Silent to the Bone (14 page)

It was my lucky day. Yolanda was standing by the curb waiting when the bus pulled up.

I caught the driver looking in his rearview mirror, waiting for me to get off. “This is the end of the line,” he said.

“I know.”

“Time to get off.”

“I want to ride back down.”

“Gotta pay another fare,” he said.

“I don't have any more money with me,” I said. “Can I charge it?”

“ 'Fraid not.”

Yolanda had boarded and looked back and spotted me. “Why, Connor, what are you doing on the five thirty-five heading to town?”

“I really wanted to talk to you, Yolanda. Can you loan me the bus fare?”

Yolanda rode on a pass, but I couldn't, so she calmly reached into her pocketbook and took out her wallet and patiently counted out the exact change and dropped it in the slot. Then she slowly walked back and sat down next to me.

Yolanda is a person who can be more still than anyone. And she is equally good at doing one thing at a time. She is not like anyone who lives on Tower Hill Road and who are all university people except for Trevor James and John Hanson, who have Hanson-James House of Design. For example, if anyone else living on Tower Hill Road were waiting at the bus stop—not that any of them would, for they would either be driving or riding a bicycle, but, if they were—
they would be reading or brushing off their clothes or checking their watch. They would be doing something besides just waiting.

Waiting the way that Yolanda does it is an art. She's the same way when she's working. She picks something up and puts it back down before she goes on to the next thing. Sometimes she listens to music as she works, but that's not quite doing two things at once. I think Mrs. Farkas needs Yolanda's calming ways as much as she needs her helping hands.

Yolanda put her pocketbook on her lap and rested both her arms on top of it. “How is Nikki?” she asked.

“She's off the respirator.”

“A good sign,” she said, smiling. “And Branwell? Can he talk?”

“Not yet. But we have a way of communicating.”

“That's nice. Friends always find a way to keep in touch.”

“Branwell wanted me to talk to you, Yolanda. That's why I'm riding the bus back downtown. So that we can talk.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“About Vivian.”

“You mean that English baby-sitter? I don't think Mrs. Zamborska should hire her back.”

“Why not?”

“She smokes. Mrs. Zamborska did not allow anyone to smoke in the house and especially around the baby. Nobody allows that anymore. But that one smoked right there next to the nursery.” She thought a minute and said, “That very first Monday I was there after she had come to live in, I caught her. I do the laundry on Monday. I had come upstairs to put the clean linens away. I stopped first at the nursery to put away the baby's things. The door to the bathroom was open, so I just walked in. What do I find but this Vivian taking a bath, lying there in water up to her neck. Her head was resting against the back of the tub, her face was pointing up. She was blowing smoke up toward the ceiling. I guess she didn't hear me come in because I obviously startled her. I said, ‘Mrs. Zamborska doesn't allow smoking in the house.' She sat bolt upright and put her arms across her chest to cover up, still holding the cigarette. ‘I didn't know,' she said. ‘Doesn't that agency that placed you tell you that you shouldn't smoke around a baby?' She said that she wasn't told anything like that. I know that was a lie, but then she said that if Mrs. Zamborska didn't want her to smoke in the house, she wouldn't do it again. I asked her why she left the door to the baby's room open like that,
and she said that she wanted to hear if the baby cried. I did wonder about that. After all, she had not heard me come clear into the bathroom.”

“You do work really quiet, Yolanda. Maybe she couldn't hear you but could've heard the baby.”

“Maybe. But she left the door open another time.”

“When was that?”

“It must have been a Monday again. I know it was a laundry day. It was a school holiday. Let me think. It was sometime in October. What school holiday would you be having in October?”

“Columbus Day,” I said, anxious now, thinking I was going to get some important background information. “Columbus Day is the only October holiday that was on a Monday.”

“Then Columbus Day it must have been. I remember I arrived at eight-thirty. I always do. I picked up a laundry basket from the utility room—that room just off the kitchen, and I went into Branwell's room to change the bed linen and, much to my surprise, he was still in bed. I asked him if he was not feeling well, and that's when I found out it was a school holiday. He hopped out of bed and went into that little half-bath that is off the downstairs hallway. He still had to go upstairs for his showers, you know. He said that was
all right because he always showered at night, and Vivian bathed in the morning. I told him to leave his pajamas on top of the washing machine. I do hate to have the odd piece hanging over, you know.

“I went upstairs. The baby was asleep. She's a pretty little thing, isn't she?”

“She sure is.”

“When she opens those bright little eyes, it's like plugging in a string of Christmas lights, isn't it?”

“That's a beautiful way to put it, Yolanda.”

“Well, that Monday, I went into the baby's room to gather up the laundry, and I saw that the door to the bathroom was open. I heard the water running. There was Vivian, sitting naked on the edge of the tub, running the water for her bath. I said to her, ‘You better close that door.' Without looking up, she said, ‘I told you, I can't hear the baby if I do.' I told her that it was a school holiday and that Branwell was home, and I didn't think she would want him walking in on her—naked as she was.

“ ‘Oh!' she says. ‘We can't satisfy a little boy's curiosity all at once, now, can we?' She winked at me in a way I didn't like. Didn't like at all. It was, I thought, sort of brazen. I also didn't like that
we. We
can't satisfy a little boy's curiosity. I never intended to. I am a very
modest person. I just turned around and told her to keep the door closed and don't stay in the tub too long and bring her towels down to the laundry when she was through.”

“Did Branwell hear any of this?”

“I can't imagine that he did. He was downstairs getting dressed, and then he had gone into the kitchen to fix himself a bowl of cereal for breakfast. When I passed through the kitchen on the way to the laundry room, he asked me if Nikki was up yet. I told him that she was having her morning nap. He was about to ask me something else when Vivian appears, fully dressed, carrying a bundle of laundry, including her bed linen. ‘I decided it might be better if I bathe later in the day,' she said.”

