Lee Martin - Late One Night

Brandi and Laverne stepped into the main hallway of the school, and there at the other end, crouched down to tie Emma’s shoe, was Ronnie. He was taking his time, making neat bows with the laces. Sarah was behind him, frantically searching through her book bag.

When he finished with Emma’s shoes, he put his arms around her and pressed her to him.

Brandi called out, not giving a thought to the children now filling the hallway and the teachers coming out of classrooms to see their students off.

“Ronnie,” she said.

He stood up and looked at her. Then he took Emma’s hand with his right and Sarah’s with his left, and they came down the hall to where Brandi and Laverne were standing.

“Hello, Brandi,” he said. “Hello, Miss Ott.”

“Ronnie, what are you doing?” Brandi asked.

He seemed perplexed by the question. “Doing?” He cocked his head to the side and squinted his eyes at her. “I’m picking up the girls. The way I do every day. You know that.”

Emma was tugging on Ronnie’s hand. “Let’s go, Daddy. Let’s go.”

With her free hand, Sarah was searching her coat pockets — still looking, Brandi supposed, for whatever she’d misplaced.

Ronnie let go of Sarah’s hand. He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. “We’ll find it later, sweetheart,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

The hall was emptying out, the children’s voices growing faint as they ran out into the cold day. Soon it was just Ronnie and the girls and Brandi and Laverne in the hallway, and when Laverne spoke, she did so in a hushed tone as if she were soft-talking a skittish horse so he wouldn’t bolt.

“Ronnie—” she said.

“I know why you’re here.”

“I’m going to have to talk to you, ask you some questions. You know that, too, don’t you?”

He nodded.

A clock in the hallway clacked as the second hand marked off another minute. The classroom door nearest them creaked on its hinges, and Sarah’s teacher, Cynda Stout — Tommy’s mother — came out into the hall carrying a plastic cup full of watercolor brushes. Brandi saw the way she hesitated, surprised to find her and Laverne there with Ronnie and the girls. Then she said, “Oh, Sarah. Good. You’re still here.” She reached into the front pocket of her purple smock and pulled out a pink pompom hair scrunchie. “You left this on the art table. I bet you’ve been looking for it.”

Sarah took the scrunchie, a sheepish smile on her face.

“Better put it on your hair, baby,” Ronnie said. She let him have the scrunchie and he bent over and gathered her fine hair into his hand and then deftly spread the scrunchie with his fingers and crisscrossed it around Sarah’s hair so when he was done it held her ponytail. “There you go,” he said. “That looks good, baby.”

Brandi wasn’t sure what she should feel watching Ronnie. He was so tender with Sarah. He stroked her ponytail, fluffing out the fuzzy scrunchie. How could this be the same man who had been so angry with her, the man who had pulled that knife, the man everyone thought set a house trailer on fire with his wife and children inside, asleep? Brandi caught herself feeling sorry for him — this man she thought she loved — but then she drew herself up short, steeled herself for what was to come. Like Laverne said, he had questions to answer.

She stepped up to him now. Laverne Ott. Brandi imagined she must have done this countless times, not only in her job with Children and Family Services, but in all the years she’d taught school. Again and again, she must have done what she was doing now with Ronnie, talking to him in that soft voice that was still firm, making it plain that hers was the voice that mattered here.

“Ronnie, I want you to let Emma and Sarah go with Brandi. She’ll take them home. Then you and I will find a room here where we can be alone, and we’ll have the talk we need to have. Cynda here will help us find that room, I believe. Do you understand?”

He nodded his head. Then he looked right at Brandi, and she felt her heart go the way it had that first time in Fat Daddy’s when she’d danced with him. He had that look of being lost, of wanting someone to hold onto him.

“Brandi, do you really think—”

He couldn’t go on. He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut.

Laverne nodded to her, and Brandi took Emma and Sarah by their hands.

“What’s wrong with Daddy?” Emma asked.

Ronnie opened his eyes and forced a smile. “Nothing, doodlebug,” he said. “Not a thing in the world. You go on with Brandi now. I’ll see you later.”

Brandi said, “I bet we can find you some cookies. And Hannah and Angel will be home soon. How about that?”

“I’ll save a cookie for you, Daddy,” Emma said.

Brandi had wanted a family so badly. She’d wanted it with Ronnie. She was carrying his baby, and she didn’t have any idea what was going to happen.

Missy knew exactly what she was going to do. She couldn’t stand there at the window a second longer, waiting for some sign of Shooter. She’d heard that shot and she had to know what it meant. Pat, she knew, would tell her to mind her own business, but he wasn’t there. She was all alone. She was going to put on her boots and coat. She was going to step out into the cold. She was going to walk across that field into those woods and see what there was to find.

Crunch of snow underfoot. Tangles of corn stubble poking through. The ridges uneven beneath her feet. Missy tried her best to stay between the rows where the ground was more level. Her breath made little clouds in the cold air. It was some hundred yards across the field, and by the time she got to the end where the woods began she could feel the cold in her toes, and her cheeks and nose stung from the wind lashing her face.

She took her first steps into the woods, where the land began to roll, and she stopped to rest before trudging to the crest of the hill.

At first she thought she was hearing the wind as it rose and fell and then rose again with an eerie noise of breath and complaint. Then she came to understand that what she heard coming from somewhere deeper in the woods was a noise from a living thing — a grunting, snuffling sound that froze her and made her strain to listen more closely, trying to determine if what she heard came from a person or an animal.

She was afraid to find out, but she knew she couldn’t just walk away. She moved on, feeling the strain in her calves and hamstrings as she climbed the hill.

Once Brandi had gone, and it was just Laverne Ott and Ronnie in the hallway of the school, Cynda Stout went to fetch the principal and then excused herself to slip into the bathroom to clean up those watercolor brushes.

The principal, Mrs. Piper, was a woman Laverne knew from the days when she’d taught Ronnie and Della and Missy and so many others at Victory School out in the country. A two-room school-house, before all the country schools consolidated and the kids rode the bus into Goldengate.

Irene Piper had taught in those country schools too, before becoming the principal at Goldengate. She was a woman from Laverne’s generation — a tall, white-haired woman in a navy blue suit and an ivory blouse with a ruffled bodice.

“Laverne,” she said, “is there something I can do for you?”

“I need a room,” Laverne said. “Somewhere I can have a private conversation.”

Irene nodded. “You can use my office.” She smiled. “By this time of day, I’m sick of it anyway.”

“I shouldn’t be long. Then maybe you and I can have a chat?”

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. It’s the fourth-grade class play tonight. I’ll be eating a sandwich for supper.”