"Ladder of Years" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tyler Anne)

7

Baltimore Woman Disappears, Delia read, and she felt a sudden thud in her stomach, as if she’d been punched. Baltimore Woman Disappears During Family Vacation.

She had been checking the Baltimore newspapers daily, morning and evening. There was nothing in either paper Tuesday, nothing Wednesday, nothing Thursday morning. But the Thursday evening edition, which arrived in the vending box near the square in time for Delia’s lunch hour, carried a notice in the Metro section. Delaware State Police announced early today…

She folded the paper open to the article, glancing around as she did so. On the park bench opposite hers, a young woman was handing her toddler bits of something to feed the pigeons, piece by piece. On the bench to her right, a very old man was leafing through a magazine. No one seemed aware of Delia’s presence.

Mrs. Grinstead was last seen around noon this past Monday, walking south along the stretch of sand between…

Probably the police had some rule that people were not considered missing till a certain amount of time had passed. That must be why there’d been no announcement earlier. (Searching each paper before this, Delia had felt relieved and wounded, both. Did no one realize she was gone? Or maybe she wasn’t gone; this whole experience had been so dreamlike. Maybe she was still moving through her previous life the same as always, and the Delia here in Bay Borough had somehow just split off from the original.)

It hurt to read her physical description: fair or light-brown hair… eyes are blue or gray or perhaps green… For heaven’s sake, hadn’t anyone in her family ever looked at her? And how could Sam have made her clothing sound so silly? Kind of baby-doll, indeed! She refolded the paper with a snap and then darted another glance around her. The toddler was throwing a tantrum now, a silent little stomping dance, because he’d run out of pigeon food. The old man was licking a finger to turn a page. Delia hated when he did that. Every lunch hour he came here with a magazine and licked his way clear through it, and Delia could only hope that no one else was planning to read it after him.

Like a commuter who always chooses the same seat on the train, like a guest who always settles in the same chair in the living room, Delia had managed in just three days to establish a routine for herself. Breakfast at Rick-Rack’s, over the morning paper. Lunch in the square-yogurt and fresh fruit purchased earlier from the Gobble-Up Grocery. Always on the southeast park bench, always with the evening paper. Then some kind of shopping task to fill the hour: Tuesday, a pair of low-heeled black shoes because her espadrilles were blistering her heels. Wednesday, a goosenecked reading lamp. Today she had planned to look for one of those immersion coils so she could brew herself a cup of tea first thing every morning. But now, with this newspaper item, she didn’t know. She felt so exposed, all at once. She just wanted to scuttle back to the office.

She dropped her lunch leavings into a wire trash basket and buried the newspaper underneath them. As a rule she left the paper on the bench for others, but not today.

The mother was trying to stuff the toddler into his stroller. The toddler was resisting, refusing to bend in the middle. The old man had finished his magazine and was fussily fitting his glasses into their case. None of the three looked at Delia when she walked past them. Or maybe they were pretending, even the toddler; maybe they’d been instructed not to alarm her. No. She gave her shoulders a shake. Get ahold of yourself. It wasn’t as if she’d committed any crime. She decided to go on with her routine-drop by the dime store as she’d planned.

Funny how life contrived to build up layers of things around a person. Already she had that goosenecked lamp, because the overhead bulb had proved inadequate for reading in bed; and she kept a stack of paper cups and a box of tea bags on her closet shelf, making do till now with hot water from the bathroom faucet; and it was becoming clear she needed a second dress. Last night, the first really warm night of summer, she had thought, I should buy a fan. Then she had told herself, Stop. Stop while you’re ahead.

She walked into the dime store and paused. Housewares, maybe? The old woman presiding over the cookie sheets and saucepans stood idle, twiddling her beads; so Delia approached her. “Would you have one of those immersion coils?” she asked. “Those things you put in a cup to heat up water?”

“Well, I know what you mean,” the old woman said. “I can see it just as plain as the nose on your face. Electric, right?”

“Right,” Delia said.

“My grandson took one to college with him, but would you believe it? He didn’t read the directions. Tried to heat a bowl of soup when the directions said only water. Stink? He said you couldn’t imagine the stink! But I don’t have any here. Maybe try the hardware department.”

“Thanks,” Delia said crisply, and she moved away.

Sure enough, she found it in Hardware, hanging on a rack among the extension cords and three-prong adapters. She paid in exact change. The clerk-a gray-haired man in a bow tie-winked when he handed her the bag. “Have a nice day, young lady,” he said. He probably thought he was flattering her. Delia didn’t bother smiling.

She had noticed that Miss Grinstead was not a very friendly person. The people involved in her daily routine remained two-dimensional to her, like the drawings in those children’s books about the different occupations. She hadn’t developed the easy, bantering relationships Delia was accustomed to.

