Silent to the Bone (18 page)

Bran laid the letter on the table, turned, so that I could read it right-side-up. He pointed to the part of the letter about her finding alternate placement or returning to England. I read the whole line out loud. “So?” I said. “No one knows where she is. She seems to have disappeared after giving her deposition.”

Branwell got extremely nervous. He put his finger on the words
alternate placement
and rubbed it back and forth until the ink was smudged, the whole time shaking his head no. He was on the verge of tears. He rubbed his eyes in an effort to keep the tears from falling, and some of the ink from his finger rubbed off. “Don't worry,” I said. “They'll find her.” I felt bad that I had to leave the real purpose of the letter unspoken.

Branwell got up and left the room with ten minutes left on our visiting clock.

Monday was the beginning of The Week From Hell. Maybe it was the accumulation of schoolwork that had piled up, maybe these vegetative days of Nikki's were wearing on me more than I thought, maybe it was just the way Branwell had walked out on me yesterday that made me think that he didn't appreciate me, but on that Monday, I really didn't want to give him a chance to give me another assignment. I had enough to do already. So after school, I didn't go directly to the Behavioral Center. I went to Margaret's. I was exhausted. My blood sugar was low. I needed a snack.

I had surveyed the treats cupboard and was hanging out in front of the open refrigerator when Margaret came bursting through the door that leads from her
offices. “Nikki smiled!” She was shouting.

I slammed the refrigerator door shut and ran to her as she ran to me, and we hugged each other and did a little foot-stomping dance, laughing, as we circled the kitchen table.

“How did it happen?”

“Tina and the nurse were talking, and Nikki suddenly opened her eyes but closed them right away again. So Tina went over to crib, and said, ‘Nikki? Nikki. Mama's here,' and Nikki opened her eyes and smiled at Tina.”

“Did this just happen?”

“Don't know. I just found out.”

“I can't wait to tell Branwell,” I said, running to get my jacket.

“It'll be nice for him to hear it from you.”

“I can't wait to see what he does when I tell him it's over—”

“Not so fast.”

“It's all going to be all right now, isn't it?”

“Not
all
all right. She's off zero, but she's just arrived at the starting line.”

“How long?”

“There's no telling how far she has to go or how fast she will be able to.” Margaret saw the look of disappointment
on my face. She put an arm across my shoulder and pulled me to her and said, “But it's a start.”

“What has to happen next?”

“She has to track.”

“Aren't we there yet?”

“She has to show conscious behavior.”

“She smiled. They don't think it was gas, do they? What conscious behavior can an infant have?”

“She can follow an object with her eyes. She can squeeze someone's finger. She can gurgle when delighted.” Margaret hesitated, then added, “You'll be sure to tell him that it's not over yet. Be sure that he knows that that the fat lady still hasn't sung.”

“Vivian's not fat,” I said, smiling. “Shall I tell him you sent the fax to Summerhill?”

“Yeah, tell him. And, Connor?”

“What?”

“Come back after you've seen him. I'd love to know his reaction. I'll drive you home.”

When Branwell was brought into the visitors' room, the first words out of my mouth were, “Nikki smiled.”

Branwell smiled in return.

I am not like the kids I see at the supermarket who are eating their free cookie with one hand and grabbing Oreos off the shelf with the other. I don't usually want one thing more than I have, but this time, if I am to be perfectly honest (and I've tried to be throughout), I really did want one thing more. Maybe because my blood sugar was low and it was The Week From Hell, I wanted a shout, a sound—any sound. Even a whimper would do.

I told him what Margaret had said about tracking. He listened quietly. Maybe
he
needed the Oreos.

I told him that Margaret had sent the fax, and that from now on, it was wait-and-see time. About Vivian. And about Nikki.

He remained motionless, so I got up to leave. If he could leave when he had had enough, so could I.

SIAS: I was relieved, hungry, and in desperate need of something sweet.

