How to Be Lost (16 page)

I
WOKE UP
naked in my bed, filled with regret for something I couldn’t place. There was a piercing pain behind my eyes. I began to cry, but I didn’t know what for.

I covered my face. There were only shards of memory: kneeling on a floor, a tongue in my mouth. What had I done, before my fitful dreams?

I heard the phone ringing in the hallway. I was afraid to go outside. Had I hurt Ellie? Had I slept with someone? I was sore all over; I could not tell what had happened to my body. The phone kept ringing. Finally, I pulled on my robe. There was no sound in the building but the ringing phone. I picked up the receiver. “Care?” It was Ron’s voice.

“Yes?”

“Care, it’s the baby. She was born last night.”

“What?”

“She’s too early,” said Ron quietly. “Only twenty-seven weeks.”

“Oh God.”

He sighed. “Maddy’s tired,” he said. “She’s asking for you.”

“Is the baby…is it going to….”

“We don’t know,” said Ron. “We don’t know anything. She’s so small, Care.”

There was quiet for a moment, and I could hear Ron breathing on the phone.

“Oh God,” I said again.

“I guess…,” said Ron. “I thought…you’d come home.”

“Oh Ron,” I said. “I don’t know.”

He didn’t say a word. I didn’t even hear him breathing. I heard a click; he had cut the line.

In my apartment, I closed my eyes and slipped back into dreams: I was pulling up to Maxwell Elementary in my parents’ Oldsmobile. Ellie was waiting this time, and she ran to the car and climbed in. We drove through downtown to I-95 and headed south, toward New Orleans. “Thank you,” Ellie said, her eyes so large and trusting, her face lit by passing headlights. “Thank you for saving me,” she said. I reached for her, but she turned to dust in my arms.

In the back seat was Madeline, who had been there all along.

The phone in the hallway rang again, and I went and answered it. “Ron?” I said.

“Olivia?” said a ragged voice. It sounded like an older man.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Is that you, sweetie?” said a woman’s voice. She sounded hysterical.

“This is Caroline,” I said.

“Who?”

“Caroline,” I said. “I’m Caroline.”

“Where’s our daughter?” said the woman.

“Look. We know she’s there,” said the man. “We traced the call. Put her on the phone, goddamn it.”

“I don’t….”

“Olivia!” cried the woman. “Where’s Olivia?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Where are you?” It was the man again. He sounded both angry and terrified.

“I’m in the hallway,” I said.

“We’re coming to get our girl!” the woman said, and she burst into tears.

“Where is this phone located?” said the man angrily. “We’ll find out on our own, young lady, you know we will.”

“The Wilma Building,” I said. “Missoula, Montana.”

“Jesus Christ,” said the man. “Missoula fucking Montana.”

“Where’s Olivia?” cried the woman again.

“You tell my daughter we’ll be there in the morning. You tell her to stay put.”

“I don’t know—” I said, but the line had gone dead. I heard a door open, and I looked up.

Ellie stood in her doorway. She wore boxers and a dirty bra. Her eyes raged; her face was sunken. Her right arm was marred by a large bruise. “Hello,” she said.

Finally, I knew it was over. Olivia stood in her doorway.

“Your parents are coming to get you,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

I just looked at her. I didn’t say a word.

“Fuck you!” she screamed, her hands in fists, fighting the air.

I almost went to her. I almost took Olivia into my own apartment, helped her come down from whatever she was on, sang her to sleep until morning, when her parents would come for her. But something had changed in me.

I turned my back on Olivia. I picked up the pay phone and I dialed. When Ron and Madeline’s machine answered, I left a message. “I’m coming home,” I said.

I packed my things quickly. It wasn’t hard to see that the gown, the beanbags, the “Missing” posters, the coffeepot, and the grainy photograph of the Arlee Pow-Wow were things I could leave behind. I had one sister, anyway, and I had lost her for long enough.

H
E SAW
I
SABELLE
in Forsyth Park, and knew her immediately from her languid steps.

“Isabelle?” called Bernard, and she turned.

Her face was lined, but she looked the same. She wore her hair short, and she was slim in a yellow suit. “Bernard?” she said. “My Lord!”

“What are you doing in Savannah?” he said, but did not say, why didn’t you call me?

“My mother,” she said, simply. She brought her hand to her neck.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I heard.”

She shook her head. “She had a good, long life. Your parents?” she said.

“Both gone.”

For a moment, they were silent. It was March, and the azaleas were in full bloom. Sunlight poured through the oak trees, and tourists wandered past the dying mansions, snapping pictures. “It’s been, what?” she said.

“Over twenty years.”

She laughed. “It’s hard to believe,” she said. “I’ve got two daughters, now. Caroline’s nine and Madeline is seven.”

