Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

“Why don’t we put it this way: something happened, but we were so wasted at the time that it may have been without our knowledge.”

She howled at that. From the side of his eye Willow caught a glimpse of Ronnie lingering in the hall. It probably did him good to hear his wife laugh with abandon.

They bantered some more and then got quiet while Elaine stared at the TV. One of those girl-chat daytime talk shows was on, with too much innuendo and energy. She paid strict attention, tittering along with the studio audience. It gave Willow a chance to sneak a look at her disfigurement. The nose was mutilated; a scar like a yellow lightning bolt bisected her face. Reading glasses rested atop a head that was bald in patches. (Afterward, when Ronnie walked him to the car, he jokily apologized for “my wife’s wacky hairdo.”) Elaine later explained that when Troy and Maya were taken from her, she started pulling it out by the handful, and the habit persisted.

When a commercial came on, she lowered the volume and said, “Have you been well?” The question came from the heart.

“Yes—pretty well,” said Willow. “I guess you could say I’ve had my time in the ‘dark wood’ but I’m beginning to see the light. At least I hope it’s the light.”

“And not the flames of Hell?” she said with a laugh.

How to speak in front of these people, this woman, of dark woods and light, of renewal? Yet it didn’t feel like a faux pas. He could see that Elaine appreciated the intimacy.

“You know,” she said. “I have my reasons for wanting to see you—oh, of course I wanted to see you, Willow, I love you—but that’s not what I mean.” She struggled with her thoughts. “You see, I’ve been thinking of you, I’ve been wanting to tell you something. And when Ronnie said you called and were coming for a visit, I thought, Well, that’s interesting. See how the universe works? Did my husband give you his spiel about everything happening for a reason?”

“Most definitely.”

“It’s become the official mantra around this house.”

“A pretty good one too.”

“When Ronnie said that Willow Wylde was coming to call, well, I just knew . Because it’s been on my mind—I didn’t even tell him about it. I’ve already put my husband through enough.” She grew thoughtful. “How I love that man. Ronnie likes to say that God never gives you more than you can handle, but I think our Creator might have said that before He made me .”

She patted a spot on the bed and told Willow to come sit. When he did, she leaned over and began to whisper, as if aware that her husband might be within earshot.

“What I wanted to say… what I’ve been feeling , Willow—and I can’t pinpoint when it started—”

She turned to him full-face and he saw her ruined features in the half light. Her skin looked like the polished stones he used to collect as a boy, embedded with ordered, fossilized rows of spindly creatures.

“I feel them, Willow! I feel my children , I know that they’re here! And it’s—I know that I sound like a character out of… like JoBeth Williams in Poltergeist . It’s a wonderful movie and it speaks to me. Lord forgive me, but Poltergeist speaks to Elaine Rummer! When that gust of wind blows through JoBeth and she says that she felt her baby—she could smell her—that her baby’s smell was all over her… well, it’s the same, Willow, it’s the very same with me!” Tears filled her eyes. “Look at me, Willow! Look at me. ” She took his hands in hers. “Who could live after that? Who could do what I’ve done to myself and live—what I did to myself and to Ronnie ? Well, I can tell you, for the first time since it happened… I can tell you for the first time , Willow, now , that I want to live . Does that make any sense? Do you believe me, can you believe me? You see, JoBeth saw her baby again and I know I won’t see mine. This I know. But I feel them. And I want to live so that I can keep feeling them. I can smell them, Willow, I can smell my babies!” She laughed with joy as she wept. “Because they are here . I don’t know how and I don’t care to know but they are here . And that’s what I wanted to tell you, that’s what I needed to tell you. I had to tell someone and the Lord chose you .” She turned away and laid her head on the pillow. “I am not a madwoman.”

“I don’t think that, Elaine. Not for one second.”

“Then God bless. God bless you and yours.”

Ronnie quietly appeared. Willow presumed he’d been eavesdropping and prudently decided it was time for his wife to rest. Elaine saw him and smiled. She’d exhausted herself.

“Troy wanted to be a policeman, didn’t he, Ronnie—did you know that, Willow? Oh, he’d have made a fine one. He was always protecting his sister. One day he cut a little sheriff’s badge out of tinfoil and followed Maya everywhere she went, shooting all the imaginary bad guys! Isn’t that the sweetest thing? And did I ever tell you about the time I came home and Maya was in the garden looking terribly sad? You remember, don’t you, Ronnie. I went over and said, ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ and she led me to a spiderweb. Lordie, she was so unhappy! It wasn’t really a web any more —looking at it, you could hardly see what it once was. Maya was crying her little eyes out. She said that she touched it with her fingers but was too rough and it broke. That’s what she told me, ‘I broke it.’ Then she said the dearest thing: ‘Do you think the spider will mind?’ I said, ‘’Course not! He’ll make another one.’ And Maya just looked at the web and looked at me and said, ‘Well—I guess it’s better than coming home to nothing.’”

She laughed and Willow shivered with emotion.

“Sweetheart,” said Ronnie, “how about a nap? I’ll cook a little something for dinner. If we’re so honored, maybe Dubya will join us.”

“Oh, please do!” said Elaine, turning to their guest.

“That’s awfully kind but I think I’ll have to take a rain check. I really should be getting back.”

Elaine reached out and touched his hand again. “Thank you for coming. And thank you for listening to the ramblings of an old broad.”

“It was so good to see you both,” said the detective.

“G’bye, Willow Wylde. I’d let you kiss my good side,” she said impishly. “If I had one. But as I say to Ronnie, hey, it’s better than coming home to nothing. Though maybe it isn’t.”

He stopped at Early World to mull over the impressions of the afternoon—to integrate—and happened to sit in the same booth he shared with Annie, World’s Greatest Volunteer.

Was he was on his way to becoming that too?

The Underworld’s Greatest Volunteer…

He sensed the presence of Nana—sometimes beside him, sometimes sitting straight across, like Annie had—and it felt as if she were trying to say something to soothe him and somehow persuade, like she used to when she snuck into his room after the ague . But he couldn’t make sense of her words.

It was nighttime when he got home.

He parked the car and sat listening to Mahler awhile, lingering on the image of the bedridden Elaine—the tragedy and, yes, the power and delirious beauty of that orphaned woman’s confessions.

Grundy Eakins was rattling around in his head.

As he walked to his apartment, he detoured to Dixie’s. He was about to knock, then thought, I should probably take a shower and make myself pretty. That’s what Dixie was always saying, “Gimme a minute so I can make myself pretty.” When he turned to leave, she ran out.