Leaving the dime store, she crossed Bay Street and passed the row of little shops. The clock in the optician’s window said 1:45. She always tried her best to fill her whole lunch hour, one o’clock to two o’clock, but so far had not succeeded.

And what would she do in wintertime, when it grew too cold to eat in the square? For she was looking that far ahead now, it seemed-this Miss Grinstead with her endless, unmarked, unchanging string of days.

But in Bay Borough it was always summer. That was the only season she could picture here.

She opened Mr. Pomfret’s outside door, then the pebble-paned inner door. He was already back from his own lunch, talking on his office phone as usual. Wurlitzer, wurlitzer, it sounded like from here. Delia shut her handbag in the bottom desk drawer, smoothed her skirt beneath her, and seated herself in the swivel chair. She had left a letter half finished, and now she resumed typing, keeping her back very straight and her hands almost level as she had been taught in high school.

Authorities do not suspect drowning, the paper had said. It hadn’t occurred to her they might. Since Mrs. Grinstead professed a-how had they put it?-professed an aversion to water. Or something of the sort. Made her sound like a woman who never bathed. She slammed the carriage return more violently than was necessary. And that business about Eliza saying she’d been a cat! People must think the both of them were lunatics.

This typewriter had a stiffer action than the one in Sam’s office. Her first day at work, she’d broken two fingernails. After that she had filed all her nails down blunt, which was more appropriate anyhow to Miss Grinstead’s general style. Besides, it had used up twenty minutes of an evening. She was devoting a lot of thought these days to how to use up her evenings.

“Well, let’s do that! We’ll have to get together and do that!” Mr. Pomfret was saying, suddenly louder and heartier. Delia typed the closing (“Esquire,” he called himself) and rolled the letter out of the carriage. Mr. Pomfret burst through the door. “Miss Grinstead, when Mr. Miller shows up I’ll need you in here taking notes,” he said. “We’re going to send a… What’s that you’ve got?”

“Letter to Gerald Elliott?” Delia reminded him.

“Elliott! I met with Elliott back in…”

She checked the date at the top of the page. “May,” she said. “May fourteenth.”

“Damn.”

It had come to light that Delia’s immediate predecessor had stowed her more irksome chores in the filing cabinet under Ongoing. Anything red-inked by Mr. Pomfret had conveniently vanished. (And a great deal had been red-inked, since Katie O’Connell couldn’t spell and apparently did not believe in paragraphs.) Mr. Pomfret had turned purple when Delia brought him the evidence, but Delia was secretly pleased. This way she looked so capable herself-so efficient, so take-charge. (She felt a bit like a grade-school tattletale.) Also, the retyping job amounted to a low-key training course. She would be sorry when she finished.

“Mr. Miller is due at two-thirty,” Mr. Pomfret told her. He was leaning over her desk to sign the letter. “I want you to write down word for word everything he specifies.”

“Yes, Mr. Pomfret.”

He straightened, capping his pen, and gave her a sudden sharp look over his lizardy lower lids. Sometimes Delia carried her secretary act a bit too far, she suspected. She flashed him an insincere smile and gathered up the letter. His signature was large and sweeping, smeared on the curves. He used one of those expensive German fountain pens that leaked.

“And we’ll want coffee, so you might as well fix it ahead,” he told her.

“Yes, Mr.-. Certainly,” she said.

She went into his office for the carafe, then took it to the sink in the powder room. When she came back he was seated at the credenza, short thighs twisted sideways, tapping once again at his computer. For he did have a computer. He had bought it sometime just recently and fallen under its spell, which might explain his failure to notice Katie O’Connell’s filing methods. Theoretically, he was going to learn the machine’s mysterious ways and then teach Delia, but after her first morning Delia knew she had nothing to fear. The computer would sit forever in its temporary position while Mr. Pomfret wrestled happily with questions of “backups” and “macros.” Right now he was recording every dinner party he and his wife had ever hosted-guest list, menu, wines, and even seating arrangements-so their variables could be rotated into infinity. Delia gave the screen a scornful glance and circled it widely, heading for the coffeemaker at the other end of the credenza.

Water, filter, French roast. This coffeemaker was top-of-the-line: it ground its own beans. She supposed it came from one of those catalogs that weighed down the office mail. Whenever Mr. Pomfret spotted an item he liked, he had Delia place an order. (“Yes, Mr. Pomfret…”) She called 1-800 numbers clear across the country, requesting a bedside clock that talked, a pocket-sized electronic dictionary, a black leather map case for the glove compartment. Her employer’s greed, like his huge belly, made Delia feel trim and virtuous. She didn’t at all mind placing the orders. She enjoyed everything about this job, especially its dryness. No one received word of inoperable cancer in a lawyer’s office. No one told Delia how it felt to be going blind. No one claimed to remember Delia’s babyhood.

