The alumnae of Miss Oliver’s School for Girls who were in attendance at that famous Morning Meeting can still call up the sound of that siren. And some who’d graduated long before had heard about it so often, described so vividly, they felt as if they, too, remembered the moment when Gregory van Buren’s performance was suddenly rendered absurd. Everybody had seen Sylvia rush out through that door. A fire hadn’t started. A bomb had not been planted by an angry employee. Everyone just sat there, some with hands over their ears, waiting for someone to do something about it.
And finally someone did: a freshwoman, one of the youngest members of the community, who hadn’t paid much attention to the proceedings on the stage because she was doing her math homework due the next period, strolled up the aisle and closed the door, and the siren stopped. In the silence, she looked quizzically around at all the people in their seats, and then returned to hers.
And in all the endless conversations, no one criticized Gregory van Buren for letting Mary Callahan proceed to the next thing on the agenda, as if nothing had happened. What was he supposed to do, rush out through the emergency door, setting off the siren again, and drag Sylvia back in so he could beg her to retract her retraction?
RACHEL HADN’T THOUGHT about fleeing. She’d just run.
And here she was, standing perfectly still, the glare of sun on snow so bright it hurt her eyes, thinking, I should go back in and rescue everyone. Then a siren went off and here came Sylvia, out the side door, fleeing too, not thinking either.
They rushed toward each other, legs sinking to their knees in snow, and embraced, holding tight, swaying together. “Why didn’t you tell us?” Rachel said.
The siren stopped. There was the sound of a truck downshifting on a hill, miles away.
“Well, anyway, now you know,” Sylvia said. Then they crossed to a cleared path and headed together toward the Head’s House.
“Your father will be so proud of you!” Rachel said.
“SO PROUD I’M about to burst!” he said in the Little Room when Rachel finished telling him how brave their daughter was. He jumped up from his chair and almost tripped on the rug crossing the room to hug Sylvia where she was still standing shyly. He’d stayed home, waiting for a call from Rachel to tell him that yes, Sylvia and Elizabeth had apologized and everything was back on track, but the minute his daughter and his wife appeared in the doorway together, he guessed that had not happened.
“You would have done the same, Dad,” Sylvia said, still in his embrace. “You wouldn’t have just let him stay out there and freeze.”
He stepped back and glanced at Rachel. “Yeah, I would have called 911. By the time anything happened, the guy out there in the woods would be dead.” He turned to Sylvia. “But you went out there! Jesus!” His face was flushed. His voice quivered. There were tears in his eyes. Sylvia stared. The last time she’d seen him cry was when Sylvia’s grandfather died, her mother’s father. Her dad just let go, shoulders shaking, his head in his hands, a grievous wailing.
This time though, he contained his weeping. You can only cry so long about a loss that didn’t actually happen, and tears of pride are very different from tears of grief. By the time he’d returned to his chair, flopping back down into it, no trace of tears remained, only the flush on his face. “Of course it was wrong to apologize,” he said. “Everybody knew it was wrong. But just the same—”
“You would have retracted, Dad. You might not even have apologized in the first place, like I did.”
“Here we go again,” he said.
“Would you have?” Rachel asked him.
“Apologized?” He nodded.
“Yes, I would. So I could graduate.”
“So would I,” Rachel said.
“Like Elizabeth did,” he said. “I’m glad for her.”
“And me, Dad?”
He shook his head. “No. Not glad. How could I be? But proud. That’s better.”
THEY ATE LUNCH together on trays in the Little Room—the first time Sylvia remembered her mother eating lunch on a weekday during the school year at the Head’s House rather than the dining hall. As they finished, her dad said, “I guess this means you’re going to leave us again and go live with your aunt?” He sounded resigned.
Sylvia just nodded her head.
“She knew everything all along, didn’t she?” he said. “What you and Elizabeth were doing all these months? I get it. I understand. At least, I think I do. Still, it hurts.” He glanced at Rachel, but she just looked back at him and said nothing. Surprised, he turned to Sylvia again. “Speaking of your aunt, she called this morning. Said she has some news for you about your homeless man. She said you won’t be surprised. Something tells me she won’t be surprised when you tell her yours.”
