She was going back to teaching when she could. Greg knew that too.
“Yeah. I guess you are. You gonna need any help? Anything I can do, I mean?”
“That’s between you and Diane. But no, not at first, anyway. I’ve got my mother with me and we’ll be fine. Talk it over with Diane if you want to. See how involved you really want to get. Then we’ll talk, you and I. Take your time. We’ll see.”
He nodded again and then he was silent for a while. “I hear she finally died,” he said. “That bitch. Katherine.”
“She never came out of the coma.”
“Saves us a lot of trouble, doesn’t it.”
“Trouble?”
“Court and all.”
“Yes. I guess it does.”
“I just wish I could have…”
“Greg. I’m sorry but I honestly don’t want to talk about it, you know? It’s over for me. It should be over for you too. Am I right?”
“You’re right. I just…”
“Greg.”
He laughed and shook his head.
“You’re right. I’m talking like a fool. I’d probably better go. You need to get some rest.”
He squeezed her hand and leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek and then stood beside the bed but would not release her yet, did not let go of her hand, seemed to want that one last minute holding her. She realized she wanted it too.
“Have you got a name yet?” he said.
She smiled. “I’m thinking Megan,” she said. “It’s Anglo-Saxon. It means strong.”
SEVENTEEN
Her mother was asleep in the guest room. Her baby whose name was now indeed Megan slept beside her bed in the crib. She lay staring at the ceiling trying not to remember what was impossible not to remember but thankful for the soft warm bed and the quiet apartment and her all old familiar belongings gathered around her, all of it like a comforting womb of its own from which her life could go on and spread itself unconfined, grateful too for this other familiar presence at her feet who had somehow in those months taken the sting from out the whip, the edge off the knife.
The cat sleeping beside her on the bed. The cat who now also had a name.
Ruth. Ruthie. From the Hebrew.
Friend.
STORIES
BRAVE GIRL
“Police operator 321. Where’s your emergency?”
“It’s my mommy.”
The voice on the other end was so small that even its sex was indeterminate. The usual questions were not going to apply.
“What happened to your mommy?”
“She fell.”
“Where did she fall?”
“In the bathroom. In the tub.”
“Is she awake?”
“Unh-unh.”
“Is there water in the tub?”
“I made it go away.”
“You drained the tub?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. Okay. My name is Officer Price. What’s yours?”
“Suzy.”
“Is there anybody else in the house, Suzy?”
“Unh-unh.”
“Okay, Suzy. I want you to stay on the line, okay? Don’t hang up. I’m going to transfer you to Emergency Services and they’re going to help you and your mommy, all right? Don’t hang up now, okay?”
“Okay.”
He punched in EMS.
“Dana, it’s Tom. I’ve got a little girl, can’t be more than four or five. Name’s Suzy. She says her mother’s unconscious. Fell in the bathroom.”
“Got it.”
It was barely ten o’clock and shaping up to be a busy summer day. Electrical fire at Knott’s Hardware over on Elm and Main just under an hour ago. Earlier, a three-car pile-up on route 6 — somebody hurrying to get to work through a deceptive sudden pocket of Maine fog. A heart-attack at Bel Haven Rest Home only minutes after that. The little girl’s address was up on the computer screen. 415 Whiting Road. Listing under the name L. Jackson.
“Suzy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“This is Officer Keeley, Suzy. I want you to stand by a moment, all right? I’m not going to put you on hold. Just stay on the phone. Sam? You with me?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, Suzy. Your mommy fell, right? In the bathroom?”
“Yeah.”
“And she’s unconscious?”
“Huh?”
“She’s not awake?”
“Unh-uhn.”
“Can you tell if she’s breathing?”
“I… I think.”
“We’re on it,” said Sam.
“Is your front door unlocked, Suzy?”
“The door?”
“Your front door.”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know how to lock and unlock the front door, Suzy?”
“Yes. Mommy showed me.”
“Okay. I want you to put the phone down somewhere — don’t hang up but just put it down somewhere,
