The small white phone nestled into the pillows beside her gave a sudden and jarring peal. For a moment she couldn’t remember where it was. The receiver fell off the hook as she grappled for it, then put it to her ear.
“This is Gifford,” she said wearily. And thank God it was Ryan who answered:
“I didn’t wake you up?”
“No,” she said with a sigh. “When do I ever sleep anymore? I’ve been waiting. Tell me everything went all right up there, tell me Michael is better, tell me no one got hurt or…”
“Gifford, for heaven’s sakes. What are you thinking when you say something like that, that a litany will change what may have already taken place? You’re flinging charms at me. What good will it do? Do you want to hear the words that are scheduled to come out of my mouth? What am I supposed to do? Break it to you gently if someone got stomped to death by a mounted policeman or crushed by the wheels of a float?”
Ah, everything was fine. Nothing was wrong at all. Gifford could have hung up then, but that wouldn’t have been very considerate of Ryan, who would now break it down for her into a series of small reports, the central theme of which was: “Everything went fine, you fool, you should have stayed in town.”
“After twenty-six years, you don’t know what I’m thinking,” she said halfheartedly, not really wanting to argue, or even to talk anymore. Her exhaustion was hitting her now, now that Mardi Gras was truly almost over.
“No, I sure as hell don’t know what you’re thinking,” he said evenly. “I don’t know why you’re in Florida, instead of here with us.”
“Skip to the next subject,” said Gifford blandly.
“Michael is fine, just fine. Everybody is fine. Jean caught more beads than anybody else in the family; Little CeeCee won the costume award, and Pierce definitely wants to marry Clancy any minute! If you want your son to do things right and proper, you’d better get back here and start talking about the wedding to Clancy’s mother. She’s certainly not listening to me.”
“Did you tell her we’d pay for the wedding?”
“No, I didn’t get to that.”
“Get to it. That’s all she wants to hear. Talk about Michael again. What did you all tell him about Rowan?”
“As little as we could.”
“Thank God for that.”
“He’s just not strong enough to hear the whole story.”
“Who knows the whole story?” asked Gifford, bitterly.
“But we are going to have to tell him, Gifford. We can’t put it off much longer. He has to know. He is on the mend, physically. Mentally, I can’t say. No one can say. He looks…so different.”
“Older, you mean,” she said dismally.
“No, just different. It isn’t just his graying hair. It’s the look in his eye, his way of behaving. He’s so gentlemanly and placid, so patient with everyone.”
“You don’t need to upset him,” said Gifford.
“Well, you leave it to me,” said Ryan, using one of his favorite phrases, which was always brought out with exquisite tenderness. “Just take care of yourself up there. Don’t go into the water alone.”
“Ryan, the water’s freezing. I’ve had a fire going all day. It was clear, though, clear and blue and quiet. Sometimes I think I could stay here forever. Ryan, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t go up to First Street, I just couldn’t be in that house.”
“I know, Gifford, I know. But be assured, the kids thought it was the best Mardi Gras ever. Everybody loves being back at First Street. Just about everybody was there, too, at some time or other during the day. I mean at least six or seven hundred of the family trooped in and out. I frankly lost count. Remember the Mayfairs from Denton, Texas? Even they came. And the Gradys from New York. It was wonderful of Michael to let it all go on as usual. Gifford, I don’t mean this reproachfully, but if you’d seen how well it went, you’d understand.”
“What about Alicia?” Gifford asked, meaning, Did Alicia make it through sober? “Were she and Patrick all right?”
“Alicia never made it up to the house. She was completely drunk by three p.m. Patrick shouldn’t have come. Patrick’s sick. We have to get him some medical attention.”
Gifford sighed. She hoped that Patrick would die. She knew she did. Why kid herself? She had never liked or loved Patrick, and now he was the worst sort of burden to all those around him-a vicious drunk, who took special pleasure in being mean to his wife, and his daughter. Mona didn’t give a damn. “I have no respect for Dad,” she said coldly. But Alicia was forever at Patrick’s mercy. “Why are you looking at me like that? What have I done now? Did you drink the last beer? You knew it was the last beer and you deliberately drank it!”
“Well, how did Patrick do?” Gifford asked, hoping against hope that he’d fallen and broken his neck, and that Ryan just hadn’t wanted to tell her.
“Had a fight with Beatrice. Something about Mona. I doubt he’ll remember a thing. He stormed off home after the parade. You know Bea on the subject of Mona. She still wants to send Mona away to school. And do you realize what’s happening between Aaron and Bea? Michael’s Aunt Vivian said…”
“I know,” sighed Gifford. “You’d think he would have learned something from his own research into our family.”
Ryan gave a polite laugh. “Oh, forget about that nonsense. If you’d forget that foolishness, you’d stay here and be with us, and enjoy this time. God knows, things can only get worse when we do find Rowan.”
“Why do you say that?”
“We’ll have problems to deal with then, real problems. Look, I’m too tired now to take that on. Rowan’s been missing sixty-seven days exactly. I’m worn out from talking to detectives in Zurich and Scotland and in France. Mardi Gras was fun. We all had fun. We were together. But Bea’s right, you know, Mona should go away to school, don’t you think? After all, she is some sort of bona fide genius.”
Gifford wanted to answer. She wanted to say again that Mona wouldn’t go away to school, and that if they tried to force her, Mona would simply get right back on the plane, or the train, or the bus, and come directly home. You couldn’t make Mona go away to school! If you sent Mona to Switzerland, she’d be home in forty-eight hours. If you sent her to China, she’d be back, perhaps in less time than that. Gifford said nothing now. She only felt the usual comfortable aching love for Mona, and the desperate faith that Mona somehow would be all right.
One time Gifford had asked Mona: “What’s the difference between men and women?”
Mona had said: “Men don’t know what can happen. They’re happy. But women know everything that can happen. They worry all the time.”
Gifford had laughed at that. Her other precious memory was of six-year-old Mona on the day that Alicia had passed out on the porch of the Amelia Street house, right on top of her pocketbook, and Mona, unable to get the key out of it, had climbed up the trellis to the high second-story window, and carefully broken out only a small jagged hole in the glass with the heel of her Mary Jane so that she could reach the lock. Of course the entire glass had to be replaced, but Mona had been so neat about it, so sure of herself. Just little splinters of glass scattered in the garden and on the rug upstairs. “Why don’t you just tape wax paper to it?” she’d asked later, when Gifford called the man to fix the window. “That’s the way all the other holes in this place are fixed.”
Why had Gifford let that child go through these things? And Mona was still going through them. There was another carousel of grief and guilt that she could ride for hours and hours. Like the Michael and Rowan carousel. Why not? Did a month ever pass that Gifford didn’t remember that incident, the image of six-year-old Mona dragging the unconscious Alicia through the front door. And Dr. Blades calling from the clinic across the street:
“Gifford, your sister is really sick over there, you know, and that child and Ancient Evelyn really have their hands full!”
“Don’t worry about Mona,” said Ryan now, as if he were reading her thoughts in this uneasy weary silence. “Mona is the least of our worries. We have a conference scheduled for Tuesday regarding Rowan’s disappearance. We will all sit down and decide what to do.”
“How can you decide what to do!” Gifford asked. “You have no evidence that Rowan is being forced to stay away from Michael. You…”
“Well, honey, we do have evidence, rather strong evidence. That’s the thing. We have to realize it. We are certain now that the last two checks cashed on Rowan’s personal account were not signed by her. That is what we have to tell Michael.”