She pressed a button on the coffeemaker, and it started grinding. “Help!” Mr. Pomfret shouted over the din. He was goggling at his computer screen, where the lines of text shivered and shimmied. For some reason, it never occurred to him that this always happened when the grinder was running. Delia left the office, closing the door discreetly behind her.

She typed another letter, this one enumerating the corporate bylaws of an accounting firm. (“Buy-laws,” Katie O’Connell had spelled it.) Pursuant to our discussion, she typed, and fiscal liability, and consent of those not in attendance. She sacrificed speed for accuracy, as befitted Miss Grinstead, and corrected her rare mistakes with Wite-Out fluid on original and carbon both.

Mr. Miller arrived-a big, handsome, olive-skinned man with a narrow band of black hair. Delia followed him into Mr. Pomfret’s office to serve their coffee and then perched on a chair, pen and pad ready. She had worried she couldn’t write fast enough, but there wasn’t much to write. The question was how often Mr. Miller’s ex-wife could see their son, and the answer, according to Mr. Miller, was “Never,” which Mr. Pomfret amended to once a week and alternate holidays, hours to be arranged at client’s convenience. Then the conversation drifted to computers, and when it didn’t drift back again, Delia cleared her throat and asked, “Will that be all?”

Mr. Pomfret said, “Hmm? Oh. Yes, thank you, Miss Grinstead.” As she left, she heard him tell Mr. Miller, “We’ll see to that right away. I’ll have my girl mail it out this afternoon.”

Delia settled in her swivel chair, rolled paper into the carriage, and started typing. You could have balanced a glass of water on the back of each of her hands.

The only other appointment was at four-a woman with some stock certificates belonging to her late mother-but Delia’s services were not required for that. She addressed a number of envelopes and folded and inserted the letters Mr. Pomfret had signed. She sealed the flaps, licked stamps. She answered a call from a Mrs. Darnell, who made an appointment for Monday. Mr. Pomfret walked past her, cramming his arms into his suit coat. “Good night, Miss Grinstead,” he said.

“Good night, Mr. Pomfret.”

She sorted her carbons and filed them. She returned what was left of the Ongoing file to its drawer. She answered a call from a man who was disappointed to find Mr. Pomfret gone but would try him at home. She cleaned the coffeemaker. At five o’clock exactly she lowered all the shades, gathered the letters and her handbag, and left the office.

Mr. Pomfret had given her her own key, and she already knew the crotchets of the pebble-paned door-the way you had to push it inward a bit before it would lock.

Outside, the sun was still shining and the air felt warm and heavy after the air-conditioning. Delia walked at a leisurely pace, letting others pass her-men in business suits hurrying home from work, women rushing by with plastic bags from the Food King. She dropped her letters into the mailbox on the corner, but instead of turning left there, she continued north to the library-the next stop in her routine.

By now she had a sense of the town’s layout. It was a perfect grid, with the square mathematically centered between three streets north and south of it, two streets east and west. Look west as you crossed an intersection, and you’d see pasture, sometimes even a cow. (In the mornings, when Delia woke, she heard distant roosters crowing.) The sidewalks were crumpled and given over in spots to grass, breaking off entirely when a tree stood in the way. The streets farther from the square had a tendency to slant into scabby asphalt mixed with weeds at the edges, like country highways.

On Border Street, the town’s northern boundary, the Bay Borough Public Library crouched between a church and an Exxon station. It was hardly more than a cottage, but the instant Delia stepped inside she always felt its seriousness, its officialness. A smell of aged paper and glue hung above the four tables with their wooden chairs, the librarian’s high varnished counter, the bookcases chockablock with elderly books. No CDs or videotapes here, no spin racks of paperback novels; just plain, sturdy volumes in buckram bindings with their Dewey decimal numbers handwritten on the spines in white ink. It was a matter of finances, Delia supposed. Nothing seemed to have been added in the last decade. Bestsellers were nowhere to be seen, but there was plenty of Jane Austen, and Edith Wharton, and various solemn works of history and biography. The children’s corner gave off a glassy shine from all the layers of Scotch tape holding the tattered picture books together.

Closing time was five-thirty, which meant that the librarian was busy with her last-minute shelving. Delia could place yesterday’s book on the counter without any chitchat; she could hunt down a book for today unobserved, since at this hour all the tables were empty. But what to choose? She wished this place carried romances. Dickens or Dostoyevsky she would never finish in one evening (she had an arrangement with herself where she read a book an evening). George Eliot, Faulkner, Fitzgerald…

She settled on The Great Gatsby, which she dimly remembered from sophomore English. She took it to the counter, and the librarian (a cocoa-colored woman in her fifties) stopped her shelving to come wait on her. “Oh, Gatsby!” she said. Delia merely said, “Mmhmm,” and handed over her card.

The card had her new address on it: 14 George Street. A dash in the space for her telephone number. She had never been unreachable by phone before.

