Last Will

  Abduction Redux

  I came up out of the bed, not sure what had woken me, and went through my mental checklist. All body parts functioning, no intruders, and no obvious immediate danger. Then I heard the steady thumping of someone knocking on the front door. Meda was asleep down the hall in my bedroom. She had a perverse sense of things, forcing me to vacate my bed if I wouldn’t sleep in it with her. I pulled on my jeans and took the front stairs two at a time, wondering how long the pounding had been going on before it woke me. The doorbell rang distantly, intended to notify some non-existent servant.

  Belatedly, it occurred to me that it was the dead of night and someone was rattling the front door on its hinges. I thought of Ray Brueggeman’s friends, but it turned out to be two sheriff’s deputies.

  “Mr. Raleigh? Sorry to bother you, sir,” the older deputy said. “We, uh, we’re looking for Meda Amos.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s about her mother.”

  “Is she—what happened?”

  “She’s been out wandering tonight. Got a touch of frostbite on her toes, but nothing serious.”

  I felt Meda’s presence behind me, an instant before she touched me. She put a fingertip on the scar below my shoulder blade, and the pressure of it passed through me, making the intaglio of scar tissue on my chest tingle. I thought of the temporary pathway a bullet creates as it passes through flesh, displacing shredded tissue and shattered bone, air ballooning around the projectile. Later, the cavity collapses around the wound track. Without thinking, I brought my hand up to those misfiring nerve endings, and covered the scar with my palm, inadvertently drawing attention to it. I turned and Meda stepped around me.

  “Is she okay?” she said.

  “She is, ma’am, but she’s disoriented. She’s at County, not in lock-up this time. The infirmary. She wanted you.”

  The younger deputy was quiet, looking at my hand. I lowered it self-consciously. It was an odd sensation, to feel him pull his gaze away from Meda, back to that scar. We went upstairs to dress and to get Annadore, who was awake and belligerent.

  Standing in the front foyer, Meda looked rattled as she tried to calm Annadore. I wanted what I had wanted from the beginning, to make things better for Meda.

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “I hate to take Annadore. Would you stay with her while I go?”

  The deputies were watching us, and as much as I didn’t want to, I agreed. Meda looked relieved as she exchanged Annadore for the car keys. Annadore punched me in the neck and went back to her sleepy tirade.

  “I remember that spring. My father went out with a search party,” the younger deputy said, when he finally found his voice. He looked at my chest, as though he could still see the scar, through my shirt and sweater, through Annadore where I held her against me.

  Meda kissed Annadore, then me, then Annadore again. “Be good for Bernie, Baby Girl. Put her back to bed, okay?”

  Annadore was nearly asleep against my shoulder, and I was filled with a primeval terror. She whimpered a little when I pulled off her coat and shoes, but by the time I tucked the covers around her, she was asleep again. Her mouth was open slightly, her breath warm on my hand. Her eyelashes were dense and black, like Meda’s, and her eyelids fluttered lightly. She was lovely.

  For a moment, she was quite still and I slipped my hand under the covers and pressed it to her chest, feeling the intense heat of her, the rise and fall of her ribcage, until I was able to make out the cadence of her heart pumping blood. I knelt there by the bed, my hand over her small heart, learning the rhythm of her breathing. At that point, I was more afraid of leaving than of staying. It was several hours before I heard Meda come through the kitchen door and creep up the stairs quietly. I wished she would be a little louder, would make enough noise to wake Annadore.

  Watchfulness

  Meda

  When I went into the bedroom, Bernie was watching Annadore sleep. “I used to do that when she was first born. How was she?”

  “She’s been sleeping since you left.”

  “And you’ve been watching her all that time? She’ll sleep okay by herself, silly.”

  “I know.” He didn’t sound very sure of it.

  “Come downstairs. I want something to eat.” After hesitating a little bit, he followed me.

  “How’s your mom? Where is she?”

  “They’re keeping her overnight, just to observe her. To make sure she’s okay.”

  “What happened?” he said.

