the front lawn of Chatham School and listened as my father told them all he thought they needed to know about the previous day’s events, the fact that “a tragic accident” had occurred on Black Pond, that Mrs. Reed’s car had “gone out of control,” and that both she and Sarah Doyle were now dead.
As to the state of Mr. Reed and Miss Channing, my father told them nothing whatsoever, save that they remained in their respective homes, Mr. Reed tending to his daughter, Miss Channing continuing to prepare for her departure from Chatham. He did not know if either of them would return to Chatham School before it closed for the summer, and asked the boys to “keep them in their thoughts.”
? ? ?
For most of the rest of that long day I stayed in my room, almost in an attitude of concealment, not wanting to meet my mother’s gaze as she stormed about the house, nor talk to any of the boys of Chatham School, since it was only natural that they’d ply me with questions about what had happened on Black Pond. Most of all, however, I wanted to avoid any chance meeting with Captain Hamilton, the way I felt when he looked at me, as if I were a small animal scurrying across a strip of desert waste, he the great bird diving toward me at tremendous speed and from an impossible height, looking only for the truth.
And so I was in my room when I heard a knock at the front door, cautiously peered downstairs and saw Mr. Parsons, his hat in his hand, facing my mother in the foyer. “Is Mr. Griswald here?” he asked.
“No. He’s at the funeral parlor,” my mother told him. “Making arrangements for Sarah.”
Mr. Parsons nodded. “Well, would you tell him to call me when he returns?”
My mother said she would, but added nothing else.
Mr. Parsons smiled politely and turned to leave. I thought my mother was going to let him go, that she had decided to hold her tongue. But abruptly, the door still open, Mr. Parsons halfway through it, she said, “Such a terrible thing, what happened to Sarah … and, of course … Mrs. Reed.”
Mr. Parsons nodded. “Yes, terrible,” he said, though with little emphasis, heading out the door, other matters clearly on his mind.
“She came to see me, you know,” my mother added. “Mrs. Reed did.”
Mr. Parsons stopped and turned to face her. “When was that, Mrs. Griswald?” he asked.
“Only a short time ago,” my mother answered. She paused a moment, then added with a grim significance, “She seemed quite troubled.”
“About what?”
“Family matters. Troubles in the family.”
Mr. Parsons eased himself back into the foyer. “Would you be willing to talk about that conversation, Mrs. Griswald?” he asked.
I saw my mother nod, then lead him into the parlor and close the door.
My father returned home an hour or so later. Mr. Parsons had left by then, but my mother made no attempt to conceal his visit, nor what she had told him during it. From the top of the stairs, crouched there like a court spy, I listened to her tell my father exactly what had transpired.
“I wasn’t making accusations,” my mother said. “Just speaking the plain truth, that’s all.”
“What truth is that, Mildred?”
“Just what Mrs. Reed said.”
“About Mr. Reed?”
“Him and that woman.”
“You mentioned Miss Channing? You mentioned her to Mr. Parsons?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Mrs. Reed said she saw her picture in the boathouse. She knew it was her that Mr. Reed was involved with.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That she suspected something. Between the two of them. That it frightened her.”
“Frightened her?”
“That she was afraid of them, the two of them. What they might do. Run off together. Or worse.”
“Or worse?”
“What she found in the boathouse. The knife she saw, and the …”
“You told Mr. Parsons that?”
“I told him what Mrs. Reed said. That’s all.”
I waited for something more, but there was only silence. From my place at the top of the stairs I saw my father walk out the door, my mother behind him, then both of them in the car, pulling out of the driveway, no doubt headed for the funeral parlor where Sarah now lay in a room decked with flowers sent by the teachers of Chatham School.
When they returned home sometime later, the air grown dark by then, the same silence enveloped them. They sat silently in the parlor, and silently through dinner. Nor did they ever speak to each other with any real tenderness again.
I spent the rest of the next day in my room, lying on my bed. Downstairs, I could hear my mother doing the chores that had once been Sarah’s. I suppose from time to time I drifted into sleep, but if so, I don’t remember it.
By noon the summer heat had begun to make the room unbearable, and so I walked out onto the porch and sat down in the swing, drifting slowly back and forth, recalling Sarah in random pieces of memory, words and glances