Tucking the book in her handbag, she left the library and headed south. The Pinchpenny Thrift Shop had changed its window display, she noticed. Now a navy knit dress hung alongside a shell-pink tuxedo. Would it be tacky to buy her second dress from a thrift shop? In a town this size, no doubt everyone could name the previous owner.

But after all, what did she care? She made a mental note to come try on the dress tomorrow during lunch hour.

Taking a right onto George Street, she met up with the mother and toddler who fed the pigeons in the square. The mother smiled at her, and before Delia thought, she smiled back. Immediately afterward, though, she averted her eyes.

Next stop was Rick-Rack’s Café. She glanced over at the boardinghouse as she passed. No cars were parked in front, she was glad to see. With luck, Belle would be out all evening. She seemed to lead a very busy life.

Rick-Rack’s smelled of crab cakes, but whoever had ordered them had already eaten and gone. The little redheaded waitress was filling salt shakers. The cook was scraping down his griddle. “Well, hey!” he said, turning as Delia walked in.

“Hello,” she said, smiling. (She had nothing against simple courtesy, as long as it went no further.) She settled in her usual booth. By the time the waitress came over, she was already deep in her library book, and all she said was, “Milk and the chicken pot pie, please.” Then she went on reading.

Last night she’d had soup and whole-wheat toast; the night before that, tuna salad. Her plan was to alternate soup nights with protein nights. Just inexpensive proteins, though. She couldn’t afford the crab cakes, at least not till she got her first salary check.

Paying for her new shoes on Tuesday, she had wished she could use the credit card she was carrying in her wallet. If only a credit-card trail were not so easily traced! And then a peculiar thought had struck her. Most untraceable of all, she had thought, would be dying.

But of course she hadn’t meant that the way it sounded.

The print in her library book was so large, she worried she had chosen something that wouldn’t last the evening. She forced her eyes to travel more slowly, and when her meal arrived she stopped reading altogether. She kept the book open, though, next to her plate, in case somebody approached.

The waitress set out scalloped paper place mats for the supper crowd. The cook stirred something on the burner. Two creases traversed the base of his skull; his smooth black scalp seemed overlaid with a pattern of embroidery knots. He had made the pot pie from scratch, Delia suspected. The crust shattered beneath her fork. And the potatoes accompanying it seemed hand mashed, not all gluey and machine mashed.

She wondered whether her family had thought to thaw the casseroles she’d packed.

“If he do come,” the cook was telling the waitress, “you got to keep him occupied. Because I ain’t going to.”

“You have to be around some, though,” the waitress said.

“I ain’t saying I won’t be around. I say I won’t keep him occupied.”

The waitress looked toward Delia before Delia could look away. She had those bachelor’s-button eyes you often see in redheads, and a round-chinned, innocent face. “My dad is planning a visit,” she told Delia.

“Ah,” Delia said, reaching for her book.

“He wasn’t all that thrilled when me and Rick here got married.”

The waitress and the cook were married? Delia was afraid that if she started reading now, they would think she disapproved too; so she marked her place on the page with one finger and said, “I’m sure he’ll accept it eventually.”

“Oh, he’s accepted it, all right! Or says he has. But now whenever Rick sees him, he always gets to remembering how ugly Daddy acted at the start.”

“I can’t stand to be around the man,” Rick said sadly.

“Daddy walks into a room and Rick is like, whap! and his mouth slams shut.”

“Then Teensy here feels the pressure and goes to talking a mile a minute, nothing but pure silliness.”

Delia knew what that was like. When her sister Linda was married to the Frenchman, whom their father had detested…

But she couldn’t tell them that. She was sitting in this booth alone, utterly alone, without the conversational padding of father, sisters, husband, children. She was a person without a past. She took a breath to speak and then had nothing to say. It was Teensy who finally broke the silence. “Well,” Teensy said, “at least we’ve got ourselves a few days to prepare for this.” And she went off to wait on a couple who had just entered.

When Delia walked out of the café, she felt she was surrounded by a lighter kind of air than usual-thinner, more transparent-and she crossed the street with a floating gait. Just inside Belle’s front door she found an array of letters scattered beneath the mail slot, but she didn’t pick them up, didn’t even check the names on the envelopes, because she knew for a fact that none of them was hers.

Upstairs, she went about her coming-home routine: putting away her things, showering, doing her laundry. Meanwhile she kept an ear out for Belle’s return, because she would have moved more quietly with someone else in the house. But she could tell she had the place to herself.

When every last task was completed, she climbed into bed with her library book. If there had been a chair she would have sat up to read, but this was her only choice. She wondered whether Mr. Lamb’s room was any better equipped. She supposed she could request a chair from Belle. That would mean a conversation, though, and Delia was avoiding conversation as much as possible. Heaven forbid they should get to be two cozy, chatty lady friends, exchanging news of their workdays every evening.

