“I know you’re out there,” I said. “You better come in before you freeze.”
But the night was unusually warm, in the forties, and there was no answer. I lit a cigarette and was smoking heartily, massaging my head as if it would help my brain sort out this latest appearance, when I heard the front door swing open. I turned around, and there she was, wrapped up in my father’s black cashmere coat, pale and wasted, her teeth chattering.
“Mother?”
“You’re not happy to see me,” she said.
“How did you get here?”
“Your father knows where you are,” she said. “You should leave while you still can.”
“Sit down,” I said. I went over to her and she sat in the nearest chair waving me off. “You don’t look good. You should be in the hospital.”
She shook her head. “What you mean to say is that I should be dead.”
“No I don’t.”
“Then let me stay a while. I’ll be no trouble.”
“That’s not my point.”
“Then what is your point?”
“How did you get here?”
“Taxi,” she said and she smiled. “I can always get to where I want. It’s you who seem to have a problem finding your way around, finding your loved ones.”
She was exhausted. The act of speaking seemed too much for her.
“You should lie down,” I said. I placed my hands on her shoulders and led her down the hallway to the bedroom. I took off her coat and she crawled into bed.
“I’m cold,” she said. “Lie next to me.”
I got in beside her, as we’d slept so many times when I was younger.
“Mom,” I said. “I want to know about the bones.”
“Oh, the bones. That’s quite a long story.”
“That’s all right. We have time.”
“Then I’ll start at the beginning. You know about the whale ship Essex?”
“A whale sank it.” I said. “It’s the basis for Moby-Dick.”
“Moby-Dick leads up to the story of the Essex. It’s like a prequel.”
“What does this have to do with the bones at the Hidalgo?”
“The survivors tried to make it to Chile in the whaleboats. They could have made it to Tahiti, which was much closer, but they were scared of cannibals. When the survivors were found, they were clutching the bones of their departed friends.”
“They’d eaten them?”
“Yes, but they held the bones. When their rescuers tried to take the bones away, they cried. You see, they loved their departed comrades, they cherished their remains, and couldn’t bare to let them go.”
“I thought the bones at the Hidalgo were Anasazi.”
“The Anasazi disappeared. No one knows where they went. Maybe the earth swallowed them up, and all we have to show they lived is their bones and a few pottery shards, some buildings crumbling in the desert.”
“Oh mother, give me a straight answer.”
“We all disappear, Katherine. We are all nothing but bones, briefly animated, then still.”
I was still pondering this, almost relieved to see my mother’s dementia alive and well, which made her animation so much more real, and was about to pursue my original line of questioning when I heard her breath slow and realized she had fallen asleep.
Later that night the phone rang. I was in the bathroom and by the time I had reached the living room, the answering machine had already picked up.
“Katherine, this is Barry. I left a message for you last week, which I presume you did not receive. It’s about the bones. The Anasazi bones you found in your mother’s attic? They’re not Anasazi at all. Actually, the bones are only ten years old. I had to turn them over to the New Mexico police. They just called me. The bones belong to a young man who went missing in 1993. Do you have any idea what they were doing in your mother’s attic? Please call me…” and then the machine cut him off. The phone rang again. “Katherine, this is Barry Buster Parkinson. I just left a message, but I’m not sure if it got recorded. Call me. My number is 512–555–9874. The bones are new. The bones are new.”
29
My mother woke me up the following morning. She was standing by my dresser, looking at my things. She looked surprisingly well. The FedEx envelope was still there, pretty much undisturbed, and she was going through it.
“Is this all there’s left of me?” she said smiling. She was holding the postcard of The Raft of the Medusa.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I was still half-asleep.
“The safe-deposit key, these earrings, my hair…”
“My hair,” I corrected her. “The hair is mine.”
“That’s right,” she said. She held the dogwood earrings out to me. “You always liked these.”
“I like them on you,” I said.
My mother brushed her hair back and held the earrings up to her ears, then she put them on.
Later that evening I received more unexpected visitors. My mother was napping silently down the hall and I had a cup of tea in my hands when the doorbell rang. Kevin barked from the couch, but couldn’t be bothered to get up. I opened the door just a crack. It was Detective Yancy and Officer Brown.
“Good evening,” I said. “What brings you here?”
“I think you know,” said Detective Yancy.
But I didn’t know. There was a lot going on. I opened the door. “Can I interest you in a cup of tea?”
“No thank you,” said Detective Yancy. “We’d like a minute of your time.”
“All right then.” I went into the living room and the two men followed me. I turned off the television and gestured for them to take the couch, next to Kevin. I arranged myself in the easy chair cradling my tea in my hands. “What appears to be the problem?”
“Is there a problem?” asked Detective Yancy cryptically.
“I would assume as much. You are here and not at your policeman’s ball, or whatever it is that occupies you on Friday nights.”
Officer Brown smiled.
“What do you know of Mr. Connor’s suitcase?” asked Detective Yancy.
“Not as much as you do,” I said. “Where did you find it?”
“In Portland,” said Detective Yancy. “In a dumpster.”
“Portland? Are you sure it’s his?”
“His manuscript was in there.”
Officer Brown was about to say something when Detective Yancy raised his hand to silence him.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe Travis did kill himself.”
“I don’t think he did that,” said Officer Brown. Then he covered his mouth as a way of apologizing to his superior.
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?” I asked. “I really have no idea how the suitcase got in the dumpster. None. Give me a lie detector test if you don’t believe me.”