Authors: Ellen Meeropol
22 ~ Gina
The duck pond at Forest Park was crowded with families recycling stale chunks of Thanksgiving bread, but Gina snagged their favorite bench. The patch of thin sunshine offered little warmth, and she tightened the fur hood of her parka. Enough of this. They would have to find an indoor lunch meeting place until spring.
Gina’s gloved fingers fumbled with the cap of her thermos. When she looked up, Emily was picking her way towards their bench between the icy gray patches melting into mud. She looked exhausted, even more stiff and awkward than usual.
“I’m so sorry about your grandfather.” Gina stood up to give Emily a quick hug. “How was Maine?”
“All right, I guess. We had to rush back.”
“How’s Zoe doing?”
Emily brushed a crinkled brown oak leaf from the wooden seat and sat, balancing her lunch bag on her lap. “She’s okay. Coming home this afternoon, probably.” She turned to look at Gina then, her eyes narrowing slightly. “How did you find out about Zoe anyway?”
“I called your house early Wednesday morning, hoping you’d left a forwarding number in Maine. I wanted to talk with you before I met Pippa.” Gina sighed. “I guess I was nervous about the Isis cult. Sam answered, said he was in your apartment to pick up something that Zoe needed for the hospital. A purple rhino, does that make sense? They were just walking out the door for the CT scan.”
Emily pulled off the corner crust of her sandwich and tossed it into the pond, choked with dead lily pads. How could they have forgotten Rufus? Zoe couldn’t face surgery without him.
“Are you upset that I told Pippa?” Gina took a sip of her potato soup, savoring the comfort of cumin.
Emily didn’t answer, then nodded. “A little.”
Getting that girl to talk was not going to be easy. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s a reverse HIPAA violation, isn’t it? Don’t turn me in. What did she do?”
“Skipped out on her house arrest rules and went to the hospital. She kept Sam company while Zoe was in surgery.”
“That doesn’t sound so awful. What’s wrong with that?” Gina tipped her thermos straight up to get the last drops of soup.
Emily’s voice grew stern. “I thought you were Ms. Don’t-get-involved when it comes to Pippa. She disobeyed the terms of her house arrest, that’s what. And I prefer keeping my home and work separate.”
“I said I’m sorry, and I meant it. But, lighten up, Emily,” Gina said, shaking her head. “Let your friends help you out sometimes.”
“Pippa’s a patient, not a friend.”
Gina shook her head again, harder. “It didn’t sound that way to me last week. Helping a patient escape the law to participate in some cult ritual wasn’t included in the Nightingale pledge last time I looked.”
“I was just thinking about it,” Emily said. She pulled an apple from her lunch bag and stared at it, then put it back and rolled the fabric closure tight. “Doesn’t matter anyway. There’s nothing I can do to help her, even if I wanted to. Which I’m not sure I do.”
“Mind you, I’m not suggesting you go breaking the law for this girl. Though now that I’ve met her, I think I understand why she’s so hard to refuse.” Gina stood up, stuffing the empty thermos back into her shoulder bag.
“Don’t go yet,” Emily said. “Stay a little. How are you doing? About Max, and everything?”
“I’m okay. Thanksgiving with my crazy clan was good medicine. I was too busy to brood.” Gina looked at Emily’s tight expression and sat down again. “What’s wrong?”
“Marge placed me on probation this morning.”
“What happened?”
Emily rubbed the bridge of her nose before answering. “I didn’t have any other choice about Mrs. Newman. So, before I left for Maine, I called her attending doc.”
Good for you, Gina thought.
“Marge was waiting for me this morning when I got in. Furious. Mrs. Newman was transferred to assisted living, so she’s off our caseload entirely. Marge doesn’t know what I did, but she put me on probation anyway. What does that mean?”
“Probably nothing,” Gina said. “But why don’t you make me copies of all your nurse’s notes. Document all your conversations about her safety. Just in case. You’d be amazed how often files get lost.”
Emily looked at Gina. “What do you think will happen?”
“I don’t know. Marge is mostly hot air. I think this will all blow over.”
“What if I lose my job? It’s all I have.”
Gina tried to make her voice as kind as possible. “Then, maybe it’s time to look for something more.”
Emily looked away, towards the half-frozen pond.
Gina touched Emily’s arm. “You did what was right for Mrs. Newman. But you should probably watch your step pretty carefully with Marge for the next few weeks.” She paused before continuing. “Especially with anything having to do with Pippa Glenning.”
23 ~ Emily
Sunday mornings during the winter were cozy times at Anna’s. She and Zoe would work on an art project, while I built a roaring blaze in the fireplace and wandered through the local paper and the Globe. The Sunday after Thanksgiving I slept late, and an anemic fire was already burning when I carried my coffee into the living room. Anna and Zoe sat at the card table, building a birdhouse from pre-cut pieces of balsa wood.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Anna said. “Good morning.”
