"Are you still in New Mexico?" Zoe asked.
"Yeah. Actually, the reason I called was to tell you guys I won't be able to make your birthday party on Tuesday."
"Just a minute," Zoe ordered. "Can you guys turn it down?" Back to Cree: "What did you say?"
"I said I've got to stay on here for a few days, maybe longer. Kind of an emergency. I won't be able to get there for your birthday party."
"Oh, man. Mom's going to be p-… um, peeved." Zoe muffled the receiver, but Cree could still hear the scowl in her voice as she called out to her family, "Great! Aunt Cree isn't coming to the party!"
"I'm really sorry, Zoe. I've got some presents for you girls, though. I miss you like crazy. Hey, you should have seen where I went today-this tram ride that went up the mountain here? Like being in an airplane. Zoe, seriously, you'd have loved it."
Zoe didn't answer. Cree heard the noise of the receiver being handled and then Hyacinth was there. "Hi, Aunt Cree. Why can't you come?"
"Oh, there are some people who need my help here. It's an emergency."
"A ghost emergency?"
"Yeah," Cree said, wondering if that was quite the way to describe it.
"Well, I hope it turns out all right for them. Do you think it's significant?"
The two girls were identical twins, yet they were as different as the Fourth of July and Easter. As always, Hy had gone to the heart of the issue, instantly feeling concern for the client. Just going on eleven years old but so adult. "Significant": She'd heard Cree use the word before.
"Could be, yes. I should talk to your mom now, Hy. Sorry I can't make it Tuesday. Have a great party. I love you girls like a pile of elephants, okay? Big love, right? Tell Zoe for me."
When Deirdre came on, she wasn't peeved but concerned. Cree would have preferred peeved. Dee was two years younger than Cree and, Cree had always thought, much prettier and more grounded, in enviable control of her life. Her voice was smoothly modulated, the tone of a mother and middle-school teacher habituated to setting a good example.
"Everything all right?"
"Sure. Just a case coming up suddenly. You know."
"An important one, I take it."
"It involves a student at a school for Navajo kids. It's urgent or I wouldn't bag out on the party. I know you could have used my help."
"We could have used your company. We'll miss you." Dee hesitated. "But what about New Orleans? Weren't you going to go see Paul?"
"Yeah. Well. I'll probably go in a couple of weeks." Deirdre had kept the question casual, but Cree knew the concern was there and it pissed her off that everything she did scared people. That any change of plan might signal a problem in her relationship with Paul. Her relationship with the world of the living.
She injected some briskness into her tone: "Anyway, I'm here looking out over the infamous Route 66, and I've been having a great time. The food here is terrific-I could get addicted to the green chili. Everybody you meet is really nice. And the landscape is truly majestic. I don't mind the idea of spending more time here."
"Sounds great," Dee said, a little distantly.
They were quiet for a moment as Cree figured out what she'd wanted to ask. "Dee, I have a question for you. About kids. I feel like I'm kind of out of my league with them, the only ones I hang out with are yours? So I was thinking about this boy I'll be dealing with, what my underlying priority should be. I thought you'd be a good person to ask. As a mom."
"I can't claim to be any expert at that. But give me a try."
Cree thought about how to phrase it. "What's the main thing you do for your kids?"
"I don't understand."
" Well-what do they need most? What's the most important thing you do for them? Not to feed or clothe them, but emotionally. Developmentally. To, I don't know, prepare them for life."
"Oh, that. And here I thought you were asking me something weighty and complex!" Dee joked. She thought about it for a long moment, and Cree could hear the TV in the background again: The female crocodile will guard her nest fiercely, but once her eggs are hatched these baby crocs are on their own in a hostile world. "Well, when I have a moment to even think about this without noise and distraction and pressing needs, I guess I think of my main job as helping the girls know who they are."
"Explain."
"Maybe I emphasize that because I've got twins, and I don't ever want to treat them as interchangeable personalities? But any mother will agree. A child should know who she is. What she wants, what she doesn't want. What she believes in, what her values are."
"Mmmm," Cree agreed.
"She should know the difference between what comes from inside herself, what she gets from her family, and what she absorbs from popular culture. If a kid doesn't know that, she can't make good choices. Right now, for my girls, it's differentiating between personal values and peer pressure-like, oh, whether to try smoking or not, even if friends are. Soon it'll be how far to go with a boyfriend. Then it'll be what career she wants to devote her life to, or what man. Or what values to fight for. So I see my job as laying that foundation of self-knowledge. I'm always kind of asking them to look at who they are, to make decisions based on what they see in themselves." Dee cleared her throat. "That is, if I'm doing my job right. Which I manage, oh, about ten percent of the time."
"Uh-huh," Cree said skeptically. Dee was a terrific mother. In her mind she tried on the question for size: Who are you, Tommy Keeday?
"I don't know if any of this applies to your kid out there," Dee went on. "But you need it all your life, right? How can you do anything if you don't know who you are?"
So very true, Cree was thinking after they'd said good-bye. Life was indeed an ongoing quest to discover who you were. Or maybe that was just the perspective of the metaphysically inclined, widowed sister, an inadvertent empath who was constantly exploring the nebulous interface between self and others and almost always discovering only uncertainties.
The night scene out the window was bothering Cree, but still she didn't draw the drapes. She looked down at her address book, the list of names and numbers. Why was it that the first thing she did when she took on a big investigation was this-this ritual of cutting off contact? Every significant case seemed to demand that she cancel something, put family and friends on hold, postpone things. Make excuses for why she wasn't a normal human being. Say good-bye as if she might not be coming back. Give hollow assurances she was being smart and taking care of herself. It was a rite of making ready. Like an ocean-voyaging ship, casting off the ropes as it got ready to leave shore, she had to sever her ties with the normal world. A way of isolating herself. Of becoming a woman alone.
On one level, that sounded scary, but in fact she liked the feeling. She couldn't deny that it gave her a sense of strength and self-sufficiency. It was like the feeling she used to savor on stormy days when she was a little girclass="underline" putting on her big yellow raincoat and rain hat, borrowing Mom's umbrella, and going out to sit in the pouring rain. That feeling of solitude and tidy self-containment. Everything sopping and wild around you, but you were dry and safe in your glistening yellow armor. Everything you really needed, right there.
She dialed Edgar's home number, and he picked up after two rings. She was glad to hear his voice.
"It's me".
"Hey, Cree. How'd it go?"
"The talk? Really well. The other presenters were great, too."
" But-?"
She'd said, what, a dozen words to him, and he already could tell she was off balance. Suddenly Cree missed him painfully, missed his lanky body and wry grin and the way it felt to be around a man who knew her so well. She wished she could tell him that, but it was best to keep away from the complex of feelings there. Since last spring, when she'd begun an unexpected and still largely undeveloped romance with Paul Fitzpatrick in New Orleans, Ed had pulled away considerably. It was his way of giving her room to explore it without pressure from him. But though she had accepted the necessity of distance, she hated it, and in the last few months she'd learned just how deep her ambivalences ran. Maybe it wasn't just Ed who felt more than friendship. If Ed were here tonight, they'd go out and explore Albuquerque and have a good time. They'd drink and dance-he was a knockout dancer-and confide and tell bad-taste jokes as they walked the night streets together. The thought confused her and she put it away.