She propped her pillow against the metal rail at the head of the cot and leaned back. For this first little bit, the light from outdoors was enough to read by-a slant of warm gold that made her feel pleasantly lazy. She could hear a baby crying in the house across the street. A woman far away called, “Robbie! Kenny!” in that bell-like, two-note tune that mothers everywhere fetch their children home with. Delia read on, turning pages with a restful sound. She was interested in Gatsby’s story but not what you would call carried away. It would serve to pass the evening, was all.

The light grew dimmer, and she switched on the goosenecked lamp that craned over her shoulder from the windowsill. Now the children across the street, released from the supper table, were playing something argumentative outdoors. Delia heard them for a while but gradually forgot to listen, and when she thought of them again she realized they must have gone in to bed. Night had fallen, and moths were thumping against the screen. Down in the street, a car door closed; heels clopped across the porch; Belle entered the house and went directly to the front room, where she started talking on the phone. “You know it’s got great resale value,” Delia heard, before forgetting to listen to that as well. Later she stopped reading for a moment and heard only silence, inside and out, except for the distant traffic on 380. It was cooler now, and she felt grateful for the lamp’s small circle of warmth.

She came to the end of her book, but she kept rereading the final sentence till her eyes blurred over with tears. Then she placed the book on the floor and reached up to switch the lamp off so she could sit weeping in the dark-the very last step in her daily routine.

She wept without a thought in her head, heaving silent sobs that racked her chest and contorted her mouth. Every few minutes she blew her nose on the strip of toilet paper she kept under her pillow. When she felt completely drained, she gave a deep, shuddering sigh and said aloud, “Ah, well.” Then she blew her nose one last time and lay down to sleep.

It amazed her that she always slept so soundly.

The toddler wanted the pigeons to eat from his fingers. He squatted in their midst, his bulky corduroy bottom just inches from the ground, and held a crouton toward them. But the pigeons strutted around him with shrewd, evasive glances, and when it dawned on him that they would never come closer he suddenly toppled backward, not giving the slightest warning, and pedaled the air in a fury. Delia smiled, but only behind the shield of her newspaper.

Today there was no further mention of her disappearance. She wondered if the authorities had forgotten her that quickly.

She folded the Metro section and laid it on the bench beside her. She reached for the cup of yogurt at her left and then noticed, out of the corner of her eye, the woman who stood watching her from several yards away.

Her heart gave a lurch. She said, “Eliza?”

Eliza moved forward abruptly, as if she had just this second determined something.

There was no one beside her. No one behind her.

No one.

She was wearing a dress-a tailored tan shirtwaist that dated from the time when they still had a Stewart’s department store. Eliza almost never wore dresses. This must be a special occasion, Delia thought, and then she thought, Why, I am the occasion. She rose, fumbling with her yogurt cup. “Hello, Eliza,” she said.

“Hello, Delia.”

They stood awkwardly facing each other, Eliza gripping a boxy leather purse in both hands, until Delia recollected the old man on the east bench. He appeared to be intent on his magazine, but that didn’t fool her in the least. “Would you like to take a walk?” she asked Eliza.

“We could,” Eliza said stiffly.

She was probably angry. Well, of course she was angry. Bundling her lunch things into the trash basket, Delia felt like a little girl hiding some mischief. She sensed she was blushing, too. Hateful thin-skinned complexion, always giving her away. She slung the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and set off across the square, with Eliza lagging a step behind as if to accentuate Delia’s willfulness, her lack of consideration. When they reached the street, Delia stopped and turned to face her. “I guess you think I shouldn’t have done this,” she said.

“I didn’t say that. I’m waiting to hear your reasons.”

Delia started walking again. If she had known Eliza would pop up this way, she would have invented some reasons ahead of time. It was ridiculous not to have any.

“Mr. Sudler thought you were a battered wife,” Eliza said.

“Who?”

“The roofer. Vernon Sudler.”

“Oh, Vernon,” Delia said. Yes, of course: he would have seen the newspaper.

They crossed the street and headed north. Delia had planned to visit the thrift shop, but now she didn’t know where she was going.

“He phoned us in Baltimore,” Eliza said. “He asked for-”

“ Baltimore! What were you doing in Baltimore?”

“Why, we packed up and drove there after you left. Surely you didn’t think we’d stay at the beach.”

Actually, Delia had thought that. But she could see now it would have looked strange: everybody slathering on the suntan lotion as usual, industriously blowing air into their rafts while the policemen gave their bloodhounds a sniff of Delia’s slippers.

