Follow Me (50 page)

An answer is true until proven false. Or is it false until proven true? And what role does intuition play in the construction
of the stories we tell ourselves? Guess.

Could you be…?

Try out
no.
It felt thick and heavy, unproductive, pointless. Then try out
yes.
It was so much brighter, like the underside of a leaf turned up by a summer breeze.
Yes
was more appealing than
no
. But she had to be honest with herself and admit that it wasn’t convincing.
Yes
was the sound of a whim.

Then how about
maybe,
with its respect for mystery and its promise of resolution? Try it out. Test the word for its resilience.
Maybe.
It was a hopeful word and for that reason alone was the best answer to the question Sally couldn’t ask.
Maybe.
And out of
maybe,
she could begin to solve the riddle of her life and identify the consequence of that first decisive action she’d taken, when
she’d given herself the chance to start over again.

Running, running, running.

Out of
maybe,
Sally Werner might learn who she’d been all along.
Maybe
seemed the most honest option and at the same time the most encouraging, giving her direction. She didn’t bother to consider
that it was the same direction she’d already allowed herself to follow in her imagination. It was the direction she’d come
from, a return to the past. She told herself she’d go back and find out the truth about the child she’d abandoned, and
maybe, just maybe,
she’d learn that Abe Boyle was her son. She had figured out the right questions to ask, at last. She didn’t stop to consider
that she was framing the questions to produce the only answers she was prepared to accept. There wasn’t time to reject the
promise of her hunch.
Maybe
hid the truth, the ridiculous, exhilarating truth, which had to be disclosed if her daughter and Abe Boyle were going to
be spared from making a terrible mistake.

Thinking back to that summer, Sally would remember that there was a sense of change in the air. The jobless rate was up across
the country, car sales were falling, and in Washington senators were talking about impeachment. Sally sat transfixed in front
of the television, smoking her Lucky Strikes. And then she’d spend the nights tossing and turning, her thoughts racing.

She planned to drive to Tauntonville in mid-July, but that was the weekend Abe Boyle’s mother took a turn for the worse. Abe’s
car was in the repair shop, so Penelope borrowed Sally’s car to drive him to Long Island. That same week Arnie Caddeau took
his family down to the Jersey Shore. Sally waited restlessly, counting the days. Once, just once, she met some of her girlfriends
at Typhoon Sam’s, and after too many gin daiquiris she showed off her talent with a song. She sang “Dream a Little Dream of
Me.”

In your dreams, whatever they be…

She could still belt it out. The noise in the bar subsided as everyone stopped talking to listen to Sally sing. They listened
politely, and at the end there was scattered applause, but Sally could tell that she’d made a bad choice with that song. It
was Mama Cass’s hit, and anyone trying to outdo Mama Cass or even match her was bound to sound foolish.

Back home, with the song running through her head, she remembered the good times singing with Penny Campbell in Tuskee. She’d
lost touch with Penny; she told herself that when she did go to Tauntonville she’d stop in Tuskee and look up her old friend.
She’d be sure to bring along a photo of Penelope to show her that her namesake had grown up into a real beauty.

Penelope Bliss had plenty of talent to go with her looks, along with the good habit of persistence and irresistible charisma.
For years, Sally had been convinced that her girl was a natural performer and would have grand success if she just set her
mind to it. But being a star wasn’t in Penelope’s plan. Instead she’d been talking about law — a man’s career, in Sally’s
opinion. In all her years as a secretary in the office of
Kendycandyc’doo,
she’d never met a single woman lawyer. It was true that she hadn’t met any celebrities either, but she’d spent a lot of time
looking at their pictures. They had a good life, an easy life. Sally wanted to remind her daughter to watch for opportunity.

Penelope thought she’d found an opportunity in Abe. No doubt about it — they were spending the week falling more deeply in
love. They would come home from Long Island more attached to each other than ever, and it would be up to Sally to disclose
to them the fact of their family connection, if there was indeed a fact.

She awoke to a soft summer rain the next morning. She made herself a cup of Nescafé and turned on the radio. The dj was saying
something about Mama Cass of the Mamas and Papas. She didn’t catch the details of his announcement. “Dream a Little Dream”
came on, and as she blew out a stream of cigarette smoke she remembered with deprecating amusement how she’d tried to do justice
to that song at Typhoon Sam’s the night before.