“Look,” Zoe said. “We’re going to paint it purple to match Rufus.” She jumped the stuffed rhino from her lap to the table, then scratched at the bandage on her head.
Anna pulled Zoe’s hand away, straightened the tape over the gauze, and rescued Rufus from the glistening glue nozzle.
I retrieved the newspapers from the front porch. Kneeling on the floor in front of the fireplace, I maneuvered the heavy iron tongs to expose the smoldering belly of the half-burnt log. I fed two chunks of wood to the fire and blew the embers into flame. Then, leaning back against the sofa in the renewed warmth, I spread the newspapers over my lap, the pages still radiating cold.
Staring at me from the front page from the local paper was the blank face of Pippa’s house.
Danger on Pioneer Street?
the caption read.
Cult members face hearing on babies’ deaths. Story on page B1.
“Holy shit,” I said, forgetting Anna’s halfhearted rule about cleaning up our language around Zoe.
“What?” Anna asked, measuring the front wall of the birdhouse against the sides and picking up the sandpaper.
I passed the front page to Anna and opened the City Section to the banner headline,
Frozen Babies to Get Day in Court.
Anna returned the front page. “What do they say?”
I skimmed the opening paragraphs. “More innuendo than news. Nasty comments from the neighbors. Mug shots of Pippa and Tian and someone named Murphy. They even list their address.” I looked up from the paper. “Can they do that? What about their privacy?”
Anna shrugged and turned back to help Zoe hold the two halves of the peaked roof together while the glue set. Then she looked back at me. “You okay?”
I had to swallow hard before answering. The story didn’t say anything new, but the tone was ugly and Pippa seemed so exposed. As if the facade of her life had lifted off, like the birdhouse Zoe was building, and a city of strangers could see inside.
Anna started cleaning up the wood scraps from the card table. She turned to Zoe, “This has to dry overnight. You and Sam can finish it tomorrow while I’m at work.”
“And paint it purple,” Zoe said. “Right?”
“Purple sounds great. Go wash the glue off. And don’t touch anything on the way.”
Zoe held her palms together and teetered side to side towards the bathroom, unsteady without her crutches. Anna turned to me again. “You look awful. What are you so worried about?”
I rolled the newspaper section into a thin cylinder. “Everything. I’m scared for Pippa and her family, mostly. And I’m terrified about having to testify at her hearing on Tuesday.”
Anna’s face was kind, but I turned away and stared into the flames, drumming the rolled-up newspaper against my thigh. “I can’t stop thinking about my parents,” I mumbled towards the fire. “Those dumb pebbles you gave me. I can’t stop thinking about this stuff, but I can’t figure it out either.”
Anna came over and joined me on the rug in front of the fireplace. “Maybe you should stop running away. Like bailing out on the conversation at Laura’s.”
“I did it with Aunt Ruth too. She wanted to tell me something more about my parents, and I wouldn’t let her.” I thumped the newspaper tube against my head.
“And?”
“And now I’m curious.”
“Then, that’s easy,” Anna said. “Call Ruth. She wanted an update on Zoe anyway.”
“Now?”
Anna spread her arms in a gesture of something. Exasperation, maybe.
“Yeah.” I took a sip of my coffee, now chilled, then stood up and tucked the newspaper roll under my arm. I grabbed the fleece blanket from the back of the sofa, and carried the phone onto the sun porch.
The sky was dark with squall clouds. That reminded me about the stormy painting in Nan’s office and making my weekly check-in phone call to her the next day.
Stop procrastinating, I told myself. Just do it. I punched in the numbers and listened to the rings, hoping Ruth wasn’t home.
Ruth sounded more cheerful than when we left. Her first thought was Zoe.
“She’s fine,” I said. “The surgery went beautifully and she came home Friday.”
The relief was loud in Ruth’s voice. “Good.” She paused. “And you?”
“I’m okay. But I wanted to ask you something. Remember what you said, before Anna and I left the island? That you wanted to tell me something more, about my parents?”
“Something more?” Ruth sounded puzzled.
“Yeah, something else about them. But I wouldn’t listen. I cut you off.”
What if Aunt Ruth couldn’t remember? What if it was a fleeting thought and now it was gone. Suddenly it seemed crucial to know this information, whatever it was. I sat down on the loveseat and waited.
Ruth was quiet for a few seconds. “I think I wanted to talk about the prison visits.”
“I never went.”
“I know. Your mother visited the first weekend of every month. Usually I went with her. And every single time, your parents argued about you. Jemma wanted to force you to visit. Arnie always said no. He insisted that it had to be your decision.” Ruth’s voice softened. “I think that’s how it started. At first, Jemma would be so distraught afterwards, and she would have a scotch to help her fall asleep. She said it silenced the arguments raging in her head.”