“I’ll call her now,” Sylvia said, standing to leave. Both her parents glanced at her back pocket where she always kept her cell phone—as if to say, Why not call her right here?—then quickly away.
“Don’t worry,” she heard her dad murmur as she started to close the door behind herself. “There’ll come a time when we’ll all tell each other everything, won’t we, Rach?”
Sylvia closed the door before her mother answered. She knew her mother’s answer was a yes. She wasn’t really surprised that her parents had known something all along, and trusted her enough to refrain from asking the rest. She stood still for a second, overwhelmed by love and gratitude. Then she went upstairs to her bedroom and called Aunt M.
“CAN YOU GET off school tomorrow?” Aunt M asked.
“Easily,” Sylvia replied.
“Easily? You’d think a school that charges what that school does would make it hard to skip a whole day.”
“Yeah, you’d think so, I guess. So, Christopher’s ready?”
“Yes, his aunt called me. I didn’t need to tell her you’d be in the car too when we take him to the VA. She beat me to it. She’s going to stay home and let us take him. She’s going to have lots of time with him and you won’t.”
“She said that?”
“Yup. She figures you’ll want to say goodbye to each other without her around. So I’ll fly tomorrow morning, rent a car at the airport, and pick you up at your dorm and we’ll go straight to his aunt’s house and get him to the VA. She’s right, you know. You started it all.”
“Actually, Elizabeth started it, Aunt M. And don’t pick me up at the dorm.”
“Starting isn’t what counts. It’s finishing,” Aunt M said. “What? Not at the dorm?”
“No, not at the dorm.”
“Oh? Where? The Head’s House?”
“ Yes.”
“Why? Don’t tell me you—”
“That’s right. My dad said you wouldn’t be surprised.”
“So you didn’t apologize?”
“I did, but then I retracted it.”
“You did! Well, I’ll be. What did your mother say?”
“She said she was proud that I went out and saved Christopher.”
“You did what?”
“I went out and found him and brought him back.”
“He didn’t just come asking to be let in? You went out there in that storm? Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Aunt M said again. “You glad you retracted?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Aunt M,” Sylvia said, and hung up the phone.
SYLVIA SPENT THE rest of the afternoon and evening waiting for a visit from Elizabeth. Elizabeth would understand why Sylvia couldn’t come to the dorm: she’d be the object of everyone’s curiosity. But Elizabeth didn’t come. Sylvia went to bed remembering looking back just before she escaped through the emergency exit and seeing the look of shock and abandonment on Elizabeth’s weeping face. She might as well have yelled, Don’t leave me! That image played and replayed all night long. Sylvia hardly slept.
IN THE MORNING, Sylvia’s parents suggested that the least painful way for Sylvia to separate from the school would be for her mother to announce an open house for goodbyes at the Head’s House that evening. There would be good munchies. Sylvia had thought she would return for graduation and say goodbye then, but her dad pointed out that she might not want to when the time came. “I don’t think you will enjoy sitting in the audience watching everybody get a diploma while you don’t.”
“And Auda’s arriving today. She’ll be at the party,” her mom said. “Everybody will want to greet her. That will take some of the focus off you. Besides, you don’t want to just sneak away.”
So Sylvia agreed.
Would Elizabeth come?
A FEW MINUTES later, Sylvia looked out the kitchen window for her aunt’s rented car to appear in the driveway. Instead, she saw Elizabeth walk among a group of girls across the campus to their next class in a drizzle of rain that, landing on snow, caused a mist to rise, and Sylvia was flooded with sadness and regret. She watched Elizabeth to see if she would turn her head toward the Head’s House, but Elizabeth hurried on and disappeared into the Science Building. If she doesn’t come to my going-away party tonight, I’ll go find her and we’ll talk, Sylvia decided. No way was she going to leave without telling her best friend she didn’t mean to abandon her. They’d explain things to each other. They’d be friends forever.
