Lost (24 page)

Their already slow progress had now come to a standstill. After she'd taken Walter and Patsy, Leona thought it best to remain hidden; she had avoided the main highways as much as possible, choosing instead the country roads that skirted the patrolled thoroughfares. And of course the side roads were often poorly maintained and much more hazardous; seldom did her speedometer climb above forty. Tomorrow, at last, they would cross into West Virginia and the going should be easier, but tonight, before they left Pennsylvania for good, she would try once more to write that miserable woman a letter. And yet no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she wished it hadn't.
Dear Mrs. Aldridge
… Who was she trying to fool? Just trying to come up with exactly the right thing to say in that kind of letter was enough to drive her to distraction.
Dear Mrs. Aldridge, this is to say your children are safe.… Dear Mrs. Aldridge
… She should forget this unreasonable urge to explain and confess and tell her side of the story, she told herself. She should be changing the children's clothes, getting them ready for bed.

Dear Mrs. Aldridge
… She went among the children in this shoddy rented room.
Please forgive me
.… They were looking at her, waiting for their pajamas. She knelt and opened her suitcase, then handed out their nightclothes and said, “Now, Walter, remember, before you wash up, I want to look at your ear.” And sad-eyed, shy Walter shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Forgive me for the terrible news I have to send you
.… “You and Patsy can change first—in the bathroom, please.”
I've taken your little boy and girl
. Leaning sideways into the edge of the double bed, her feet sliding slowly out from under her, Mamie stared at the pajamas clutched in her fist with an expression of curious disgust. “Mamie,” Leona said, “I'll help you in a minute.” She set out her own nightclothes and snapped the suitcase shut.
I'll be keeping them with me for a while
.…

Mamie hadn't spoken to her since the night they fled the restaurant.

Walter stuck his head around the open bathroom door. “Hey,” he said, “you want to look at it?”

“Yes,” Leona said, “I'm coming.” She looked steadily at Mamie, who stood alone, always alone, and she wondered what it would take to really break through to her. She watched her until the walls—the cheap pictures of herons, the mirror, the mock-candle wall lights—all of it began to reel away from her and she pushed herself up to her feet.
I know this will come as a shock to you.… Maybe you will appreciate them more when they are returned to you
.…

In the bathroom, she turned Walter so the side of his head was to the light, and examined his ear. Patsy stood close by, protectively, to watch. The swelling at the hinge of his jaw and the welt above his ear had receded. “Does it hurt?” she asked him softly, and she realized, not for the first time, that he had trouble hearing. She couldn't get used to it in such a small child. “Walter,” she said a little louder, looking at him. “Does your ear hurt? If it does, I'll put bandages back on it.” He shrugged and rolled his head. “Nahh,” he said. “Is it okay?”

She smiled. “Yes, it looks okay.”
You see, I have a little girl who desperately needs other children.…
“Are you two ready for bed?”

Patsy nodded enthusiastically and Walter looked doubtful. Leona had seen these children in one form or another all her life. There had been children like these two when she attended grade school. It was a quality in their faces that always struck her, something beaten down and yet indomitable, as if their character had been forged at the first spank of life. Now they were with her, getting ready for bed. At times it seemed unreal.

“That's strange,” she said. “You don't look ready. Patsy, wash your face and brush your teeth. And maybe you could help Walter wash his face, too.” She stepped to the doorway. “Mamie, come here. And—well, look at me. I'm not ready either. Mamie …”

Mamie came into the bathroom as Leona was handing the two children a towel. Walter insisted on drying his own face, and Leona told them to go ahead; they could get into bed. She changed Mamie's clothes, checked the bandages on her hip and shoulder, and told her that tomorrow they would leave the bandages off altogether. Shut away from the other children, she lifted Mamie onto the countertop of the sink. When the child still wouldn't acknowledge her, Leona cupped her chin and turned the small face till it was level with her own. “Aren't you ever going to talk to me again? I mean really talk to me? I know this is all strange to you, Mamie, but they've had their bad times, too, you know. Probably not as bad as yours, but bad times just the same. I want to tell you something, Mamie—we had to bring them with us.” Mamie was beginning to tremble, and her trembling grew more pronounced the longer Leona talked. And yet at that moment Leona needed to explain to someone what she had done. “Yes, that's right, we did—I'm sure of it. And now we have to take care of them.” There was more she'd meant to say, but Mamie's thin hand came up and touched Leona's cheek in no touch at all, like the touch of someone blind. She thought she felt the slight dig of fingernails and it chilled her for a moment. Mamie jumped down, away from her, and ran out of the room.

