The Gingerbread Boy (14 page)

Suddenly the ring slipped out of Daniel’s fingers. It bounced off the tabletop, and tumbled to the floor. Stunned, Daniel bent down to retrieve it. It took several tries before he was able to clasp the ring with a firm enough grip to lift back up to the table. When he looked at his mom, the worried look was etched across her face once more.

“I’m fine,” he said, but he was unable to hide the frustration in his voice.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” she asked.

Daniel made no reply.

“Please, Daniel, get a second opinion. Do it for me. You may have pinched nerves, or something that could require surgery. Don’t run from this. I know it’s driving you crazy that you can no longer play the guitar.”

“I still do all right with a pick if I try hard enough,” Daniel said, “I just can’t fingerpick right now. I’ll be able to soon.”

“I pray you can, honey. But I’ve noticed you can barely button your shirts or tie tennis shoes, either.”

“I’ve overdone it from so many years of playing,” Daniel sighed, trying to sound convincing. But it was becoming harder to convince himself of that.

“I’m sure it is. But promise me you’ll look into it further.”

Daniel nodded. He could never say no to his mother.

“I promise.”

She nodded as Daniel placed the ring back in the box and snapped it shut. Then he picked it up and cradled it in his hands. “Thank you again for this ring. I know how much it means to you.” He got up to give her a kiss on the forehead. “You won’t be sorry.”

****

“Catherine!” Joanne cried as Catherine stepped through the doorway. “You’ve got to call Mrs. VanHoofstryver right away! She’s been calling here every half hour to get ahold of you, she says it’s important.”

Catherine was baffled. “She’s been calling? How? Her phone never works, that’s why she always writes.”

“She needs a new home phone service and a cell phone! She really needs to quit losing your cell number no matter where she calls from,” Joanne said, then added, “Maybe she’s calling from a neighbor’s or something. All I know is that she sounded desperate, and this is the number you can reach her at.” She shoved piece of paper in Catherine’s hand.

Catherine took the paper and hurried to the landline without bothering to take off her shoes and jacket. She dialed furiously, recognizing the area code and first three digits as her own hometown. Where could Hazel be calling from? Guilt swelled inside of her as the phone began to ring. She hadn’t written poor Hazel in weeks, yet had a stack of letters from her
.
Disturbing letters. It was as though Hazel was afraid of something but would never reveal what. Catherine hadn’t known how to write back. Now
this.

The phone continued to ring… and ring. Soon Joanne was standing behind Catherine, the look in her eyes just as anxious.

“How many times has it rung?” she whispered.

“About twelve,” Catherine replied. The ringing continued in her ear. “C’mon,
answer
!” she cried.

“Dial again – maybe you hit a wrong number.” Joanne suggested. Catherine agreed. She hung up and punched in the number.

“That’s it.” Said Joanne.

The phone rang again… and again… and again.

“Just answer!” Catherine wailed.

All at once the receiver was picked up.

“Hello?” asked a strange male voice.

“Hello who is this?” Catherine asked.

“My name is John. I couldn’t stand listening to that phone ringing off the hook so I finally just picked it up.”

“Where are you? I got a message to call a woman named Hazel from this number.”

“This is a pay phone at the Annapolis Bus Station. I don’t know any Hazel. I’m just visiting from Illinois.”

Catherine paused, her heart beating against her chest.

A pay phone? In this day?
And why the bus station?

Why would Hazel be there? Catherine assumed the station was too small to have a paging system, so she asked if anyone resembling Hazel was in the area.

“Let me look around.”

There was a long pause in which Catherine and Joanne looked anxiously at one another. Finally the man’s voice returned.

“Sorry, ma’m. She must have left. Just a bunch of teenagers loitering around.”

Catherine groaned.

“I have to go now. My bus is here.”

“Thanks for your help.” Catherine sighed.

“No problem.”

There was a click… and the dial tone buzzed in Catherine’s ear.