As soon as I got to Margaret's, I started my search for snacks exactly where I had left off—hanging on to the handle of the refrigerator door. I heard a motor running, then cut off. I ran to the back door and saw Morris Ditmer get off his cycle, remove his helmet, and come to the back door. He knocked. I answered.

He pulled a letter out of his pocket. I recognized the letterhead. It was Margaret's.

“I've got to talk to your sister,” he said bluntly.

I told him that she closed up shop at five and would be here soon. I invited him to come in and wait. He sat in the chair that I had been sitting in the night that Vivian came for supper. He sat at attention with his helmet under his arm. I asked him if he wanted something to eat or drink, and he said no, so I returned to the kitchen to get some help for my blood sugar, and the whole time he sat there in the living room like a United States Marine if Marines ever wore multiple earrings and pierced their body parts.

When Margaret came in, he stood and handed her the letter. “Did you write this?” he asked.

“I did.”

“How illegal is Vivian?” he asked.

“Enough to either be arrested or deported.” She sat down on the sofa and asked, “Do you want me to go on?” He nodded. “Officially, she is a fugitive. It is illegal for anyone to knowingly harbor a fugitive.”

“What if the person doing the harboring doesn't know this person is a fugitive?”

Margaret shrugged. “I guess that's something the person would have to convince the authorities about.”

“Convince them how?”

“Sometimes the authorities make plea bargains if you give them information they need.”

Morris laid his helmet at his feet and sank into the chair. “Like what?”

“Like what you know about Vivian and Nikki.”

“She says that she didn't hurt the baby.”

“I'm sure she does. But you suspect something else, don't you, Morris?” He nodded. “Maybe if you tell us what you witnessed, we can help.”

“She says that the brother, that Branwell kid, he was always at her.”

“
Her
being the baby or
her
being Vivian.”

“Both. I did see that Branwell kid take care of the baby a real lot. Like I told you. He was always changing her whether she needed it or not.”

“But that is what Vivian told you, isn't it? You don't know that the baby didn't need changing. As a matter-of-fact, you probably suspect that she did.”

“Well, yeah. That part about whether she needed it or not is what Vivi said.” He picked up his helmet and began rubbing the chin strap. Back and forth. Back and forth. He studied what he was doing for a long time, then said, “Vivian wasn't always nice to that baby.” He took a deep breath. “Like I told you, we always
waited until it was time for her to take a nap, but sometimes, we'd be up in Vivi's room and the baby would not be quite asleep. Those times—I mean those times when the baby was not quite asleep, and she would be cranky—well, there were those times when I would hear Vivi go in there and yell at the baby, and if she was laying on her back, she would pop her over onto her tummy. And if she was on her tummy, she would pop her over onto her back and jam a pacifier into her mouth. I actually seen her do that a coupla times. She'd yell at the kid. What good is yelling at a little kid like that, I'd ask. A coupla times I hadda ask her to change the baby's diaper—her nappy—like she called it. It took only one whiff to know what was the matter, but after Columbus Day—that day we talked about—she never did. ‘Branwell will be home soon enough,' she'd say. ‘He'll do it. Brannie will be only too happy to do it.' ”

Margaret asked him if he knew anything more about what had happened to the baby on that Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

“I only know that she told me that the brat—that's what she called her, but I don't know how a baby that little has been around long enough to be a brat—she told me that the brat had been cranky all morning. ‘It's
been snot and spit all day,' she said. When we got up to the bedroom, the baby was crying. At this point, I had just got there, and we didn't know that Branwell would be home soon, so she went in and changed the diaper. She had pooped in her pants, and it was loose—a real mess. She carried her into the bathroom to change her, and I heard the baby let out a real loud cry, then go quiet. Vivi made some cooing sounds—she could be sweet, you know—and she put the baby into the crib. Then she came on back to the bedroom. She seemed a little upset. I asked her what was the matter. She laughed. ‘You can add another s-word to snot and spit.' We had hardly undressed when the kid came home from school, and I heard him yell for Vivian.

