Beyond Confusion, page 22
The audience smiled and chuckled.
“I brought our principal chief here tonight to honor Annie. Tomorrow, in Flume, we will dance for Annie.” She gave a brisk nod and tottered back to her chair.
Cheers from the young people who had greeted Mrs. Hoover led the applause. Meg clapped, too, eyes prickling.
As she stepped forward again to introduce Maddie, something flashed past Meg’s head and hit the bookmobile with a whack. Pat shouted. Nussbaum jumped to his feet. Another missile flew but it fell short of the bus.
“Please, everyone. Please.” Meg had no idea what she meant. She was damned if she was going to drop onto her belly, though that was probably what she should do.
The crowd milled and yelled. Signs swayed. Toward the back, near the hedge that separated the parking lot from the sidewalk, a scrum of dark forms tussled and heaved. She thought she saw Beth. As Meg watched, a uniformed policeman leaped from the city car and ran across the street toward the action.
“Please be calm.” Meg pitched her voice so that, thanks to the microphone, it filled the area. “Now you know what the attack was like. That was an ice soaker that just hit the bus. I’m from a hotter place than Flume, so I had to be told that an ice soaker is a ball of ice with a rock in the middle. They make a lot of noise when they hit metal. One of them hit me on the side of the head yesterday, which may explain why I’m not very articulate tonight.” She was chattering to override the turmoil. She peered. “Ah, I see that things are calming down. If I may have your attention...”
People had stopped screeching and jumping around, but they were still talking in high excited voices. Meg waited. The cop waved at her and shouted something. Everybody watched as he and two other men led two kids in parkas across to the patrol car. Beth followed them.
“That was invigorating. May I have your attention, please?” Meg repeated the refrain until the audience was quiet. “Thank you. Our second guest needs no introduction to most of you. Madeline Thomas is hereditary chief of the Two Falls Band and principal chief of the Klalos. She is also a longtime Friend of the Library. Ladies and gentlemen, Chief Thomas.”
Madeline smiled at the applause. “Thank you. I’m a Friend of the Library, because the library has been a friend to me. Last year the Klalo Nation received a bequest from Miss Fern Trout. She left us her family’s farm, an orchard outside Two Falls. Margaret McLean and I have conferred, and the upshot is that the Klalos will donate the farmhouse to the library district, to serve as the new Two Falls Branch Library.” There was a stir of interest and a scattering of applause. Madeline raised a calming hand.
Meg felt a moment of intense annoyance. Maddie should have warned her. All the same, she trusted the chief’s instincts. Maddie was taking advantage of a dramatic moment to underline the tribe’s generosity and probably to convince rivals and disaffected tribe members that she’d made a good decision. She’d also made an end run around the holdouts on the library board.
“...and that will free up money from the levy to replace the old bookmobile,” she was saying. “The farmhouse is our gift not just to the library, but to the people of Latouche County. We in Two Falls, all of us, not just the Klalos, need the new library, but the bookmobile serves the whole library region. We need it, and we need Annie Baldwin to drive it. Thank you all.”
Warm applause followed, with cheers from the Hoover contingent. Out on the street, the police car pulled away, and a county car replaced it. Beth walked back to the parking lot. Meg breathed a sigh of relief.
She thanked Madeline and talked a bit about the pictures on the website and the donations coming in to the Foundation from faraway places. Then she launched into her account of the attack on the bookmobile. She kept it as crisp and factual as she could.
“It was a frightening experience,” she said when she reached the point at which Todd and the ambulance arrived, “and I’ve thought a lot about it. I want to share those thoughts with you. First, Annie had already fallen by the time I reached the bus, and when I got to her she was unconscious. The people standing on church property could see her. They were right across the street.”
Silence.
“They continued to throw snowballs and rocks at the bus, they went on calling Annie names, and they made no effort to help her. I had already called 911, and I think someone else had, too, but the people standing there chanting and throwing things hadn’t.”
She let the silence ring. It had a rhythm of its own.
“The second thing I want to mention is that nobody else was coming to the bookmobile. In fact, other than the church people, Wendy Resnik, Harley Hoover, and his young helpers, I saw nobody out on that street at all. So I think it’s safe to say that people in Flume who would have used the bookmobile were afraid to go to it. People without cars, young mothers with toddlers, elderly people.”
Silence. The candles flickered. One of them guttered.
Meg drew an amplified breath. “The third thing I want to mention is the names this...congregation was using against Annie.”
The crowd stirred.
“Harlot and bitch are merely despicable slanders, but witch is something else.”
At that point there were groans and murmurs but no one interrupted her.
“You probably know that some religious groups object to the portrayal of witches in movies and books. Works like Harry Potter, or I suppose, Macbeth. I’m not a great believer in witches myself. The term means whatever an unscrupulous person wants it to mean. Mostly it means ‘this is a woman I don’t like.’ ”
Nods and murmurs of agreement.
“Boycotting books and films, picketing, preaching, discussing black magic—all of those are perfectly legitimate things to do. At the same time, I want to remind you that women in this country were put to death because their neighbors imagined they were practicing witchcraft. I also want to mention that the preferred method of executing witches in the Old Testament is to stone them to death.”
