Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [120]
Clarise was crying into her hands now. Her shoulders were going up and down, the fox-foot collar seeming to stroke her neck as she cried. “I knew something was wrong,” she sobbed into her hands.
The pin oak made a cracking sound as Ramona sat down on the fallen tree next to Clarise. Ramona had her arm around Clarise’s shoulder. It was a stiff arm, Ramona so unused to consoling people using physical contact.
“I’ve been smelling bread, all morning, a yeasty, buttery smell. The morning I woke and my husband wasn’t next to me, hadn’t been in the bed all night, first time ever I’d woke not knowing exactly where he’d spent the night, I woke to the smell of the sea, a sweet, oily smell that was coming to me in mists, and then in waves, and then I could barely catch my breath, as if my lungs were filling with water.”
Now Clarise was starting to shiver under her aunt’s faithful coat. She had walked from the institute to here. Most of it through snow-covered Fairmount Park, where she had the streets to herself, no cars, no people; the storm had even kept the stray animals and pesky park squirrels in. And she had done the eight miles in three hours and kept reasonably warm, even worked up a mild sweat. But now her heart had almost stopped at the news that her girls were missing, her blood froze a little, and the heat that had settled between her coat and her skin while she’d kept moving was quickly receding, and suddenly she was feeling the gray air for what it was, a dull, throbbing cold.
Clarise’s shoulders felt so frail under Ramona’s arms. So Ramona wrapped her arms fully around her. She rubbed her hand up and down her arm. “Um, uh, um, Clarise, why don’t you come and get into the car with my boyfriend and me? We were riding around looking for your girls. We figured that they’d probably try to get home. Um, but the police look like they had the same idea. Um, maybe you know where else they would try to go. But first why don’t you come and get in the car with us? Please, come on,” she whispered, “let me help you into the car.”
Clarise allowed Ramona to help her up. Because not only was she cold, but she was tired; more than tired, she was weak.
Tyrone had the back door opened when Ramona and Clarise got to the car, and Ramona climbed into the backseat with Clarise.
“Are you warm enough?” she asked her once they were both settled in.
“Much better, thank you,” Clarise answered, and then let the loosely hanging shawl fall from her head and onto her shoulder. Ramona noticed how Clarise tossed her head as if she were royalty to encourage the shawl to fall. She took note. This is how refined people acted.
“Is this your young man?” Clarise asked as she leaned forward to get a better look at Tyrone.
“Um, yes, yes, he is,” Ramona said.
“Can you tell him to drive slowly through this block? This is our block. Even though my girls wouldn’t hide on this street. My Shern has a key. They would just use the key and go on in. Unless, of course, those dumb oxen police so visible in front of my door have scared them off.”
They rode in silence through the block. Ramona respected the silence even though she was brimming over with questions for Clarise. When did she get out? Why hadn’t they known she was getting out? Why was she just walking through the streets like that? How did it feel to go through life without any idea who her father was? She gasped as she thought this last question. Had never been aware of any yearnings to know her real father. Was just beginning to understand that that didn’t mean the yearnings weren’t there.
Clarise was sitting forward to get a better view of the snow-covered block, seeing her girls in strollers, then tricycles, then roller skates, then two-wheeler bikes with training wheels; splashing around in the inflatable toy pool on the front lawn that would make Clarise’s jaws ache when she had to blow it up; posing for pictures on Easter Sunday and Mother’s Day. The images were building one on the top of the other like a slide show in fast motion, she could even hear a clicking sound as her mind went from