“If only it had been that,” Mrs. Tuttle broke in, “but we knew it wasn’t. Helen would never hurt us that way. And that boy is not her boyfriend.”
“They were in the middle of interrogating Jeff when one of the squad cars radioed in,” Mr. Tuttle continued, as though he had not been interrupted. “Some man, a cook in a coffeehouse over east of where we live, had found Helen. He said he almost fell over her. She was lying unconscious by the side of the path, and her legs were sticking out across it. She’d been there all night in the cold.”
He drew a deep breath, and his wife reached over and touched his hand. Now it was she who was trying to give comfort.
“She’ll be okay,” she said. “We’ve got to believe that. God wouldn’t have let her make it this far if he were going to turn right around and snatch her away from us.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then I asked, “May I see her?”
“I’m sorry, they’ve restricted visitors to family,” Mr. Tuttle said. “Just her mother and me for a couple of minutes every hour. Not that it means much. We stand there and look at her and go out again. If they did allow you in, she wouldn’t know you were there.”
But I would know it, I thought miserably. I could tell her that I’m sorry, even if she couldn’t hear me. I’m sorry about her accident. I’m sorry I was so mean to her yesterday.
Suddenly there seemed to be nothing left to say.
“You will call us, won’t you, the moment there’s any change?” Mom asked. “We’re so concerned—not just Laurie, but all of us.”
“Of course, we’ll call as soon as there’s anything to report.” Mr. Tuttle got to his feet. “Thank you both for coming. It means a lot to know there’s somebody around here who cares.”
“That boy,” Mrs. Tuttle said. “Is he still out there?”
“Jeff ?” Mom said. “Yes, he’s out in the hall. We talked to him briefly on our way in.”
“He shouldn’t be here. He doesn’t have any right.” Her voice was sharp. “If it wasn’t for him, this never would have happened.”
“Dear—don’t—” her husband began.
“Stop telling me ‘don’t.’ I’m only saying what’s a fact. He took Helen out and didn’t bring her home again. If he cared about her he would have taken care of her. And now here he is when it’s too late, imposing himself and acting like he belongs here.”
“He’s not ‘imposing,’” Mr. Tuttle protested mildly. “I called him myself, and the police brought him over from the island.”
“But that’s over now. He’s talked with us; he’s talked with them. Why doesn’t he leave? Aren’t we upset enough? Why did Helen go out with him, anyway? She didn’t need someone like that. So she didn’t have a lot of boys calling her all the time; what did that matter? She’s a late bloomer. So was I. A lot of girls are late bloomers, but they don’t settle for a boy with a face like that, a boy who looks like the devil himself. Whatever happened to Helen, he was in on it. A mother can feel those things.”
“I can’t believe that,” I said. “You can’t judge a person by what he looks like. Just because his face was burned—”
“Looks can warp a person,” Mrs. Tuttle interrupted. “Somebody has Fate turn on him like what happened to Jeff, and he gets bitter. He can’t have what he once had, and he takes it out on others. I don’t have any proof, of course, but I swear, from the first moment that boy walked into our house, I knew he was bad news. I said to Helen afterward, ‘You’d better watch out for that one.’ She just laughed. She wouldn’t listen. And now look what’s happened.”
She was crying now, the harsh, ragged sobs cutting through the room in jagged little bursts. She raised her large, freckled hands to cover her face, and all I could think was that they might have been Helen’s hands except for the heavy gold wedding band on one of the fingers.
There was nothing more that I could bring myself to say.
Mom must have felt the same way, for she simply said, “We’ll pray. Please, do call us.”
“I will,” Mr. Tuttle told us, but his full attention was on his wife.
Outside in the corridor, Mom turned and put her arms around me in a fierce embrace.
“Dear god, Laurie,” she said in a strangled voice, “what if it had been you? How could Dad and I have dealt with it?”
“She is going to live, isn’t she?” I asked shakily. It was a stupid question, for, of course, Mom knew no more about the situation than I did, but childhood conditioning is not shaken easily. If Mom said, “Yes,” I knew I would feel secure.
But she said, “I hope so,” and tightened her arms in a convulsive hug. Then, as quickly as she had reached for me, she released me. We continued down the hall together, not touching, not speaking, yet closer somehow than we had been for many months.
Jeff was still embedded in the chair across from the elevators. His eyes were closed, but they snapped open at our approach.
“Did you find out anything?” he asked us.
“Probably not anything you don’t know already,” I said.
“The Tuttles”—his voice cracked a little—“they hate me for this, don’t they?”
“They’re too upset to think reasonably.” I know my mother’s face in all its variety of expressions. At this moment, there was something in it that I was used to seeing only when she looked at Neal. “Come along, Jeff,” she said quietly. “There’s no use waiting here. We can’t see Helen, and there’s no way we can help her.”
“I’ve got to stay,” Jeff said gruffly. “I’m responsible. If I hadn’t sent her home alone—”
“You couldn’t possibly have anticipated this,” Mom said. “You did what you thought was the right thing at the time.”
