Whistling in the Dark

the desk lady in the lobby of St. Joe’s. Troo had her Nell tattletale list rolled up in her hand.

“Big deal if Uncle Paulie has some of those socks,” Troo said. “Lots of people have pink-and-green argyles. Willie had some on last week. And Johnny Fazio had some on at supper last night. Even Bobby at the playground wears ’em.”

“Yeah, but…,” I tried to say.

“I think the murderer is…” Troo swiveled her head around to make sure nobody had snuck up on her, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that even if they did, they probably wouldn’t be able to understand a darn thing she was saying. I sure couldn’t. “I think it’s Reese Latour. It’s just bubbling inside him, trying to get out. Reese is evil, Sal. Real honest to devil evil.” She ran her hands down her arms, trying to warm up her goose pimples. “Did I tell you that he pulled Fast Susie’s bikini top down last week when she was suntanning in the backyard?”

I shook my head.

She shivered. “Reese could murder and molest with his eyes closed.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll just see,” I said quietly, because Nell and Eddie were coming back and I didn’t want to make too big a deal out of it because now I was pretty sure that Rasmussen was not the guilty party and I had been so sure he was. So I figured if I might be wrong about Rasmussen, I might be wrong about Uncle Paulie. I didn’t want to get everybody all riled up. Especially since Troo was right about Reese Latour. If you opened him up and looked inside, his heart would not be red and bursting with love. It would be rotting maggot hateful black. Reese would murder and molest in a breeze. I hoped Troo was right. Everybody would be a lot better off if Reese went to jail. Especially poor Artie, who wouldn’t have to listen to Reese telling people that he was a harelip, like they couldn’t see that for themselves. And even worse than that was the way Reese treated Wendy and called her the idiot and made fun of the way she talked. And that was not even taking into account the way Reese always looked at Troo, like he had the hots for her… it gave me the honest-to-God skin-crawling creeps. Yeah, Reese Latour could definitely be the murderer and molester.

“Okay, we’re gonna meet Dr. Sullivan upstairs,” Nell called over to us from the information desk.

We got in the elevator and Nell pressed the number three button. She looked so grown-up in her A-line dress and made-up face. Eddie had gotten fancy for the funeral, too. He had on a checkered sports coat that was way too big for him and a tie with a Chevy car on it, but he didn’t stink of gas like he usually did. Instead he stunk of English Leather. And then the elevator doors slid open, and for a second I was afraid to get out. This was the floor that Daddy and Troo had been on after the crash. I remembered the picture of Jesus and his bleeding heart that was hanging on the wall outside the elevator. Troo did too, because she picked up my hand and squeezed it hard.

There was the tock tock tock of Nell’s squash heels going down the hall, and that medicine smell, and the floor so shiny, and the sound of those nurses’ thick white shoes. We turned into a room called a solarium that had magazines on tables and pictures of flowers on the walls. Sitting over by the big window was Mother in a wheelchair. I knew it was Mother because of her hair, but that’s the only way I would’ve been able to tell because she looked skinnier than Mary Lane, which I woulda thought was humanly impossible. Not tan or strong at all. And something else seemed really different about her, not just the way she looked because she’d been sick.

“O’Malley sisters,” Mother said real softly. She had on a pink robe that I’d never seen before and slippers with little pink pom-poms on them and her hair was tied back with a shiny pink ribbon. Dr. Sullivan was standing next to her, like he was protecting a newborn chicken.

Troo said, “Hi, Mother,” but you could tell she was fantastically nervous by how hard she was licking her lips. “Nell did not take good care of me and Sally. I got a list I wanna show you.”

Mother held her arms out to us and I didn’t want to go into them because she looked so bony, but then I did and so did Troo. I couldn’t even talk, tell her how glad I was that she hadn’t died, that was how hard I was crying. Of course, Troo didn’t cry. Not one teardrop.

“Doesn’t she look in the pink?” Dr. Sullivan laughed at his joke and I thought it was a pretty good one considering how Mother was decked out. “Just terrific!”