She learned the sad news only at the end of the day, when she saw the headlines in the evening paper announcing that Mama
Cass Elliot had been found dead in her bed in a London hotel room, clutching a half-eaten ham sandwich. What a lonely and
humiliating way to go. How could a woman with a voice as delicate as Mama Cass’s come to such a sorry end? Sally was reminded
of her beloved Dara Bliss and of fleeting time stealing the sweetest voices from the world. As she crossed over the Court
Street Bridge, she started humming, and then she started singing softly.

In your dreams, whatever they be…

She sang the whole song through and at the end felt oppressed by the weight of loneliness. She stopped and leaned against
the embankment wall to watch the rust-streaked Tuskee moving lazily, spilling slowly toward the lip of the falls. She was
forty-three years old, almost forty-four, old enough to realize how much she’d squandered in her life. And yet she told herself
that she’d made the choices she thought would be best. She’d had to grow up too quickly, that was the problem. She’d become
a mother at sixteen, and she’d never had a chance to finish being a child.

Shortly after she returned home, the phone rang. It was Penelope calling from Long Island to say that Abe’s mother had died.
Poor Abe, then, was an orphan again. Or maybe not. Maybe another mother would take over for the one he’d lost.

They’d be staying in Huntington through the funeral, which was scheduled for Wednesday, and would drive home the next day.
By Friday, Sally would be able to track down the Werners and get some answers.

____

She stood in the parlor of Loden Werner’s farmhouse. He’d purchased it more than twenty years earlier from his uncle, and
from what Sally could tell, he’d let the fields lie fallow. He was telling her about the lumber company where he worked as
a supervisor. Willy was a supervisor, as well, and Clem was a driver. Loden was cordial enough as he brought Sally up to date.
He’d grown thick around the waist, and his hair had thinned, but she saw that his cheek still creased around the one big dimple,
and his eyes were still the same green.

He introduced Sally to his wife — Betty Werner, daughter of Patrick Shaunessy of Peterkin. Shaunessy. Sally didn’t recognize
the name. She accepted Betty’s offer of tea. While Betty was out of the room, Loden called loudly for Bonnie. From the way
he was calling the name, Sally thought Bonnie was his dog. When Bonnie didn’t appear, Sally asked about her and learned that
she was Loden’s twelve-year-old daughter. She was probably out doing chores at the neighbor’s, Loden said. He explained that
she was working hard to save up money to buy a pony. They couldn’t have a pony, he said, they couldn’t afford the upkeep.
But he thought it was good to see his daughter working hard and saving money.

Betty brought a striped mug with the Lipton bag floating in tepid lemon-colored water. Sally took a sip and set it on the
mantel. She announced that she wasn’t going to beat around the bush. She reminded Loden that twenty-two years ago she’d come
in search of news of her child. She asked him if he remembered that visit. He said no, he didn’t recall it. Then he didn’t
recall telling Sally that she wasn’t welcome at home. He spoke sharply in denial — he never said that. Then he did remember
that visit twenty-two years ago? “I suppose,” he admitted. Perhaps he might recall that when Sally had asked him about the
whereabouts of her baby, he’d said,
What baby?
No, he didn’t remember saying that.

Back and forth they continued, Sally offering Loden prompts, Loden denying, then hedging, then denying again. She quit pressing
him and tried a different tack. She asked him if he knew where their cousin Daniel was. He said he hadn’t heard hide nor hair
of Daniel for years. Even his parents hadn’t heard from him. He disappeared. He didn’t even come home for his mother’s funeral,
Loden said. Sally remembered that Tru had remarked upon the same thing, with the same words. She’d thought this meant his
absence signified a turning point in their understanding of him. Daniel Werner hadn’t come home for his own mother’s funeral.
But standing with Loden, she realized that he was conveying his disgust for Daniel Werner as a way of conveying his disgust
for her, since Sally had failed equally. Her father had died, and then her mother had died, and their eldest daughter hadn’t
come home for their funerals. The older generation had passed one by one, and Sally hadn’t come home. Well, here she was,
too late to ameliorate her brother’s contempt for her.

