I pushed the death of Poppy out of my mind. I tried not to think of all the unpleasant things Melinda and I had learned today. I forced myself not to think of the bag on the counter of my bathroom.
All that not thinking left my mind pretty empty. I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good conversationalist that night. I made an attempt to be a good listener, to encourage Corinne to talk, so I wouldn’t seem stupid by my silences. And I asked Robin a lot of questions. Phillip decided to talk about drug use in his school in California, to impress us unworldly southerners, I suppose. Robin reminded him in a few well-chosen anecdotes that he had spent the past two years living in Los Angeles among the movie crowd, and any stories Phillip chose to tell, Robin could easily top.
Corinne, as it transpired, had left her Chihuahua and her toy Manchester in the care of one of her daughters, and she had called to check on their well-being that very afternoon. Corinne was one of those women who had to have something to mother; for all I knew, that made her like most women. Now that her children were very much grown and gone, and her grandchildren visited from time to time but not for days in a row, the dogs had filled that gap for her. Though she was intelligent enough to realize not everyone wants to listen to detailed animal stories, she was besotted enough not to care, and we heard many anecdotes about Punky’s little trick with the bouncy ball, and Percy’s little wake-up routine.
That reminded me that I hadn’t laid eyes on Madeleine in a couple of days, and during a lull in the dog worship, I asked Phillip if he’d seen the massive old cat.
“No,” he said. “Maybe she didn’t like me and so she’s staying away until I leave.”
“Nothing would make Madeleine miss a meal,” I said.
“Was your cat named for the little girl in the books?” Corinne asked brightly.
“No, for the poisoner,” I answered, abstracted. “Madeleine Smith, Glasgow, 1857.”
“Oh,” Corinne said.
We didn’t hear any more dog stories for a while.
When Robin dropped us off, Phillip loped ahead to get in the house to watch some television show he was dying to see. Robin came in the foyer with me and shut the door behind him. He had a big, long, smoochy kiss on his mind, but when he pulled me to him, my sore chest protested.
“Not so tight,” I said, trying to smile.
“What’s wrong?” Not too surprisingly, he was bewildered. I’d been Passionate Woman the night before, and now I was practically pushing him away. But I was so averse to the idea of sex that I would have kicked him in the shins if he’d suggested it. I answered him by bursting into tears.
“What?” Terrified, Robin gripped my elbows. “What’s wrong? Are you upset about Poppy? Madeleine? I’ll look for her tomorrow, I swear, baby.”
“No, not that.” I wanted to tell him about my long, unpleasant day, and I wanted to tell him what I was beginning to suspect might be the truth. But this wasn’t the place, and his mother was waiting out in the cold in the car for him to return.
“Your mom leaves Monday?” I sobbed.
“No, I forgot to tell you. Before she left home, she changed her reservation, because the airline called her with a last-minute cancellation,” Robin said. “She leaves tomorrow afternoon. One of her best friends lost his son in an accident overseas, and the memorial service is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Mom wants to be back for it. It’s just amazing she was able to get a seat on the plane. She was on the phone for hours, she told me, but she got it done.” He sounded admiring. “But tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t tell you right now,” I said. I wasn’t actively crying anymore, just kind of giving the occasional sob or gasp. This was crazy. I had no control over it whatsoever. I was just along for the ride. “Lots of stuff happened today. We need to talk tomorrow, after you take your mom to the airport. Call me.”
“Sure,” he said. Hesitantly, he leaned over and gave me a peck on the forehead. That was easier for him to reach anyway.
I was almost too tired to take off my clothes. I wished my brother good night, asked him to check the doors before he went to bed, cast a disconsolate look at Madeleine’s food bowl-still full-and tucked myself into bed. I thought I might lie awake a little and rehash the day, but the minute my head came into contact with my pillow, I was out.
Someone was shaking me.
Someone had hold of my shoulder and was saying, “Roe, wake up!” in a terrified voice.
I opened my eyes to sunlight. I had not slept two hours or so, as I’d assumed-I’d slept the night through, and then some. Phillip was standing by the bed, his face full of horror.
“What?” I asked, sitting up. My heart was racing and my mouth felt like a herd of something dirty-maybe mud-covered water buffalo-had wallowed in it. “What?” I asked again, more sharply this time. I was fully awake.
“My mom has gone and your cat is dead.”
I started to say something, closed my mouth, and opened it again. “Say that again,” I demanded.
“Those messages you didn’t listen to last night?” This was definitely said with an accusatory edge. “One of those messages was from our dad. He says my mom left and he doesn’t know where she’s gone. He says she’s gone off with some guy.”
For a wild moment, I wondered if Betty Jo, too, would hitchhike over to Lawrenceton. Then I came to my senses.
“That’s really awful,” I said. “But he doesn’t think she’s in any danger? I mean, there’s no question but that she left voluntarily?” Phillip looked blank. “She arranged to run off with this man,” I said, trying to clarify. “He didn’t abduct her.”
“Right,” Phillip said, calming down a bit. “She definitely left because she wanted to. She told Dad she’d get in touch with him soon. She told him to call me. She said she knew I was safe with you.”
That was rich, coming from the woman who’d whisked Phillip off all the way to California to keep him from my contaminating companionship.
“I’m glad she feels that way,” I managed to say, wanting a cup of coffee more than I had ever wanted any beverage in my life. “Now, I want to talk more about that later, because I know that’s definitely the more important thing, but did you say Madeleine was dead?”
Personally, I considered Madeleine much more important, but I was trying to be sensitive to Phillip’s pain.
“Oh, yeah, I went out in the backyard this morning, since the weather is good, and I was like kicking around this pine-cone, and when it landed on something in the bushes around the wall”-my backyard, like Poppy’s, was enclosed by a solid wood privacy fence, though mine was definitely shorter-“I went to see why it sounded so funny, and your big old cat was lying there on the ground, and she was all wet and everything, and she’s dead.” Phillip looked at me pathetically. He had had a tough morning, and it was only…
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Nine-thirty,” Phillip said. “See? There’s a clock right by the bed, Sis.” He may have been a tad sarcastic.
“Okay, so I didn’t look.” I groped for my glasses on the night table and put them on. I took a deep breath, then went into the bathroom to wash my face, trying to prepare to content this day.
I’d slept until 9:30 a.m. maybe four times in my life, and one of those had been after my senior prom, when I’d stayed out all night, as was the local tradition. I was dazed by so much sleep, and wondered what had prompted it. Then, glancing at the Wal-Mart bag, I suspected I knew, but I thrust the knowledge away from me forcefully. I had enough to deal with just at the moment, thanks very much. Pulling on the heaviest bathrobe in my closet, I slid my feet into my Birkenstock clogs and ventured out into the backyard. The day was clear and cold, and my ankles stung in the chilly breeze.