Gretel (4 page)

“I’ve called The System. There is no report of any accident along the Interways.”

Gretel could hear in her father’s tone that the bases had been covered. Heinrich Morgan was a man of routine, as was his wife, and any break from that routine would immediately incite him to make it right again. To look at all the possibilities and rule them out, one by one, until the answer to the problem emerged. And if the remaining answers were out of his control, and he couldn’t reset the routine to its proper function, he shut down. This was the point he had apparently reached.

The tears in Gretel’s eyes seemed to be dripping to the floor before she even felt the sadness, and her face flushed with hate for her father’s weakness. Nothing was wrong! Her mother was fine! He should be ashamed, a grown man crying in front of his teenage daughter because her mother is a few hours late. For a month he had contributed nothing to the house—NOTHING—other than dirty plates and whines of discomfort. Gretel and her mother had worked the fields for six weeks while he moaned over a few broken bones in his belly. If only that horse had kicked his head! And now, when strength was needed—when he was needed—he was a clammy dishrag, like a woman who’s just watched her son leave for war.

Gretel erupted from the rocking chair and ran toward her room, ignoring the sharp pain that burned through her neck the whole way. She stumbled in and fell face down on the foot end of her bed, nearly crashing her head on the bench of the small white vanity that sat only inches away. Almost immediately, she stood back up and strode defiantly back to the open bedroom door, slamming it harder than she thought she was capable of. For that split moment she felt better than she could remember in weeks, as if the suppressed grievances of her fourteen-year-old body and mind were instantly alleviated.

She went back to her bed and took a more conventional position, curled fetal-like at the head with her cheek flat on the quilt cover.

The heavy sobs finally ended and Gretel lay still until her crying stopped completely. She rolled to her back and gazed vacuously at the brown wood that made up the cabin ceiling. Her thoughts became clear as she studied the evidence of the situation and soon became hopeful. This is all certainly an overreaction, she thought. Papa’s condition has unsettled him and I’ve let it influence me. There’s a good chance—better than good—that Mother is completely fine. In fact, there was a much higher likelihood that her mother was stranded on the road somewhere waiting for help to arrive, than lying dead on a river bank or in a landfill. True, she should have been home hours ago—if she left early, then at least six or seven hours to be more accurate—and she had taken the trip up North dozens of times over the past four or five years since Deda had become sick, so she wouldn’t have become lost. But none of that evinced tragedy. Gretel reasoned that if something truly terrible had happened, someone would know by now and the family would have been contacted.

But her father’s words bore the texture of truth; if not because of the sure somberness of his words—“Something’s happened”—than for the possible explanations available. Even if Deda had suddenly been rushed away in an ambulance and died suddenly en route to a hospital (which, of course, hadn’t happened since her father had spoken with him earlier), Mother would have called as soon as she reached the hospital. Mother always called. If she didn’t call, there was a problem. In this case, Gretel proposed, that problem may simply be a blown tire or some mechanical malfunction in the car. But the Northlands were no more than two hours away on a clear spring day, so it was unlikely she wouldn’t have found a telephone by now if it were something so benign. There was no logical reason she could think of that Mother wouldn’t have called, other than reasons she didn’t want to imagine.

She began to cry again softly, and her mind became overwhelmed with thoughts of never again seeing her mother. It was unimaginable, and physically nauseating. Her mother was everything to her. Everything. Gretel’s image of herself as a good young girl—exceptional even—was due solely to the woman she had studied thoroughly and tried for as long as she could remember to emulate. Though Gretel rarely noticed it in the environment which they lived, her mother had a finesse and dignity about her that always astounded Gretel, and only became evident—almost embarrassingly so—when it was contrasted with the tactlessness of most women in the Back Country. She avoided the crude speech that most of the Back Country wives used in an effort somehow to endear themselves to their husbands’ friends. Instead she maintained an easy poise that seemed almost regal and out of place. Consequently, of course, her mother stood out among her peers, earning the attention of the men and, Gretel supposed, the backstage scorn of her fellow ladies. She was far from what most people would describe as beautiful, but despite the physical advantages they may have had, other women always appeared intimidated by her mother’s confidence.