Bernard looked down. He did not say anything. “Did you marry?” said Isabelle. “Well, of course you did.”

“We’re divorced now.”

“Oh.” She stepped toward him.

“Why don’t you come up?” said Bernard. “We’ll have tea.”

She paused only a moment before nodding. They walked toward Jones Street, then up the stairs. She sat close to him on the couch, and told him about her failing marriage, about Joseph’s drinking. “Maybe I made a mistake, leaving you,” said Isabelle. “Maybe I should have married you after all.”

It took three cups of tea, half a package of Little Schoolboy cookies, pimento cheese on Triscuits, and a bottle of sherry, but finally their lips met again.

from the desk of
AGNES FOWLER

Dear Johan,
My mother died when I was five. I remember some things about her: her warm arms around me, the way she hummed as she brushed my hair. I don’t think about my past, because it makes me feel out of sorts. And life is hard enough already, don’t you think? Perhaps the sunlamp isn’t doing its job.

When I was five, my mother died, and my father and I stayed in a hotel room. I remember pushing my face into a pillow and crying. My father cut my hair with clippers, and I can still feel the metal teeth on my neck. When I think about this, I can’t breathe. My father told me I was upset about my mother. He told me to be quiet. I was the light of his life, have I said that? I was everything and why would I want to hurt him when he had given me his truest self? Just be quiet, just be quiet, and know that I love you, Agnes, so very much.

Johan I am writing so fast that my hand is hurting. Please forgive the rip in the paper. I just need to get this out. My hair was short, like a boy. He took me to the airport. Our flight to Montana was late. I had to go to the bathroom, but he wouldn’t let me. We sat in a corner, away from the gate. I watched the planes arrive and depart. They rushed down the runway and then lifted into the air. My father stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders, and I had to go to the bathroom. I was in the wrong place, and I watched the planes at LaGuardia Airport. They rose higher and higher and then they were in the clouds.

On the plane, he let me go to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I touched my short hair. I looked like a boy but I was Agnes Fowler. I was the light of my father’s life.

When we reached the house in Montana, there was my room. I didn’t remember it, but there it was: a small bed with a handmade quilt, a bookshelf filled with books. I did not have any clothes, but my father took me to the Salvation Army and bought me a closetful. My coat and my shirts smelled like other kids, not me. He had already given away all my mother’s clothes, he said. There was only a strand of pearls left, which he kept in his top dresser drawer.

On his desk and on my bedside table, there was a picture of my mother. She was beautiful, a young woman with blond hair. Her shoulders dissolved into smoke. I knew her. At night, I could hear frogs. I kissed the picture of my mother.

My father worked in the lumberyard. He came home every night right after work. I had his love to myself. When I was older, I wanted him to find a girlfriend, so I could go out on a date, or to the movies. But he told me I was all he wanted in the world. It felt good, to be loved so much. He was afraid if I was even an hour late. When I walked in the door from school, he would grab me in a bear hug.

Johan, I would like to come and see you in Alaska. I am not feeling very well, and I think a change of scenery might be just the thing. My house is starting to feel cramped, and though I used to spend hours reading or doing crossword puzzles in the evening, now I have the feeling that someone is watching me through the window. Of course, no one is watching me. Don’t get me wrong, Johan, I’m not a loony! I just think that March in Alaska might be something to see. Is it light all the time yet?

Let me know. I have been looking online, and tickets to Anchorage are not too expensive. How far is Skagway from Anchorage? Can one fly into Skagway?

I must admit, at first the word “Skagway” didn’t thrill me. It sounds like a slang word for marijuana, like “Mary Jane” or “doobie.” But now I’m getting used to it. Let me know what you think, anyway. I don’t want to rush you, but as I said, I’m feeling the need for a break.

Oh. One more thing. I went over to the Thunderbird Motel. I asked for the room on the “Missing” flyer. Better to know the whole story, I decided, than to just wonder about it. Well, the room was vacant. It was the honeymoon suite, turns out. Someone was there, but now they’ve checked out.

The front desk clerk, who everybody calls “Elvis” (needlessly flattering him, I think), told me the name of the girl: Caroline Winters. Why would someone named Caroline Winters be looking for me, I thought. I knew something had gone wrong. That’s really why I want to visit, Johan. It’s not the house, and it’s not the crossword puzzles. I hope you can read my words. My hand is shaking a bit so just hold on, will you?

Have you ever had a hot toddy? Oh, they are just delicious. I’ll make you one someday. Actually, I’ll enclose the recipe. You can make one right now if you’d like. Why don’t you? That’s sort of romantic. Make a hot toddy, and we’ll continue.

