6
"This is Rand Funeral Home," Thomas Rand's bland voice informed me Sunday evening. "I have an obit."
"Just a second." I opened a new file on the computer, settled the receiver more comfortably between ear and shoulder and wriggled my fingers over the keyboard. "Go ahead."
"Angel Bolduc," he said. "Sixteen. Died Saturday evening at Waterville Hospital of injuries sustained in a traffic accident."
I took it down and all the rest, my fingers mindlessly typing what my ears heard: how Angel had been an honor student, a star player on the varsity ice hockey team, an active member of the Wimsy DARE chapter, and part-time front desk clerk at the Mill. Survivors included her parents, two sisters, maternal grandfather and paternal great-grandmother. A brother, Jonathan Charles, had died last summer.
"Of an overdose of drugs," the bland voice said, momentarily becoming a shade less bland. "The family asked that be included."
I cleared my throat. "Sure," I said, and typed it in.
"In lieu of flowers," Mr. Rand continued, "donations may be sent in her name to the Wimsy chapter of DARE."
I typed that, too, then the visiting hours, the day and time of the funeral.
My fingers came to a rest and I cleared my throat again. "I'd like to read this back to you," I said, "to make sure I haven't missed anything."
"Thank you," Mr. Rand said with unaccustomed courtesy. "I would appreciate that."
I ran the file to the top and began, squinting a little at the wavery, soft-edged letters. At the end of the obit, I closed my eyes entirely.
"Very good," said Mr. Rand. "I may have another later on this evening. How late can I call?"
"Tomorrow's page closes at eight," I heard myself say, calm and professional. "If I know there's an obit coming, I can ask the editor to hold it 'til nine."
There was a thoughtful pause. "That won't be necessary," he decided. "If I don't get back to you before deadline, I'll call it in for Wednesday's paper. Good-night."
"Good-night," I said numbly. Eyes still closed, I cradled the phone, then just sat there, feeling empty and peculiarly light-headed.
Honestly, Jennifer, I told myself, get a grip. Kids die all the time. In fact, kids die so often and of such varied causes that I'm sometimes astonished so many do live to grow up.
But this was–different. A kid walking home from school along a stretch of road she'd probably walked every single day; a good kid, a bright kid, obeying the traffic laws, maybe thinking about her homework, or her boyfriend, or the DARE extravaganza she was helping to organize for the high school, when out of nowhere…
"Problem, Miz Pierce?"
I started, eyes snapping open and focusing on Bill Jacques' blunt face. He crossed his arms on the rickety divider that separated Sue's desk from mine. "You're looking a trifle peaked, if you don't mind my saying so," he commented.
I swallowed, moved my eyes back to the screen where the obit lurked, in fuzzy yellow letters, the name shimmering at the top of the screen: Angel Bolduc. I looked back at Bill.
"The kid died," I said and my voice cracked. I cleared my throat. "Angel Bolduc. Last night. Never came out of the coma."
He sighed and rubbed at the indentation his glasses had left across the bridge of his nose.
"Rough one," he said, refolding his arms. "That's the same family lost the boy back last June?"
I nodded.
"They must be out of their minds." He sighed again. "Well, nobody said the game was fair." He looked closely into my face. "You going to be OK?"
"I'll be OK," I said, though I was still feeling a tad light-headed.
He nodded and straightened, patting the top of my monitor with a light palm. "Send that over to me when you're done. I'll fill in some stuff and give her a right send-off." He turned. Turned back.
"When's the funeral?"
"Wednesday afternoon."
"That'll be Sue's, then," he said and headed back to his desk.
*
I finished my shift in a kind of gray blear and drove home in the same condition. In the kitchen, I hung pocketbook and parka on pegs, turned, and just stood there, feeling– and probably looking–like a gangly robot that's lost its programming.
"Shit." I raised both hands and combed my hair back hard from my face. When my fingers snagged on wind-knots, I ruthlessly pushed them through, welcoming the minor twinges of pain.