Just then, Aunt M drove into the driveway.
THE LAST TIME they’d made this trip, it had been raining too, as if certain kinds of weather were always assigned to certain kinds of errands. Aunt M turned the windshield wipers up a notch as the rain increased and the pure white snow on the lawns in Fieldington turned to mush. They passed Rose’s Creamery, bedraggled in the rain, and the corner where they’d first met Christopher. “Aren’t you glad Christopher isn’t in his lean-to in all this?” Aunt M said.
“No,” Sylvia said. “He’d be dry in there. He knows how to weave the branches tight.” She was proud of him for that and visualized him sitting in the lean-to, up straight like a meditating Buddha in a black down jacket, listening to the purr of the rain and the burble of the river. Did he know she was coming for him now? “It’s not winter, it’s black fly season; that’s the hardest time to live outdoors,” she said, wondering why she wanted so much her aunt to know, “and after that, the second hardest is June and July when the mosquitoes are the worst.”
“Well, you’re the expert. But winter or summer, our job is to make sure he never has to live in that lean-to again.”
“Right!” Sylvia said.
That morning, Sylvia had dressed for this occasion first in a wool skirt over black tights and a light blue sweater. Then she had changed her mind and put on what she was wearing now: jeans and her L.L. Bean boots and a red-and-black checkered lumberjack shirt. What would he be wearing? What could they possibly say to each other? Which look would he have on his face: the serene one she’d woken up to in her bed, or that lost, haggard, crazed one that, though she was sure he would never hurt her, scared her nevertheless?
A few minutes later, when they climbed the steps of the porch of Christopher’s aunt’s house, the front door opened before they rang the bell and Christopher’s aunt was framed in the doorway. Around her eyes she looked just like Christopher. Her gaze went first to Aunt M and then to Sylvia. She looked surprised. “So you’re the one.”
“She is,” Aunt M said.
Christopher’s aunt stood up on her tiptoes and put out her arms. Sylvia hesitated for an instant, then stepped into the embrace. His aunt’s arms were bony and thin as they squeezed her tight. “Thank you for what you did,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Sylvia replied, embarrassed that she couldn’t think of anything more appropriate to say. She stepped back out of the hug and her eyes wandered, seeking Christopher. His aunt took her hand and led her into the living room. Aunt M followed closely behind.
Christopher stood up from a chair that was facing the other way and turned around. He was wearing a brown suit with a white shirt and red tie. He’d grown a small tidy beard, blond, like his hair, which didn’t come down to his shoulders anymore, his face was fuller, and his shoes were polished.
“Say hello to Sylvia,” his aunt said.
“Hello, Sylvia.” He spoke so slowly she could tell he had tranquilizers in him.
“Hello. You ready to go?”
“I am,” he said, and she could tell, even in his haze, he was glad to see her.
His aunt opened the hall closet door and took out an overcoat. “Don’t forget this,” she said, “it’s cold outside,” and held the overcoat open for him to put his arms through the sleeves. When he had it on, she patted his shoulders. The coat was a handsome gray, brand new, an ivy-league cut. It wasn’t lost on Sylvia how different it was from the down jacket she’d stolen for him. He looked like a young businessman in it, or maybe a professor. “Now you’re ready,” his aunt said, and moved to the front door, opening it, gesturing them out.
Outside in the driveway, Christopher headed for the backseat of Aunt M’s car, but Aunt M put her hand on his elbow “No, sit up front with me.” Sylvia got in the back. “Put your seatbelt on,” Aunt M said. She waited to start the car. A second or two went by before Sylvia realized Aunt M was talking to her. Christopher had put his on without being reminded.
For most of the drive, Sylvia stared at the back of Christopher’s shoulders, trying to think of the right thing to say. She didn’t want to make small talk. She wanted to ask him what his plans were, what he hoped for, but he seemed too drugged to tell. It seemed forever before they arrived at the Newington VA building. Aunt M drove straight to the entrance marked MAINTENANCE.
