“WHAT’S LIKE A WOODCHUCK?” ELI ASKED CALPURNIA. He took the chair by the bed, where she sat propped against pillows, her eyes closed. Eli regarded her. Calpurnia might have lost a little ground, he thought, the last few days. Her spirits were good, but she hadn’t felt like getting out of bed. Eli waited. Calpurnia was silent. “What’s like a woodchuck?” he asked again.
“What?” said Calpurnia. She opened her eyes. “Oh,” she said, “what the doctor told Polly happened to the Kennedy girl. He was here, and Polly had stopped in, and we’d been talking about Jessie, and the doctor said there’s a name for that. You drown, yes, but if the water’s cold, it kind of shuts down your body so for a while you’re like dead but not. You shut right down. Like a bear or a woodchuck does in winter.”
“It hibernates,” said Eli.
“That’s right. Instant hibernation, like, the doctor said. He had a name for it: diving reflex, sinking reflex. Some reflex.”
“No,” said Eli. “No way. That was no reflex. She was not hibernating. I was there. I’ve seen dead people. I saw her. She was gone.”
“All I’m telling you is what Doctor Dish told Polly and me,” said Calpurnia.
“Doctor Dish?”
“Doctor Dinesh. He’s one of the doctors who comes in to check us all out, time to time. He’s an Indian. Not our kind. An Indian from India. Nice man. Got his white coat. Little fellow. Looks to be about twelve. That’s a thing about getting as old as I am, you know, one of the things: all the people you’re supposed to listen to are babies.”
“You listen to them, all the same, though, don’t you?”
“Only when they tell me what I want to hear.”
“So, what do you think? Do you think Doctor Whosis is right? She was hibernating?”
“Polly doesn’t think so,” said Calpurnia. “She thinks it was a miracle. She says their minister at that church they all go to—that Pastor Chet—told her later he’d been praying on her, on Jessie. But then Polly heard it wasn’t so: the pastor was out of town when it happened. He and the vestry had gone down to Foxwoods on a package. He didn’t even know about it till the next day. Polly doesn’t care. She’s with you. It was a miracle, you ask Polly.”
Eli gave her a crafty smile. “Suppose it was,” he said. “What’s that make Langdon?”
“I don’t know,” said Calpurnia. “What does it?”
More than a drunk and a lunatic, like you say he is.”
“I never said that.”
“You said exactly that. More than once.”
“Alright, then, suppose it was a miracle. Suppose your friend did it. What happened? You were there. What did he do?” asked Calpurnia.
“I don’t quite know,” said Eli. “But, I know this: the girl? She was gone. I saw what I saw.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing much, in a way,” said Eli. “They had the girl in a tent she and her friends had put up. They were going to camp out, or they had camped the night before—I don’t know. So Langdon and I go in there, and there she is, just lying there, and Charlie and Sue Taylor’s middle boy—Doug? Dan?—is with her, very badly broken up. So Langdon gets down beside her and holds her hand and talks to her, and nothing happens, and the Taylor kid is carrying on, saying, ‘She’s gone, she’s gone,’ but Langdon must not think so, because he bends over and gives her a kiss.”
“A kiss? One?”
“More than one.”
“How many?”
“Three,” said Eli. “He kisses her three times.”
“On the lips, you mean?”
“Two times, it was, yes.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“I saw it,” said Eli. “Sure, I’m sure.”
Calpurnia was silent, narrowly watching Eli. Then, “The old goat,” she said at last. “He ought to been ashamed. Taking advantage of an unconscious young girl? Disgraceful. What else did he do?”
“That was it,” said Eli. “But that’s what did the trick. The girl’s eyes open, she starts breathing, talking. Basically, she’s okay. Maybe a little pink on account of all these people looking at her and her having mainly nothing on.”
“Hmm,” said Calpurnia. She looked at Eli. “Was there anybody else there? When your friend did this?”
“The Taylor boy. I told you.”
“Besides him?”
“Nobody I could see.”
“Nobody you could see? What does that mean?”
Eli paused. Then he said, “Nothing.” But Calpurnia wasn’t having it.
“Eli?” she demanded.
“What?”
“You know what,” said Calpurnia. “The other day, you were in here, you were so full of something you’re about to bust. I asked, you shut up like a mousetrap: big mystery, big dark secret. That’s enough of that, now. I don’t like secrets. I want to know what’s going on.”
Eli hitched his chair closer to Calpurnia’s bedside. He lowered his voice.
