Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Itasca, Minnesota
When Cecily woke up, she was in her kitchen being strapped to a gurney, and she recognized the paramedic from church. “Roger, I was hoping not to see you until Sunday,” she said.
He smiled, tightening a strap. “I could say the same about you, Mrs. Larson. Now, it seems you may have broken your hip. We’re going to get you to the hospital.”
“That’s impossible. I have so much to do today.” But she remembered. She’d simply missed the bottom step of the back stairs that led from the upstairs hall into the kitchen. The stairs she’d climbed up and down at least ten times daily for more than sixty-five years. The ones that her daughter had said recently were too steep for her, telling her she ought to use the wide front stairs and always hold the railing. And Cecily had thought, Ha. “I have excellent balance,” she’d told Liz. “Nothing to worry about.”
But Liz had been right to worry, after all. Cecily had missed the bottom step; had probably hit her head, too, or else why the lost consciousness? She wished Sam were here—he would be able to explain—but he hadn’t been here in twenty years.
She reached for Roger’s wrist; he stopped adjusting the second strap and looked at her with placid blue eyes. He was suited for this work. So calm. She would write a letter to the department in praise. If she recovered. That was really what was on her mind. The if. “Is this the beginning of the end?” she asked.
Roger gave a slight smile and shook his head. “Let’s just get you to the hospital, Mrs. Larson. You’re in shock now, but it’s going to start to hurt.”
“Oh, yes. I understand about that,” she said, and he laid a blanket over her, and he and the other paramedic—whom she didn’t recognize; a Baptist?—carried her through the house and out the front door, where red flashers lit the gray morning sky.
She heard a car pull up and stop, a door slam, footsteps crunching snow. “Mom? Mom?”
Cecily couldn’t reach out her hand or turn her head, they had her strapped in so. “Don’t worry, Liz, honey! Just a little fall,” she called out, as the paramedics bounced her along. They were moving gingerly, with the snow and ice underfoot. The air was frigid on her face; she could see her breath. She heard Roger telling Liz about the broken hip, the shock; that Liz could follow the ambulance to the hospital, and not to worry about red lights, just follow them on through.
Cecily did not think this was good advice at all. Anything could happen! Liz could have an accident on the way to the hospital just as easily as Cecily had fallen. “You be careful, though, Liz, honey!” she called out. Why had she always felt such munificence from Time, when in fact, day by day by day, she was coming closer and closer to breaking the promise she’d made to herself: that she would tell Liz and Molly the truth about their family before she left this earth.
The one time she’d mentioned it to Liz, about a year ago, Liz had just shaken her head, seeming to misunderstand. “You’re an orphan, Mom. You don’t even know your background, right? How do you expect to be able to tell us?”
Admittedly, Cecily had brought up the subject only when Liz was on her way out the door, parka and boots on and everything. Also, it had been a day when Liz had seemed particularly out of sorts, her grief bubbling to the surface as it did from time to time.
But Liz had never followed up with any questions. Maybe she just wasn’t interested? Cecily could hope.
Still, though. I was Cecily McAvoy, she imagined beginning. Born June 5, 1920, to Madeline and Thomas McAvoy.
It got a lot more complicated from there.
But she’d always liked the sound of her parents’ names—the ones on the papers in the file at the orphanage, which she and Flip had sneaked a look at one day when Mrs. Hamilton had been called away by the sudden alarm of a mysterious (ha) kitchen fire, leaving the big drawer in her private upstairs office unlocked.
Father, deceased. That had been a blow, at age seven, to find out for certain.
Mother, unknown address. (An address beside that was crossed out, with a note: Attempt to contact “returned to sender.”) Perhaps worse.
Anyway, that was such a small part of the story. And, for some reason, Cecily hadn’t even told Liz that much. Madeline and Thomas McAvoy. Liz with her permanent pinched frown, these days, and Cecily felt for her, she did, and Dean had been a wonderful man, but sometimes Cecily just wanted to shake Liz and say, There’s a lot more life out ahead of you, so buck up, kid.
Though, at sixty-eight, Liz was not really a kid anymore, Cecily had to admit.
“I’ll be right behind you, Mom!” Liz called back now, and Cecily wiggled her fingers—all she could approximate as a wave, strapped in as she was—and then a feeling that she imagined was grace, or maybe it was gratitude (how fortunate she was, to be in such capable hands! to have lived the long life she had!), permeated her body, warming her by degrees despite the frigid air, and she heard the idling engine of the ambulance growing louder with each of the paramedics’ careful steps, the creak of the door being opened, and then they were sliding her inside, into the warmth, and, as she saw the dials and machines lining the inside of the metal compartment, she thought, how interesting, that this was where she’d ended up, when she had been the girl famous for never falling.
