Follow Me (49 page)

Together in the rented room on the third floor of the house on Jay Street, the lovers began with their fingers to trace the
curving lines of their ears, their chins, their shoulders, and soon they were pressed against each other, belly to belly,
their mouths locked together, their hands exploring, working each other up until it became impossible not to go further than
they’d meant to, and though neither was a virgin and both knew they should be using contraception, they weren’t going to stop
everything just because they didn’t have a rubber handy. They’d use one the next time, or the time after that.

Buster Boy.

Baby Doll.

Because now was now, the present wouldn’t last until the future and so must be lived in all its fullness, pleasures tangling
in perfect proof of the rightness of their love. There was no question: it was breathtakingly clear that they were meant for
each other. And how easy it had been to see the potential back when they first picked each other out from the group of their
friends — as easy as recognizing a familiar face in a crowd.

Tru Werner stayed with her sister for three weeks, passing the time while Sally was at work watching the black-and-white TV,
a treat for her, since she didn’t have a TV of her own back in Lafayette. Sally didn’t mention Arnie Caddeau to Tru and during
this period saw him only in the office. They didn’t return to the subject of Sally’s son. Instead, they talked at length about
their parents, about their habits and foibles and the faith that made them unforgiving.

In the evening, she would take her sister out on the town. They’d eat dinner at a strip-mall Chinese restaurant, and afterward
they’d go to a movie or a nightclub. On Thursdays the department stores downtown were open late, so they went shopping. With
Sally’s help, Tru found bargains hidden on the racks and came away with a clutch made of lambskin, a linen pantsuit, a straw
hat, and a red silk party dress, which she bought only reluctantly, at Sally’s urging.

On a Sunday afternoon toward the end of her stay, Sally took Tru to see the new pedestrian bridge spanning the downtown gorge.
It was a warm, humid day, but the gorge was cooled by the wind blowing across the crest of the falls, and a crowd of people
lolled about, enjoying the breeze and listening to a man puffing on a harmonica. Tru couldn’t walk far because of her bad
leg, so they sat on a bench and tossed pieces of a roll to the pigeons that had followed them from the parking lot. Voices
seemed to float around them, lingering, as if spoken by the shadows of passersby. At one point a gust of wind curled up from
the chasm of the gorge, caught Tru’s new straw hat by the brim, lifted it from her head, and blew it right off. It landed
first on the pavement, but before Sally could retrieve it the wind blew it skittering across the bridge and over the edge.

One and two and three and —

That’s about how long it took the straw hat to fall from the bridge to the river. In truth, though, Sally wasn’t measuring
the time. She was too mesmerized by the hat, which seemed to soar of its own volition, as if it had sprouted wings, and then
slid at an angle through the air, descending along a steep invisible slope before disappearing into the river.

Sally sputtered an apology, and though Tru assured her that she wasn’t to blame, Sally apologized again. She was sorry for
bringing her sister to this windy site only to lose her nice hat, her nice
new
hat from McCurdy’s, which Tru had gotten to wear just once. Sally should have thought about the wind before she dragged her
sister onto the bridge. Tru reminded her that she hadn’t been dragged; she’d come along happily, and she was glad of it, the
breeze felt rejuvenating, and what did she need with a new hat anyway? She hardly ever wore hats anymore.

Though it was, as Tru indicated, a minor incident, the loss of the hat reminded Sally of the river’s presence and power. She
was compelled to notice it again, to remember that it was still there and still flowing from its source to its mouth. The
ruddy, sludgy river, thick with sewage and chemicals. In the depths lived strange, elusive little creatures, part worm, part
human — river angels, as Sally liked to think of them. She had long since given up hope of ever catching sight of one again.
She knew the Tuskee well enough to expect that it would guard its secrets. She knew more about the Tuskee than most people
knew, since she’d followed it all the way from the spring on Thistle Mountain. She knew that the headwaters were gray with
cement dust in Fishkill Notch. She’d seen how the river widened and surged along a shallow course on its way through Helena,
it deepened and flowed calmly through the city that shared its name, it tumbled down shelves of slate through the ravine in
the state park, and in its last ten miles it plunged over three sets of falls on its way to the lake.

