what the camera saw but in such a way that the middle-aged woman staring at Naomi suspiciously could not have known.