The elderly white men in baseball caps were sitting there again, as if permanently enthroned. This time they looked even more interested as the two women walked in with Christopher between them and Dorothy got up from the information desk and came out to greet them, wearing the same brown suit she’d worn before. She took Christopher’s right hand in both of hers, held it for a moment. “I’ve been waiting for you.” She led him down a hall. He looked back over his shoulder at Sylvia and her aunt, and disappeared around a corner, surprising Sylvia by the likeness of the moment to all those times she’d watched new girls delivered to the campus for the first time, looking back over their shoulder to watch their parents drive away. Sylvia and her aunt took chairs at the end of the row of baseball caps to wait. The man next to Sylvia smelled of cigarette smoke. He had an artificial left hand. It looked like a robot’s claw. He rested it on his knee right next to Sylvia’s. She stared straight ahead, away from it.
Only an hour later, Christopher emerged carrying in a big folder the papers for his restarting at Southern Connecticut State U under the GI Bill. Dorothy must have eased the way. And whatever drugs he was taking seemed to be working. He was calm, but no longer in a haze. Sylvia thought that maybe, with the drugs inside him, he’d succeed at college this second try.
The sun was coming out on the drive back to his aunt’s house. Christopher, reviving more each moment, spoke of his plans to study retailing and to borrow some money from his aunt to open a store in a place called Saranac. “To sell canoes,” he said, “and kayaks, fishing equipment, tents, sleeping bags, hiking boots.” He listed everything that anybody who loved the outdoors could ever want—except guns. “No guns,” he repeated. “No guns, ever.” He’d have one of those signs that reserved the right to refuse service to anyone he didn’t want to serve: people who wore camouflage suits and talked too loudly and never looked at the view and couldn’t light a fire and got drunk in the evenings at campsites. “They can go to Walmart,” he said, turning to smile at Sylvia in the backseat. He would think of a name for the store that honored his Uncle Ray. He began to tell stories about Uncle Ray, mostly funny ones, in spite of his elegiac tone that sounded to Sylvia as if he were saying goodbye to her too, the distance between them of age and condition—and what he had lived through—too far to travel. He ended with the story of how his Uncle Ray died while looking at his favorite view.
“How about calling the store Uncle Ray’s Outdoors?” Sylvia said. “Something direct and simple like that to honor him.”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
“All right, if that’s what you think I should name it, that’s what I’ll name it. Uncle Ray’s Outdoors.”
“Thank you,” Sylvia said, utterly inadequate words for the pulse of joy she felt. They were silent the rest of the way. There was nothing more to say.
Except goodbye, a few minutes later on the front porch of his aunt’s house, where they hugged each other, shyly.
SYLVIA WAS GRATEFUL—AND not at all surprised—that her aunt knew enough not to say anything on the drive back to school. Nor was she surprised, when, about halfway there, her aunt took her right hand off the steering wheel and patted Sylvia’s left knee twice before returning her hand to the steering wheel, all the time staring straight ahead.
A few minutes later, when Aunt M turned the car into the head’s house driveway, Sylvia exited reluctantly. She wanted to continue the silence she and her aunt had shared, not go to a party, especially one in which she was the center. Would Elizabeth come?
As she walked toward the front door, it swung open and Auda Hellmann stood on the steps, hands on hips, frowning, looking even smaller than Sylvia remembered, her hair even redder. “I’ve been watching out the window for you to get back. I wanted to be the first to tell you how crazy you are.” She ran down the steps and hugged Sylvia. “You could have graduated and then made your point,” she said as Aunt M came up to them. Auda released Sylvia from her hug. “This must be your aunt.”
“It is. She’s crazy too, by the way,” Sylvia said.
“It runs in the family,” Aunt M said. “Call me Aunt M. And you must be Auda. I’ve heard good things about you.”
Auda, looking slightly surprised, and very pleased, glanced at Sylvia.
