Follow Me (53 page)

Since her daughter didn’t want to be subjected to questions, Sally was left to search Penelope’s bedroom at home for any information
that might lead her to Abe Boyle.

It was the first week of November on a gray Tuesday, the clouds were thickening ahead of a storm, and with the shade drawn
the room was dark, reminding her of entering the room early on winter mornings to wake Penelope for school. She switched on
the light and immediately was struck by the stillness of the room. In her daughter’s absence she dusted and vacuumed the bedroom
every week, but now its neatness seemed to give the room an artificial quality, as though it had been arranged as a model
of an earlier time rather than as a place Penelope still returned to between semesters. The smoothness of the quilt, the waxy
white edges of the windowsill, the posters of rock singers Sally didn’t recognize, the pens standing in a cup on the desk,
the paperbacks on the shelves — everything remained too firmly in place, glued and bolted down so that years later visitors
could come and see the typical bedroom, circa 1974, of a typical American girl.

The arrangement of the room was misleading. When occupied, it was messy, with tank tops and bell-bottoms piled on the floor,
unmatched sandals cluttering the closet, papers and books stacked in a teetering tower on the little table beside the bed.
Sally missed the dishevelment of her daughter’s life. She missed the windswept, breathless presence of the girl as she spun
from the kitchen down the hall, the radio blaring one of those screechy tunes that Penelope loved. She missed the noise of
her daughter’s life, the laughter and rush of it.

And yet there she was uselessly straightening a spiral notebook on the desk. Sally couldn’t resist — it was in her nature
to try to put the clutter of the world into some sort of respectable order. After all the mistakes she’d made in her life,
she preferred to keep the floor clean, the blankets tucked tightly around the mattress. To Sally, the freedom young people
claimed as a right was perilously close to chaos. She wanted to know what to believe. When she was sure of something, she
wanted to remain sure.

In contrast to Sally, her daughter seemed drawn to things that were uncertain and unresolved. Here and there in the room,
in corners that hadn’t been touched by Sally, there was evidence of the girl’s tolerance for confusion. The titles of the
books she read, for instance —
Ends and Odds
and
Words in Commotion.
What did any of it mean? Sally could predict that these books held no answers. And what use did she have for riddles that
couldn’t be solved?

Her daughter was intent on learning about things that seemed to bear no direct relation to her life. It didn’t matter to her
that she was radiant and talented and could have become one of those glamorous celebrities whose photos Sally admired in the
glossies. Penelope wanted to get herself educated and then put her education to practical use. She was too brainy for her
own good.

Sally had to acknowledge that a life of glamour was not in the cards for her daughter. While she wasn’t ready to admit that
it was a naïve and empty ambition, she did see that Penelope wasn’t interested in such things. And really, Sally was proud
of her girl, proud of her smarts, proud of her determination to go out and find her own way. She was building a life for herself
that Sally couldn’t have imagined. Penelope wasn’t afraid, like her mother was, of finding herself in the midst of a situation
that she couldn’t control. She trusted her own ability to handle any unpredictable challenges life delivered.

Sally had lost track of how much time had passed since she’d been in the room. She’d forgotten that she was looking for Abe’s
address. Instead, she was enjoying the feeling that her apprehension of her daughter was being expanded just by pondering
the things she’d left behind. Her strong and capable daughter. Why, look, here was an essay she’d written for school, twelve
typed pages about the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Sally couldn’t remember ever reading a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
but her daughter had written a long essay, for which she received a big red A, along with a nice compliment from her teacher.
Now, that was something. And here was a set of index cards upon which she’d jotted quotations from the Constitution. How could
her daughter know so much! Her desk drawer was stuffed with notes she’d taken during lectures. Her old calculator had functions
that Sally couldn’t begin to figure out. She could see how much Penelope knew just by sifting through the mess in her desk
drawer. And it was amusing to find things like a take-out menu from a Chinese restaurant, with circles around steamed dumplings
and kung pao chicken. There was a plastic keychain with the name of a moving van company on it. There was a box of thumbtacks
and a chain of paper clips. And there was a small folded sheet with printed information.