You see, Mrs. Aldridge, I didn't know what to do.…

That night, as she tucked them in, Leona sat on the side of the bed. “You must be tired of this,” she said. “I'm tired, too. But I know a place where all this trouble will end. A place where it's safe and they'll never find us—at least, not this winter. Do you understand?”

Mamie just stared at her, but the other two shook their heads.

“All right,” she said. “Try to imagine an island. A beautiful little island in the middle of a river. It's still a long way from here. We'll have to take a boat. You can't reach it by road—no road even goes near the closest riverbank. And on this island there's a house made of stone, a nice, clean little house with pine trees all around it.” She watched their faces, looking from one to the other.

“It's really a wonderful place. I used to go there in the summertime with some friends of mine. It's like a little fort off all by itself, but we could stoke up the furnace and have all the heat we want. And I could cook for you. I could make all the things you like. And when it rains on the roof you could sleep forever. Does that sound all right to you?”

Imagining it herself, Leona could see the island now, breaking through layers of fog, could practically smell the surround of pine trees. Then she had to laugh because Walter and Patsy were muttering, and had been for some time, that it was all right with them. “Okay, then,” Leona said. “That's where we'll go.”

Patsy twisted her head on the pillow and looked at her. “At your place—does it have any kitty cats?”

“Yes,” she said, “I think I do recall some kitty cats. They lived off all by themselves. They're kind of wild and hard to find. You'd have to be awfully careful. Because they could scratch you, and they can disappear just like
that!
” She snapped her fingers.

“That's the kind I like,” Patsy said.

She kissed them good night, shut off the light, and went to the bed she'd made for herself in a lounge chair by the window. She was nearly asleep when she heard footsteps and realized that Walter, head bowed, was beside her. But he wouldn't look up, waited instead for her to lean down for his whisper. “Muz …” he said. It was the name he and Patsy had given her, although they used it very sparingly. He rose on tiptoe, closer to her ear. “I think I want to go home now.”

She never knew what to say. “Oh, Walter, I do too,” she whispered to him earnestly. “I'm so lonesome for home it's a disgrace. I miss so many things. That's why I told you about the place I have all picked out for us. And you'll like it, too, Walter—really you will.”

“Okay,” he whispered, leaning up to her again. “But I really want to go home right now.”

She lifted him to her lap. “You miss your mother, don't you? Yes, I know you do. Even if she hurts you sometimes, you still miss her.” It was much the same answer she had given him other nights. “I think you're better off with us for a little while, Walter. Things'll be better, you'll see.”

He studied her for several seconds and tonight he said, “Muz, don't sleep in a chair. Come stay in our bed.”

“No,” she told him. “You stay with me.” Then she saw that Patsy had come toward them in the dark and Leona motioned for her to join them.

In a few minutes, Mamie knew, the woman would bring the children back to the bed. Find me, Sherman, she thought, find me, please find me, before I'm all gone. She could feel an immense loneliness filling her up. Please, somebody, hurry. I don't want to go to no ireland with river water all around it. She peered into the dark until tears filled her eyes. Then she hid her face in the pillow. Without uttering a sound, her lips shaped the only prayer she had ever really learned: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep …” Again and again, into the smothering dark.

The next morning, while Leona talked to the garage mechanic about the car, Mamie wrote her last note, in a
Field and Stream
magazine:
SHES TAKEN US TO IRLAN
. Seated on a plastic-covered bench in the waiting room, she glanced past the heads of the other two children, who were standing at the glass, and saw the woman giving the man some money. She returned her crayon to her coat pocket and put the magazine among the others.