Gretel got to her feet and walked to the vanity, where she sat on the bench and looked at her distraught face in the mirror as the day’s last few rays of sunlight entered her window. It was almost dark and there was no sign of Mother. She turned on the lamp and examined the framed picture of her parents that sat on the vanity top. Her father had gotten very lucky, she thought, and Gretel became sad for him. He was twenty years older than his bride, and in his marriage had always been decided in his ways, insisting on the traditional roles of husband and wife: provider and caregiver, tough and understanding, et cetera.

But in that tradition he had never shown anything but respect and love for her mother. When choices of importance had to be made, concerning her and her brother, or otherwise, Heinrich Morgan always insisted on his wife’s opinion. He knew between the two of them she was the smarter one, and he never pretended otherwise.

And though Gretel couldn’t remember a time when her father was what she would describe as ‘sweet’ toward Mother, he certainly never gave her any reason to be docile or frightened around him. He never complained about a meal—whether overcooked or late or for any reason—and he always thanked her when it was over, even offering compliments if he found it exceptional. And if Mother needed to leave him for a day or a week—as in the current situation visiting her ill father—there was never a sense of trepidation when she told him, and the news was always delivered as a statement, with the full expectation that it would be received without protest, if not encouragement. “I’ll need to leave for the North tomorrow,” her mother would say. “Father’s doing poorly. Gretel will handle the house while I’m gone.” And father’s replies would be nothing other than words of concern for his father-in-law.

The memory of these exchanges suddenly awakened Gretel to the fact that she was not ready to assume this position of authority. The surrogate role of housewife that Gretel had taken on for the last nine days, and that she had begrudgingly admitted to herself was, on some level, enjoyable, was beyond her capabilities. Well beyond. She couldn’t do this for five or ten more days let alone years!

Gretel was startled by the muffled sound of the cabin door opening and then closing. She sat motionless, not breathing, and looked at nothing as she shifted her eyes in amazement around the room waiting for the next sound to decipher. Mother! It was definitely Mother. It had to be. Tired and with quite a story to tell, no doubt, but it had to be her. She waited for the booming sound of her father’s voice, joyful and scolding, to ring through her room. She wanted to rush out and verify her belief, but she was paralyzed, fearing that somehow by moving she would lose the sound and her hopes would evaporate.

At the tepid knock on her bedroom door, Gretel smiled and lifted herself from the bench, banging her knee on the underside of the vanity and nearly knocking the lamp to the floor, catching it just before it fell. The door cracked and began to open. Gretel looked toward it, waiting for the miracle, holding her awkward lamp-in-hand pose.

It was her father.

“No!” she said, the word erupting from her mouth automatically, denoting both fear and authority, as if she were repelling a spirit that had ventured from hell to inhabit her room. Her father looked at her with sadness and acceptance. “Is she dead?” Gretel said, surprised at the bluntness of her question.

“I don’t know, Gretel, we’re going to look for her. Your brother is home.”

Gretel let out a restrained sigh as the family truck pulled in front of her grandfather’s small brick house, amazed they had made it. The truck, she guessed, was at least thirty years old, and probably hadn’t made a trip this far since before she was born. And each time her father had made one of his dozen or so stops along the way, exploring the considerable land surrounding every curve and potential hazard that the back roads offered, he turned the engine off to conserve fuel. She was sure with each failed effort to locate her mother, the key would click ominously in the ignition when her father tried to restart the engine, and they too would disappear along the road. But it had always started, and here they were.

She looked across the bench seat at her father and was disturbed by the look of indifference on his face. Her brother lay between them asleep.

Her father opened the door and said weakly, “Stay in the car.”

“I’m seeing Deda,” Gretel immediately responded, opening the door quickly and storming out of the truck, taking a more defiant tone than was indicative of how she actually felt. She had every intention of seeing her grandfather though. It had been months since she’d seen him, and even though she often felt awkward around him lately, more so now that he had worsened, she loved him enormously, and still considered him, next to her mother, the most comforting person in her world. If there was one person she needed right now, other than her mother, it was Deda.

