Dreadful Sorry (29 page)

Raindrops sparkled on the headland grasses and dripped from the trees like tinsel. Molly looked pensively out at the reed grass. She had the strangest feeling that she was supposed to do something. But what?
You can't change the past,
she thought.
What's done is done.
It was the sort of thing Jen would have said. She sat outside, lost in her musings, but came up with no answers at all. When rain began pelting the headland again, she stood up and went inside.

 

That night she went up to bed early, feeling as bruised and battered as if she really had capsized in the cove that day. She slept restlessly, kicking off her sheet, dragging it back again, twisting it around her legs. When she awoke suddenly, she thought it was because she was wrapped so tightly she felt like a mummy. But then she heard the moaning down the hall and knew the sound must have reached her even in sleep. She extricated her legs and slid out of bed. Another moan filtered through the door, and she hesitated, confused, her hand on the doorknob. Was this real—or another vision?

But then, as she opened the door and saw her father coming out of the bathroom carrying a towel, she knew it was real and happening now, and that Paulette was in trouble.

"Molly!" His eyes were wide. "She's bleeding! Please run down and call an ambulance!" He limped toward the master bedroom as fast as his injured ankle would allow.

She darted down the back stairs, grabbed the phone in the pantry, and realized she did not know the number for the hospital. Instead, she dialed 911, the emergency numbers burned into her brain since childhood but never used until this moment. She sputtered out that her stepmother was having a miscarriage, that they must send help in a hurry. When she gave the address, the person on the other end of the line said decisively that the coast road was blocked by rock slides and the ferry wasn't running. They would send a helicopter. She should stay on the line until help arrived.

But Molly hung up and stood there, trembling. She listened hard but heard no sound from upstairs. Memories of Aunt Ethel's death invaded her and she was loath to climb the stairs, scared to see what was happening to Paulette. There was nothing she could do, nothing they should expect from her. She opened the back door and stood in the doorway, every nerve in her body charged, urging her to flee out over the headland into the dark, wet night.

The rain had stopped for the moment, and the clouds were blowing hard, thinning out enough to let the moon shine through. She looked out over the moonlit headland at the dark shapes of trees and heard the drip of water off the roof. The wind rustling the grass seemed to whisper a message to her:
Don't run.
Resolutely, she shut the door. But she still couldn't bring herself to climb those stairs.

Molly lifted the teakettle off the stove. It was empty, so she added water at the sink before setting it back on the burner. She turned the flame up high. She would make tea. Paulette liked tea. And if Paulette couldn't drink it, maybe her father could. Maybe she'd drink some herself.

She pulled some mint leaves from the plant on the windowsill and washed them, then dropped them into the china teapot. While she waited for the water to boil, she made toast, buttering it thickly. Each of her movements was slow, deliberate. She sprinkled sugar and cinnamon liberally onto each slice, cut the toast into triangles, and arranged them on one of Paulette's rose china plates, listening for sounds from upstairs. What next? Napkins. And teacups. Maybe a few slices of lemon for the tea? Maybe milk? Did Paulette like milk in her tea?

She found a wooden tray painted with daisies in the pantry and assembled the cups and plates attractively. She poured boiling water into the teapot to steep the mint leaves. Finally she carried the heavy tray back up the stairs to the master bedroom. She concentrated hard on each step so she wouldn't trip, and so she wouldn't think of anything else but the moment at hand. She didn't know how she'd have the courage to step back into that bedroom at the end of the hall.

When she saw the pale figure on the bed, the twisted sheets stained with blood, she backed away, dizzy. The present and past swirled around her like the lace at the curtained windows—intricate patterns woven in tight thread. Where did one thread end and another begin? She couldn't seem(to keep hold of the present. Hadn't she been here before?

The urge to turn again and run was very strong. She could be out of the house in seconds, running free.

But she steeled herself. "No," she said aloud, her voice firm. Was she speaking to herself? Or was Clementine speaking? At that moment it seemed the same thing. "No running away." Paulette lay curled tightly into a ball, knees drawn up to her chest.

"Paulette?" Molly murmured and stretched out one hand to touch Paulette's hair.

"I need the doctor," whispered Paulette, tears streaming down her face. "I'm so afraid!"