“Fearless, this one is,” said Mrs. Hamilton, resting her hand on the back of Cecily’s dark curls. “A firecracker. Honestly, we don’t even know what to do with her.”
Cecily smiled up at the man in the gleaming black topcoat—the orphans were instructed always to be charming to visitors, and never to seem hungry—though her toes were curled inside her too-small shoes with nerves at having been called into Mrs. Hamilton’s office. Flip and Dolores had whispered that certainly they’d been found out, before Cecily had shushed them. How could Mrs. H. even suspect they’d climbed out onto the roof again after lights-out last night—and, if she did, wouldn’t all the malefactors have been called in? Instead, the other orphans, all seventy of them, had been sent outside to play, with only Miss Oversham and Miss Thompson to watch them, which Mrs. H. rarely allowed to happen, because she said Miss Oversham didn’t have the sense for this work. (Cecily disagreed: Miss Oversham had taught her to read, said she was the best seven-year-old reader she’d ever seen and that reading would open up the world for her, then presented her with her very own pocket-size copy of Around the World in 80 Days to prove it. Cecily had carried the book in her apron pocket for weeks, sleeping with it under her pillow to make sure it didn’t get swiped, though eventually Horace, twelve and a giant, stole it straight from her pocket, ripped out the pages, and stomped them into a mud puddle. In Cecily’s view, the only thing Miss Oversham didn’t understand was that orphans couldn’t have anything nice of their own.)
Right now, Cecily could only conclude that she was really in trouble. She just had no idea why.
“Pretty little thing, too,” the man said, and the up-and-down look he gave Cecily made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. He had a thick brown mustache that covered most of his mouth, so it was impossible to tell if he was smiling. “But the price you’re asking is awfully high.”
“The price is the price. A required donation to the Home,” Mrs. Hamilton said stiffly. “I believe she’d be perfect for your needs.”
Mrs. Hamilton and the man stared each other down, and the man’s mustache twitched, which only intensified Cecily’s awful feeling that she’d done something horribly wrong. You are just the worst troublemaker, child; no wonder your mother never came back for you, Mrs. H. always said, especially whenever she caught Cecily turning backflips down the hallway, or front flips down the stairs. And what was Mrs. H. trying to sell, anyway, that this man didn’t want to pay full price for?
The whirring feeling at the back of Cecily’s neck was growing worse.
Mrs. H. spoke first. “Cecily, dear, why don’t you show the nice man the way you walk on the railing?”
“But you said I wasn’t supposed to—”
“Come now.” Mrs. H. tugged her by the hand.
Out in the cavernous hall, Cecily removed her shoes and stockings, more nervous by the second. She’d only ever tried this when no adults were around, and the two times Mrs. H. had caught her, she’d yelled her head off and sent Cecily to The Closet for a whole day. And now she wanted her to walk the rail for this horrible—Cecily had decided he could be nothing else—man?
The Home was an old mansion, and the wide staircase that led up from the broad tiled foyer split in the middle at a landing graced with a weathered statue of a sad-looking woman, then headed up in two narrower flights to the second floor. All flights were lined in sweeping oak balustrades (once a week, the orphans polished every post), as was the upper length of hall that crossed at the rear of the building. It was this rail that Cecily was preparing to cross. The drop to the landing below was a good fifteen feet.
Mrs. H. clapped twice. “Chop, chop. And do that little flip at the end.”
Cecily had never, ever seen adults act the way Mrs. H. and this man were acting now.
But what could she do about it? Nothing. Just like she could do nothing about the fact that her mother hadn’t come back for her in almost three whole years, even though the box on the form was checked saying she’d intended to come back in one.
So, Cecily tucked her curls behind her ears and boosted herself onto the railing, grabbing the pillar to keep steady. She’d only traversed the rail’s length the first time because Flip had said he bet she couldn’t do it. The times after that, it had been for fun, to see if she still could. But—having to do it under these watchful adult eyes?
Would she get in trouble if she refused?
What if she fell?
One more look at Mrs. H. said the lady wasn’t joking.
All right, then, Cecily thought.
She curled her bare feet around the rail. Let go of the pillar. Wobbled. Held out her arms to steady herself. Took a step. Then another. Another, another, another (it was easiest when you moved fast). She wobbled again; caught herself, heart pounding, as she glanced down to the top of the head of the sad statue below. This was the hardest part: the middle. Her feet were starting to sweat. She took another step. Another, another, another—then sent herself flying off toward the carpeted hall, shooting her heels over her head then around and onto the floor. Thunk. She grinned and raised her arms when she realized she’d landed right.
“Bravo! Bravo!” said Mrs. H., applauding, and the man took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow.
“My goodness,” he said. “That is promising.”