She ran toward the house and as she reached the stoop she saw the tall, smiling figure of Deda standing in the doorway. She screamed at the sight of him. He looked so old, at least twenty years older than the seventy-five he actually was, and his smile was far from the thin-lipped consoling grin Gretel would have expected. Instead his mouth was wide and toothy, as if he had been laughing. He looked crazy, she thought.

“Hi, Deda,” she said swallowing hard. “How are you feeling?”

At the sound of Gretel’s voice, Deda’s face lit up, morphing to normalcy and becoming consistent with that of a man seeing his beloved granddaughter for the first time in four months. “Gretel!” which he pronounced ‘Gree-tel,’ “my love, come in! Where is your brother?”

“He’s in the car sleeping,” she replied, and with that her brother came running into the house and into Deda’s arms, which Deda had extended just in time to receive his grandson.

Deda held Hansel’s shoulders and pushed him away to arms length. “Ahh, Hansel, you look so big!”

“You look really old, Deda,” Hansel said, as respectfully as an eight-year-old could say such words.

Deda laughed, “I am so old, Hansel! I am so old!” He placed his palm on the back of the boy’s neck and led him to the small sofa which was arranged just off the foyer. Deda sat down and lifted Hansel to his lap; Gretel followed and sat beside him on the cushion.

“Hello, Heinrich,” Deda said, not taking his eyes from the children.

Gretel’s father stood at the door, silently watching the interaction between his children and his wife’s father. “Marcel.”

“Why don’t you sit?”

“We won’t be staying.”

Over the years Gretel had grown used to this style of conversation between her father and Deda, terse and factual, completely devoid of style. It wasn’t that they disliked each other exactly, but more that they had failed to reach the level of trust normally achieved between two people at this stage in a relationship. Her parents had been married almost twenty years.

“Have you contacted The System?” Deda asked.

“Of course. They won’t do anything for days,” Gretel’s father replied. And then, “Unless there’s evidence of a crime.”

Deda nodded in understanding. “Gretel,” he said, “why don’t you and your brother explore in the cellar for a while. I’ve some new books you would both like, just at the bottom of the stairs, on the first shelf there. You’ll see them when you go down.”

Deda stood and led the children to the cellar door, opening it and pulling the ribbed metal chain that hung just at the top of the stairs, unleashing a dull orange glow of light. The cellar was an obvious suggestion so that Deda could speak to her father alone, but Gretel didn’t mind, and played along for her brother’s sake. Besides, they were going to discuss her mother—and the possibilities of what might have happened—and she didn’t have the emotional stamina to handle that right now.

As she and her brother reached the bottom of the cellar, Gretel saw that the books Deda referenced were the same ones he had had for at least two years now: Reptiles of the Northlands, Sea Life, and a few others containing topics Gretel had long since lost interest in.

“These books aren’t new,” Hansel complained. “I’ve read these a thousand times.”

“Your Deda’s old Han, he doesn’t remember” Gretel replied, “And, anyway, you still like them.”

“Fine.”

Hansel opened the sea creature book absently and slumped heavily into a dusty club chair, once the centerpiece of Deda’s living area but now in exile, having been replaced by a chair more conducive to Deda’s frail condition. The dust from the chair puffed into the dim light and then dissipated. Normally Gretel found places like Deda’s cellar repulsing—the dust was as thick as bread and seemed not to be spared from any section of furniture; and the scurrying sounds that clattered from the corners of the dark room conjured in her mind pictures of things much larger than mice. And she was sure that the spiders she had seen over the years had to be as large as any in the world.

But for all the impurities, Gretel had no memory of ever fearing the cellar. Lately, in fact, she felt drawn to it, mystified by the shrouded hodgepodge of books and tools and bric-a-brac that coated the surface of every shelf and table. There were candles and candle holders next to decorative plates and stemware; prehistoric preserve jars being used as paperweights for pictures of men and women Gretel had never seen in person; and dozens of other trinkets and curiosities that as a small girl she had considered junk—nuisances that cluttered up what might otherwise have been a play room for tea parties and dancing and such—but that she had recently come to admire.