Without the mousse to make it spiky, Paulette's hair felt baby fine. Molly smoothed it back. "I called for the ambulance. They're sending a rescue helicopter because the coast road is closed in places. And the ferry doesn't run this late. Just hang. on. You'll be all right."

"You don't know that! Molly, I don't want to lose my baby...!"

"There's not very much blood," Molly said in as comforting a voice as she could manage. She didn't really know how much blood there was, since she carefully kept her eyes averted from the spotted sheets.

"I don't want to die!" wailed Paulette, reaching out a thin hand, clutching Molly's arm.

"Don't even think such a thing!" cried Bill. His face was ashen. He checked his watch. "Damn! Why don't they
hurry?
"

"Maybe you should have some tea, Dad."

He shook his head, distracted. "I'll get some things ready for the hospital," he said, and went to rummage in the closet.

Then Paulette moaned, and both Molly and Bill rushed over. She opened her eyes and tried to sit up. "Oh, no."

Bright red blood trickled onto the white sheets.

"Oh, Paulette." Bill's face was gray. "Molly, we have to do something."

But Molly, too, stood as motionless as a sailboat in a windless cove. What could
she
do? She didn't know the first thing about medical emergencies, she had no training, she couldn't stand the thought of blood...

She turned away from the bed and caught sight of herself in the big mirror above the dresser. The mirror flickered, and for a second Clementine's face looked back at her, then it was gone. But as Molly glanced back at Paulette, a vision of Aunt Ethel's haggard face blew through her mind, and with it came memory. Suddenly confident, Molly approached the bed. She pulled back the stained sheet, picked up a clean towel and pressed it between Paulette's legs. Then she shifted Paulette's body to position a pillow beneath her hips. She heard herself whispering gentle words of comfort to both her father and stepmother as she smoothed Paulette's hair. Paulette lay motionless, eyes closed. Bill strode to the windows.

Then Molly heard the helicopter whirring across the headland. "Thank God!" she cried, her strange competence shattered. "I'll go down, Dad."

She tore down the front stairs. She pulled open the heavy door and raced outside. The propeller blades chopped the air as the helicopter hovered in the side yard. Then it landed. Large and white, with the welcome words BENSON EMERGENCY RESCUE on the side in big blue letters, it crouched on the wet lawn like a giant insect.

"Here!" called Molly, running barefoot toward the chopper, waving both hands. "Hurry!" The wide arc of the helicopter's searchlight illuminated the reed grass, waving in the night wind, and the engine seemed to make the headland shudder.

Two paramedics, a man and a woman, jumped down, carrying a folding stretcher. "Stay back!" one yelled to Molly. "Watch out for the blades. We don't have room for another casualty in here."

She led them into the house and up the stairs, looking back over her shoulder as she ran up the steps two at a time. "It's my stepmother, she's having a miscarriage or something. There's blood, and she's fainted! Will she be all right?"

Without answering, the paramedics entered the bedroom. The woman went straight to Paulette, pulling away the towel to check the bleeding, then taking her pulse. The two paramedics eased Paulette onto the stretcher. Paulette opened her eyes as they tightened the straps around her thin body and smiled at Molly. Bill still seemed dazed as he lurched over and grabbed Paulette's handbag from the dresser, then limped down the hall after the stretcher. When he asked whether he could go along in the helicopter to Benson, it was clear in his voice that he fully intended to stay with Paulette whatever anyone said. The paramedics nodded. But there would be np room in the chopper for anyone else.

Outside on the lawn, Bill turned back to Molly, who stood uncertainly behind him in the rain-soaked grass. "I'm sorry, baby. I'll have to leave you alone for a while. But I'll call you as soon as I know anything."

She nodded. He ducked under the propeller blades and pulled himself up into the chopper. The door slammed, and the helicopter rose, its strong blades whirring. For a moment, before it swung away over the headland and out across the water, the air thrummed with noise, and Molly was illuminated in the bright searchlight. She was suddenly aware of her short nightdress and wet feet, and felt small and insignificant beneath the huge machine.

