We did the dishes and then I drove Raphaella home. Up until then, she would get out of the van a block or so away from where she lived, but to my surprise she directed me right to her house, a bungalow with a big silver birch on the front lawn. I got the impression she was making a statement, pushing things a little with her mother. When I pulled into the driveway I noticed a slender woman in the picture window, hands on her hips, looking at us. Even from that distance the scowl on her face was visible.
“Uh-oh,” Raphaella said in mock alarm. “The riot squad is waiting.”
“She looks peeved,” I said.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Is it me, or males in general?”
“In general. She doesn’t want me to see anyone.”
“She’s training you to be a nun?”
“Dating isn’t part of the plan.”
“So she’s been like this with all the boys you’ve —”
“Yup.”
She planted a quick kiss on my mouth and jumped out of the van. As she walked up the flagstone path to her front door I plastered a smile on my face and waved at her mother. Garnet the smoothie.
She didn’t return the wave.
Back at the trailer, I turned on the miniature TV in the bedroom and took a shower, banging my elbows on the walls of the cramped shower stall, before pulling on my PJs and crawling under the blankets. I flipped through the channels looking for a movie, but had to settle for a courtroom drama.
On most evenings, before I fall asleep, I go over the day in my mind, reliving conversations, second-guessing things I had said or done, hoping I hadn’t made a fool of myself. But not tonight. I wanted no rehash of Raphaella’s speculations about the church. That whole topic was something to put aside, for a long time, if not for ever.
At some time during the cross-examination of the hero, I fell asleep. I drowsed fitfully, then woke again. The tiny bedroom pulsed and flickered with bluish TV light. On the screen, two long-haired Spandex-clad women with sincere looks and too much make-up were pitching exercise equipment. I used the remote to turn off the set and got a glass of water at the kitchen sink. The trailer was stuffy and warm. I opened the bedroom window a few inches and damp, cool, sweet-smelling air poured in. The rhythmic chee-eep of crickets came with it. A dog barked. I climbed back into bed, rolled over and dozed off.
This time I woke with a start, my eyes a foot from the illuminated numbers on the clock radio beside the bed: 12:00 A.M. The wind sighed in the bush behind the trailer. And then I heard what had awakened me.
A woman was crying, deep, urgent sobs fading in and out with the wind.
I hopped out of bed, turned on the light and ran to the door. Was it a domestic quarrel? Or partiers? I stepped outside into the cool, clammy air, wondering if there was 911 service this far away from town. I looked down the lane toward the cluster of mobile homes hidden behind evergreens. A few porch lights twinkled as the wind moved the spruce branches. I stepped out onto the path beside the van, arms crossed on my chest against the chill, ears cocked for human sounds. Nothing.
I went back inside. I locked the door this time, and leaving the outside light on, padded into the bedroom. I got back into bed and turned out the light.
The weeping returned, a profound, unearthly wail, rising and falling that made my skin crawl. I lay there, wondering who lived back there in the trees, because it was clear now that she was not in the trailer park. Lifted by the wind, the voice seemed to approach then pass by. Then it faded and was gone.
I punched up the pillows behind me and opened my book. I read for a while, until my eyes grew heavy, and the novel slid from my hands.
The clock read 3:00 A.M. when I heard her again, the same woman.
Help! she wailed. Joo-ball, help me!
Earlier, her cries had been enough to turn me cold, to creep into me like a damp chill. Now she called out in terror several times — Joo-ball, help me! — before her voice faded, leaving only the wind.
I picked up the phone, keyed in the emergency number. Nothing but an irritating electronic voice telling me I hadn’t put in enough numbers. Should I call the cops? I wondered. The night was quiet again. Maybe I hadn’t really heard anything. It was my first night in a strange place. Maybe it had been the wind. I imagined myself standing in the driveway, a cop car with lights blipping on the roof, neighbors in PJs and housecoats gawking while I pointed into the forest, telling a cop I had heard a woman there.
I decided to wait.
While I was waiting I fell asleep again.
In the morning, leaving for school, I saw a man on his knees in a patch of cleared ground beside his modular home, working the soil with a hand cultivator. Green shoots peeked out of the dirt in plant flats arranged around him. When I got out of the van, he looked up, wiping his brow on his sleeve.
“How are you today?”
“Fine, thanks. I’m Garnet Havelock, just moved into the unit back by the trees.”
“Yeah, Roy told me you’d be along. My name’s Trevor.”
“Nice to meet you. Sorry to interrupt your work.”
“Oh, that’s okay.”
He was in his fifties, I guessed, tall and fit, a bit of grey at his temples.
“I was wondering,” I began, “is there a house out there in the bush behind my trailer?”
“No, nothin’ there but trees.”
“I thought I heard somebody last night. A woman calling.”
“Strange,” he said. “I didn’t hear anything myself. ‘Course, Laura and me’re heavy sleepers.”
“Maybe someone was lost or something.”
“Nobody goes back there,” Trevor said, the friendly tone leaving his voice. “That’s all Maitland land.”
“Oh, well,” I said, taken aback by his abruptness. “Probably just the wind.”
He nodded. “Musta been. Nobody goes back there.”