“Oh yes!” Aunt M said. “Very good things.” Then, pointing into the house: “Has the party started?”
“Yes. Everybody’s in the big room.”
“Well, go on in, Sylvia. I’ll go upstairs and get out of the way.”
THERE WAS THE noise of many conversations as Sylvia and Auda entered the house, but when they entered the big room, everybody turned to them and the air went silent. There were about thirty girls, all standing up, like at one of her mother’s fundraiser cocktail parties. Sylvia felt Auda’s hand on her elbow as if Auda were presenting her as an interesting specimen to a curious audience. One of the girls started to clap; several joined, tentatively. “Oh please! Don’t!” Sylvia said. The clapping stopped. The room was silent again. Nobody seemed to know how to act. Brown boxes of pizza, exuding their greasy smell, were piled on a counter, waiting to be opened.
Sylvia was glad her parents had the good sense not to be present. Especially her mother. She imagined them sitting on the sofa in the Little Room, waiting for this to be over. They’d make a quick appearance near the end.
But where was Elizabeth? Sylvia roamed her eyes around, and finally found her talking to a group of girls, way across the room. Their eyes met. Elizabeth turned away. Sylvia crossed the room to her. Nobody seemed insulted that she didn’t stop and talk to them on the way.
One of the girls talking to Elizabeth saw Sylvia approaching. She said something to Elizabeth and then drifted away. The other girls followed, leaving Elizabeth by herself, her back to Sylvia. Knowing that everybody in the room was sneaking glances, Sylvia was embarrassed by all this unwanted attention and that made her angry at Elizabeth, to whom until a second ago she’d wanted to apologize. She took another step toward Elizabeth and in a perfect imitation of her sarcasm whispered, “You can turn around now.”
Elizabeth whirled around. “Where did it say what kind of tone of voice was required—or how precise?”
“Huh?” Sylvia stepped back.
“Where did it say?” Elizabeth asked again. “That’s what I would have asked him. He would have had to sit down and shut up for once. And don’t tell me you had to retract. You just wanted to. We were in this together! We had a deal. I’d apologize. You’d nod your head. That was all there was to it.”
“I didn’t plan it,” Sylvia said. “And I did have to retract.”
“No you didn’t.”
“What do you mean, I didn’t?”
“Just what I said. Do you really think it was easy for me not to retract? You made me have to choose between us staying together and me graduating. All of a sudden we weren’t partners after all. No, we were each on our own. Right there in an instant. You completely changed the rules just so you could keep yourself nice and pure and feel good about yourself,” Elizabeth said. “So let’s just get this ridiculous party over with, okay?”
“That’s it?”
Elizabeth nodded. “That’s it.”
“All right, let’s,” Sylvia said, crestfallen. “But thanks for coming.” Elizabeth shrugged.
“Really,” Sylvia said. “I mean it. Thanks.”
“How else was I going to say goodbye?” Elizabeth said, her lip quivering. “I knew you wouldn’t come to the dorm.” She stepped abruptly away from Sylvia and headed for the counter where the boxes of pizza were piled.
Sylvia joined Elizabeth behind the counter, a kind of protective wall between them and everybody else in the room, and they became partner hostesses, serving the pizza in spite of the hurt between them. No one seemed to know what to say to them. Neither of them was in the mood to help them out. So they hardly said anything at all. And to those who wanted to know why she had quit the school, Sylvia answered that she hadn’t, she had retracted an apology—an answer she knew was as perverse as it was indirect. To those who said they admired her and Elizabeth for doing what was only right to help the homeless guy, she and Elizabeth said almost nothing.
After a while Bob and Rachel made their appearance. “Hello, everybody,” Rachel said. “Thank you so much for coming. I know you all wanted to say goodbye to Sylvia—and she to you.” Next to her, trying not to look sad, Bob nodded his head, and turned to leave. Rachel turned too, a second later.
“But, Rachel, there’s something I don’t understand,” Auda said, speaking very loudly.