“Vivi ran there right away. She was in her bra and panties. I waited there in the bedroom when Vivi she comes running back through the bathroom and tells me to get dressed. She throws on her clothes and goes back into the nursery. I had more clothes to put on than Vivi did because I had finished getting undressed. So I pulled on my clothes and started toward the nursery through that there bathroom. I stopped by the tub, and I seen that there was a spot of blood on the edge of the tub, right by the floor. I took a washrag and wiped it up. Vivi is yelling to the kid to call 911.
He does it, and nothing comes outta his mouth. I come outta the bathroom, and ask what happened, thinking I can help, and Vivi, she just yells at me to go. I went. I was outta there by the time the ambulance come.

“Now, you see, I was telling you the truth when I said that I never seen what happened. I didn't. It still could be that the kid dropped her.”

“Morris,” Margaret said, “has Vivian threatened you?”

“Not really. She just mentions how I shouldna wiped off that blood. I'm not going to be charged with being an accessory to a crime or anything, am I?”

Margaret said, “Gretchen Silver will know what to do.” She told him who Gretchen Silver was and suggested that they try to set up a meeting for the next morning. She told Morris to call her. “I guess I know why you don't want to take any calls from me.”

“The same reason I hung up when I made the call.”

“Vivian doesn't know that you've talked to Connor or me, does she?”

He looked at Margaret out of the corner of his eye and said, “Miss Kane,” he said, “if I had that kind of death wish, I would go straight to Dr. Jack Kevorkian. I wouldn't go sneaking around to the back of your house.”

He made us both laugh.

He got up and tucked his helmet under his left armpit. “She was a lot of fun at first. And maybe she could be a lot of fun again. But right now, living with her is like living with that Greek god whose hair is all snakes.”

“Medusa?”

“Yeah, that one. That one they say about how she was once beautiful, but she did something wrong and her hair was turned to snakes and every time someone looked at her face they were turned to stone. I'm not stone yet, but I ain't putty anymore, either, and she's working on it.” He turned to me and asked, “How did you find me?”

“Well, there was this Frenchman who could only blink his left eye . . .”

“Oh, that guy with the eye in the middle of his forehead?”

“Cyclops.”

“Yeah, that one.”

“No, this was a Frenchman. It was his left eye.”

“A French myth.”

“No, it was a memoir.”

Margaret interrupted. “I'll let you tell Gretchen Silver your address. I don't want to know it yet.”

Morris shook Margaret's hand. I think he would have saluted if he had thought that it would be the right thing to do. He was obviously relieved. Just as he turned to go, he asked, “You're not going to tell any of this to Branwell, are you?”

“Oh,” Margaret said. “I think we are. I can't think of anyone who deserves to know it more.”

“Yeah,” Morris replied. “I guess you're right.”

“But we'll tell Gretchen Silver first.”

And Morris Ditmer was out the door.

I didn't want to go home. Going home meant hitting the books for the rest of The Week From Hell. I wanted to stay with Margaret and talk about “what ifs,” but we both knew where duty lay. I had to get home.

So this is what Margaret did. She gave me her cell phone and set it to vibrate (so that it wouldn't ring in class). If the phone vibrated when I was in class, I was not to answer it, but to check for a message. She showed me how to retrieve messages.

Margaret Rose Kane knows how to make things happen. Or not happen. Whichever.

Margaret was as good as her word. She always was. I checked the cell phone after every class, and finally, just before social studies, I felt a buzz. The message was from Gretchen Silver, who said that as of ten o'clock that morning, Vivian was an illegal immigrant. She could not get work anywhere in the United States and would be deported to England as soon as the paperwork was finished. Margaret has a good sense of timing. I did not ace the social studies test—I never do—but I did well enough.

I had never before had a cell phone in my backpack, and the officer at the receptionist desk played the message before she would allow me to take it up with
me. I realized then that Margaret had wisely allowed the message to come from the lawyer. Gretchen Silver had identified herself on the tape so that there would be no question of allowing it in the visitors' room.