  Even though I knew he was okay about it, I didn’t want to tell him, but he was waiting for me to say something.

  “She said they took her tonight.”

  “They? The aliens? How was she?”

  “She was like she always is, confused and scared.”

  “You’ve seen her after it before?”

  “Sure. Lots of times. She’s always scared and I do feel bad for her, because it’s real to her. The deputies found her practically all the way to the interstate,” I said.

  “That’s a long way for her to walk.”

  “At least ten miles. Barefoot in her pajamas. You see how easy it is to start thinking it’s too weird to be just craziness. I don’t know. I think…”

  “That something is happening to her. Even if it isn’t aliens abducting her, something is happening,” he said. I was glad he understood, because I never had anyone before who was mostly normal and sane to talk to about it.

  Domestic Hiatus

  Our brief little venture into domesticity was put on hold. Meda decided to stay with her mother until the surgery, perhaps with the idea that Muriel wouldn’t get herself abducted if Meda and Annadore were there. Meda denied it.

  “It’s not so much that, but she’s more worried about the surgery than she wants to admit. She needs someone to take care of her.” I agreed it would be a kindness for Meda and Annadore to stay with Muriel, but I suspected Mrs. Trentam’s odd behavior of late had something to do with it.

  “I’ll miss you,” I said. She laughed, but gave me a kiss that made me feel she didn’t despise the sentiment.

  It was strange to lie in bed that night, fighting the edge of sleep for the simple reason that I was happy and I didn’t want to lose the feeling. Meda wasn’t there, but I knew she was coming back. The future actually seemed doable.

  Miraculously, the good mood carried through into the next day. Not even Celeste got on my nerves, so I didn’t make her take a separate car to go to another meeting with the lawyers who were working to set up the Raleigh Foundation.

  “It’s surprising that you’re taking a personal interest in the foundation,” Celeste said in the middle of one of her stream of consciousness monologues on cats. “Karen—she works with Mr. Vogle—has done some other work with foundation incorporation, and she said that you’re a lot more involved.

  “Usually, Mr. Vogle and his staff do most of the planning. People who leave the resources for a foundation usually have ideas for it, but most of the time people in your situation aren’t as involved. But then, Mr. Raleigh didn’t make any specific arrangements.” There was a pause that I thought was Celeste taking a breath, but it was a bit too long. She was waiting for me to speak.

  “I want the foundation to do what I want it to do,” I said, which was the sort of thing my grandfather often said. They’ll damn well do it the way I want it done. “And my grandfather didn’t make any arrangements for the foundation, because he would not have approved of it.”

  “Oh,” Celeste said.

  It was the first time I’d told anyone the foundation wasn’t some idea that stemmed from my grandfather’s desires. That was why it was called the Raleigh Foundation, and not the Pen Raleigh Foundation. Once said, the fact could not be contained. At the meeting, I blurted it out to Mr. Vogle, apropos to nothing.

  “Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t have disapproved,” Mr. Vogle said, with a little smile of pleasant doubt.

  “Didn’t know Pen, did you?” I was sudd
enly enjoying the moment.

  “No, I never had the pleasure of meeting him.”

  “He hated charity. Hated people who needed charity. He would have hated the idea of his money being used for charity. If he knew I was planning to spend a bunch of his money to help poor people, he’d be rolling in his grave—if he were in it.” I said it all before I realized I was breaking my own rule. Mr. Vogle hadn’t asked and he didn’t want to know. We spent the rest of the meeting talking about the formation of a board of directors, and my goals for the foundation’s giving. Eventually we discussed my personal involvement in the foundation.

  “Do you want the primary responsibilities to devolve to the board of directors after everything is set up?” Mr. Vogle asked.

  “No,” I said, a little shocked at how sure I sounded. “I plan to serve as the Chairman of the Board in perpetuity.”

  “Mm-hm,” he said, making notes on his legal pad. He was an excellent lawyer. His approval and disapproval sounded exactly the same.

