Frank De Felitta - Audrey Rose

“Try to understand, Mr. Templeton. In the Buddhist belief, death becomes a mere incident in life, a change of scene, a brief journey in which the soul wanders in search of a new life, selecting the parents to whom it wishes to be born. Audrey Rose would naturally have sought out a life and parents similar to those she knew and loved in her previous life. It was no accident that she chose you. The kind of people you are, the depth of love and understanding, the quality of intellect, the way of life you offered made you the perfect family in which to be reborn.”

“What if Audrey Rose hadn’t died?” Bill interjected. “What would our daughter have become, an empty shell?”

“She would have become the receptor of another soul.”

Bill shook his head. “You would think, if that were the case, that she’d remember some of her past lives.”

“Such remembrance would only complicate her present life, Mr. Templeton. Hindus consider it tragic if a child remembers a former existence, for this, they believe, signifies an early death.”

Bill heaved a deep sigh, as if catching his second wind.

“Okay,” he continued, his mind ferreting among the questions still left to be asked, seeking the proper, logical successor to the last. “So you came to New York, and using a disguise, started observing our family.…”

“No, not immediately. As I said, there were others, but for one reason or another they didn’t fit. I started observing your daughter a little over a month ago, and almost at once I began to see little things in Ivy that did indeed remind me of Audrey Rose.…”

“Like what?”

“The way she walks, for example. Her tendency to get lost in a daydream whenever she walks. The funny habit of licking her lips just before she starts to speak. Her sudden laugh; the way she throws back her head when she laughs; the gentle sadness in her eyes when something painful occurs—like that day, Mrs. Templeton, when you both stopped to help that injured pigeon.…”

Janice felt her soul turn white as he went on to describe the myriad, lovely, subtle gestures and qualities that were Ivy’s exclusive property—those rare, tenuous nuances of movement, style, and nature that Janice thought she herself had only been aware of. She was suddenly thankful that Ivy was not around, that she was safely tucked away with Carole downstairs, beyond the proximity of Elliot Hoover’s strange and terrible insight.

“All these things, these little idiosyncrasies were Audrey Rose’s, Mr. Templeton. In so many ways, the two of them are one and the same person.”

“Do they also resemble each other?”

“No. It is only the spirit which passes from life to life; the physical you is new with each birth. Here”—Hoover reached into his pocket and removed his wallet; he carefully extracted a small photograph from its Plasticine container and handed it to Bill—“a picture of Audrey Rose, taken about a month before she passed on.”

Bill studied the picture. The face he saw staring back at him was round, flat-featured, and plain. Her hair was straight, light brown, and resembled her father’s, as did her eyes. Bill passed the photograph to Janice, who glanced at it briefly and quickly thrust it back at Bill as if it were something diseased and contagious. Bill offered the photograph back to Hoover, who gingerly reinserted it into its protective covering.

“Well, Mr. Hoover,” Bill said, flashing his best smile, “we seem to have come to the point where I’m supposed to ask you what it is exactly that you want from us?”

Hoover smiled back. “Nothing more or less than you and your wife are prepared to give me.”

“Well, like what?” Bill urged. “You tell us .”

Hoover’s eyes became distant, serene. “This chance to see Ivy occasionally, to watch her grow, to be of help, if needed.…”

“That might be difficult to arrange.”

“Not if I became your friend. Your neighbor. I intend to settle in New York and take up my professional life once again.” Hoover saw the stiff lines of resistance on their faces and quickly added, “Understand, I’ll make no demands on your time or expect any special privileges or considerations.…”

Yeah, sure, Bill thought hotly, in a pig’s ass you won’t.

“And, of course, Ivy would never know about our … relationship. As I said before, it would be dangerous for her to know.…”

Bill held up his hand. “Okay, I have a question. Since, by your own admission, your presence does present a danger to Ivy, and since you say you care about what happens to her and that you wish to be of help to her, why don’t you just step out of the picture? That would be the greatest help you could give her, as I see it. Right now, our daughter is a normal, healthy child. Aren’t you interested in seeing that she stay that way? I mean, say that there is a little bit of your child mixed up in her somehow, why take a chance on destroying them both?”

The question was a good one, direct, simply expressed, to the point, and Janice was proud of Bill for having thought of it. There was no way Hoover could answer without betraying his own selfish interest. She watched Hoover press the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger and knew that behind the bland gesture was a mind that was racing.

“You are right of course,” he finally said. “It would be the simplest thing for me just to walk away. And it’s quite possible it may ultimately come to that. But put yourself in my position, Mr. Templeton.…”

He was interrupted by the sudden ring of the house telephone—a strident, continual ring that signified danger. The last time it had rung like that was when the building was thought to be on fire.

Bill jumped up and dashed down the hallway. Janice rose, as did Elliot Hoover, startled and confused by the sudden activity.

Bill snatched up the receiver and heard Dominick’s tense voice say, “go ahead, Mrs. Federico.”

“Bill?” Carole’s frantic whisper stung his ear. “Bill, get down here! Something’s happening to Ivy!”

“What is it?” Bill snapped.

“I don’t know … she’s … she’s running around the room, crying.…” Carole’s voice heightened with panic. “She’s having some kind of nightmare.…”

“Coming!” Bill said, slamming down the receiver and turning to Janice, standing white-faced behind him. “It’s Ivy! Get Kaplan’s number!”

The fleeting look between them raised the shroud on a memory shared, yet abhorred. Janice felt a chill sweep through her veins as she pulled the leather-bound telephone book from the kitchen drawer, then found herself floating featherlike, through the service door and down the fire stairs in pursuit of Bill. She was unaware of her feet as they sped her down the iron and concrete steps to the floor below, transporting her to the Federicos’ door, where Bill stood, knocking lightly and quietly calling, “Carole! It’s Bill!” An anxious heart pounded in Janice’s ear merging with the noise of the chain as it slipped off its track and the door opened inward. Carole stood on the threshold, her tense face white as a sheet.

“Upstairs,” she cried faintly and hurried after Bill, who pushed past her through the archway into their small living room and up the short flight of stairs.

“Everything was fine,” she panted frenziedly. “She had dinner … went to bed on time … then I heard these noises … I was in the kitchen … I went up … and … you’ll see … it’s … it’s frightening … I mean … she’s sleepwalking or something … and crying … I tried to wake her up … but I couldn’t.…”

The door to the spare bedroom was partially ajar. Bill waited before entering, listening to the terrified little sounds emerging from the room; the scampering of bare feet on the carpeted floor; the light impact of a body crashing into object; the soft, mouselike weeping of infantile anguish, desperately repeating the same pleading litany of strung-together words, “Mommydaddy mommydaddy mom-mydaddy mommy hothothothot mommydaddy…,” they had heard on certain other nights more than seven years before.