“We thought at first you’d gone to Baltimore yourself,” Eliza was saying. “You can imagine the fuss with the floor refinishers when all of us walked in. And when we didn’t find you there… Well, thank goodness Mr. Sudler called. He called the house last night, inquiring how to get in touch with me personally, and as luck would have it I was the one who answered. So he said he could swear you hadn’t been kidnapped, but he hesitated to tell the police because he believed you’d had good cause to run away. He said you got out of his van at a church that counsels battered women.”

“I did?”

Delia stopped in front of the florist’s shop.

“You saw their signboard and asked him to let you out, he said.”

“Signboard?”

“And also there’d been some discussion, he said, something you two were discussing that made him wonder later if… But he wouldn’t tell me your whereabouts, in case your husband was dangerous. ‘Dangerous!’ I said. ‘Why, Sam Grinstead is the kindest man alive!’ I said. But Mr. Sudler was very fixed in his mind. He said, ‘I only called to tell you she’s all right, and I want to say too I didn’t know at the time that she was running away. She just begged me for a ride to this certain town,’ he said, ‘and claimed that she had family there, so I didn’t see the harm.’ Then he said not to tell Sam, but of course I did tell Sam; I could hardly keep it a secret. I told Sam I would come talk to you first and find out how things stood.”

She waited. She was going to make Delia ask. All right. “And what did Sam say back?” Delia asked.

“He said well naturally I should come. He agreed completely.”

“Oh.”

Another wait.

“And he quite understood that I couldn’t divulge which town it was till we’d talked.”

“I see,” Delia said.

Then she said, “But how did you know the town?”

“Why, because you told Mr. Sudler you had family there.”

“Family. Um…”

“Our mother’s family! In Bay Borough.”

“Mother’s family lives in Bay Borough?”

“Well, they used to. Maybe some still do, but nobody I would have heard of. You knew that. Bay Borough? Where Aunt Henny lived? And Great-Uncle Roscoe had his chicken farm just west of?”

“That was in Bay Borough?”

“Where else!”

“I never realized,” Delia said.

“I can’t imagine why not. Shoot, there’s even a Weber Street -Grandmother Carroll’s maiden name. I crossed it coming in from Three eighty. And a Carroll Street just south of here, if I remember correctly. Isn’t there a Carroll Street?”

“Well, yes,” Delia said, “but I thought that was the other Carrolls. The Declaration of Independence Carrolls.”

“No, dear heart, it’s our Carrolls,” Eliza said comfortably. Proving her point had evidently put her in a better mood.

They started walking again, passing the dentists’ office and the optician’s. “In fact, I believe we’re related to the man who started this town,” Eliza said. “But only by marriage.”

“The man… You mean George Bay?”

“Right.”

“ George Bay the deserter?”

“Well, you’re a fine one to talk, might I mention.”

Delia flinched.

“So I drove on over this morning,” Eliza said, “and inquired anywhere I thought you might be staying. Turns out there’s only one inn, not counting that sleazy little motel on Union Street. And when I didn’t find you there I figured I’d keep an eye on the square, because it looked to be the kind of square that everybody in town passes through at one time of day or another.”

They were abreast of Mr. Pomfret’s office now. If he had returned from lunch he could glance out the front window and see her walking by. Miss Grinstead with a companion! Acting sociable! She hoped he was still in the Bay Arms Restaurant with his cronies. At George Street she steered Eliza left. They passed Pet Heaven, where a boy was arranging chew toys next to the sacks of kibble.

“Delia,” Eliza said, “Mr. Sudler had it wrong, didn’t he? I mean, is there some… problem you want to tell me about?”

“Oh, no,” Delia said.

“Ah.” Eliza suddenly looked almost pretty. “See there? I told him so!” she cried. “I told him I was positive you just needed a little breather. You know what the police said? When we called them, this one policeman said, ‘Folks,’ he said, ‘I’ll wager any amount she is perfectly safe and healthy.’ Said, ‘The most surprising number of women seem to take it into their heads to walk out during family vacations.’ Did you know that? Isn’t that odd?”

“Hmm,” Delia said. Her feet felt very burdensome. She could just barely drag them along.

“I guess he’d had lots of experience, working in Bethany Beach and all.”

“Yes, I guess he had,” Delia said.

“So should we collect your things, Dee?”

“My things,” Delia said. She stopped short.

“I’m parked down next to the square. Do you have any luggage?”

Something hard rose up in Delia’s throat-a kind of stubbornness, only fiercer. She was taken aback by the force of it. “No!” she said. She swallowed. “I mean, no, I’m not going with you.”

“Pardon?”

“I want… I need… I have a place now, I mean a job, a position, and a place to stay. See? There’s where I live,” Delia said, gesturing toward Belle’s. The gauze curtains in the downstairs windows looked like bandages, she noticed.

“You have a house?” Eliza asked incredulously.

“Well, a room. Come see! Come inside!”

She took Eliza’s elbow and drew her toward the porch. Eliza hung back, her arm as rigid as a chicken wing. “A real estate agent owns it,” Delia told her as she opened the door. “A woman real estate agent, very nice. The rent is extremely reasonable.”