The Tuskee River flowed north from the Endless Mountains, and Sally Werner had traveled north with it. Even when she’d inadvertently
wandered from it, she’d never been so lost in her life that she couldn’t find her way back to the river. She’d come to where
the river had led her and was confident that she’d arrived in the place where she was meant to be. But something about that
hat, that straw hat sliding along the slope of wind and disappearing into the river — that hat hadn’t been bought in order
to be lost. It had been lost by accident, and it made Sally wonder about other accidents that she might have mistaken for
destiny.

She drove Tru back to the house after leaving the bridge. Following a simple dinner of deviled eggs and salad, Tru went to
pack and then to bed, since she had an early bus to catch. Penelope was out for the evening, and Sally stayed up late reading
magazines. Really, she didn’t do much reading. She glanced at the photographs and their captions while she pondered how her
life would have been altered if she hadn’t followed the river all the way north.

She would have found a different job in a different office. She wouldn’t have met Arnie and been swept up into an affair with
him. Her daughter would have grown up with different influences and wouldn’t be thinking about law school now. And Penelope
certainly wouldn’t have had the chance to meet the young man named Abe, who just happened, wouldn’t you know, to be the spitting
image of Loden Werner.

She spoke to Daniel Werner in her dreams, in her thoughts, in letters that she wrote and tore up.
Tell me where you sent him, tell me what’s become of him!
She rehearsed what she would say to him so she’d be prepared when she finally tracked him down.
Did you give our son away, Daniel Werner? Tell me the truth! Did you give him away?
She pictured Daniel Werner’s worn face in middle age. She imagined his response of a dull, mulish silence. She knew just
how she’d fill in the blanks for him:
Yes, you did, you don’t have to speak, I already know the answer. You couldn’t handle the child, so you gave him away. You
gave him away, I know you did.
Her sister had planted the idea, and now it was all too easy to guess what Daniel Werner wouldn’t want to admit.
I gave the boy to my parents. They gave him to you. You gave him to strangers. Good for you. It’s the one right thing you
ever did in your life.
She imagined filling in the words for him.
You gave him to a family who could provide for him. And then you went away to start over. We both had to start over, from
scratch, and we did, and that’s good, that’s the way it should be, that’s what we were meant to do.
She even went so far as to plan what she knew she could never bring herself to say.
Good for you and good for me. Our son had a better life without us. I left him behind, and you gave him away. He’s a happy,
handsome young man by now, all grown up. Yes, sure, he’s better off without us.

She was inclined to let her thoughts circle around imagined conversations in order to avoid the implications of her uncertainty.
She told herself what she wanted to hear: her child had not been harmed by her neglect. She wasn’t to blame. If Daniel Werner
couldn’t handle him, then he’d done what Tru had suggested and given him away. It was the scenario that made the most sense.
Of course Daniel Werner couldn’t have raised a child on his own, so he’d given the baby up for adoption. And wasn’t it likelier
than not that the boy had grown up into a healthy, good-looking young man, a redhead just like her brothers?

In the first few weeks following her sister’s departure, Sally caught up on some of the chores she’d been putting off. She
cleaned the carpets, washed the windows, and hosed down the siding. At work she stayed late to sift through papers and reorganize
files. Because it was summer, she saw less of Arnie than she did during the rest of the year. He took Fridays off and spent
the long weekends with his family. But he came to Sally’s for dinner on Mondays, and he’d stay with her through the evening.
Penelope was usually out with Abe, and after dinner Sally and Arnie would close themselves in the bedroom and fall into each
other’s arms.

