Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [43]
“She could see it. She could hear him falling before it even happened,” she said.
The days grew shorter and I left Mary’s earlier, trying to get home before the night was completely black, spooky that time of the year on the empty roads stretching between farms. “I can’t bear to watch you go back to that house,” Mary would say, holding me close. “I’m so sorry, Tessa.”
“It’s okay,” I said, to reassure her, but she would watch me as if I were about to disappear.
As the days got colder, I’d return in the mornings and Mary wouldn’t be in the main room or out back. People would be lined up at the door, and I’d let them in, check out their books, and try to keep everything running smoothly. But more and more they had to fend for themselves, and every evening there’d be piles of books all around, scattered on the floor and in front of the books lined up on the shelves.
I’d run down the stairs to the cold basement to wake Mary, shivering with only a thin sheet wrapped around her, and see that she’d been going through her circus box—the paraphernalia, old costumes, jewelry, and love letters, which she wouldn’t let me read. I’d put the things back, fold the box flaps over each other, and set it to the side. I’d start a fire in the little stove and wake Mary with a cup of cider.
“Thanks,” she’d say, sitting up and raking her hands through her mass of curls.
“Come,” I’d say, “let’s go outside.”
Autumns in Oakley were magical. From some parts of town all you could see, for miles around you, were leaves on fire—red and yellow and orange, flaring from the trees and coating the ground. Mary was tormented by something—I did not know what—from her past or present, but that autumn all I wanted was to lose myself outside among the colors, to not think of anything else. I sought anything that would pull me outside myself. I could not stand my father, just walking past him in the mornings in his rocking chair. I dreaded the nighttime and hated my body with more passion than I ever had, unless I was on the trapeze. One afternoon Mary dragged herself from her bed and came out with me, wrapping herself in a sweater.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and she turned to me and smiled the crooked smile that lit up her tanned face, bending her blue cat’s eyes into arcs.
“Don’t mind me,” she said, “I’m just tired. It is you I’m worried about, Tessa.”
“But nothing’s wrong,” I kept insisting, my mind full of the circus, the trapeze, the feel of my body rushing through air. And I did not even pay attention as she slipped away.
It was cold and gloomy as I walked to the library one day in late November, tromping through piles of wet, dead leaves. The trees were all skeletons. I couldn’t find Mary anywhere. I let in a few farmers who were standing impatiently at the door and left them standing, confused, in the main room. A cold kettle of tea sat on the stove, Mary’s mattress downstairs was empty, and she had boxes of memories, more than I’d ever seen before, spread out along the floor of her makeshift room, mixed in with the papers and books. I searched every room. I knelt down and began straightening up her things, waiting for her to return. I picked up her shimmering costumes. I arranged her high-heeled shoes in the box, running my fingers along the length of them, and started gathering up a pile of circus programs to stack on top.
When I finally looked up, I realized it was way past lunchtime. My stomach was grumbling. Where was she? I stepped over the mess Mary had left—I had barely managed to clear a foot of empty space on the floor—and looked once more around the other rooms downstairs and the front and back yards. Shouldn’t she have left a note or something? I walked back into the library, stumbling over the boxes and shoes, ignoring all the farmers wandering