“I should think so,” Eliza said, gazing about.

“I work for a lawyer just around the corner. He’s the only lawyer in town and he handles everything, wills, estates… and I have total charge of his office. I bet you didn’t think I could do that, did you? You probably thought it was just because I was Daddy’s daughter that I worked in the office at home, but now I’m finding…”

They were climbing the stairs, Delia in front. She wished Belle would hang some pictures. Either that or put up new wallpaper. “Basically this whole floor is mine,” she said, “because the other boarder travels during the week. So I have a private bathroom, see?” She waved toward it. She unlocked the door to her room and walked in. “All mine,” she said, setting her handbag on the bureau.

Eliza advanced slowly.

“Isn’t it perfect?” Delia asked. “I know it might seem a bit bare, but-”

“Delia, are you telling me you plan to live here?”

“I do live here!”

“But… forever?”

“Yes, why not?” Delia said.

She kept feeling the urge to swallow again, but she didn’t give in to it. “Sit down,” she told Eliza. “Could I offer you some tea?”

“Oh, I… no, thanks.” Eliza took a tighter grip on her purse. She seemed out of place in these surroundings-somebody from home, with that humble, faded look that home people always have. “Let me make sure I’m understanding this,” she said.

“I could heat up the water in no time. Just have a seat on the bed.”

“You are telling me you’re leaving us forever,” Eliza said, not moving. “You plan to stay on permanently in Bay Borough. You’re leaving your husband, and you’re leaving all three of your children, one of whom is still in high school.”

“In high school, yes, and fifteen years old, and able to manage without me fine and dandy,” Delia said. To her horror, she felt tears beginning to warm her eyelids. “Better than with me, in fact,” she continued firmly. “How are the kids, by the way?”

“They’re bewildered; what would you expect?” Eliza said.

“But are they doing all right otherwise?”

“Do you care?” Eliza asked her.

“Of course I care!”

Eliza moved away. Delia thought she planned to relent and take a seat, but no, she went to gaze out the front window. “Sam, as you might imagine, is just dumbfounded,” she announced, with her back to Delia.

“Yes, he must wish now he’d chosen Daughter One or Two instead,” Delia said.

Eliza wheeled around. She said, “Delia, what is the matter with you? Have you totally lost your senses? Here’s this wonderful, model husband roaming the house like a zombie, and your children not knowing what to think, and the neighbors all atwitter, and the TV people and newspapers spreading our names across the state of Maryland-”

“It’s been on TV?”

“Every station in Baltimore! Big color photograph flashing on the screen: ‘Have you seen this woman?’”

“What photo did they use?” Delia asked.

“The one from Linda’s wedding.”

“That was years ago!”

“Well, most other times you were the one snapping the picture. We didn’t have much to choose from.”

“But that awful bridesmaid gown! With the shoulders that looked like the hanger was still inside!”

“Delia,” Eliza said, “ever since Mr. Sudler phoned, I’ve been trying to figure out what could have made you walk away from us like that. Till now I’d thought you’d had it so easy. Baby of the family. Cute as a button. Miss Popularity in high school. Daddy’s pet. It’s true you lacked a mother, but you never seemed to notice. Well, you were only four years old when she died, and anyhow she was bedridden all your life. But now I think four years old was plenty old! Of course you noticed! You’d spent those afternoons playing in her room, for God’s sake!”

“I don’t remember,” Delia said.

“Oh, you must. You and she had those paper dolls. You kept them in a shoe box on the floor of her closet, and every afternoon-”

“I don’t remember anything about it!” Delia said. “Why do you keep insisting? I have no memory of her at all!”

“And then being Daddy’s pet was kind of a mixed blessing, I guess. When he discouraged you from applying to college, took it for granted you’d come to work in the office… well, I wouldn’t blame you for resenting that.”

“I didn’t resent it!”

“And then his dying: of course his dying would hit you harder than-”

“I don’t see why in the world you’re bringing all this up!” Delia said.

“Just hear me out, please. Dee, you know I believe that human beings live many lives.”

Ordinarily, Delia would have groaned. Now, though, she was glad to see the talk veering in a new direction.

“Each life is a kind of assignment, I believe,” Eliza told her. “You’re given this one assigned slot each time you come to earth, this little square of experience to work through. So even if your life has been troubled, I believe it’s what you’re meant to deal with on this particular go-round.”

“How do you know my assignment doesn’t include Bay Borough?” Delia asked her.

A ripple of uncertainty crossed Eliza’s forehead.

Delia said, “Eliza, um, I was wondering…”

“Yes?” Eliza said eagerly.

“Can you tell me if they brought the cat home from the beach?”

A mistake. Something closed over behind Eliza’s eyes. “The cat!” she said. “Is that all you care about?”