“See,” he said, “Langdon has this idea, about how he did what he did for the girl. Not just that, either. About other things he’s done, too. The money for Sean, more. There’s a kind of deal, he says, an agreement, like a contract. It’s pretty weird. Way he tells it …”
Calpurnia interrupted him. “Wait,” she said. “Go close the door.”
• • •
Eli sat back in his chair. He waited for Calpurnia, who said, “That is the craziest, worst, most utter stuff and nonsense I ever heard in my life.”
There was a knock on the door, which opened to admit one of the Hospice workers.
“Your door’s closed,” the worker said. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, dear,” said Calpurnia. “I’m sitting in here with a raving lunatic, but apart from that everything’s fine.”
The worker looked at Eli.
“It’s alright, dear,” said Calpurnia. “He’s harmless. Go on ahead.”
The worker withdrew and shut the door. When she had gone, Eli turned to Calpurnia.
“I told you it was weird,” he said.
“Weird? It’s beyond weird. It’s … I don’t know what it is. Who does your friend think he is? He didn’t do anything, for goodness’ sake. The girl was never dead in the first place. She was going to wake up. She woke up. Your friend was there. He was there kissing her, pawing her. That makes him a dirty old man. It doesn’t make him a miracle worker.”
“Spite of what Polly says, you mean?”
“Don’t give me Polly,” said Calpurnia. “Polly’s a good, churchgoing, Christian woman. I don’t begrudge her. Let her think what she wants. But she might believe a little too much. Polly gets down on the floor and commences to pray, and whatever happens next is a miracle.”
“What would you call it, then, what happened there?”
“I’d call it good luck,” said Calpurnia. “I’d call it what Dr. Dish called it. Diving woodchuck disease, or whatever it was.”
“Pretty tough-minded today, ain’t you?”
“I’ve seen things,” said Calpurnia. “Things not so different. One time when I was little, these two boys from town—Tom Johnson and the other’s name I forget—went out squirrel hunting on the hill behind the sawmill, there. They had one squirrel rifle between them. So of course it went off, and Tommy got it in the face. Went in right over his eye and came out the back of his head. Down he went. Well, the other boy ran to the mill for help, and the men there dropped everything and ran toward the woods. And, before they get halfway, here comes Tommy, walking down the hill to meet them. Got a little hole over his eye, got another around back. Little blood on his forehead—not much blood. Fit as a flea. Said his ears were ringing. Said he had a little headache. Soon went away. He was fine.”
“You were there?” Eli asked her. “You saw it?”
“Sure. I saw Tommy. Everybody did.”
“And nobody thought that was a miracle?”
“No,” said Calpurnia. “They thought Tommy had a close call. He’s a lucky kid, they thought. They didn’t think anything more. Why would they? They had other things to think about. Like keeping body and soul together. Those being very hard times, you see. Miracles? It was enough of a miracle in those days if you could hang onto your little farm. So don’t give me miracles. As for Tommy? Well, they were glad he was okay. Everybody liked Tommy. He delivered the mail in Bellows Falls for years and years. Lived to a ripe old age.”
“Everything’s a ripe old age after you’ve been shot through the head,” said Eli.
“Gil Coolidge,” said Calpurnia.
“Who’s that?”
“Gil Coolidge. That was the other boy, who was with Tommy when he got shot. I couldn’t recall earlier. Gil Coolidge. Gilbert. Trudy and Lee Coolidge’s oldest.”
Eli had to go. He got to his feet. He shoved his chair into the corner and made ready to leave. “Anything I can get for you right now?” he asked, but Calpurnia shook her head.
“Not right now,” she said. “But, you know? I wouldn’t mind if you’d bring your friend Mr. Taft around some time. Would you do that? I’d like to meet him.”
“Even though he’s cuckoo?”
“Even though.”
“Good idea,” said Eli. “You could get Dr. What’s-his-name to have a look at him. Tell you why he’s so peculiar.”
“Doctor Dish. There wouldn’t be any point. He’s an old-folks’ doctor, he’s not a head doctor. Will you bring your friend?”
“I guess so. But why?”
“Well, fact is, the Kennedy girl is some kind of third cousin or great-great-grandniece or something to me.”
“So’s everybody else. So what?”
“So I’d like to see Mr. Taft. I’d like to thank him for what he did for the girl.”
“But you don’t think he did anything for her. You just said so. So why?”
“Are you going to bring him, or aren’t you?”
“Sure,” said Eli. “When?”
“Soon,” said Calpurnia.