“Should I have gone with her?”
“You were just a child.”
Not much of an answer. “But I’m not a child now.” I should have stopped right then, but I didn’t. Instead I asked one more question, “What, exactly, did Momma die of?”
Ruth was silent. Then, she sighed loud enough to travel the phone lines from Maine to Massachusetts. “They didn’t really tell us much, except that they found traces of barbiturates, her sleeping pills, along with the booze.”
I never knew what Momma’s little pills were. She kept them locked away, so I wouldn’t take them by mistake, she said. “On purpose?”
“I don’t think so.” She paused. “I don’t know.”
“So, was burning down that draft board worth it, towards stopping the war? When you balance the action against messing up three lives, four counting the janitor?”
“Like you said, Emily, you’re not a child any more. Decide that for yourself.”
Terrific. Another non-answer.
There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. I promised to keep in touch, then disconnected. My legs ached to stretch and run, but I didn’t want to leave the porch. Stooping down to pinch two dead leaves dangling from the ficus plant in front of the south windows, I saw the fat brown spider nested safe in its web.
I wrapped myself in the plaid blanket and curled up on the loveseat, facing the bare maples in the backyard, then unrolled the newspaper. I smoothed it flat on my lap and examined the photographs of Pippa and her co-defendants. I thought about Anna’s question. What was I worried about?
I was worried that people would read the newspaper story and hurt Pippa.
I was worried that angry citizens would demand that Pippa be locked up, like Tian and Murphy.
I was worried that when I got in front of a judge on Tuesday, my tongue would lose control. That my mouth would fill instead with words I never spoke in defense of my father. That once I started talking, I wouldn’t be able to stop, and I would spill out all those words I should have said, that might have saved my parents.
I was worried that some clever reporter would Google the name of the nurse taking care of the pregnant defendant in the frozen babies’ case and discover that she was the daughter of a felon who died in prison, exposing our family guilt still glistening like the dried trail of a slug on a summer sidewalk.
24 ~ Pippa
“Hot damn.” Marshall looked up from the newspaper as Pippa entered the kitchen. “We got lots of ink in the Sunday rag.”
Pippa leaned over the table to look. “Ugly pictures. Where did they get those?”
“Mug shots aren’t usually portfolio-quality prints, my sweet naïve Georgia lass.” Marshall reached out to goose her bottom.
Pippa scooted out of his reach and selected a mug from the dish drainer. “What do they say about us?”
“The usual crap.” Marshall ran his finger under the grimy turquoise bandana knotted around his neck. “About how those poor frozen babies will finally have their day in court. They neglect to mention that this is just a hearing, some sort of technical legal mumbo jumbo before the trial. But hey, it’s a good opportunity for the local press to rant and rave about the evil cultists living in the midst of the good Yankee citizenry of Springfield, right? Ranting and raving sells newspapers.”
Pippa dawdled at the counter, her back to Marshall’s resentment and to the newspapers sprawled on the table. She warmed her hands around the belly of the teapot, then filled her mug. Bast rubbed against her legs, scratching her mouth on the edge of the ankle monitor, then meowed and sauntered to the back door. Pippa let her out, watching her sleek shadow run cross the yard.
“Utter crap.” Marshall shook his head. “They interviewed the old geezer next door. He swears we dance naked in our back yard, every month under the full moon. His wife claims that we sacrifice innocent baby lambs to the devil, hose their spilled blood down the basement drain. She can hear the poor dears baa-ing and crying at night.”
Pippa laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
“Look at this.” Marshall slid the newspaper across the table, his stubby finger pointing to a box outlined with a bold border:
How to protect your family from cults.
Pippa pushed the paper back at Marshall and turned away. “Those lies have nothing to do with us.” She pulled the cast iron pot onto the front burner, measured six cups of water from the faucet, and lit the stove.
“Go ahead. Make oatmeal. Stick your head in it if it will make you feel better.” Marshall tugged on his bandana as he stood up. “You haven’t been through this before.” He slammed his fist on the newspapers strewn across the table and trudged towards the dining room. In the doorway he turned back to face Pippa. “But we have. This crap is why we had to leave Newark.”
Pippa added a generous pinch of salt and covered the pot. She sat down at the table, pushed the newspapers to the far corner. It was true that she hadn’t lived through any real harassment towards the cult. There was the constant minor irritation at the Tea Room from the health department. And the occasional letters stuffed into the mailbox, but their ignorant grammar and simple-minded messages made them almost laughable. Francie had once hinted at more serious troubles. But she didn’t elaborate and wouldn’t answer Pippa’s questions.