Arnie’s most vocal expression to Sally was gratitude. He couldn’t thank her enough for putting up with him, for being steadfast
in her love despite the difficult circumstances. His wife was more dependent upon him than ever. If she suspected his infidelity,
she gave no sign. Over the years she’d withdrawn from interactions and spent most of her time in bed, where she’d sleep for
long stretches at irregular hours, eat her meals from a tray, and when awake knit a plain white scarf that just got longer
and longer. She repeatedly reassured Arnie with a dreamy smile, insisting that she was contented with her life. Still, there
were times when he became so overwhelmed by shame that he would arrive at Sally’s unannounced, with the intention of breaking
off the affair. In response, Sally would agree and even go so far as to say that nothing good could come of their cheating
ways. All it took, though, was the prospect of saying good-bye to each other for their resolve to weaken. Their love, they’d
decide, was not something they could just turn off with a switch. They were doomed to love each other. They’d become convinced
of this all over again, and the affair would continue.

Despite her love for Arnie, or rather, because of it, she couldn’t bring herself to confide in him about the mistakes of her
youth. She kept her thoughts to herself. And as she pondered the news her sister had brought, her responses evolved. Her parents
were gone, and she would never persuade them to forgive her, nor would they ever tell her about the fate of her child. They’d
taken their secrets to the grave. For a while Sally just filled in the blanks and imagined a rich life for her son: he was
movie-star handsome; he worked in a fancy office in a distant city; he lived with his lovely young wife in a big house with
a three-car garage.

It was Abraham Boyle who kept reminding her that she couldn’t keep entertaining herself with fantasies. All he had to do was
push the front door open and call, “Anybody home?” for Sally to be reminded of other possibilities. That he looked more like
a Werner the more she stared at him… why, what an absurd idea, to think… she couldn’t even allow herself to articulate it,
not at first. But the absurdity presented itself for her perusal every time Abe arrived at the house. Just by being present
and available for observation, he made it necessary for Sally to wonder if there was more than a coincidental resemblance.

She invited him to sit. She offered him a beer and took the opportunity to examine his features with more than just a glance.
She noticed the dimple above the scruff of his beard, the line of his eyebrows, the curve of his nostrils, and his eyes, those
green eyes speckled with flecks of brown. He was different from the other boys her daughter had brought home. It was a difference
hard to define but apparent in his obvious devotion to Penelope. Sally saw why her daughter might come to love him, if given
the chance. And she understood something about love, didn’t she? Sure she did. She understood that the experience of love
could be as vexing as it was rewarding. Love could be dangerous and beautiful at the same time, hurtful and healing, impossible
and necessary. That’s what Sally would have warned the couple if she’d had the courage to be frank.

To pass the time, she asked Abe about his parents. His father, he said, had died when he was a boy. She expressed her condolences.
His mother lived on Long Island. She’d come down with some sort of flu, he said, a summer flu. Well, that was too bad. Sally
hoped his mother recovered quickly. Mrs. Boyle lived on Long Island? She needed to hear him confirm it: yes, Long Island,
though she was originally from Pittsburgh, that’s where she’d grown up, as did Abe’s father. Really? And they met there in
Pittsburgh? Yes. And then moved to Long Island? Yes. And Abe was born on Long Island? Well, no, in fact, he’d been adopted.
Sure, Sally murmured, he’d mentioned that before. So he’d been born… in Pittsburgh? He been adopted through the Roman Catholic
Diocese in Pittsburgh. That’s all he knew for certain.

She could see he was getting jittery. He was nervous, like a witness under cross-examination. She guessed that he wanted to
hide the fact that there were missing pieces in the puzzle of his life. But he couldn’t help it. She wanted to reassure him,
to point out that he wasn’t to blame for not knowing things he’d never been told. There were blanks in her own life story,
as well, though she didn’t come right out and admit this. She didn’t mention that she had a son. He’d be about Abe’s age,
yes, just about, give or take a few months. Of course she didn’t say this. Her daughter didn’t know that she had an older
half brother, and it was too late to tell her the truth. Sally had secrets; maybe Abe could find them just by searching her
face, as she searched his.

“There’s Penny. Ah, if you’ll excuse me…”

“Sure, go along.”

There he went, looking more like a Werner than ever.

That’s because all redheads look alike.

Who are you?

Every question has an answer.