  When Celeste and I left Mr. Vogle’s office, I was still feeling good, until we got close to the house and I saw the markers for my father and brother. I was in such a pleasant mood I couldn’t stand to see them, and I remembered the resolution I’d made. In retrospect I should not have done it with Celeste in the car, but the road was deserted, and before I could think better of it, I swerved the Fleetwood across the same centerline my father had crossed to his death. The tires sank into the shoulder as the bumper clipped the markers.

  Celeste screamed.

  I pulled back into the proper lane with plenty of time to make the turn to the house. I apologized and Celeste hiccupped something like forgiveness. To prove she was recovered, she asked whether I wanted her to see about having the crosses replaced.

  “I wouldn’t have taken them down if I wanted them up,” I said.

  Mr. Romance

  Meda

  Bernie was so happy when I asked him to come to dinner that I didn’t have the heart to tell him he wasn’t going to get laid. I wanted dinner to just be Mom and us, but Loren invited herself and her stupid boyfriend. He always gave me the creeps because he stared at us like he was from another planet, and he was still trying to learn how to speak our language. I was glad when Bernie came and it cracked me up that he brought flowers for Mom and me.

  “Oh, Bernie, you’re a sweetheart,” Mom said.

  “Yeah, he’s a regular Mr. Romance,” Loren said.

  “At least he’s not a life-size Mr. Potato-Head.” I was pretty sure her boyfriend couldn’t understand what we were saying. When Mom finally stopped hugging Bernie, he kissed me, and then went into the living room to say hi to Gramma and Annadore.

  Mom nudged Loren and said, “See. He’s a nice guy.”

  “He’s like everybody else. He wants a piece of Meda’s ass. At least he’s willing to pay for it.”

  When Bernie came back, he leaned over me and whispered, “Who’s the mouth-breather staring at your breasts?”

  That was about the best part of the evening, because while we were eating dinner Mom started in with Bernie about the aliens, since he was the only one willing to talk to her about it.

  “The thing that’s always worried me is the girls. I’ve been abducted so many times, and I worry as my girls get older they’ll have the same problem, that it won’t just be occasional, but that it will be real regular like it is with me.”

  Bernie looked at me and raised his eyebrow.

  The Not Knowing

  “I’ve never been abducted by aliens,” Meda said. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go around telling people I was.”

  “I know it’s hard to accept it,” Muriel said.

  “Bullshit. Never happened.”

  Meda didn’t lose her temper. She shook her head and calmly buttered Annadore’s dinner roll. Loren’s nameless boyfriend was still spending about half his energy staring at Meda. Loren for once sat quietly, looking down at her plate.

  “What about when you woke up on the school grounds and you came home crying and knocking on the door?” Muriel asked.

  “I don’t remember it like that.”

  “What about the time the mail man picked the three of you up—”

  “We were running away from home.” Meda laughed and turned to me to explain. “I was eight, Davy was six, and Loren was two. I think we would have gotten away if the wheel hadn’t fallen off the stroller.”

  “You know that’s not how it happened,” Muriel said.

  “Oh, you were there? We were running away.”

  “If that’s what you have to tell yourself. I was in denial for a long time, but you shouldn’t try to confuse Loren. She deserves to know the truth.” Muriel looked at me to plead her case, but whatever Loren deserved, it wasn’t that. She was crying.

  “Leave her alone. Stop filling her head with your bullshit,” Meda said, suddenly angry. She grabbed Loren’s arm and pulled her away from the table. While they were gone Muriel didn’t say anything, so I decided to have a chat with Loren’s boyfriend.

  “Maybe nobody ever pointed this out to you, but it’s really rude to stare at a woman’s breasts, especially when her boyfriend is in the same room. Because if I were a certain kind of guy, I would take you outside and kick your ass. Also, you’re not winning any points with Loren, staring at her sister like that. Just some friendly advice.”

  The guy looked at me blankly, his mouth open.

  “I try. I try so hard,” Muriel said and started crying, too. When Meda brought Loren back, she took her mother out of the room. I decided I was willing to cry if it would get me a few minutes alone with Meda.