“Do you know what she meant by that?”

“No idea. But I can tell you, I don't think she stopped smoking in the house even though I never caught her at it again. But on Thursdays when I did my cleaning, in her room, I would sometimes pick up a Coke can that had a wet cigarette butt in it. When I asked her about them, she said that a friend of hers sometimes had a smoke outside if the weather was nice. But I wondered about that. Why would someone bring a can with a cigarette butt in it back upstairs
when the recycle bin is right there by the back door?

“That same Monday she slipped a Coke can into the recycle bin, I looked in it. It didn't have cigarette butt. Good thing, too. If it had, I would have told Mrs. Zamborska.”

“You don't like her very much, do you?”

“Connor, I take a lot of pride in my work. I only work for people I like and who like me. This one—this child—thought that I worked for her. She tried to tell me about the way they do things in English households. From what she described, I can tell you I've seen the same movies she has.”

“Did you ever see her mistreat Nikki?”

“No. Can't say that I did.”

Yolanda let out a sigh, and I knew our conversation was over. It was the end of her day, and she needed the rest of the bus ride to let some quiet settle in. She didn't want or need any more conversation.

We were almost to Yolanda's stop when it occurred to me that the bus driver would demand another fare for my ride back to Tower Hill Road. I sure didn't want to ask Yolanda again, so I decided to get off in Old Town and walk to Margaret's. She would drive me home or give me money for the bus fare.

Yolanda's stop was one before Margaret's. I thanked
her and told her I'd be by the Farkases' tomorrow afternoon to repay her.

“I'll be at your house on Friday. Why don't you just have your mother include it with my check?”

I liked it that she didn't protest and say, “That's all right,” or “Forget about it,” or, “Don't worry about it.” That was Yolanda's way. Calm. Smooth. One thing at a time.

Margaret's business hours were over, so I went around to the back of the house. The lights were on in the living room, and I saw her sitting in a chair. The TV wasn't on. She was just sitting there, holding a glass of wine. I knocked.

“I was expecting you,” she said. “Would have been disappointed if you hadn't shown up.”

“How come?”

“Your mother called. She said that you had called her to say that you would be late. Then she happened to look outside when Yolanda boarded the bus, and what should she see but you sitting there, ready to ride the bus downtown. She assumed you were coming to see me, but she was curious about why you didn't get off at home.”

“I had to talk to Yolanda. Branwell wanted me to.”

“I'd like to hear all about it. What do you think will happen if you call your mother and tell her that you and I are going out for dinner?”

“I think it'll be fine after I explain about the bus.” As I picked up the phone, I said, “This might be a long conversation.”

“I'll listen as you speak. It'll save a replay.”

We went to the One-Potato for supper. We had to wait to be seated. They give you a number and a little remote to hold, and when your number comes up, the remote vibrates to let you know your table is ready. Margaret and I had a booth, which I liked a lot because I wasn't too eager for anyone to overhear what we had to say. Our server came over and introduced herself (she was Tammi, just as it said on her badge) and asked how were we doing this evening and what could she get us to drink. Margaret put our dinner orders in with our drink orders because she wanted Tammi to interrupt as little as possible.

I told Margaret that I didn't use the BATHROOM card, after all, and that Branwell had spelled out Yolanda, and for the first time I felt that his silence had changed. That—as strange as it may sound—Branwell was less accepting of it.

Since Branwell's silence, I've thought a lot about listening, and I've decided it is an art. Just as our English teacher told us you can put too many adverbs and adjectives into a sentence—it's called overwriting—you can put too many meanings into a statement. I call it over-listening. My mother sometimes does that.

For that reason, I'd never told my mother as much as I'd told Margaret about my involvement in this situation with Branwell. Although my mother—having a master's degree in psychology and working on her doctorate—is a trained listener, she sometimes over-listens, especially when it comes to me. For the sake of my self-image, my mother takes everything—
everything
—I say very seriously.

This is an example of how over-listening works. Suppose I told my mother that today when I saw Branwell, I had the feeling that his silence had changed, that it was more active, she would ask, “Why do you think that?” Now, the point is that I'm not sure I
thought
it. I
felt
it. So I wouldn't really have an answer, but I would feel an obligation to explain, and I would probably describe the whole scene to her, and then to make her understand the difference between today and the other days, I would have to describe the other
days, and she would have questions for each step along the way, and I would have been talking for ten minutes and still never really have found a reason for something that was only a feeling.

I never said any of this to Margaret because she is only too ready to find fault with my mother, but she knows that sometimes there are feelings without reasons. Hadn't she told me that she had lied to Vivian because
she felt
like it?

This is what she said when I told her that Branwell's silence had changed. She said, “I think we're circling the bull's-eye.” And when I told her that the word
shame
had sprung—full-blown—from my head, and I had decided not to use the BATHROOM card after all, she asked, “What would you say is the difference between embarrass and shame?”

I thought a long time before I answered. “Embarrass is something that makes you feel silly or awkward or out-of-place in the presence of someone else. Shame is something that happens to you on the inside and you don't want anyone else present. Embarrass makes you blush, but shame makes you angry.”

“So when you teased Branwell about walking in on Vivian Shawcurt the first time, he blushed. He blushed even more when you mentioned the second time.”

“Yeah. But it doesn't take much to make Branwell blush.”

“But when you mentioned the third time, he went into a rage.”

“That's probably why the word
shame
came popping into my head.”

“I'd say you have good instincts.”

“What do you think happened in that bathroom?”

“Probably the same thing you do. Think about Vivian and how you felt lighting her cigarettes for her. . . .”

I suddenly wanted this conversation to be over. If I had had bus fare, I would have walked out of the One-Potato right then and there.