“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t call the police,” Esther said. “I didn’t call anyone.”
Seven
The instant she put down the phone she knew she’d done something foolish. Not the call itself, that was necessary, but claiming to be Mrs. Galloway — that was the mistake. And yet, while she was talking, it had seemed so natural to pretend to be Ron’s wife. “This is Mrs. Ronald Galloway” — the sound of it was exactly right.
After the phone call she went back upstairs to bed and to sleep, but in less than an hour she was awakened again by a bad dream. She could not remember the details of the dream, only that they had all been caught in a great flood, she and Ron and the baby and Harry, and they were being swept, screaming, out to sea. She awoke with the scream on her lips.
Her first thought was not of Ron or of Harry, but of the baby growing inside her. She pressed one hand gently to her stomach to calm the child in case it had been disturbed by the dream. Staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling she tried to imagine through her fingertips the child’s contours, the tiny head, the curved neck, the curled-up little body. Thelma had worked in a doctor’s office before she married Harry, and she knew quite well that the fetus at this early stage was quite hideous and bore almost no resemblance to a human baby. But when she pictured her own baby in her mind, it was beautiful, and perfectly formed and proportioned, like a tiny doll.
She kept her hand pressed to her stomach until she was satisfied that she’d felt a very faint movement, then she swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood up. Almost immediately a wave of nausea flooded over her. She opened her mouth and breathed deeply, watching herself in the bureau mirror and thinking how funny she looked and how glad she was that Harry wasn’t there to see her, or to ask questions or give advice.
Throughout most of her life Thelma had suffered from a nagging self-consciousness about her appearance. She knew she was not pretty, and now that she was beginning to gain weight she looked almost dumpy. But Harry’s unlimited devotion had given her both self-confidence and a sense of herself as a woman, so that the over-all impression she presented was one of graciousness and femininity. Her friends spoke of her as “attractive,” a term intended to obscure some of nature’s mistakes. What justified the term in Thelma’s case was the quality of her expression, which was warm and friendly and humorous. Children passing on the street smiled at her spontaneously, clerks in stores usually gave her special attention, and strangers she met at bus stops confided in her the most intimate details of their lives, mainly because Thelma looked at them as if she were really interested. Occasionally she was. But most of the time her expression was automatic and had nothing to do with how or what she was feeling. Turee called it “Thelma’s wan smile,” Harry called it her “sweet look,” Ron had never noticed it.
When the nausea had passed, Thelma put on her Sunday housecoat and combed her long hair carefully and tied it back with a ribbon to match the housecoat. Her eyes were still swollen from last night’s weeping, and the lids were transparent and tinged with purple like the skin of an onion. She bathed them in cold water and applied witch-hazel pads before going out to the back veranda to pick up the milk and the Sunday paper.
It was a beautiful spring day, alive with promises. Her neighbor, a widow named Mrs. Malverson, was already out in the garden cultivating her daffodils which had just come into bloom.
“Hi there, Thelma.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Malverson.”
“This is a day, isn’t it? Isn’t this a day, though?”
“It’s lovely, yes.”
“You don’t look so good, dear.”
“I’m fine.” A minute ago it had been true, but now the stab of the sharp sunlight hurt her eyes and its warmth made her feel feverish. She hugged the cold milk bottle to her breast.
“I bet you’re tired this morning. I saw your lights on till all hours last night.”
That snoop, Thelma thought, that nasty old snoop. But she couldn’t have seen Ron here — she always goes to the movies on Saturday night. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Couldn’t sleep, my land, you should have asked your husband for some pills. The ones he gave me last month for my neuralgia, they were a real blessing.”
“My husband went up north, fishing.”
“Did he now. Well, he couldn’t have picked nicer weather. I suppose you’ve noticed my early daffodils?”
“You showed them to me yesterday.”
“Mulching, that’s the secret. You and your husband should start a compost heap. How long’s he going to be away?”
“I’m not sure.”
Mrs. Malverson pushed back her straw gardening hat and wiped the perspiration off her forehead with her canvas glove. The gesture left a streak of dirt. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s go to church.”
“No, thank you just the same. I don’t feel...”
“You should come and get better acquainted at our little church. Today we’re having a very special service. Our leader is going to read the flowers.”
“Read the flowers?”
Mrs. Malverson threw back her head and laughed. “Spoken like a true unbeliever, curl of the lip and all. Well, I don’t mind. I was an unbeliever once myself. I said those very words exactly the way you just said them. Reads the flowers, I said, just like that. Nevertheless, that’s what our leader does. He reads the flowers that we bring, and in every flower there is a message from someone dear to us who is far away.”
Thelma stood nervous and indecisive, still clutching the Sunday paper and the milk bottle, which was beginning to weigh a ton. Yet she could not seem to drag herself away. Mrs. Malverson’s tongue and eye held her as securely as a lepidopterist’s pin holds a moth.
“Thelma,” Mrs. Malverson said softly, “you’ve changed. What’s happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
“I see such sorrow in you lately. Have you lost touch with someone dear to you?”
Thelma stared at her, pale and silent.
“Ah, that’s it. You’ve lost touch with someone dear to you and now you want a message, don’t you? Yes, I can see you badly want a message. Well, that’s easy. Come to church with me and bring a flower to be read.”
“No, I really...”
“Fresh, the flower must be fresh, and if you bring its root too, smelling of God’s earth, so much the better. Often the messages are stronger when the root is attached. This person you want a message from, is it a woman?”
“No.”
“A man, then. A man you have lost touch with. No, Thelma, I’m not prying. I only need to find out one other detail, for the color of the flower you bring will depend on it.”
“Color?”
“The color’s important. If he is alive, you will take a red flower, bright as blood. If he is what you call dead — we hate to use that term, it’s so misleading — but if he is dead, you will take a white flower.”
Thelma closed her eyes and began to sway. She could feel the milk bottle slipping out of her hands, she could hear the crash of glass and Mrs. Malverson’s cry of dismay, but she was powerless to respond. If he is what you call dead — we hate to use that term — dead...
“My goodness, I hope I didn’t say anything to upset you.” Mrs. Malverson lifted her skirt, stepped over the tiny boxwood hedge that divided the two properties, crossed the driveway, and started up the steps of Thelma’s back veranda. “Here, let me help you clean up that mess.”
“No!”
“Well, it’s the least I can do, seeing I...”
“Go away. Just go away.”
“Well, my goodness, you fly off the handle at anything these days. A body might think you were pregnant.”