“Not the living room!”
“Here in the kitchen, then.”
“No, not here, either.”
“Well, where would you like to go?”
“Let’s go out of the house.”
But when we got outside I couldn’t think where we should go. My mind had lost its power of decision. Father McFall seemed to understand this and started walking slowly around the circular drive that Finn and I had cleared. I followed along beside him. It was going to be a warm day. I had not forgotten it was my birthday, but thought it would sound crass to bring it up.
Presently he asked, “Is there anything else you want to know, Helen?”
“Where is she now?”
“At the funeral home.”
“Was she dead when I fell over her, or did she die at the hospital? Finn made me go back home when the second ambulance was coming.”
“It appears to have been instant. She was hit by a car.”
“Was it my father’s car?”
“We think so, but he’s in no condition to be asked yet.”
“What was she doing out in the middle of the dark road?”
“Finn said that, as far as he could tell, she had walked down to see if he had found you yet.”
Finn did not come that day. In the middle of the afternoon, Mrs. Jones said she had to drive into town for a few things. She returned with some groceries and a bakery cake with HELEN written on it in pink and eleven candles waiting to be lit. We had beef stew for dinner and then afterward the cake. The icing wasn’t chocolate, but of course I didn’t say anything. “Rosemary always loved a bakery cake,” Mrs. Jones said, apologetically adding, “though maybe it was because I was no great shakes at baking.” The stew was filling, though without the benefit of Juliet Parker’s famous herbs.
“Will you be spending the night again?” I asked her.
“I’ll be staying with you until we get things figured out. For now, I’m in your old room, I hope that’s all right. When your father comes home, he’ll have to be down here for a while.”
She had a present for me. Its plain brown wrappings reminded me of Finn’s present the evening before, when Flora had gone to take her bath and change into the blue dress.
“I bought it off the librarian,” said Mrs. Jones. “She had ordered it for the young people’s library, but someone on the board said it was too pessimistic and not Christian. But the librarian assured me it was a wonderful book, she had read it as a teenager, and thought you were old enough for it. And the pictures in this one are real beauties.”
It was the
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Finn did come the next day, but Father McFall came earlier and brought the morning newspaper. PARATROOPER SAVES LIFE OF A-BOMB WORKER. It wasn’t as flashy as the story about the lady in a nearby town whose son was a bombardier on the plane that dropped the bomb, but both stories were on the front page, grouped beneath the caption LOCAL HEROES. There was a head shot of my father, with his acerbic smile, taken when he was promoted from assistant principal to principal of the high school, which made the picture the same age as myself. Next to it was an Army photo of Pvt. D. P. Finn with a frowning blur of a face, in full paratrooper gear, cradling his helmet next to his chest. You could see that his image had been lifted out of a group picture, which reminded me of the story of my mother cutting herself out of the Alabama photo. Though I prided myself on my rapid reading skills, Father McFall standing over me made me nervous and I had to keep doubling back over lines before they made sense.
They referred to my father as “the esteemed principal of Mountain City High,” which would make him snort when he got well enough to read this, and went so far as to name the building (K-25) his crew had been working on at Oak Ridge. Then came a quote from an Oak Ridge barber describing how everyone in the government town of 75,000, built in 1942, was bound to secrecy: “My customers and I talked about everything under the sun except the project.” The story said my father had been on his way home for his daughter’s (no name) birthday the next day. Could this information have come from the telephone operator who had kept me on the phone asking more questions? She probably had a sideline of calling in things like this to some contact at the newspaper. Annie would have known for sure. Finn had been quoted as saying, “I only did what I could. In combat training they taught us to use what we had in an emergency, and I had a shirt and a boot.” It said that until recently he had been a convalescent at the local military hospital, and that was all.
“But there’s nothing about
“There’s a separate item in ‘Deaths and Funerals.’” Father McFall found the page for me, folded the paper in half, and handed it back. ALABAMA WOMAN FOUND DEAD. Flora Waring, of Birmingham, Alabama, presumably hit by a vehicle, found dead on upper Sunset Drive. Body at funeral home awaiting burial arrangements. Authorities say accident is still under investigation.
“But we
“We think we know, Helen, but nobody saw it. Until your father is able to tell us what he remembers, authorities can’t speculate, at least not on the record. There are legal deterrents.”
“You saw my father this morning?”
“I did.”
“You said there were ‘some problems,’ but you didn’t say what.”
“Why don’t we wait till we see which ones go away before we make a list?”
“Take it a day at a time,” I said.
“Exactly, Helen.” He looked pleased, not seeming to realize I was only quoting back his own hedging answer when I had asked whether Brian was going to be a cripple.
FINN DROVE UP later that morning in a strange car. I had been more or less watching out the window since Father McFall left.
“You’re in a car,” I said stupidly. He was wearing his dress-up clothes from the first time he came to dinner.
“I am,” he said, not appearing to note this infantile greeting. “Kindly lent by Mr. Crump, but it has to be returned to him within the hour. Ah, Mrs. Jones.” He stepped over to the sink, where she was washing up, and offered his hand. “Devlin Finn. I didn’t introduce myself very well last time.”
“Oh, Mr. Finn,” she said. “My hands are all wet.”
He waited while she dried them to her standards on her apron and then clasped them firmly between his, which I could see flustered her a little. “How is everyone doing up here?” he asked in a confidential voice, as though he and she were by themselves.
“It was a shock, Mr. Finn, but we’re managing. Is there anything I could get you? A glass of water?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Jones, but all I need is Helen here. I’ve come to pack up Flora’s belongings to take with me on the train to Birmingham. It leaves in a little over an hour and I’m going to need her help.”
It was the first time anyone had said her name.
I LED THE way upstairs, past Starling Peake without saying anything about whose room I hoped it would be, and on down the hall to the Willow Fanning room. There were important questions I was aching