There was a collective moan.
“They were throwing rocks at Annie Baldwin!” Meg heard herself shout. Just like Harley Hoover. She bit her lip and took a calming breath. She needed to finish before she lost control.
“People in rural Latouche County, and in every rural area of this country, have a right to read what they want to read without being intimidated by liars and slanderers—by bullies who orchestrate violence and hide under the tattered cloak of piety. Thank you for coming tonight to honor a brave woman, and please, please support Annie’s bookmobile.”
She was only half-aware of applause and shouts of encouragement. A reporter came up, and Meg said something vague to him. Beth waved and slipped away. The mayor had gone. Mrs. Hoover smiled and patted Meg’s arm. Meg shook a lot of hands. Eventually everyone including Meg went home.
Chapter 21
It wasn’t until she had parked the Accord in her garage that Meg started to shake. A light shone in the kitchen. She made it to the back door, fumbled her key into the lock, and wobbled inside. The house was warm but silent. Rob had not come to the rally. She supposed he must be asleep, though it was not yet ten.
She rejected scotch in favor of chamomile tea, slopped water into the kettle and set it to boil, warmed the teapot, and finally, when the shaking stopped, hung her parka on its hook by the door. As she did, she heard creaking sounds above, but she had brewed her tea and sat down to sip it before Rob appeared, almost at her elbow.
She jumped. Tea spilled into her saucer.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He wore the gi and was barefoot, his ghost persona.
“You didn’t come to the rally.” She hadn’t meant to sound accusatory.
“No.” He sat, grimacing. “Hug called me. Said you had an incident.”
“Somebody threw a snowball.”
“Ice soaker.”
“Whatever. They took two kids into custody.”
“From the church. I e-mailed your photos to Wade. He recognized the boys from the crowd in Flume. Handgun in their pickup. Unregistered.” He was speaking in bursts. “Keeping them overnight.”
“Are you okay?”
“Trying to cut the medication.”
“Why?”
“I needed to think. Tell me how it went.”
Meg collected her wits. As she told him about the rally, the good feelings it had generated came back with a renewal of energy. By the time she wound down, she almost felt up to posting an account of the rally to the nice people who were sending money from Saskatoon and Hampstead and Sydney.
She offered Rob tea, which he refused, and warmed her own. “The best thing was all those librarians showing up. Oh, and Mrs. Hoover. She’s terrific.”
“I bet Maddie was front and center.”
“Well, yes.” Meg grinned. “Toujours the politician. I wish I had the instinct.”
Rob didn’t smile. “Your brother called.”
Meg set her cup down. “Duncan?”
“Yes. We talked.”
“I suppose he’s upset.”
“Yes. I explained why you came home.”
Meg turned that over in her mind. “Thank you, I think.”
A muscle jumped at the hinge of his jaw. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Why the hell did I have to explain to your brother who I am?” He didn’t shout, but he might as well have.
Meg went cold. “What do you mean?”
He fell silent, obviously wrestling with his temper. At last he said with evident care, “We’ve been together four years, you and I. Duncan is the brother you communicate with. Isn’t it a little strange that he didn’t have a clue? He thought I was a neighbor, or a passing Jehovah’s Witness, or the goddamn doctor making a housecall.”
“Duncan and I don’t talk about anything but family.” The moment Meg said that, she knew she couldn’t have said anything stupider or more hurtful. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.
Rob stared at her.
Tears welled in her eyes.
He closed his. “And please don’t cry. I can’t deal with that now. In fact, I can’t deal with anything right now. Good night, Meg.” He shoved himself to his feet, grunting with pain, and walked out of the kitchen.
It was one of the more miserable nights of Meg’s existence. When she dragged herself upstairs an hour later, Rob was so heavily asleep he had to have taken a pain pill. She didn’t try to wake him. He needed to rest and heal. So she told herself. She was also afraid to wake him.
She lay still beside him for hours, thinking about him and about her mother. She slept a little, waking with a start and sliding back into dream-plagued sleep. At five she got up and went downstairs. It had warmed up during the long night. The rain dissolved snow and ice, cleaning everything.
She took a shower in the tub downstairs and dressed in clothes from the drier. She tried to think about Rob, but her mind ran in circles. At six-thirty, she was posting her version of the rally on the website when she heard him come downstairs. She jumped up and ran to the kitchen.
“Hi.”
“Will you help me out of my corset?” He ran a hand through his hair, which stood up.
“What! Oh, the strapping.”
“Yeah. Takes too much twisting to get it off. I need a shower.” He sounded bleak and distant.
“Okay, but I’ll follow you upstairs and do it there.” The less time he spent with unstrapped ribs the better.
“Okay.” He trudged back up and took off the jacket of the gi. He’d slept in it, and it was crumpled and sweaty.
Meg did not want to look at the bruise on his chest, but she gritted her teeth and undid the Velcro straps that held the device in place. Corset was not a bad name for it—it looked Victorian. The bruise was still fresh, black with blue edges, a little off-center, and huge.