First, put the kettle on. Next, put a spoonful of sugar in a mug, and a bit of water, enough to make the sugar dissolve. Then add a jigger (or two) of whiskey or Scotch. (Old Crow works just fine.) Now fill the mug with the boiling water from the kettle, and grate a bit of nutmeg on top.

Take a big sip.

OK. So I feel like I’m in another life. Like there’s another me, or something. I once read about a scientist in a wheelchair who studies black holes and other such pheonomena. (How do you spell phenomena?) One thing he believed is that as we go along, our lives split sometimes, into other lives. Like the other day, I drove by the Humane Society, and I almost went in and got a dog. I thought about it, how nice it would be to have a dog at my feet, bringing me the paper. But I didn’t drive in. I drove past the Humane Society, and to the Orange Street Food Farm.

So what this wheelchair-bound scientist (and he was a randy fellow, as I remember—dumped his long-suffering wife for his buxom nurse) said is that when I decided not to turn into the Humane Society, my life split. In one life, I did pull in. I picked out a nice scruffy dog—perhaps a St. Bernard—and then I brought that dog home, and didn’t stop at the Food Farm at all. (Though who knows what I had for dinner! Maybe rice.) In other words, there are all these lives, and they are all mine, but I’m only aware of one of them. This one, the one in which I’m alone and drinking a hot toddy, writing to you.

Well, what the hell. Here’s what happened after Elvis told me the name “Caroline Winters.” I went to the Cyber Café on Higgins Street, and I paid for a half-hour on a computer. I went to Google, and I typed in “Caroline Winters.” After a few wrong clicks, I came upon an obituary from the Holt Record, a newspaper in New York. I clicked it. It was all about Caroline Winters’ mother, a woman named Isabelle Winters. She died in a car crash on New Year’s Day. She is survived by her daughters, Caroline and Madeline.

I had an extra dollar. I printed out the obituary, and I took it home. Make another hot toddy, Johan, because here is the kicker. They had a big picture of Isabelle Winters in the obituary in the Holt Record. I sat in my father’s chair, and I held the picture to my face. I wished I had a dog. I think I am going crazy. I held the picture to my face, did I say that? It was the same picture, Johan. The same picture on my bedside table. The one on my father’s desk. The woman with the pearls. My mother. Her name was Isabelle Winters, and she is dead.

A.

I
FOUND
R
ON
on the third floor of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai, staring at a tiny pink creature in a glass box. I stood by his side, and it took him a moment to notice me. “Is she beautiful?” he asked, “or is it just me?”

I looked at the tiny thing. She was no larger than a melon, and her head was too big. Her skin was a strange red color—it was loose on her bones. Wires and tubes snaked along her body. She had a tuft of white-blond hair. I was overwhelmed with my feelings for her: I wanted desperately to cradle her. The wind was knocked out of me. “She’s beautiful,” I said.

“Her name is Isabelle,” said Ron.

“After Mom,” I said.

He turned to me. His eyes were ringed with circles. “She’s almost three months early. They say she might not…,” he said.

“Don’t listen to what they say.”

Madeline was asleep when we approached her bedside, but she opened her eyes when I touched her arm. “You’re here,” she said. She sounded surprised, and my heart hurt for all the times I had let her down.

“I’m here,” I said.

She exhaled a long, low breath. “Isabelle,” she said, “after Mom.”

I smiled. My sister looked so fragile in the metal bed; her hair was tangled and her eyes clear. Her face was swollen. “Was it awful?” I asked.

“Oh God,” she said, and she began to cry. “I don’t think…,” she said, and then she stopped.

“Madeline,” I said, “you did a beautiful job. Isabelle’s here, and she’s going to make it. We’re going to take her home, and put her to sleep in Nana’s bassinet.”

She smiled, but shook her head. “You’re the one who believes in miracles,” she said.

In the cafeteria, Ron and I drank coffee. “So where’s your other sister?” he said, tightly.

“It wasn’t her,” I said, knowing finally that it was true.

“I’m sorry,” said Ron.

I sighed. “Time to let her rest,” I said. He did not ask if I was talking about Madeline or Ellie. He did not respond at all.

“Let’s go see Isabelle,” I said, and he nodded.

In the glass box—it was called an incubator, I found out later—my niece fought for breath. “There are some things you should know,” said Ron.

“Oh,” I said.

“I’ve been laid off.”

“Ron, I’m sorry,” I said.

He shook his head. “I don’t know how I’ll take care of them.”

“Ron,” I said.

“I took some chances, and made some stupid investments. I’m such an asshole,” he said. But I saw the way Ron looked at his baby daughter. I knew the way he cared for my sister, the way he loved her. He was even looking out for her now, asking me to stay around, asking me to help.

“You’re not an asshole,” I said.