Dr. Sullivan needed new peepers because Mother definitely looked a long way off from terrific, but I was just so glad to have her back that I hugged the doctor around his fat stomach, which was a lot harder than it looked.

“Why, thank you, Sally,” the doctor said. (I’m sorry to have to say this, but his breath had not improved.) “How is that imagination of yours coming along?”

“Fine, Dr. Sullivan. Just fine.” I really wished he had not brought that up in front of Mother. I was sort of mad now that I’d given him that hug.

He looked down at his watch that he kept hidden in his pocket on a chain and then out the solarium windows. Clouds that looked like fists had started to roll in. “It’s going to rain again,” he said. “Can’t remember a summer we’ve had so much rain.” Then he clapped his hands. “Well, I think that’s quite enough excitement for one day. Let’s get Helen back to bed. That was a close call, a very close call, girls. When your mother comes home, you’re going to have to take very good care of her. Doctor’s orders.” And then he disappeared out the solarium door doing that penguin walk.

Nell put her hands on the back of the wheelchair and began to push, but Mother held up her hand to stop and said in a weak voice, “Nell, take Troo downstairs. I need to talk to Sally in private for a minute.”

“Okay, but not too long,” Nell scolded. “You heard what the doctor said.” She kissed Mother on the head and said in a cute little voice, “I’m almost a hairdresser. When you come home I can wash and set your hair for you.”

“That would be nice.” Mother patted at her hair because she was sorta proud about it and had to know that it looked a little ratty. “Go on now, Nell.”

“But what about my list?” Troo whined.

Mother said, “Give it to me, Troo. I’ll look at it later.” Troo handed her the tattle list, which was pretty ripped and dirty from all the use it was getting, then she gave me a jealousy look and shook Mother’s hand good-bye, which was kinda funny.

Eddie stood up from the checkered couch that looked so much like his jacket that I forgot for a second he was even there. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Gustafson.” That was Hall’s last name. Maybe Mother could change it back again to O’Malley now that Hall was going to the slammer.

“It’s all right if you call me Mother.” Helen put her hand on Nell’s tummy. “After all, we’re going to be family soon, Eddie.” Nell’s smile put sun back into the solarium. Eddie just shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the shiny floor and grinned.

“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” Nell said, trying to pick up Troo’s hand. Troo yanked it out, gave me one more jealousy look and then turned on her heel in a huff. Troo really couldn’t stand coming in second place. A minute later Nell was yelling, “Troo O’Malley, you get your heinie back here,” from down the hall, and I’d just bet Troo was givin’ her the finger. Another new thing she learned from Fast Susie.

Mother and me were alone and I heard some thunder. “Sally, come closer.” I had been standing a little ways away from her so I could pay attention to the details, like you do when you want to get a really good look at something. I sat down in a brown chair that had a plastic cover over it, right across from Mother.

“I have something to tell you,” she said. Her eyes were sorta dashing around like the minnows in the cold lake near dead Gramma’s house. That was a detail I would never miss because I had never seen Mother nervous before. It was probably because she was in the hospital, which could make anybody jittery. My own stomach felt like I had swallowed a handful of those Mexican jumping beans they just got in up at Kenfield’s Five and Dime. I grabbed on to the arms of the chair and got prepared for Mother to give me a good talking-to about my imagination. Somebody musta told her that I was having a hard time with it. I was in for it now.

“I should’ve told you this a long time ago.” Mother sighed one of those big sighs she always did. “And I’m still not sure the timing is right.”

It was not like Mother to be not sure. She was always sure in a mad kind of way.

She gave me that sad-eyed look that she gave me when she thought I wasn’t looking and then said, “Sometimes women get lonely when their husbands are away.”

Mother looked so breakable, it made me feel protective of her like I did with Troo. I needed to make her feel stronger right away, so I announced nice and loud, “Daddy told me to tell you that he forgives you.”

She turned her head my way. “What did you just say?”

“Right before Daddy died he told me to tell you that he forgives you and I’m sorry I haven’t told you before this,