She hurried back inside, locking the heavy front door behind her. The big house seemed to welcome her back, its many empty rooms echoing voices from the past all around her as she climbed back upstairs. She ignored the whispers and went straight down the hall to the master bedroom. She didn't hesitate even a minute but moved to the bed and stripped off the sheets.

She left them soaking in the bathtub. She opened the tall doors of the hall linen closet and selected a clean set of brightly patterned sheets and pillowcases. She made up the bed in the master bedroom, smoothed the bedspread, then turned to leave the room.

But the tray of tea and toast caught her eye. Untouched, it sat where she had set it on the bedside table. She walked over and touched the pot. It was lukewarm. She poured a cup and cradled it in her hands. She was bone tired but less panicky, more peaceful now than she had been since her near-drowning. Her calm was something to do with Paulette, and something to do with Clementine, but her mind refused to analyze her feelings. She sat in the blue armchair by the window and sipped her tea. Then she ate a triangle of cinnamon toast. She raised her eyes and caught sight of herself in the mirror over Paulette's dresser. Was there the softest laugh hanging in the air? The glass flickered, glimmered, and then the face looking back was again, for an instant, not Molly's but Clementine's. When Molly blinked, the rosy-cheeked girl was gone.

Molly bit into another piece of toast, smiling through the crumbs.
At least I helped Paulette,
she thought with satisfaction. She had done what she could. This time she had not run away.

She finished her toast and curled sideways in the big chair, draping her long legs over one stuffed chair arm. She closed her eyes, exhausted but content, and listened to the rain starting up again, pelting the windowpanes. She might even have slept a moment or two.

And then, downstairs, the phone rang.

Molly struggled out of the chair. Seven, eight, nine—she counted the rings while flying down the back stairs.
Oh, please don't let Paulette have lost the baby!
Maybe it was Jared. But in the middle of the night?

She skidded around the kitchen table and grabbed the phone off the pantry wall, reaching for the light switch at the same time. "Hello?" she gasped into the receiver.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," said a woman's equally breathless voice, "but we may have an emergency on our hands."

"Who is this?" Someone from the hospital?

"Thelma Binder, over in Benson. Am I speaking to Molly Teague?"

"Yes, I'm Molly."

"We met today—well, yesterday—when you came to The Breakers," said the voice. "When you came to visit Abner Holloway."

Molly recalled the woman in the wheelchair. "What's wrong?" She glanced at the wall clock. It read 2:15.

"We're in a panic over here about Abner," the woman continued. "He's gone."

"Gone?"

"Disappeared, run off—kidnapped like that Clementine he keeps on about, who knows?"

"I—I don't understand," said Molly.

Thelma Binder grew more agitated. "After your visit Abner was in terrible turmoil. All about that cousin of his. At dinnertime he kept on moaning that he missed her, that he needed her, and so on. Sarah and I told him to stop acting ridiculous—we thought he was putting it on a bit, you know? But he got worse and worse. He said he was going to find her before he died. We all went to bed around nine-thirty or ten, I think. But when the night nurse checked the rooms an hour ago, he wasn't there. With all this rain, you know, we didn't even think to look outside. The staff searched the whole house and then woke people up asking if they'd seen him or knew anything. No one does, and he's just not here anywhere!"

"You should call the police, don't you think?" asked Molly, still dazed by lack of sleep. She noticed drops of water on the floor, saw the track of rainwater along the pantry wall. There was a leak in the ceiling, and the rain was falling hard.

"We just called the Benson and the Hibben police, and they're out looking for him. We're thinking, what with all his carrying on about Clementine today, what if he's trying to find her? Sarah remembers that she saw Abner at dinner reading the bulletin board out in the front hall. That's where the week's menus are posted. She didn't think anything about it at the time, of course. But, Molly, that bulletin board is also where the ferry schedules are posted! He could have gone out in this rain looking for his Clementine."

"But the ferries don't run at night," said Molly.

"The last ferry to Hibben leaves here at 11:00," said Thelma tersely. "And the last time anyone saw Abner was around ten when we went to bed. The police are checking the road. It's still closed to traffic, but Abner doesn't have a car, anyway. He may have tried to walk if he didn't catch a ferry. Oh, I'm worried. He's like a child sometimes. And you saw for yourself he's not strong at all."