face remained expressionless. Jeff could feel himself losing control. When he finally gave up, and looked away, he tried to act as if he’d done it on purpose.
“Let’s go, Sally,” he said loudly, making sure Michelle would hear him. “If Michelle wants to play with the babies, what do we care?” He started down the street, leaving Sally by herself. She waited a few seconds, confused, wanting to catch up with him. Yet part of her held back, wishing she could somehow apologize to Michelle. Unable to sort it out, she ran off down the street after Jeff’s retreating figure.
Corinne Hatcher glanced up from the tests she was correcting, her automatic smile of greeting fading to a look of concern when she saw June Pendleton framed in the classroom door. There was a haggardness about June as she waited uncertainly at the door, her unease writ plain on her from her windblown hair to her somewhat rumpled skirt. Corinne rose from her chair and waved June into the room.
“Are you all right?” She realized only when it was too late that her words couldn’t help but amplify June’s obvious discomfort. June, however, seemed not to take offense.
“I must look the way I feel,” she said. She tried to smile, but failed. “I–I need to talk to someone, and there just doesn’t seem to be anybody else.”
“I heard about Susan Peterson,” Corinne offered. “It must have been terrible for Michelle.”
Grateful for the teacher’s immediate understanding, June dropped into the chair at one of the undersized desks, then quickly stood up again — the feeling of grossness the tiny desk gave her was more than she could bear.
“That’s one of the reasons I came,” she said. “Did — well, did you notice anything about Michelle today? I mean, anything unusual?”
“I’m afraid today wasn’t one of the better days for any of us,” Corinne replied. “The children were all sort of — how shall I say it? Preoccupied? I guess that’s the best way to put it.”
“Did they say anything? To Michelle?”
Corinne hesitated, then decided there was no reason to keep the truth from June. “Mrs. Pendleton, they didn’t say anything to her. Nothing at
June grasped her meaning immediately.
“I was afraid that would happen,” she said, more to herself than to Corinne. “Miss Hatcher — I don’t know what to do.”
Once again June lowered herself to a seat, suddenly too tired, too defeated by her whole situation to care how she might have looked. This time it was Corinne who drew her to her feet.
“Come on. Let’s go to the teachers’ room and have a cup of coffee. You look as though you need something stronger, but I’m afraid the rules are still the rules around here. And I think it’s time we started calling each other June and Corinne, don’t you?”
Nodding dispiritedly, June let herself be led out of the classroom and down the corridor.
“Do you think your friend can help?” June asked. She had told Corinne what had happened the day before, and how senseless it had all seemed. First Michelle coming home — calm, apparently nothing wrong. And then Cal’s return, and the nightmare beginning.
June recounted everything as it had happened, trying to convey to the teacher the sense of unreality it all had for her. It was, she said at last, as if her whole world had been turned into something out of
Corinne heard the tale out, not interrupting, not questioning, sensing that June needed simply to tell it, to externalize the chaos that had been churning in her mind. Now, as June finished, she nodded thoughtfully.
“I don’t see why Tim couldn’t help,” she said. She stood up and went to the coffee pot, thinking while she refilled her cup and June’s. As she turned back to June, she tried to make her voice sound encouraging.
“Maybe things aren’t as bad as they sound.” She hesitated a moment, unsure what to say. “I know it all seems frightening,” she continued gently, “but I think you’re worrying too much.”
“No!” It was almost a shriek. June’s eyes filled with tears. “My God, if you could hear her, the way she talks about that doll. I swear, I think she really believes that Mandy — she calls her Mandy now — is real!” There was a bleakness in her voice that frightened Corinne.
She took June’s hand in her own, and tried to keep her voice confident. “It
Michelle tried to put Jeff’s words out of her mind as she watched Sally disappear down the street. But they lingered there, echoing in her head, mocking her, tormenting her. She was vaguely aware of Billy Evans, calling out to her to push him harder, but his words seemed distant, as if they were coming to her through a fog.
She let the swing die down, and, when Billy protested, told him she was tired, that she would push him some more another time. Then she moved painfully over to the maple tree, and lowered herself to the grass. She would wait a while, until Jeff and Sally were long gone, before she started the long walk home.
She stretched out on the grass and stared up into the leaves of the tree, which were changing colors with the coming of fall. When she was like this, by herself, with no one around her, the loneliness wasn’t so bad. It was only when she could hear them, or see them, their voices taunting her, their eyes mocking her, that Michelle really hated the children who had been her friends.
Except for Sally. Michelle still wasn’t sure about Sally. Sally seemed better than the others, kinder. Michelle decided to talk to Amanda about Sally. Maybe, if Amanda agreed, they could be friends again. Michelle hoped they could — she really liked Sally, deep down. But still, it was up to Amanda.…
From her classroom window, Corinne watched June cross the playground. She thought there was a reluctance about June, a reluctance to disturb Michelle, as if, as long as she was asleep under the tree, she was safe from whatever chaos was going on in her mind. But as Corinne watched, June knelt and gently awakened Michelle.
Michelle got to her feet stiffly, the pain in her hip visible in her face, even from across the yard. She seemed surprised to see her mother, but at the same time grateful. Taking her mother’s hand, Michelle allowed herself to be led around the corner of the building and out of Corinne’s sight.
Even after they had disappeared, Corinne remained at the window, the image of Michelle — her shoulders stooped, her hair hanging limp, her spirit defeated by her crippling accident — imprinted on her mind.
It seemed a long time ago, that first day of school, when Michelle had come bouncing into her classroom, bright-eyed, grinning, eager to begin her new life in Paradise Point.
And now, only a few weeks later, it had all changed. Paradise Point? Well, maybe for some people. But not for Michelle Pendleton.
Not now, and Corinne was suddenly sure, probably not ever again.
CHAPTER 20
It was a crisp afternoon, and Corinne walked swiftly, her mind more on June Pendleton’s visit than on the direction she had taken. It wasn’t until she saw the building ahead of her, tucked in a small grove of trees, its walls covered with climbing roses, that she realized that the clinic had been her destination all along. She paused for a moment, reading the neatly lettered sign, with Josiah Carson’s faded name, and freshly lettered above it, that of Calvin Pendleton. The lettering struck Corinne as sad somehow, and it took a few moments before she realized why. It was a sign of the old order giving way to the new. Josiah Carson had been around as long as Corinne could remember. It was difficult to imagine the clinic without him.
She stepped inside the waiting room, and was relieved to see Marion Perkins sitting at the desk, working on the books. Marion, at least, was still going to be here, smoothing the transition between Dr. Carson and Dr. Pendleton. As the little bell attached to the door jangled softly, Marion looked up.
“Corinne!” Her expression as she recognized the teacher was one of welcome mixed with concern and a little
