Charlotte’s Story (25 page)

He’s gone! It’s my fault. Again, my fault!

“I’m going to run upstairs to change and get a jacket.” Without turning around, I asked J.C. if she had one warm enough for searching outside. I have no idea what led me to give her that consideration, except that she and I were alone.

“I do. I’ll get it and meet you down here?”

We started up the stairs in silence, but when we reached the first landing I stopped.

“How did you know about the roof? Do you know where Michael is?”

“I don’t know where he is. I swear to you I don’t. Please don’t think I’m cruel, Charlotte.”

“I think you’re worse than cruel.”

J.C. briefly closed her eyes. “That’s not fair. I just knew we had to go to the roof. But it wasn’t a bad thing, don’t you see? Nothing happened to Michael up there. We know that now.”

“Why are you really here?”

“Do I really matter that much right now? Isn’t the most important thing that we find Michael?”

From my darkened bedroom, I could see the driveway and the road leading to the orchards. There were several pickup trucks and a couple of sedans I thought I recognized parked in the driveway, but the dusk made it hard to make them out. Well beyond them, faint points of light bobbed through the trees, a many-eyed beast hunting for the slight, warm shape of my baby boy.

Alive. He had to be alive.

I quickly stripped out of my dress and stockings and grabbed a blouse, heavy sweater, dungarees, and tennis shoes from my closet. After using the bathroom, I splashed water on my face, smearing what little makeup hadn’t worn off, and dabbed my face with a towel. Then I ran a quick brush through my hair. My wrist was
sore from falling on it, but not sprained. Each action was automatic. Fast. When we found Michael, I wanted him to see a mommy he recognized. Not a pained, frightened mess.

Without the chandelier on, the gallery was heavily shadowed. I wondered about Terrance and Marlene. What were they doing? Had they joined the search?

I called out for J.C. “I’m going downstairs.”

Hearing a familiar sound, I looked across the gallery at Olivia’s room, which we had already searched several times. The door had certainly clicked shut.

“J.C.?”

There was no answer from J.C.’s room, though her door was open and the light was on. There was no light of any kind beneath Olivia’s door. As I hurried over, I was thinking it might be a searcher who had decided to take advantage of the situation and explore places they weren’t wanted.

I confess that when I put my hand on the doorknob, I hesitated, afraid that Olivia was going to show me something and I wouldn’t be able to leave. But if she were there, wouldn’t she want to help me? I went inside.

The sky outside Olivia’s window was a dusky plum color, and the room was full of shadows. That the air smelled of roses—decaying roses—I tried to put down to my imagination.

“Olivia?”

I waited for what seemed like several minutes. The scent seemed to fade.

Disappointed, I turned to leave.

“Mama! Mamamamamama! Mama!”

Michael’s voice. Above me.

I looked up. Michael’s pale, happy face peered at me from behind the carved pediment of Olivia’s seven-foot-tall French armoire. Seeing me notice him, he gave me another triumphant “Mama!” Then, “Michael down.”

Chapter 24

Reunited

The front hall was filled with people, many of whom had been at the house after the funeral the week before, and the mood was light, as though they’d come by for an impromptu party. Marlene was handing around coffee, and Terrance had brought out a tub of bottled beer. I held Michael tightly in my arms as Press and I thanked everyone who had searched. It was mostly men, though there were a few wives too, mostly of the men who worked on nearby farms. Shelley, the cheerful, blond nineteen-year-old sister of the orchardkeeper, had even put on work boots to help with the search. I wouldn’t have noticed, but she mentioned them, embarrassed that she was wearing them in the house.

“I had to come,” she said. “My baby brother was lost for a day and a half when he was three, and we found him in an old well someone hadn’t covered. It about killed my mother.”

Michael shifted in my arms, wanting to get down, but I just held him more tightly. Relenting, he rested his head on my shoulder with a sigh, sucking on two of his fingers.

Shelley smiled. “She said there were years of leaves down there that broke his fall. He was just bruised, and very mad. Now he’s training in the Navy to go on a submarine. You’d think he’d be afraid of dark small places after that happened, but he isn’t.” Shyly, she reached out to touch Michael’s damp curls. “And where were you hiding, little one?”

Michael watched her intently for a moment, then grinned and turned his head away, shy.

Where had he been? I still wasn’t certain.

After I’d shouted down the gallery to let J.C. know I’d found him, and asked her to find Press, I quickly changed his very full diaper and took him to the kitchen to feed him. Before everyone started gathering at the house to see Michael for themselves, I told Press and J.C. that I’d found him on top of the armoire. I saw the muscles in Press’s jaw tense—a sign that he was either angry or trying to make a decision. Finally he said, “Well, he’s a magician, this one.” He rubbed Michael’s head and kissed him. “But let’s just tell everyone he fell asleep under his grandmama’s bed and we missed him. It’s not anyone’s business.”

J.C. and I had looked at each other, then nodded. It was the best answer.