Just then the door to the glassed-in room opened and the woman and the garageman came in. “You're lucky it's the battery,” the man said. Leona said she'd like to hold on to the trunk key unless he needed it. He shrugged, went into his dark cubbyhole, and brought out a receipt. Still writing it, he asked for her name. “Merchassen,” said the woman whose name was Leona, “Helen Merchassen,” and she spelled it for him. She acted cheerful, but a little nervous and talkative. “This won't take long, maybe half an hour, if you want to wait,” the garageman said. “No,” Leona told him. “Maybe we'll do some shopping. We'll be back by then.”

Outside, Leona looked around carefully, up and down the row of stores, before they started along the sidewalk. She asked them whether, if she gave them some money, they could take care of it or should she tie it in a hanky. “I want mine tied,” Patsy said, and Walter nodded and said, “I always lose my money.”

She took three quarters and three little handkerchiefs of different colors from her purse, knotted one quarter in a corner of each one, and passed them out. The sky was gray and murky as they crossed through dirtied snow and entered the bright interior of the dime store. “All right,” she said, looking straight at them. “You can spend your quarter on anything you want that costs a quarter. Just like before. You pick it out.”

Walter whispered to Patsy, “We get to pick it out.”

“Walter, do you understand that you have to be good?”

He nodded.

“I want you to have a good time, but if you're bad I can't give you any more quarters. Mamie, pay attention. Now, go ahead. I'll be right around here if you want me.” She stayed at the front of the store to watch them as they went their separate ways. Walter soon found the wall of aquariums and stood gazing up at the bright darting fish. Patsy's hand squeaked down the long glass cases of candy.

Clutching her lavender handkerchief in her fist, Mamie walked slowly beside the display of dolls, her eyes switching to Leona and back. The children were still within six feet of each other. How carefully Mamie moved now, slowly, quietly, hardly lifting her feet. Never far away, Leona tucked her purse under her arm and strolled down the aisle one counter over. Mamie leaned back and watched her pause at the sewing counter and turn farther into the store. Leona was now two aisles away, looking down, looking at something. Mamie could see the shoulders of her fur coat through the neatly arranged shelves.

Again Mamie checked the others. Walter stood with his hands clasped behind him, gazing up at the tanks; Patsy had stopped in front of a glass case of jelly beans. Mamie looked beyond them to the chute beside the cash register where two middle-aged clerks were chatting across the counter. If she went that way, the other kids would try to follow her and she'd have to get past the clerks. She glanced back. The patch of Leona's fur coat was still visible through the shelves. Mamie peered down the long funnel of goods broken by intersecting aisles and saw another woman, two sections away, stooping to investigate the stacks of merchandise under the display.

Now was her chance. She spun on her toe and dashed straight for the woman shopper, scampering past a bank of artificial flowers, some ironing boards, and a high teetering stack of detergent. She broke through the intersecting aisle, her heart pounding, and plunged forward. The stooping woman wore a turban. Hearing Mamie's approach, she lifted her head and turned. Without hesitation, Mamie ran through the next aisle, and she had already started to spill her words before she reached the woman. “Help me!” she gasped. “Help me get away.” She pointed frantically behind her, down the empty aisle. “She took us. She did, and—and—I want to go home. I have to go home now. Please, help me, please! I—” She stumbled to a stop near the woman, huffing for breath, too choked with emotion to express the depth of her anguish. She began to sob. Tears smudged her eyes and she felt dizzy with urgency.

The woman in the turban said, “Whoa, there. Now, slow down and tell me again.” Mamie wiped the tears from her eyes, and breathlessly tried to explain. “I don't want to, but she came to the hospital and got me and—but I didn't want to—I don't want to go in the car.” Something brushed her shoulder; she jerked away from it and saw Walter. Behind him was Patsy, and looming behind both of them stood Leona. Mamie groaned and sidestepped into a wall of hanging mop handles. Leona slipped between the two kids and said to the turbaned woman, “Don't mind Mamie. There's no telling what she might've said, if she said anything. She has such a vivid imagination, Don't you, Mamie?”