"Get a grip," I told myself, speaking loudly in the cold, quiet kitchen. "It's a damn' shame she died, but for God's sake, Jennifer, you didn't even know the kid."
What kind of a person do you have to be, Sue Danforth wondered from the edge of my memory, to hit somebody like that and just drive away?
It didn't necessarily follow that the person who had hit Angel was evil, or even a garden variety badass. He could have been frightened, or only criminally negligent. And the point was, it didn't matter which of those sorts of people or any other had done the deed: Angel had taken her death the instant she'd been struck. It had taken her five days to finish the business, under the best care Waterville Hospital could muster, but if the guy in the truck hadn't happened to glance down into the ditch and spot the red parka, she'd have been dead a little sooner. That was all.
When I was living in Baltimore and working at the university for the second time, I'd formed a friendship of convenience with Professor of Research and Statistics Michael DiSandro, "Stats" as he was known to his intimates.
It is not easy being the only son of an Old School Italian family, and Stats' position was made less comfortable by the fact that there was a considerable inheritance to be lost, did he fail to toe the heterosexual line. So, I "dated" Stats as required for effect, and he returned the favor on the rare occasions when I needed an escort. It was a system that worked so well that we became actual friends, though I did have to place a moratorium on statistics.
Michael DiSandro's pure passion in life was statistics. He would quote, jiggle and juggle them for hours. He'd talk variances and covariances through cocktails, dinner and the play, if left unchecked, and never could understand why no one else seemed to find his numbers as delightful and clever as he did himself.
One of the statistical lines he kept close tabs on was the mortality rate of Baltimore City children, ages six to eighteen. The project had started as an "exercise," he told me, but soon took on an urgency of its own.
"They're dying in droves out there, Jen–drive-bys, overdoses, traffic accidents, beatings, burnings, drownings, starvation, and sheer stupidity." He'd shaken his head and knocked back a slug of Walker Red. "I wouldn't be sixteen again for anything you could name. It's worse than a jungle out there. It's a war zone."
But that had been Baltimore–a big, tough, urban sprawl that sucked in lives like a black hole sucks in light. This was Maine–Wimsy, Maine, population 3,212. People were safe in Wimsy.
Wrong.
People in Maine want to believe they're safe, that murder and rape and drug dealing are problems belonging to the make-believe land of Away. There are so few murders in Maine, thirty-seven in 1988, that each one can be–and is–held up for public scrutiny and censured as the act of a monster. Rape is a little more popular–243 reported in a state-wide population of one-million-two. Drugs–drugs are worming their way in, though no one seems to know how quickly or exactly how much. Just like drugs everywhere.
The fact is that no place is "safe". People die everywhere. Not even an honor student from Wimsy High School is immune.
A gust of wind hit the side of the house, shaking the windows like so many loose teeth. I jumped, shivering in a sudden runnel of icy air, and my eye snagged on the clock above the refrigerator.
Twelve forty-five.
"Time for bed, Jen," I told myself, trying to ignore the fact that I did not feel in the least bit sleepy.
Deliberately, I marched across the kitchen, snapped off the light and climbed the stairs.
"C'mon, Jasper," I called out, as if I wasn't certain he was already nested in the quilts and snoozing. "Bedtime!"
*
The right to bear arms MUST NOT be given away! I read an hour later, sleep having after all been impossible. Mark Bernier was almost as fond of exclamation points as he was of his extensive collection of firearms. He was normally one of the quieter citizens of Random Access, but every once in a while somebody somewhere made a noise that sounded like "gun control" and Mark dragged out his cybersoapbox and jumped aboard. The proximate cause this time seemed to be the President's proposal to institute a waiting period for the purchase of bullets.
The Minutemen had no bullets!! Mark told us. But they had silver and pewter and the need to defend their country!!! A waiting period for bullets will no more keep a REAL AMERICAN from readiness than that same lack kept the Minutemen out of war!
Mark's tirade ended with KEEP THE FAITH!!! and I breathed a sigh of relief before I scrolled down to the next message. It was from Lisa, in response to Mark's pro-gun advertisement.