****

Dear Hazel,

I’ve tried all night to call the number you left with my roommate. No luck of course, and I’m scared. What is wrong? I’m considering calling the police to check on you, so if that happens between the time I write this and the time you get it and you get furious – I also owe you another apology. I don’t know what to do. Hundreds of miles away is really a universe apart.

Should I expect to see you at the bus station here soon? You’ve talked of coming to see me when things settle down at your house, but you’ve never told me what kind of things you had to settle and I was afraid to ask. I’ve heard rumors about you for a long time, and now they scare me. It’s so hard to write this. But I have to ask.

Are you still married? Does your husband torment you? Is that why you are so mysterious? It’s awful to have to ask now when I should have a long time ago. If the rumors are true, why can’t you leave? Is it because your cats need you? What can I do? Please let me know. I’ll do anything. You are my only true friend back in Maryland. That place would mean nothing to me without you.

I’ve got something to admit to you, myself. It’s been difficult to write to you without including what’s really going on in my life, so I am finally going to tell you. I think I’m falling in love with Daniel, Hazel. I’ve been so sure you wouldn’t approve that I’ve been terrified to write and tell you more about him, but I’m so sorry that I haven’t. It was a poor excuse. I’ve tried to be skeptical about him like you’ve always warned, but as much as I look, I can’t find anything wrong with him. Outside of my classes, he’s my life here now. But I’ll tell you more as soon as I know everything is all right with you and I can relax. I’m going to keep trying to call for a while, then I’m going to wait and see if you can reach me again somehow.

If I’m lucky I’ll see you on my doorstep tomorrow, and I can tell you all this in person. If not, know that I’m well, but would be a hundred times more well knowing you are as well. In about two minutes I’m going to run this to the post-office, then I’ll be back by the phone. (By the time you read this, that will hardly matter anymore, will it?)

I think I’m delirious. I haven’t stayed up until five in the morning since Tony chased me to the top of a pine tree with a garter snake in his hand.

That was a long time ago. I’m not afraid of snakes now.

Until you get this, I’ll be thinking of you. Praying for you, too. Please be okay, Hazel. I miss you.

Love, Catherine

Chapter Ten

Daniel shivered beneath his wool sweater. It was cold out on the willow tree today. A gunmetal gray sky hung above, and a bitter wind brushed across his face. It felt more like late November than spring. He wished it could be as lovely as that unusually warm day when he’d brought Catherine here.

He sighed and stretched his legs out over the trunk. His thoughts were heavy, but not uncomfortably so. He reached inside his sweater pocket, took out the velvet box his mother had given him and turned it over and over in his hands.

What would it mean if he gave this to Catherine?

“…Anything you want it to mean,” came his mother’s voice in his mind. “Maybe just that she’s special to you. A symbol of how much you care for her above everyone else.”

Daniel flipped up the lid and gazed at the emerald ring his father had given to his mother years ago in Peru. Although that world had become distant and unreal to Daniel, seeing the ring and sensing the love and tenderness that it represented was
very
real to him.

“I miss you, dad,” Daniel whispered. His eyes began to sting. “I wish you could have lived long enough to have met Catherine. I wish Julia could have met Catherine.”

He wiped a tear from his eye.

If he gave this ring to Catherine now, no matter what it stood for, it would represent some form of commitment. Dare he even offer her such a commitment? She had years of school left. Her dedication to that was something he could never replace, nor that he wanted to replace. She needed to be someone on her own, someone more that just some singer’s girlfriend, even more than just Mrs
.
Daniel LaMont.

Daniel raised his eyebrows at the thought and laughed to himself.
Mrs
.
Daniel LaMont.
The scary thing was he could see it. He could see it so clearly it took his breath away.

But that was years off. He could wait.

But would she wait for him?
And, if she did, what kind of a life could he offer her?

“You could make it work,” his mother had said. “When two people have something this special together as you say you and Catherine have, anything is possible.”

Daniel believed that. He believed it as deeply as anything he had ever felt before.

He stared longer at the ring, aching to take it out and examine it once again. Caution warned him not to, not in his current position high above a river swollen and rushing from recent rainfall. Yet, transfixed by the magic of the ring, his fingers reached in to pluck it from its holder.