“Only one, Auda?” Rachel said. “You’re way ahead of me.”
“Yes, only one. You want to hear it?”
Rachel smiled. Everybody could see she wasn’t worried. She’d been doing this job for twenty years. Nothing phased her anymore.
“Well, do you?”
“Fire away, Auda.”
“All right, it’s this. How do you explain kicking someone out for providing shelter in the dorm to a homeless person?”
“Leave my mother out of this, Auda,” Sylvia said. “I knew what I was doing.”
“Leave her out? Are you kidding? She’s the head of school.”
“You’re right, Auda. I am. And your question is a good one,” Rachel said. “But you know the answer as well as I. So I invite you to answer it.”
“Well, I’m not going to. It would seem like I agree with it. And I have another question: why don’t you guys start a homeless shelter right here on campus? The students could help run it. What are you waiting for?”
“That’s two questions,” someone murmured. There was a collective giggle, and some of the tension went out of the room
“I’m serious. You’ve got the land. It goes all the way to the river where Christopher’s lean-to was,” Auda said, and now everybody in the room remembered Auda hadn’t returned in time to be at Morning Meeting. So how did Auda know?
“Yeah, I know, it’s politically impossible,” Auda went on. “The trustees would never approve. It’s not in the mission. But screw the mission, and their politics too. Who gives a damn?”
“As I said, that’s a very interesting idea,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, and I have another interesting idea for you, Rachel.” Auda’s voice was trembling now. It was clear to everyone how satisfying to her was her righteous anger. “Un-recuse yourself. You’re the boss. You’ve got the power. Just do it. Declare the decision that Sylvia needed to apologize invalid. Because it is, and you know it is. That fixes the problem.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. So people will say you did it because she’s your daughter. What do you care? You can take the heat. You’ve been here for years.”
Rachel stood very still, appearing to be considering Auda’s proposal.
“Well, are you going to do it or not?” Auda said.
Rachel shook her head. “No, Auda, I am not.” Then, addressing everybody: “Ladies, it’s time to eat the ice cream. Who’ll help serve it?”
“I will,” Sylvia said. She headed for the refrigerator. There, she turned and looked at Auda. “This my house. If anyone starts to talk any more about me, I’m going to kick you all out of it.”
Several girls moved toward the counter. Auda stayed back for a while, then she shrugged and moved there too. Soon more girls were at the counter to serve than there were girls to be served. No one knew what to say, especially to Auda now. Was she in on the stealing; was it all her idea? A triumvirate? No one wanted to ask her directly, at least not there.
After another little while, the girls began to drift away. There was homework due in the morning. They came up to Sylvia one by one and in little groups to say goodbye, administering hugs. Sylvia was stone faced through all of this, showing nothing of her grief, only that she wanted to get this over with.
Elizabeth and Auda were the last to leave. Sylvia walked with them to the door and opened her arms to Elizabeth for a hug. But Elizabeth just said goodbye and started to walk away. “Don’t worry, she’ll come around,” Auda said, trying to sound convinced, and then did her best to make up for what Elizabeth had refused by hugging long and hard.
Sylvia refused to weep as she watched Elizabeth and Auda cross the campus, as familiar to her as her own face in the mirror. It didn’t even occur to her that Auda might say goodnight to Elizabeth and continue walking toward the dorm she’d lived in. The two girls disappeared into Elizabeth’s dorm where Sylvia was sure Elizabeth would still be at her desk studying when Auda climbed up into the upper bunk. Auda wouldn’t need to change the sheets. She had what it takes to get used to the smell.
BACK INSIDE, SHE found her parents in the Little Room. Her mother was talking fast, words flying out, and her father was nodding his head. They turned to her when she came through the door. “Guess what,” her father said. “Your mother really does think Auda’s idea is interesting.”
Sylvia stopped in the doorway. The ground was falling away beneath her feet.
“I was giving myself time to think,” her mother said.
“No, Mom! It’s too late. It’s over.”
