Great Haystack’s skiers wanted a smooth surface where turning locations were
She left a little earlier than usual to take Andre for his swimming therapy at the club. Cilla had also been swimming since she was three, usually in the Saco River. Now, during the winter, she tried to use the club’s pool at least once a week, each session for a hundred or so laps. Her one-piece bathing suit was as conservative as could be found in the malls of North Conway, but she was aware of Andre’s eyes on her more often than on the female swimmers in smaller pieces of cloth. The attention made her uncomfortable. Damn Loni, wherever she is. She left the pool area as soon as she’d finished her routine, breathing a sigh of relief, when Bob Gold appeared from the weight room, suggesting to Andre they try the new Indian restaurant on the “Strip”, as the three mile commercial stretch south of North Conway village was known.
The Rogers were having a guest of their own for dinner, which was rare. She and Hudson were private people, who neither needed nor wanted a social circle. But Jim Evans was a local physician who’d shared some of the couple’s short history together. He’d doctored both Cilla and Hudson the previous fall for wounds not commonly associated with the peaceful life of the north country and become a friend in the process.
Cilla greeted him at the door as he stomped his boots. “Susie Tardon, how is she?”
“I’m sorry, Cilla. She didn’t make it.” He hung his coat in the mudroom.
“Oh no! That’s terrible! What happened?”
“She never regained consciousness.” The doctor headed toward the glowing fireplace rubbing his hands.
Cilla followed him in. “So… What did she die of?”
Evans gazed into the fire. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Doctors are supposed to know.”
The doctor nodded wearily. He turned to face her. “That’s what I used to think. You remember Annie Cross?”
“Sure, ran into her last week at the grocery store. She lives on River Street.”
“Lived. She died two days ago. Her niece found her sitting at her dining room table looking as if she was just waiting for dinner to be served.”
“Annie must have been eighty-five.”
“Seventy-four and last week as healthy as sixty. You probably know Henry Callow?”
“I saw him last night at the Planning Board meeting, looking like death warmed over. Don’t tell me…”
“His daughter found him this morning. Sitting in his car in the driveway as though about to drive to the store. He was seventy.”
“I would have guessed him older.” She paused. “But seventy’s not young.”
“Old age isn’t a cause of death. It’s a reason why parts sometimes fail.”
“What parts failed with these?”
“That’s the point; none that I can tell. They should still be alive.”
“Like Susie?”
“She went the same way. Mind you, people die all the time, we just usually know the reason.” He was lost in thought a moment. “Both Annie and Henry were found with peaceful looks on their faces and their mouths open, as if they were just about to greet their Maker. Susie, who didn’t yet speak, looked the same.”
“Is that unusual?”
The doctor shrugged. “No, not really.”
“Something’s bothering you,” said Hudson.
“Talking with my colleagues, there may have been two others.
“Older people?”
“The youngest was sixty-one. Except for Susie. She’s the only child.” He grinned. “Don’t make a big deal about it. This isn’t China or India.”
“Where the people are more disease prone?” asked Cilla, with an edge to her voice.
“More densely populated. We’re breeding too much, Cilla. There are getting to be just too many people on earth. Why should humans be any different than, say, the Gypsy Moth?”
“Who die off after a few years?”
“Each species has it,” said Evans. “A built-in control triggered by overpopulation that thins out the numbers. Sometimes wipes them out completely. When was the last time you saw a raccoon? Yet twenty years ago they were all over the Valley. We’re already seeing a substantial drop in human birth rates. So far we’ve been able to survive diseases. But we’ve only been around a short time and we’ve multiplied so rapidly that unless we peel back voluntarily it will get done for us.”
“Meaning?”
“It’s already been happening. The Black Plague decimated Europe. Influenza wiped out more than twenty million in this country and over there before it ended. And look how nervous scientists got over Swine Flu.” He folded his arms tightly around his chest and leaned on the chair arm. “Smallpox, TB, AIDS. And when we find a cure for one, it mutates and a resistant strain develops. There’s no dearth of people who feel the whole planet is on its way up the chimney. Whether or not they’re right at this time, they will be someday very soon if we keep adding to our numbers the way we have. If not a giant collapse through increases or decreases in global temperature, or destruction of the ozone layer, a bacterial or virus outbreak we can’t control in time. Probably starting with our older people.”
“And Susie.”
The conversation over dinner was muted.
February 20-26
The New England weather gods were in a good mood. It snowed Tuesday and again Friday, and though the sun wasn’t always as ready to appear, there was little wind, and daytime temperatures nudged into the thirties. February will set records, thought Cilla, though the size of the crowds emphasized Great Haystack’s weaknesses. Food service areas were inadequate as was parking. They’d have to do something about both if they got the new quad.
She was at the mountain each morning at six and didn’t break away until nine at night. Kurt Britton had the mountain crews working straight through with no days off. Those who walked into his office left running; he had that effect on employees. His eyes were always on her, daring her to make a mistake or let down from the furious pace he set.
On Wednesday Bob Gold announced that his new walk-in freezer was finished, and he again had a room for Andre. Cilla tried, not completely successfully, to hide relief at her guest’s departure.
“You’re very private people, aren’t you?” Andre echoed her thoughts.
“Hudson and I didn’t have a formal honeymoon, so I guess we’re still on it,” she said by way of apology.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your taking me in.” He pulled at his chin. “It’s been stressful for me, too, sitting across the breakfast table from what could be the girl who walked out on me.”
“Have you heard anything from her?”
“Nothing. One day she was gone and that’s all. No note, no calls.”
“Andre, are you
“I checked hospitals after she left. But that was while I was still allowing myself the fiction that her departure might be due to something beyond her control. No, she’d been jumpy for a week or two before she left. I didn’t catch the signs until after she’d gone. Then I realized she’d obviously been in the process of making her decision; I was too wrapped in my work to notice. I’m still old fashioned enough to do most of my research in libraries rather than the Internet. I’m often there long into the evenings.”
After he’d gone, Cilla stood looking out the kitchen window at the mountains but hearing the whispered voice.