Just as he pressed the ring between his fingers the unthinkable happened. He barely felt it slip from his grasp, all he knew was that suddenly something shiny was rolling across his stomach. He bolted upright. The move was irreversible. The ring rolled faster, bounced onto the tree’s bark, and then spun out over open air.

Daniel lunged for the gem, feeling sudden euphoria as he snatched it in midair, but in a split second he knew: it was either let go of the ring and grab a limb for balance, or hold onto the ring and fall.

The decision sent Daniel plummeting into the water below.

Icy water enveloped him and an explosion ripped across his head. Foggily, he guessed he’d struck a rock… then he was spinning in a freezing blackness threatening to pull him down. Streams of deep green and black swirled crazily around him. Somehow he managed to hold his breath while struggling to pull his head above the water, but the cold penetrated so thoroughly that numbness settled in his limbs. He became leaden, a sinking stone. Blackness spread through him as he tumbled in the current, thrashing weakly, his saturated clothes continuing to tug him downward.

His lungs shrieked for oxygen.
Breathe,
screamed his brain. Just
breathe!
Somehow, Daniel fought the reflex to open his mouth, yet grew weary as invisible forces attempted to lull him to unconsciousness.

So, this was it? He was going to drown?
Somehow, time seemed to slow. As the serenity of apathy washed through him the constricting pain in his chest faded. A strange peace overcame him… and he found himself dissolving into the sweltering heat of the jungle he’d known as a child. Pictures raced across his mind: His father’s gentle face smiling down from the clouds, the comma-shaped scar on his chin looming larger than ever; then came Julia’s sparkling eyes, and her innocent smile that beckoned him forward. That dissolved, and he saw the tiny thatch church his parents had built, rainbow colored parrots dipping to and fro across the sky. Next, the natives’ toothy grins filled his mind, the children playing simple games, the women strolling leisurely through the villages. Daniel was once again surrounded by vines and vegetation, and canopies of emerald leaves. If he would only open his mouth as instinct demanded, and take in the river water, he’d be there. It’d be so easy… so right.

Suddenly, something pulled what conscious thought remained to the smooth, round object in his hand…
what was it?

A ring
.

His mother’s ring.

Catherine’s ring.

He could not give up!

A scream erupted in his mind: “Lord, help me!”

With nearly superhuman strength, Daniel tore his waterlogged sweater over his head and fought to sweep his way to the surface with the other fisted hand. He buoyed toward the surface, twisted, and spurted above the water. Gasping, he dragged in his first breath of bitter cold air in minutes.

Choking, gagging, but still fiercely clutching his treasure, Daniel found himself spinning toward a sandbar. His face smeared across the mud as the current — or was it a gentle hand? — lifted him out of the water and rolled him onto his back.

The last thing he remembered seeing was a red-capped fisherman racing toward him as stringy gray clouds crawled overhead.

Chapter Eleven

“Haven’t heard from Daniel in over a week? Not one note, not one phone call?” Beth asked, circling the kitchen table where Catherine was sitting. “What did I tell you, Sealey?”

Catherine watched in disdain as Beth slid her hand along the tabletop, walking in her customary haughty manner.

“Don’t pretend it doesn’t bother you, I know better,” Beth added. “You take three baths a day now. Or is it two baths and one shower? Two showers and one bath? No matter. You practically
live
in one or other of the bathrooms. You’re going to be as wrinkled as a prune.”

”Go away, Beth.” Catherine said.

Beth ignored her, continuing to circle. “It’s Saturday morning. I wonder where The Front is playing tonight? Milwaukee… Cincinnati… Chicago? Maybe they got invited to play on the West Coast. If they’re in Los Angeles or Seattle, don’t plan on seeing Daniel for a good long, long time. If at all.”

Catherine closed her eyes. Why was it Beth always began these verbal torments when no one else was around? Joanne would be gone until Sunday night, visiting relatives. Penny was in the hospital, recovering from a severe bout of flu.