I knew there was no way he’d gotten to the top of the armoire without help, and, given the number of times we’d looked in Olivia’s bedroom, it seemed unlikely that he could have been up there, quiet, the entire time. But who would’ve put him up there? I still suspected Terrance, whom Press had assigned to hand out cigars to the men and was now making his way from group to group, holding open one of Press’s smaller humidors. But I still couldn’t answer the question
why.
It seemed like a prank—a dangerous, foolish prank.
Playfulness
did not seem to be in Terrance’s dour personality. Then there was J.C., who might have done anything while I was knocked out and the others were searching. I silently cursed myself for giving in to Jack and his drugs. But Press had been holding me. I’d had no choice.

As Shelley continued to try to engage Michael, I looked across the hall to see Rachel talking to Hugh Walters, who wasn’t in uniform but wore a denim work jacket and light brown moleskin trousers. Jack hadn’t wanted Rachel around the stressful search, but had called her to come right over after Michael had been found. Seeing me, she blew me a kiss.

Michael, excited by the novelty of the crowd, began to wriggle again, and I recognized the signs of approaching hysteria. His eyes were rimmed in red, and he rubbed at them with his fist.

Having volunteered to help Marlene hand around drinks, J.C. finally came to stand beside me. After I introduced her to Shelley, Shelley said that she would try to find her brother, and excused herself.

J.C. had returned to wearing her very public smile, but toned it down when she stepped a little closer to gently pat Michael’s back. He put his thumb in his mouth and rested his head on my shoulder.

“Looks like he’s about to pass out.”

“I really should get him upstairs. Have you seen Press?” I felt awkward and confused around her. Was she really having an affair with Press, and was she involved in Michael’s disappearance? Or was I mistaken? Something about her made me want to trust her, but I couldn’t make myself.

She said she thought she’d seen him go into the library. When I went in search of him, she drifted toward Hugh and Rachel. Recalling what I’d seen in the garden, I couldn’t help but wonder how uncomfortable
that
conversation might be.

I found Press and Jack in the library, the smoke from their cigars clouding the room.

“There’s my little man.” Press rested his cigar in the nearby standing ashtray and rose to take Michael from me. I didn’t want
to let him go, but Michael had given a small grunt of delight on seeing his father and pulled away to reach for him.

“He needs to be in bed, Press. He’s about to fall apart.”

Michael rested his face against his father’s cheek and patted his head as though it had been Press lost and in distress all afternoon. It was reassuring to see how comfortable the two of them were together. Without Eva, we would all need each other that much more.

Press sat back down in one of the broad, comfortable leather chairs, pulling Michael onto his lap. Olivia had bought the chairs on a trip she’d taken out West and had them sent back to Virginia. They weren’t the kind of thing one saw in houses in Virginia, but perhaps in an elegant hunting lodge. But they suited the room, and suited the two attractive men resting in them.

Behind me, the library door opened with a murmur of voices from the hall.

“Here you all are. Why is everyone hiding in here?” Rachel waved a hand in front of her face. “Phew. Those stupid cigars. I thought I could at least get away from the smoke in here.
Will
somebody open a window before I die?” She held on to the couch’s arm as well as her belly as she sank onto the cushions.

By “somebody,” she obviously meant Jack, who quickly got up and opened the window beside the fireplace a few inches.

“So, are you going to tell me where he really was? I don’t buy the whole hiding under the bed story. You can sell it to the hillbillies out there, but not me.” She was looking at Press.

I also looked at Press, waiting to hear what he would say.

“I’ve already told Jack. Charlotte found him on top of the armoire in my mother’s room. God knows how the tyke got up there. Somebody’s idea of a practical joke.”

Now Rachel looked at me, appraising. It was as though we had just been introduced and she was trying to determine what sort of person I was. I was puzzled at first, then realized she thought I had done it.

“You can’t think I put my own son up there, Rachel!”

“Nobody said that.” Jack shook the ice cube in his nearly empty glass, drawing Michael’s attention. He drank down the final sip of whiskey. “No one is accusing you, Charlotte.”

I remembered how Press had squeezed my shoulders so I would stay still while Jack injected me with the sedative. There had been a strange look of pleasure in Jack’s eyes that I hadn’t remembered until just then.

Rachel spoke quickly. “Everyone knows how horrible it’s been for you, darling. Of course I don’t think you did any such thing. I would defend you to the death. I swear on the tiny fiend in my belly.” She tried a little laugh, but it fell flat in the silent room.

Press stood up.

“You were right, Charlotte. Michael does need to be in bed. You too.” He brought Michael over to me and kissed my cheek. “You’re exhausted.”

I was still stung by the way Rachel had looked at me. But Michael returned to me without protest, and having him in my arms was a comfort. I told myself that what had happened with Eva had left a question in a lot of people’s minds. Although I hoped Rachel would think better of me, I knew it was unfair of me to expect it. It would be a long time before anyone fully trusted me again.