Meg gulped. She was not going to cry. “That’s horrible.”
“Yes.” He headed for the shower. “Maybe you can see why I wasn’t about to fire the Glock at a hundred-and-ten-pound girl who was not wearing body armor. Thanks.”
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“Coffee.” He turned back, wincing, and smiled a little. “Toujours Meg.” That was more like Rob.
She expelled a relieved breath. “Pancakes.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“No, but you will be.” She practically ran downstairs, grateful for something to do. She heard the shower running, and thought she heard his cell phone ring. When he came down, the pancake batter was ready, and she had fried bacon and warmed the maple syrup.
“Coffee smells good.” He wore a clean gi. He saw her looking at it. “Easiest thing to get in and out of.” He laid the rib protector on the table and took off the jacket. “Maybe I’ll wear the gi to work.”
Meg fumbled around but got the straps tight enough eventually. He was sweating by the time she finished. He sat in stages, eyes shut.
She set coffee in front of him and turned to the griddle. “Did you take a pain pill?” She poured batter onto the hot surface.
“Yes, ma’am.” He picked up his mug.
She watched bubbles form in the batter and flipped the first cake.
“I’m sorry, Meg. I should not have rained on your parade last night.”
“You meant what you said.”
“Yes, but I didn’t need to say it then.”
She slipped the pancake onto a warming plate and poured more batter. “When I said Duncan and I only talk about family, I meant that he updates me on my parents and brothers, and on everybody’s offspring. He asks polite questions about Lucy. I tell him her accomplishments. I never tell him anything else about her, not her bad jokes or that speeding ticket she got or her latest boyfriend. That would be too much information. We say a word or two about our work. That’s it. We don’t even talk politics. Both of us are making an effort, but it is an effort.”
“I see. I misunderstood.”
Meg flipped the second pancake. “I confided in Aunt Margaret. I confide in you. I don’t confide in Duncan.”
“Why not? He seems like a nice guy.”
“He is. I just don’t trust him. With reason,” she added, bitter, thinking of the last week.
Rob ate his pancake very slowly. He didn’t touch the bacon. Neither of them said anything for a while. Meg warmed both coffees.
At last Rob said, “When my father was killed, I felt sad and angry, but when my mother died, I felt like a worthless piece of shit.”
“Rob!”
“Hush. I do have a point. Would you say that you left LA feeling like a piece of shit?”
“Yes.”
“Before he shipped out, Dad took me aside and told me to be brave and take care of my mother.”
“How could he?”
“Come on, Meg. It’s the kind of thing men in precarious occupations have always told their sons. Daughters, too, for all I know.”
“What happened?” Meg whispered but she knew.
“My mother went haywire when he was killed. She cried and yelled and drank too much. After a while she partied nonstop. She was still young. I guess she was trying not to grow up. Or denying that things had changed. She ran her car off the road when she was drunk, and I thought I’d failed her. My father didn’t mean to do that to me. What he said was just a platitude.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too. It probably cost me my marriage.”
Meg stared at him.
His eyes were somber. “After my grandfather died, I decided I had to move up here, no matter what, to take care of my grandmother.”
“But...”
“I probably didn’t have to. Gran was surprised. She had good care-givers and lots of friends. I could have come up and visited every month, talked with her on the phone each night, that kind of thing. But I quit my job and told my wife we were moving north.”
“And she refused?”
“Of course she refused. All her friends were down there. She was a stay-at-home mom, and her house meant a lot to her. Her family was there. And she hates rain.”
Meg said in a small voice, “Do you wish you were still married to her?”
His mouth eased in a smile. “No. She’d drive me nuts. And vice versa. Also, pardon me, but I don’t like Southern California. I just wish I hadn’t been so damned compulsive. I hurt her unnecessarily. And Willow, too.”
“Willow’s okay.”
“I hope so.” He swallowed coffee. “I’ve gone way around the block to get a simple point across. My dad didn’t really think an eight-year-old could take care of a grown woman—or should. He was probably just telling me to behave myself.”
“I see.” Meg didn’t.
“Your brother didn’t really think the sight of his illegitimate granddaughter would give your father a heart attack. What he thought was that your father would create a scene, ruin the funeral for your mother’s children, and hurt Lucy’s feelings.”
Meg turned that over in her mind. “I’m not sure I believe it.”
Rob shrugged and winced at the incautious move. “I could be wrong. Duncan was a little incoherent. Whatever he meant, though, you should talk it over with him. Not now when you’re still raw. Later. Call him for Christmas.”
Meg thought about it—and about Rob. She almost opened her mouth and said, “Marry me.” It would not have been good timing. Instead, she told him how her inadvertent fund-raising progressed. There would be enough for a down payment on a bus if the cash flow continued.
After eight, journalists started calling her. They had called before the rally, and she had left messages for them. Now they sounded urgent in the deadline-in-the-offing way of newshawks. She gave a couple of telephone interviews from her home office, decided it was only a matter of time before a video crew showed up at the library, and went upstairs to dress like a respectable librarian. She had only herself to blame.