“Of course it’s not all I care about, but he was kind of skulking under furniture when I left, and I didn’t know if they’d remember to-”

“They remembered,” Eliza said shortly. “What for, I can’t imagine. Durn creature is getting so old he snores even when he’s awake.”

“Old?” Delia said.

“They packed all your clothes and your casseroles too,” Eliza said. “Poor Susie had to pack your-Delia? Are you crying?”

“No,” Delia said in a muffled voice.

“Are you crying about the cat?”

“No, I said!”

Well, she knew he wasn’t a kitten anymore. (Such a merry kitten he’d been-a kitten with a sense of humor, slinking theatrically around the forbidden houseplants and then giving her a smirk.) But she had thought of him as still in his prime, and only now did she recall how he had started pausing lately as if to assemble himself before attempting the smallest leap. How she had swatted him off the counter once this spring and he had fallen clumsily, scrabbling with his claws, landing in an embarrassed heap and then hastily licking one haunch as if he had intended to take that pose all along.

She widened her eyes to keep the tears from spilling over.

“Delia,” Eliza said, “is there something you’re not telling me? Does this have something to do with that… man back home?”

Delia didn’t bother acting puzzled. She said, “No, it’s not about him.” Then she went to the head of the bed, causing Eliza to take a step back. She reached under her pillow for the toilet paper and blew her nose. “I must be going crazy,” she said.

“No, no! You’re not crazy! Just a little, oh, tired, maybe. Just a little run-down. You know what I think?” Eliza asked. “I think it took more out of you than any of us realized, tending Daddy’s last illness. You’re probably anemic too! What you need is plain old physical rest. A vacation on your own. Yes, this wasn’t such a bad idea, coming to Bay Borough! Few more days, couple of weeks, and you’ll be home again, a new woman.”

“Maybe so,” Delia said unsteadily.

“And that’s what I’m going to tell the police. ‘She just went back to our people’s place for some R and R,’ I’ll say. Because I do have to inform them, you know.”

“I know.”

“And I’ll have to tell Sam.”

“Yes.”

“And then I expect he’ll want to come talk things over.”

Delia pressed the toilet paper to each eye.

“I’m not very good in these situations,” Eliza said. She lifted one hand from her purse and placed it on Delia’s shoulder.

“You’re fine,” Delia told her. “It’s not your fault.”

She felt saddened, all at once, by the fact that Eliza was wearing lipstick. (A sugary pink, lurid against her murky skin.) Eliza never bothered with makeup, as a rule. She must have felt the need to armor herself for this visit.

“I’ll have Sam bring some of your clothes with him, shall I?” she was asking.

“No, thanks.”

“A dress or two?”

“Nothing.”

Eliza dropped her hand.

They left the room, Eliza walking ahead, and started down the stairs. Delia said, “So how’s your gardening?” in a forced and sprightly tone.

“Oh…,” Eliza said. She arrived in the downstairs hall. “You’ll need money,” she told Delia.

“No, I won’t.”

“If I’d realized you weren’t coming back with me… I don’t have very much on me, but you’re welcome to what there is.”

“Honest, I don’t want it,” Delia said. “I’m making this huge, enormous salary at the lawyer’s; I couldn’t believe how much when he told me.” She ushered Eliza out the door. “And you know I took the vacation cash. Five hundred dollars. I feel bad enough about that.”

“Oh, we managed all right,” Eliza said, eyeing a fibrous area in one porch floorboard.

Delia could have walked her to her car, or at least as far as the office, but that would have meant prolonging their parting. She had left her handbag upstairs, therefore, and she stood on the porch with her arms folded, in the attitude of someone about to go back indoors. “I’m sure you managed,” she told Eliza. “It’s not that. It’s just that I feel bad I didn’t start out with nothing. Start out… I don’t know. Even.”

“Even?”

“Even with the homeless or something. I don’t know,” Delia said. “I don’t know what I mean!”

Eliza leaned forward and set her cheek against Delia’s. “You’re going to be fine,” she told her. “This little rest is going to work wonders, take my word. And meanwhile, Dee -” She was about to turn away, but one last thought must have struck her. “Meanwhile, remember Great-Uncle Roscoe’s favorite motto.”

“What was that?”

“‘Never do anything you can’t undo.’”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Delia told her.

“Uncle Roscoe may have been a grump,” Eliza said, “but he did show common sense now and then.”

Delia said, “Drive safely.”

She stood watching after Eliza-that short, economical, energetic figure-until she disappeared down the sidewalk. Then she went back in the house for her bag.

Climbing the stairs, she thought, But if you never did anything you couldn’t undo-she set a hand on the splintery railing-you’d end up doing nothing at all, she thought. She was tempted to turn around and run after Eliza to tell her that, but then she couldn’t have borne saying goodbye all over again.