I HATE guns, she stated, with un-Lisalike abruptness. I don't think anybody needs to carry a gun. Not even policemen or soldiers. If there weren't any guns, then we wouldn't need to have policemen or soldiers and if everybody ate cows and chickens and fish then nobody would need guns to hunt. Hunting's cruel. Guns are cruel. My husband had a gun and I made him get rid of it when we got married. I won't live in a house with a gun. I think the government should take all the guns away from everybody and melt them all down to make cars out of. Lisa.
And so there, I thought, blinking at the screen in slight bemusement. This was not the first anti-gun message I'd seen from Lisa–her rhapsodies against the cruelty of guns and hunting had hit a crescendo during deer hunting season, back in November–but it was by far the most coherent. I'd gotten the impression through reading her various notes on the subject that Lisa was more than merely gunshy; she was a gun-phobe. She'd stated on more than one occasion that the mere sight of a gun made her sick to her stomach.
I sighed and touched the key to scroll on to the next message. Fanatics of any flavor make me uneasy. I was no more comfortable with Lisa's sentiments–though I did find a certain charm in the suggestion that cars be fabricated from melted guns–than I was with Mark's ready-on-the-right rhetoric. Middle of the road Jen, I thought, always wants the world in balance…
The next message was from Skip Leterneau, addressed to "All Users."
Hi, there. I'm with the mitten project and would like to ask anybody who has any yarn to donate to leave me a message here. I can pick it up or you can leave it at the library or at the co-op or at Skip's Skis if you're in the neighborhood. It doesn't have to be a lot of yarn, a skein makes a difference, but I can't use any little ends. The children thank you for your help. SKIP
Oops. I'd forgotten all about that. I pulled a pad of paper out of my desk drawer and made a note to buy a couple skeins of wool and leave them at Mother's Pantry co-op for Skip to pick up.
Skip's was the last message. The clock in the upper right-hand corner of my screen read 01:56:59 a.m., time and enough to seek my bed and court sleep once more, if Angel Bolduc would let me. I moved my finger toward <G> for Goodbye.
The screen shimmered, broke and reformed into the familiar chat field.
Jennifer, it's two o'clock in the morning.
I grinned and shook my head while my fingers danced across the keys in response. But I know where my cat is. Where do you get off yelling about my bedtime, anyway? *You* pulled *me* into chat.
Touché, Fox acknowledged. I don't suppose you'll believe I'm typing in my sleep?
Not at that speed. What's up?
I'm working on a project. Thought I had a breakthrough–about five hours ago. I just looked up and saw you on the board and thought I'd say hello and ask you what on earth a mitten project is.
I grinned. It's a Good Work. Some of the memes–the grandmothers–and other good-workers knit mittens. Dozens and dozens of pairs of mittens. Check out the library and the IGA–they usually put up their mitten trees along about Thanksgiving. By a couple weeks before Christmas there are mitten boxes all over town. The idea is that if a kid loses his pair all he has to do is find a mitten box and take another pair. Skip's got a late start this year–must've been busy up at the shop.
Skip knits mittens? Fox inquired, dubiously–or so it seemed to me.
That's right. I hear his sister Julia used to be the champion Wimsy knitter, but she married four or five years ago and moved to Skowhegan. Skip does pretty well–couple dozen mittens a year, usually. Not too bad for a guy who runs a small engine repair shop.
Not bad at all, Fox agreed. Thank you, Jennifer.
No problem. I answered, and changed the subject. What do you think about Lisa's idea of melting all the guns down for automobiles?
I think it an interesting notion, though I suspect Lisa needs to read more comprehensively in the field.
Alone in my room, I laughed out loud. I suspect so, too, I typed, when I was able. Tell you what, I'll go to bed now if you will.
There was a slight pause, then: That sounds a fair bargain. Good-night, Jennifer. Sleep well.
You, too, I typed, and the chat screen shimmered and vanished.