They didn’t need this aggravation three weeks before the solstice. Pippa stirred the oatmeal into the boiling water. Who would be on their side if people got nasty? The police? Her probation officer? She had no friends outside of the family. Except Emily.
Sundays were quiet and the hours passed slowly. Everyone was sleeping late. Adele and Liz would bring the twins to the Tea Room at noon, where they would take turns washing mugs at the big sink, and creating lopsided teacups at the potters’ wheel, bickering happily. Pippa wished she could be there too, but the judge insisted she stay home and rest on the weekends. She reached down and scratched her ankle. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Tea Room.
It must be the music. Someone was practicing the psaltery, like Murphy used to play before they hauled her off to jail. Dancing the bow over the strange triangle of the wooden psaltery, she would saturate the Tea Room with sad Celtic ballads and zippy Yiddish tunes. Concentrating so hard she wasn’t aware how the tip of her tongue tapped the rhythm against her top front teeth. But whoever was playing now was making more screech than music.
Pippa stirred the thickening oatmeal, turned down the flame, and set the timer. She followed the barely recognizable notes of “The Ash Grove” to the living room. Francie sat on the yellow chair with the psaltery.
“Pretty pathetic, huh?” Francie said, looking up.
“I guess it takes practice. I didn’t know you played.” Pippa sat on the sofa next to Newark.
Francie grimaced. “Obviously I don’t. But with Murphy gone, someone’s got to learn to play this thing.”
“Why?”
Francie’s voice slid into the patronizing tone Pippa hated. “Because when there’s live music, people sit longer at the Tea Room. And they spend more money. Then we can pay our bills.”
“I guess.” Pippa had never thought Francie cared so much about the money they made at the Tea Room.
“And Murphy probably isn’t coming home any time soon.”
What about Tian?
Francie rubbed the bow in the X pattern carved deep into the rosin cake, harder than Murphy ever did. “Our weekly income is down by more than a third. Tian’s charm with the ladies increased our earnings too. We’re hurting.”
I’m hurting, Pippa thought. But it’s not about the Tea Room revenues. Doesn’t anyone else miss Tian and Murphy? Mourn Abby and Terrence?
“Francie, I’m worried. What’s going to happen?”
“On Tuesday, you mean, at the hearing? Or in general?” Francie didn’t look up from the instruction booklet that promised Anyone Can Play the Bowed Psaltery.
“Both.”
“The lawyer says nothing much will happen at the hearing. It’s just to determine whether the trials will be together or separate.”
“Will Tian have to stay in jail?”
Francie placed the psaltery on the coffee table, resting the bow carefully on top before meeting Pippa’s gaze. “Listen. Tian will do time. His juvy record is supposed to be sealed, but they’ll somehow make it admissible. Cult leaders don’t get suspended sentences. There are really two questions: how long will he get, and will you and Murphy go to prison too. The lawyer says Murphy probably, but you’re younger, and might get off with just probation.”
Pippa lifted Newark into her arms and rocked the cat side to side. “What will happen to us?” What will happen to my baby?
“If you believe the lawyers, and if we get a decent jury, Tian might only get a couple of years, Murphy even less. We can keep the Family of Isis going. Maybe even improve some things while Tian is gone.”
Pippa didn’t know how to respond. Was this a test of her loyalty? She had failed a test once before, failed to keep quiet when it really mattered. She didn’t know for certain if what happened to Delmar was her fault. Maybe Ma never said a word. Maybe Stanley told Pa about the dancing. Maybe someone else saw them. Still, Pippa should never have opened her big mouth about what she saw that night at Maxy’s Place.
But Francie didn’t know anything about Delmar and Sally-Ann. What did she mean, that they could do a better job of running the Family of Isis? They pretty much did everything now. Except talk with Isis, and since Tian went to jail, no one was talking to Her at all. Pippa looked carefully at Francie’s face, trying to read the thoughts behind her princess looks.
Francie’s face softened. “Everything will work out, Pippa. Even without Tian, even with your ankle jailer, we’ll figure this out.”
Then Pippa remembered the newspaper story, and that Francie hadn’t seen it yet. “Wait a minute, before you decide everything’s hunky-dory.” She collected the stack of papers from the kitchen, pointing to the front-page photograph of the house, and then to the story with its row of mug shots.
While Francie read, Pippa stood by the bay window watching Bast chase leaves across the front yard. When she glanced back, Francie looked stunned, with the same expression of worry that Marshall wore earlier. Whatever had happened to the family in Newark must have been pretty bad. Pippa closed her eyes and tried to let pretty pictures of Bast and blowing leaves dance across her brain, but the images all swirled together with dark hands on white denim and Delmar’s legs all akimbo on the barn floor.