Help for the Haunted(70)

My father was quiet. He rearranged the items on the shelf in such a way that led Heekin to realize the haphazardness was studied. At last, my father said: “My wife and I are extremely devout. We live a clean and honest life in accordance with God’s will. That gives us dominion over anything down here.”

“What about your daughters? Are they devout? Or do they risk falling prey to—”

“Of course our daughters are devout. They’re my children, after all. I wouldn’t tolerate anything less.”

“Do you allow them down here?”

“It’s their house too, so they’re welcome anywhere. My wife does prefer that no one go near her old rocker, which once belonged to her father and has sentimental value. As for me, in the same way an accountant, or even a dentist like I once was, would not want children monkeying around in his office, I prefer my girls spend their time elsewhere. Now, speaking of my daughters, they’ll be home soon, and I have calls to return before then. Is there anything more you need for your article?”

Your wife, Heekin thought. I need to talk to your wife. But despite the fact that he had managed to ask probing questions on other topics, those words still refused to come. “No,” he said at last. “No more questions.”

With that, my father led him up the stairs. When he stepped through the front door and out onto the stoop, Heekin felt relieved to be in the daylight again. He turned back and managed, “Please tell her . . . your w-w-wife, I mean . . . tell her h-h-hello from me.”

My father nodded, but that was his only response before closing the door.

In the week that followed, Heekin sat at his cluttered desk at the Dundalk Eagle, playing the tape from the interview and staring at the few scattered notes he’d taken, doing his best to draft the story. He played and replayed the tape, listening to every word, until something jumped out at him:

“I promise you, in most ways, we are the same as any ordinary family. My wife goes grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. My daughters—”

Maybe, Heekin thought as he stopped the tape, rewound, and played those words again, maybe I’m not such a bad reporter after all.

The next weekend found him roaming the aisles of the Mars Market closest to Butter Lane. As a bachelor, he spent little time in stores like that, most nights just grabbing frozen dinners and ice cream from 7-Eleven. He lingered in the market for nearly an hour, picking things up from the shelves and dropping them into a cart, until he began to get suspicious looks from the clerks, at which point he rolled his carriage down an empty aisle and abandoned it, making a speedy exit from the store.

During the next week, he told himself to forget my mother and just write the story based on his notes and the tape. And yet, when Saturday rolled around, he found himself pushing a cart up and down the Mars Market aisles. This time, as he reached for a Hungry Man dinner, a voice came from behind. “Sam?”

Heekin turned to see, not my mother, but my father. At his side: a twelve-year-old me with braids in my hair and bright purple bracelets on my wrists. “H-h-hello,” he said, that nervous stutter wasting no time in returning.

“Hello,” my father said.

“And hello to you t-t-too,” Heekin told me. “You must be Sylvie. I’ve seen your picture in your living room. What’s on your wrists?”

I shook my arm, moving the rubbery bands there. “Friendship bracelets.”

“Ah. Well, looks like you’ve g-g-got two good friends. Am I right?”

“Yes. Gretchen and Elizabeth. We all wear the same bracelets.”

“So how are you?” my father asked.

Heekin looked around for some sign of my mother. “G-g-good. And y-y-you?”

“Fine. I’ve been meaning to call and ask when the story is going to run.”

“The story? Y-y-yes. That. Well, it is g-g-going to run. I just need to . . .”

“Need to what?”

“Write it,” Heekin blurted. “I need to write the thing.”

“Write it?” my father said. “We spoke weeks ago. But I guess these things take longer than I realized.”

“In this case, it does. Because I need to t-t-talk to . . . I mean, I h-h-have. . . .”

“Follow-up questions?”

“Yes. Follow-up questions. I need to come by again and ask a few more.”

“Certainly. Why not come tomorrow? Same time as before?”

The next day Heekin arrived at our door for the second time. On the drive there, he had promised himself to ask about my mother. She was fifty percent of the story, after all, and it made sense that he inquire about her. He rang the bell, forgetting the detail about my sister breaking it with all those coins. The door opened anyway, and Heekin was prepared to blurt the question the moment he saw my father’s face. But after so much waiting, it was my mother who stood before him.

“I thought I heard someone out here,” she said in a soft-timbred voice. Heekin. “Is everything okay? You look startled, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“It’s j-j-just. I was, well, on the d-d-d-drive over I was imagining . . . not imagining . . . p-p-planning how this visit would g-g-g-go. And I didn’t expect—”

“Didn’t expect what?”

“You,” he managed to say. “I didn’t expect you.”