“It seemed so practical,” Jeff said. “I mean, the movie lasted longer than we thought it would, and the last ferry was leaving. If I’d taken her home I’d have missed it. It was late, but I thought she’d be fine in a cab.”
“You didn’t have a fight, then?” I asked.
“Hell, no! It was just that time got away from us. There was a store Helen wanted to look in, and that made us late for the movie, and everything went later than we’d planned. If I’d missed that boat, what would I have done, slept over at the Tuttles’? Yeah, right! Helen’s mom has had it in for me since the first time she saw my face.”
“Oh, honey, it’s not that,” Mom said. It was the first time I’d heard her use that endearment for anyone but family. “She’s a mother hen with one chick, that’s all.” She put a hand on his arm. “Come on, now. We’ll all go back together. There’s nothing to be gained by staying. I honestly think the Tuttles are better off without us. They have each other, and that’s all they need right now.”
Somehow, and I’ve never quite understood how, she got Jeff onto his feet and into the elevator. She kept her hand on his arm all the way to the street as though she were afraid that if she let go he would rush back. There were no available cabs, so we took the bus to the pier, wedged in among holiday shoppers with their armloads of parcels.
The mood on the bus was festive. People laughed and jostled each other good-naturedly. The woman behind me was humming “Jingle Bells.” In front of me a little boy was asking questions in a shrill, piping voice: “Was that man in the store really Santa? Is he the same Santa who comes to our house?”
I stood, holding on to the ceiling strap for support as the bus lurched along with its load of happy passengers, feeling as alien as one of Dad’s visitors from outer space. The last time I had been lighthearted seemed a million years ago.
At the landing we found we had just missed the ferry and had over an hour to wait for the next one. Most of that time we sat in silence. I don’t know what Jeff and Mom were thinking, but in my own mind I was reliving the months since September when a gawky, red-haired girl had offered me lunch money. Had I ever paid it back? I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t even recall how much it had been. Had I given her anything in return for her other gifts—her frien
dship, her understanding, her tireless willingness to share my problems? “Helen’s best friend,” Mr. Tuttle had called me. He had been mistaken. Helen had been a friend to me, but I hadn’t been much of one to her.
What had happened last night? There were so many unanswered questions and so few facts to tie them to. Helen had been to the movies. She had returned home in a taxi. She had gotten out, or so we could assume, and paid the driver—and then what? The park was kitty-corner to their town house. Why would she have crossed the street to go there? It had been cold, and a wind had been blowing. There had been no moon. Why cross to the park and run down a path in absolute darkness?
What had Helen been doing there? Would she ever be able to tell me?
Of course, I assured myself. Of course she will.
But I wasn’t sure that I believed it.
On the ferry, Jeff fell asleep. He slid sideways on the seat, and his head came to rest against my shoulder. When we landed he came abruptly awake, jerking up straight, embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“That’s okay,” I said. “You must be exhausted.”
“Why don’t you come home with us for dinner?” Mom asked him.
“No, thanks,” Jeff said. “My dad’ll be wondering what’s happened. Besides, I’m not hungry.” He paused and then added, “Thanks, anyway.”
“You’re welcome anytime,” Mom told him.
We went back to Cliff House, and Mom made dinner. I sat at the table, listening to the chatter of the children and shoving food around my plate with a fork. I glanced across at the spot between Neal and Dad where Helen had once sat and tried to picture her there. “I enjoyed it,” she had told me later. “I’m an only child, and things can get pretty boring around our house.” Why hadn’t I invited her back? As soon as she’s well, I will, I told myself. I’ll have her out to the island every weekend if she wants to come.
Loneliness swept over me. Here among the people I loved most, there was someone else I needed.
I lay in bed that night and waited for Lia. I called to her silently, “Come—please, come!” But the room remained empty, and the only sound was the crash of the surf against the rocks.
Finally, I must have dozed off, because I never actually saw her, but at some point during the night I had a dream.
Lia was in it.
“I’m here,” she told me. “I will always be here. Hold on tight to me, Laurie. I’m your only friend now.”
From then on I slept more peacefully, and when I awoke, the previous day with its painful happenings had become fogged, like a film over which an oily thumb has been drawn, leaving the picture smudged, distorted and unreal.
December moved forward, leading, as it inevitably does, to Christmas.
Christmas is an absolute. There is no displacing it. No matter what may have occurred during the year, no matter what changes have taken place, Christmas stands at the end of it like the final punctuation after a long and rambling sentence.
“It is over,” Christmas tells us. “It is time now to take a deep breath, discard the past and start again.”
I’ve always loved Christmas, every part of it, the sight, the sound, the smell. This year, however, I couldn’t get into it. Carols slid past my ears unheard. Tinsel glittered unappreciated. The traditional spruce imported by boat from the mainland and decorated by Megan and Neal with familiar handmade ornaments looked out of place in our living room.
“Take me shopping?” Megan begged me. It was our special ritual, established when she was in kindergarten.
“Not this year,” I started to respond, but then, seeing the bright expectation on her face, I couldn’t disappoint her. We went into the city after school one afternoon and poked through the department stores while Meg made her selections.