There would be no reviving whatever familial ease they’d shared as children. Sally was Daniel’s equal. Both were disgraceful
in Loden’s eyes. Fine. She didn’t need his forgiveness. She just needed him to tell her what had happened to her baby.

He didn’t know. Daniel disappeared, and he took the baby with him.

Really? Was Loden absolutely certain? Sally tried a small lie to nudge him: “I heard that Daniel gave the baby away.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Loden asked sharply.

“It doesn’t matter. I just want to know if it’s true.”

“What’s true?”

“That he gave the baby away.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s possible, isn’t it? It’s likely, eh?”

Loden didn’t know. He couldn’t say for certain one way or the other. He advised her to go talk to Clem. Clem was living in
a house on Mosshill Lane. “Go talk to Clem,” Loden advised.

Sally bid good-bye to Loden and his wife, Betty, with such abruptness that they didn’t even have a chance to show her out.
As she approached the front door, she felt that peculiar awareness that comes from being stared at, and she glanced up the
well of the staircase and saw a girl with her face pressed between the rails of the banister. Sally expected the girl to draw
back in shyness, but instead she kept staring down at her, as if Sally were an exotic animal in a zoo.

Sally offered a greeting in her friendliest voice. “I’m your aunt Sally,” she said.

“Bonnie, come here!” At the sound of Loden’s angry voice calling from the parlor, Sally and the girl engaged in a silent,
powerful exchange, with the girl expressing fear and Sally trying to convey with a slight nod that she sympathized, for she
knew herself how difficult it was to be a Werner. Loden called again, the girl fled from the stairs into a bedroom, and Sally
let herself out.

From Loden’s house to Clem’s. What would her younger brother tell her that she didn’t already know? The hedging, the obdurate
denials, the feigned confusion — the Werner men could make it difficult to track down the truth. But Clem had always been
nicer to Sally than Loden had, or at least he hadn’t gone out of his way to humiliate her. And he was polite when he came
home from work and found Sally talking to his wife, his gentle wife, who had gone ahead and invited her sister-in-law to stay
for dinner. She’d made a meat loaf, enough to feed a crowd, she said. And those three boys of hers, Sally’s nephews, why,
they made as much noise as a crowd with their shouting and brawling as they came up the back steps. They yelled at their mother.
They yelled at their beagle, who stood thumping his tail, blocking the doorway. Though they were still young, ranging in age
from ten to fourteen, they were big and forceful in their actions and already they had that Werner way of looking askance,
with obvious suspicion, at their guest.

Clem told Sally stories about the part of his growing up that she’d missed. He told her about the time he’d broken his arm
falling off a tractor. He described how a tornado touched down in 1954 on the Jensons’ farm, cut a swath across the edge of
the field, and blew a cow right over the electric lines. He told her how he’d met his wife, Eveline, waiting outside the movie
theater in Lafayette. And he told her about her parents’ funerals, from the Gospel passages read right down to the meals that
were served after the ceremony.

His words gave Sally a mixed feeling of guilt and relief. Clem Werner had always followed the rules and lived his life in
a predictable fashion. Sally, on the other hand, had followed a river, and she’d run into new problems at every bend.

She couldn’t ask outright about her child, not with Clem filling the air with small talk and their beagle braying on the porch
and those three boys too restless to sit for long. Dinner was over in no time, and before Sally could have a proper conversation
with her brother, Clem announced that he had to drive the boys to their Little League game. In a blink he already had his
own cap on, his wife and the boys had said good-bye to Sally and were waiting in the pickup truck, and Clem was telling his
sister how good it was to see her. Wasn’t it a shame she’d stayed away, but she was always welcome in his house, he assured
her with honest conviction. Sally thanked him for that. And out of the swell of gratitude she blurted, “Clem, I need to find
our cousin Daniel.”

“What could you possibly want with Daniel after all these years?” Clem asked. Only then, standing close to him by the screen
door off the kitchen, did Sally realize how tall he’d grown, more than six feet, she guessed. And his hair was blonder than
she’d remembered it, more strawberry blond than red.