The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [146]
Annie’s heart jumped in horror. “Why did she do that?”
The stranger said mildly, “I think she went crazy after her husband killed her little boy.”
“Ruthie, for Christ’s sake,” Sam muttered.
“Oh he didn’t do it on purpose. Accidents happen.”
The phone rang and rang. Finally Annie pulled her eyes away from the visitor. “I’ll get it in the hall; it’s probably Georgette,” said Annie. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
Annie ran out of the kitchen and through the house to the hallway. From the kitchen she could hear Georgette’s aunt saying to Sam, “So Jack had a kid. Amazing. Where’s her mother?”
Sam’s reply was too soft to hear.
“Georgette, I’ll call you right back,” Annie whispered, hanging up so she could tiptoe back to the doorway of the kitchen, where she was shocked to see Sam in tears, her long tan strong arms stretched out across the table toward Georgette’s aunt. Ruthie said to her, “Well, if this woman ever does show up, she’ll see who the real mother’s been.”
Sam cried more. “I wish you could stay a little longer. Clark would be glad to see you.”
“Would he? Why?”
The two were silent a moment and then Sam nodded. “That was a miserable summer, wasn’t it? We all messed up.”
“You can mess up a lot before you’re even twenty when you’re moving too fast.”
They left together by the kitchen door. Annie watched them slowly walking through the back yard, past the old rose garden, past the orchard of plum and peach trees, toward the Nickerson house. She went into the morning room to look at the blue-sky puzzle that had been left practically untouched for years. There was now only a third left to go.
That night Annie had a version of her old dream that she’d had so often when she was younger that it had been called “Annie’s dream.” She was flying in her small red airplane over the ocean but this time she had all the flying knowledge that she’d learned from D. K. Destin. Down below her she saw the small ship in the tumbling waves. On the ship stood the young woman in a gold cape. The woman raised her arms, calling on Annie to save her before her ship sank under the waves. This time when Annie’s dad flew past her in his little red plane, she didn’t even bother calling for him to come help. He soared away to the horizon, leaving behind him a trail of curling smoke. She flew as fast as she could to the ship but it was sinking quickly, waves swelling over the bow. Annie awakened in a sob and Sam came hurrying into her room, promising her everything would be all right.
Everything pretty much was. Annie’s life was full and immediate. The next day Georgette and she were preoccupied with composing a letter to old Mr. Neubruck next door, who had called the police because of the noise of their latest party, informing him that his refusal to recycle and his massive use of pesticides on his tomatoes were polluting the planet.
Within a week, they were no longer discussing the mysterious Ruthie, who had left in the night with cardboard boxes from the Nickerson house. (Georgette’s mother said they contained Ruthie’s share of the family plates and silverware but such objects seemed too mundane to interest such a woman.) She never, as far as they knew, returned to Emerald.
Annie never had the dream again and she forgot about Sam’s crying in the kitchen. Still, a vague memory persisted of a handsome woman who’d known how to do algebra and who had made Annie laugh by playing with such quickness on the possible meanings of the word Jack.
Now, all these years later, how odd that the memory had fluttered back at her—like approach lights blinking—the day after she’d seen the woman on the lawn of Golden Days. And even more oddly after she’d seen the woman, or someone like her, standing at the hotel pool.
Georgette thought Annie should go to bed. “This is just a