“Everything’s so beautiful, I just can’t decide,” she kept saying.
I made my own purchases quickly and with little sense of pleasure—matching shirts for my parents, a game for Neal, a gray stuffed seal for Megan’s animal collection, paid for surreptitiously while her back was turned and shoved hurriedly to the bottom of a shopping bag. I saw an emerald green scarf that would have been perfect for Helen, but I didn’t buy it. I stood looking at it for a long time before deciding not to.
“It’s pretty,” Meg commented, and I said, “Yes,” and turned away. I couldn’t bring myself to confront God with a deadline.
Each day either Mom or I would call the hospital. There was no new information. Helen’s vital signs continued to be “stable.” She remained unconscious and in intensive care.
The day before school let out for the holidays, I was called to the office to find Mr. Tuttle there waiting. He was holding a small box wrapped in silver paper.
“Helen’s mother was going through her things,” he told me. “She found this with your name on it.”
“Oh—please—no!” It was like having somebody slam me hard in the stomach. All the breath went out of me. “I can’t take a present. Not now. Not with things the way they are.”
“She meant for you to have this, or she wouldn’t have bought it.” Mr. Tuttle thrust the package into my hand. His face looked tired, and there were lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth that I couldn’t remember having seen there before. “That’s Helen for you. She always did things early. I never knew her to be late, did you?”
“No,” I said. “No.” I was shaken by his use of the past tense.
“I stopped by the school because I wanted to be sure you got this,” Mr. Tuttle said. “I also wanted to say good-bye. We’re having Helen transferred to Duke University Hospital in North Carolina. There are doctors there who specialize in head injuries.”
“You’re taking her away?” It had never occurred to me that Helen might be removed from the vicinity. “You’ll be back, though, won’t you? As soon as she’s better?”
“I think that’s unlikely,” Mr. Tuttle said.
“But you have a job here, and a home!”
“We rent the town house, and one teaching position is pretty much like another.” He shook his head. “We moved here because we thought it would be good for Helen. We were wrong.”
“Then you’ll be moving back out west?”
“I can’t say now. The first thing is to get Helen the best care we can. We’ll get an apartment near the hospital and see how things go. The school here has released me from my contract, and Mrs. Tuttle and I can both substitute until we’re in a position to make further plans.”
I regarded him helplessly. “Will you call or e-mail me to let me know how Helen’s doing?”
“If there’s something definite to report.”
“Do you have my information?” I could tell by his expression that he didn’t.
“I’m not thinking too clearly these days,” he said apologetically. “Everything’s happened so fast.”
I tore a page from my notebook and wrote down my e-mail address and our phone number. Mr. Tuttle folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket, and I couldn’t help wondering if he would ever think of it again.
“You have a nice Christmas,” he said. “Give my best to your mother. She’s a nice woman. I’m sorry we never had the chance to get to know each other.”
We said good-bye, and I put the package in my purse and went back to class. At home that evening I transferred it to the closet shelf where I was storing gifts I’d bought for the family. I couldn’t bring myself to open it. It was strangely comforting, though, to know that it was there, a final link between Helen and me.
At dinner that night the kids were overflowing with holiday excitement. There had been school parties that afternoon, and both were so full of sugar that they were more ready to talk than to eat. Mom was half with us. She had been commissioned by Natalie Coleson’s father to paint a seascape for him to give his wife for Christmas. She’d been working on it since early morning and was still too caught up to be able to focus on dinner-table conversation.
As often happens with
my parents, their moods balanced. Dad had reached a plateau with his new book and was ready to think about other things. He was expounding on his childhood Christmases, starting with the first he could remember, and had worked his way up to his twelfth (“when I got a book of short stories by Ray Bradbury”) when the doorbell rang.
Neal went down to answer it. When he came back he looked puzzled.
“It’s Jeff Rankin,” he said. “He wants to talk to Laurie.”
“For heaven’s sake, invite him up,” said Mom, coming out of her fog.
“I did,” Neal told her. “He said he’d rather wait.”
“I’ll go down,” I said. “I was done eating, anyway.” I did not have any great desire to relive my father’s next thirty Christmases.
Jeff was standing in the entrance hall, looking so surly that I almost turned and went upstairs again. He was leaning against the wall with his hands crammed into the pockets of his parka. His jaw was set, and his eyes held that dark, angry look that meant he was ready to lash out at somebody.
His greeting was a question.
“Why didn’t you tell me they were moving Helen?”
“I just found out today,” I said. “It seems like you did too.”
“Who told you? Mrs. Tuttle?”
“No, it was Helen’s dad. He came by school at noon. Helen got me a Christmas present back before the accident. Mr. Tuttle brought it over to give to me, and he told me then.” I resented the accusation in his voice. “I would have told you this afternoon if I’d seen you, but you weren’t on the ferry.”
“I had to stay late for a makeup test.”
“Then what are you mad about? How could you expect me to tell you when you weren’t there to tell?”
“I thought maybe you’d known about it before.” The fury seemed suddenly to go out of him. “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come over. It was just—just—”