  “She’s kidding herself if she thinks it isn’t real,” Loren said.

  It shocked the hell out of me, because whatever else I’d thought about Loren, I’d gotten the impression she was hard-wired for skepticism. I felt the same shock that occurs when a particularly worldly acquaintance turns on you and begins to witness that Jesus Christ is the Holy Resurrected Son of God. I had nothing to answer her convictions. All I had were my good manners, which were ill-suited to do battle against alien abduction theory.

  Dinner broke up not long after, and Meda walked me out to the car. We sat there for a while, talking about little stuff.

  “Could I ask you a favor?” Meda said.

  “Anything under the sun.”

  She smiled and said, “Mom wants me to stay at the hospital with her the night before her surgery, but I don’t really want to ask Gramma or Aunt M. to watch Annadore. Everybody’s just being so weird.”

  “You want me to watch Annadore?” I said in disbelief. I wondered if I had radically misjudged how Meda felt about me.

  “I thought maybe if your aunt wouldn’t mind keeping her for the night…”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind at all.” I was relieved but a little disappointed. I hadn’t misjudged Meda’s feelings all that much.

  “Thanks. I miss you, too.” She gave me a quick kiss before she opened the car door. She skipped back up the trailer steps and gave me a little wave from the doorway before going inside.

  Driving home from Muriel’s, I let myself think of the future. I thought of Annadore at five, at fifteen. It was terrifying, but not so much that I had to stop myself. I wanted to take care of her, to take care of Meda. Once I let myself think of it, I decided I could be happy in Oklahoma, with Meda. Or I could be happy in Kansas City, if she would agree to go back there with me. I just didn’t know how to bring up the subject.

  After Muriel was checked in at the hospital, Meda handed Annadore to me. She looked nervous.

  “It’s okay,” I said. Annadore apparently agreed with me, because she didn’t fuss very much when I buckled her into her car seat. I glanced back to check on her in the rearview mirror, and it must have seemed strange to her, too, because every time I looked back at her, she was looking at me.

  I tried not to take it personally that in less than fifteen minutes, Annadore supplanted me as Aunt Ginn
y’s favorite person. After all, I was thirty and my enthusiasm for dolls wasn’t what it had been. I got Aunt Ginny’s trunk of china dolls out for them, and they spent hours undressing the dolls and posing them and telling stories with them. They passed me the dolls when the fastenings on the clothing were too difficult for my aunt’s arthritic hands or Annadore’s not yet dexterous fingers. I put my librarian’s hands to work buttoning and buckling, zipping, lacing and hooking. Then I undid it and redid it all a dozen times. It was pleasantly hypnotic, dressing and undressing the dolls, listening to the two of them murmuring to each other.

  Later they remembered I was there, and Aunt Ginny sent me into the back bedroom for books. It’s one of my few skills: I excel at reading upside down so that my audience can see the pictures.

  At bedtime, Aunt Ginny enthroned Annadore in the frilly white bedroom that had belonged to my cousin Joan. It saddened me to see that Aunt Ginny still kept the room that way, waiting for a little girl to come stay. Twenty years was a long time to wait.

  The next morning, while Muriel was in recovery, Annadore and I went to pick up Meda from the hospital. She looked tired, and when I asked about Muriel’s surgery, she shrugged.

  “We won’t really know much until the biopsy results come back from the lab. The doctor said things looked pretty bad in there, though. He said there was a lot of infection in the left breast.” Meda looked away from me while she spoke, so that I was embarrassed for having asked. She looked down at Annadore then, and gasped with dismay at the china doll she was carrying. “Oh, God, she can’t have this. What can your aunt be thinking?” Meda tried to take it away from Annadore, who held on tenaciously, biting Meda’s hand. “What if she breaks it?”

  “She won’t.” I showed her the knitted socks on the doll’s feet that kept them from chipping each other. Annadore took off the doll’s bonnet and smoothed out its glossy black hair.

  “It’s lou, Mama,” she said. She had trouble with ‘y’ words.