Mary Clark - A Cry In The Night

“How long is Erich planning to be gone?” she asked.

“He didn’t say for sure, Miz Krueger.”

“Clyde, why were you outside the house last night?”

“You saw me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you saw her too?”

“Her?”

Clyde burst out: “Miz Krueger, maybe Rooney ain’t so crazy after all. You know she keeps saying she sees Caroline? Last night I couldn’t sleep. Knowing they still don’t want to let Rooney home more’n a few days at a time, wondering if I’m doing the right thing by her, anyhow I got up. And you know, Miz Krueger, how you can see a piece of the cemetery from our window? Well, I saw something moving there. And I went out.”

Clyde’s face became unnaturally pale. “Miz Krueger, I saw Caroline. Just like Rooney’s been saying. She was walking from the cemetery to the house. I followed her. That hair, that cape she always wore. She went in the back door. I tried it after her but it was locked. I wasn’t carrying my keys.

“I walked around and just waited. In a little while I saw the light go on in the master bedroom, then the light in Erich’s old room. Then she came to the window and looked out and waved at me.”

“Clyde, I was at the window. I waved at you.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Clyde whispered. “Rooney’s been saying she sees Caroline. Tina talks about the lady in the painting. I think I’m following Caroline. Oh, Jesus”- he stared at her, horror in his face-“and all the time, just like Erich said, it’s you we’ve been seeing.”

“It wasn’t me, Clyde,” she protested. “I went upstairs because I heard someone walking around.” She stopped, repelled by the disbelief in his face. She fled back to the house. Was Clyde right? Had she been walking near the graveyard? She’d been dreaming about the baby. And this morning she’d been thinking how much she hated the clothes Erich had bought her. Had she dreamed that too and then slashed the coat? Maybe she hadn’t heard anyone after all. Maybe she’d just been sleepwalking and woke up when she was upstairs.

She was the lady Tina saw, the lady in the painting.

She made coffee, drank it scalding hot. She had not eaten since yesterday morning. She toasted an English muffin, forced herself to nibble on it.

Clyde would tell the doctors that he’d seen the woman he thought was Caroline. He’d say that he followed her to the house and I admitted I waved to him.

Erich would come back and take care of her. She’d sign that statement and Erich would take care of her. For hours she sat at the kitchen table, then went to the desk and got the box of writing paper. Carefully she wrote, trying to remember Erich’s exact words. She’d tell about last night too. She wrote:

And last night I must have been sleepwalking again. Clyde saw me. I walked in from the cemetery. I guess I went to the baby’s grave. I woke up in the bedroom and saw Clyde from the window. I waved to him.

Clyde had been standing out there, standing in the ice-crusted snow.

The snow.

She’d been in her stocking feet. If she’d been outside her feet would have been wet. The boots she’d been planning to wear on the trip were by the couch, still freshly polished. They hadn’t been worn outside.

She might have imagined the draft of cold air, imagined the footsteps, forgotten about sleepwalking. But if she’d been out by the cemetery, her feet would have gotten wet, her stockings would have been stained.

Slowly she tore up the letter, tore it till it scattered in tiny pieces. Dispassionately she watched the pieces scatter around the kitchen. For the first time since Erich had gone, the sense of hopelessness began to lift.

She hadn’t been outside. But Rooney had seen Caroline. Tina had seen her. Clyde had seen her. She, Jenny, had heard her upstairs last night. Caroline had slashed the mink coat. Maybe she was angry with Jenny for causing Erich so much trouble. Maybe she was still upstairs. She had come back.

Jenny got up. “Caroline,” she called. “Caroline.” She could hear her voice getting higher. Maybe Caroline couldn’t hear her. Step by step she ascended the stairs. The master bedroom was empty. She detected the faint scent of pine that was always there. Maybe if she left some pine soap out, Caroline would feel more at home. She reached into the crystal bowl, brought out three small cakes, left them on the pillow.

The attic. Perhaps she was in the attic. That’s where she might have gone last night. “Caroline,” Jenny called, trying to sound coaxing, “don’t be afraid of me. Please come. You have to help me get the girls.”

The attic was nearly dark. She walked up and down it. Caroline’s vanity case with her ticket and appointment book. Where was the rest of her luggage? Why did Caroline keep coming back to this house? She had been so anxious to get away.

“Caroline,” Jenny called softly, “please talk to me.”

The bassinette was in the corner, covered now with a sheet. Jenny walked over to it, touched it tenderly, began to rock it. “My little love,” she whispered. “Oh, little love.”

Something was sliding across the sheet, something slipping toward her hand. A delicate gold chain, a heart-shaped pendant, the filigree workmanship like spun-gold thread, the center diamond that flashed in the dusk.

Jenny closed her hand over Nana’s locket.

“Nana.” Saying the name aloud was like a drenching of cold water. What would Nana think of her, standing here, trying to talk to a dead woman?

The attic seemed intolerably confining. Clasping her hand over the locket she ran downstairs to the second floor, down to the main floor, into the kitchen. I am going mad, she thought. Aghast, she remembered calling Caroline’s name.

Think about what Nana would tell her to do.

Everything looks better over a cup of tea, Jenny. Mechanically she put on the kettle.

What did you eat today, Jen? It’s not good thisbusiness of skipping meals.

She went to the refrigerator, pulled out sandwich makings. A BLT down, she thought, and managed a smile.

As she ate, she tried to picture telling Nana about last night. “Clyde said he saw me but my feet weren’t wet. Could it have been Caroline?”

She could just hear Nana’s reaction. There are no such things as ghosts, Jen. When you’re dead, you’re dead.

Then how did the locket get upstairs?

Find out.

The telephone book was in the drawer under the wall phone. Holding the sandwich, Jenny went over and got it. She flipped the classified section to JEWELRY, BOUGHT AND SOLD. The jeweler to whom she’d sold the locket. She’d circled his ad with Magic Marker.

She dialed the number, asked to speak to the manager. Quickly she explained: “I’m Mrs. Krueger. I sold a locket to you last week. I think I’d like to buy it back.”

“Mrs. Krueger, I wish you’d stop wasting my time. Your husband came in and told me you had no right to sell a family piece. I let him buy it for just what I paid you.”

“My husband!”

“Yes, he came not twenty minutes after you sold it to me.” The line went dead.

Jenny stared into the phone. Erich had suspected her. He had followed her that afternoon, probably in one of the farm vehicles. But how had the locket gotten to the attic?

She went to the desk, got out a pad of lined paper. One hour ago she’d planned to write the statement Erich had demanded. Now there was something else she needed to see in black and white.

She settled at the kitchen table. On the first line she wrote, There are no ghosts. On the second: I could not have been outside last night. One more, she thought. The next line she printed in caps: I AM NOT A VIOLENT PERSON.

Begin at the beginning, she thought. Write everything down. All the trouble began with that first phone call from Kevin…