Her mom frowned, uncomprehending “Why not? We do have plenty of room on campus. And the girls could help run it. All we have to do is have our lawyers set it up so the school won’t be liable.”
Sylvia stood utterly still, taking this in. Her dad was still nodding his head.
“We were in the parking lot and your homeless man was standing by a white Prius, remember?” her mom said.
“Yes, I remember,” Sylvia said, also remembering her father coming toward her at Bradley Field in his brand-new car, honking and waving his hand.
“And Auda asked why are there so many homeless people in America?”
“I remember, Mom.”
“And your dad said, ‘We better damn well figure it out.’”
“I remember, Mom. But, Mom, the board will never let you do that.”
Her mother put her hand up. “And you asked, ‘If we don’t, what?’ And he turned and looked out the window like he was talking to the whole wide world and said, ‘We won’t like ourselves very much, I guess. Some of us already don’t.’ Do you remember what you said then?”
“I said I was glad he said that.”
“Well, I was glad too!”
“I’m glad you were glad, Mom, but still, the board won’t let you build a homeless shelter.”
“Well, then I’ll follow you out of here,” she said. “We’ll both be gone. I’ll resign and start a school that will.”
No one spoke. The news seemed to float in the room while the tick tock of the clock on the mantel grew louder and louder.
“And we have something else to tell you,” her father said. He glanced at his wife.
“Go ahead, Bob,” she said.
“We could have figured it out, but we didn’t want to,” her father said. He seemed relieved, like a person confessing a sin. “Your mother would have had to ask you next if you and Elizabeth did steal that stuff—and then get up in front of the school and indicate someone else did. Suppose you hadn’t stolen it? Would you ever forgive her for thinking you were a thief? It’s time that your mother and I admit to you that we are complicit.”
“Yes, it’s time,” her mother, the head of Miss Oliver’s, said. “The reason I didn’t ask if you and Elizabeth were the ones who stole that stuff is because if you were, I knew why you were: so you could help that helpless man.”
“And she didn’t want you to stop,” he said. “I didn’t either.”
“And if it turned out you weren’t the ones, I’d have been disappointed,” she said. “Isn’t that strange?”
“So now we’ve each told each other everything,” her dad said. “Nothing’s hidden anymore. That’s good. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, Dad, that’s good.” Sylvia said.
UNAWARE OF RACHEL’S plan to found a homeless shelter for the likes of him, but soothed by his meds as he prepared for bed in his aunt’s house, Christopher was hearing gentle voices again while planning his future: he’d try again at the university to focus his brain and learn. If that didn’t work, he would retreat to where he’d lived in his lean-to and build another one. He’d rest there for a while. Sylvia would visit him. And then he’d try again. If again he failed and couldn’t trust himself not to hurt anyone, he wouldn’t stay in his lean-to. He’d walk right past it, stopping long enough to pick up the grill from his firepit. Then holding on to it, he’d walk into the river. He’d wade to his knees and turn around to see her on the bank. He wouldn’t hear what she said, over the sound of the voices, but he’d read her lips: I forgive you.
He’d turn around again then, and walk the rest of the way.
ON THE FOLLOWING Saturday, Rachel’s hour of meditation was more akin to prayer than it had been all year. She spent it entirely on her plan for the advent of spring, when a sapling copper beech would be planted in a ceremonious Morning Meeting held outdoors. The students would encircle the grand old tree that had kept Rachel calm for twenty years. Alumna and board member Sarah Warrior, the first Native student at Miss Oliver’s, would remind the girls that her ancestors had sat in its shade and how fitting it is that this little one will follow it. Then Rachel would spade the earth and plant the tree.
She would not know whether this was an inaugural planting for her, or a farewell one. The board would not have voted yet on her proposal to include the welcoming and caring for the homeless in the curriculum, empowering young women by their empowerment of others. But she had decided that such a school would exist, either Miss O’s, or one she would found. So, she did not ask herself, as she had before: Is this all?
What had been missing had been found.