At first glance, she thought the sheet explained how to work some sort of machine. But as she was stuffing the paper back
in the crowded drawer, she happened to notice that the instructions included medical terminology. She unfolded the paper,
smoothing out the creases, and looked more carefully at what she realized was a sheet of information from a medical lab. She
had to read the sheet twice to understand that it included results of a mail-in pregnancy test.

She stared at the word
positive.
Why were there so many letters in the word? It was the wrong word, it didn’t belong in her daughter’s drawer. She wanted
to rip up the sheet from the medical lab and throw it away. She also wanted to pick up the phone and call her daughter and
demand an explanation. But she mustn’t be harsh with her. She knew what it felt like to be caught by surprise in this way.
And really, when Sally considered it, the notion that her daughter had left this piece of paper for her to find wasn’t implausible,
for how could Penelope not want to be comforted by her mother, to be soothed and told that everything would be all right?
But maybe she had gotten things mixed up. How many girls were tricked into panic by a false-positive result? There was no
reason to worry, and she’d know to be more careful in the future. Everything would be all right. But what if the result was
a true positive, and the man involved was Abe? Then everything would not be all right. Nothing would ever be right again.
If Abe was involved. If there was an accidental pregnancy. If it was too late. A brother with a sister. A terrible tangle
of mistakes, and it was Sally’s fault.

Sally Werner.

That whore.

Birthed a monster and ran away.

Left him for her family to raise.

Didn’t even come back for her own parents’ funerals.

That slut.

Look at the trouble she caused.

It would be all right. Or else it wouldn’t be all right. The offense against nature had already been committed. It was too
late. Or else it wasn’t too late. Remember that God forgives the penitent. You just have to confess your wickedness and be
sorry for your sin.

She had to find Abe and tell him he was her son. The monster she’d birthed.
Sally Werner… with her own cousin.
Why, cousins were one thing, but a brother and a sister were something else entirely! He’d agree that he had no choice but
to leave town, he must go away forever, and then they would all start their lives over again, one by one. Abraham Boyle, Penelope
Bliss, Sally Werner. As long as the offense produced no issue, they would be spared, and eventually, with God’s grace, they
would find peace within themselves. It would be as if none of this had ever happened.

Sally found Abe by calling the number on the moving company keychain in Penelope’s drawer. Identifying herself as a relative,
she asked for his address. She waited until the evening to visit him, though when she arrived he still wasn’t home from work.

A storm system had stalled over the region, and a steady rain had been falling for two days. There were reports of localized
flooding. The weather bureau in Buffalo warned that the rain could continue for another twenty-four hours.

Sally stood on the porch below Abe’s rented room, watching the curtain of water spilling from a blocked gutter. While she
waited she rehearsed in her mind what she would say. She was prepared for his doubt; of course he would doubt her, so she’d
brought along the documents from Sylvia as proof.

She also had a separate envelope containing the money she’d kept with her since she was nineteen years old. Mason Jackson’s
money. Old Mason Jackson, of Fishkill Notch. After all these years she still hadn’t spent any of his money. Yet that wasn’t
entirely true. Long ago, when she’d lost her purse and had no money of her own to spend, she’d had to use some of Mason Jackson’s
cash. She’d never thought of that money as hers. In a way, she’d only borrowed it… and she’d never managed to return it. She’d
kept it because he’d given it to her. He’d wanted her to take it and to spend it wisely.

Now it seemed to her that Uncle Mason had told her to take the money for just this purpose — to give to her son so he could
begin his new life. It made so much sense, like the design of a wheel. The things that made simple sense in the world were
especially pleasing to think about right then. Wheels and roofs and rain. Why couldn’t everything in the world make simple
sense?

It was the fifth of November 1974. To Sally Bliss, standing on the porch of a rambling Victorian house in the Maplewood District,
the political turmoil consuming the nation that week felt very far away, a dream being dreamed by a stranger while she was
absorbed by her own strange dream. Her dream of the predicament she’d created. It made so little sense. Or else it made elaborate
sense. Dreams could give a contradictory impression. Either way, the logic binding the elements of the situation couldn’t
have been more different from the logic of something as simple as a wheel.

She was there to meet her son. She was there to say,
Hello, I’m your mother, now go away.
She was there to give him the money she’d kept for nearly a quarter of a century, having touched none of it — except for
the small portion she’d spent after she’d lost her purse in the alley behind Potter’s Hardware.

She took out two tens from her wallet and added these to Mason Jackson’s musty bills. Good, now it was all there, the full
amount of what she’d stolen — rather, borrowed, or accepted as a gift back in 1950. In honor of Mason Jackson, she was giving
the gift to her son. That’s what Uncle Mason would have wanted. He was a prescient man, and he’d probably intended for Sally
to use the money in just this fashion.

At quarter past eight, Sally lit another cigarette. She’d smoked half of it when she saw a car slow on the road. She watched
the car back up until it was snug against the curb, and then Abe got out holding a brown bag full of groceries. He pushed
the car door closed with his knee and approached the porch.

Though she’d planned a speech that was meant to combine disclosure with reassurance, her first reaction when she saw him was
to rush at him and start beating him for what he’d done to her daughter. He’d taken pleasure in unspeakable perversity, and
now the damage was done. For the sake of his pleasure, he had violated God’s law, and Sally wanted to punish him for this,
to beat him with a stick until he understood that he must suffer for his sin.

But she didn’t have a stick. She had a cigarette. The only thing she could think to do was to drop what remained of her cigarette
and grind out the spark with her heel.

As he stepped onto the porch, he seemed to push apart the curtain of rain. “Mrs…!” he said in surprise. Either he didn’t immediately
recognize her, or he’d forgotten her name. “Mrs.… Mrs.… Bliss, um, hello. Is everything all right?” How plaintive and meek
his voice sounded. It was enough to remind Sally that of course he hadn’t meant to do any harm. His mistake was her fault.
Everything was her fault.

“May I come in?”

“Ah… yes, I live upstairs.”

With one arm wrapped around the grocery bag, it was difficult for him to insert the key in the lock, but somehow he managed
and swung open the door. He fumbled for the light in the foyer while behind him Sally took a step forward and stumbled. She
reached out for his arm, instead grabbing the coatrack to keep herself from falling.

She followed him up the rickety stairs to the third-floor apartment. He set the groceries on the counter and offered her coffee.
While he was filling up the kettle at the sink, she began, as she’d planned, by speaking his name aloud: “Abraham Boyle.”
When he turned to face her she saw his expression mixed utter bewilderment with fear, and she was reminded again that he was
a good man and hadn’t meant any harm. “I have news for you,” she said. “Let’s sit down.”

____

She told him what she knew and, in detail, how she’d come to know it. She told him about riding on Daniel Werner’s motorcycle.
She told him about her parents’ rage. She told him about leaving her baby like a loaf of bread on the kitchen table and running
away. She told him that the river flowed north, so she’d gone north with it. She told him about the hamlet of Fishkill Notch,
where she’d worked as a housekeeper for three years. She told him about Helena, where she’d fallen in love with a boy named
Mole and then lost him. She told him about Benny Patterson, the father of Penelope. She told him about the haven that was
the city of Tuskee. She told him why she’d fled Tuskee and ended up here, in the city of R, this mixed-up city where things
that didn’t make sense were allowed to happen.

She said, “You’re not going to believe me, Abe, when I tell you that I’m your mother.”

She was right. He didn’t believe her. He refused to believe her. Disbelief left him too appalled to argue with Sally’s insane
claims. All he could say was
That’s impossible, that’s impossible.
But he had to believe her, since she had incontrovertible proof both from the county clerk’s office in Peterkin and the Catholic
Diocese of Pittsburgh.