Midnight Voices

CHAPTER 12

It was late that afternoon, and as she closed the door behind what she hoped would be the last drop-in guest of the day, Caroline felt as if she’d been at hard labor the last two weeks instead of lounging on a Caribbean Island. And tomorrow and the weekend would be even worse, with school starting on Monday, which was why she’d insisted on coming home today instead of staying on Mustique until Sunday. “I need Friday and the weekend, and that’s that,” she told Tony, who’d been almost as bad as the kids in begging for the extra time on the island. “So we go home Thursday, and I don’t want to hear any more complaining from any of you.” But from the moment they’d arrived, when Rebecca Mayhew had come down the stairs before they’d even opened the front door, the stream of visitors had never let up — it was as if a magnet were drawing people to their door. After Rebecca came Alicia and Max Albion, apologizing profusely for Rebecca’s invasion, but bringing a huge tureen from which a decidedly peculiar smell was emanating.

“It’s only chicken soup,” Alicia said apologetically. “And I know it’s so warm today that you won’t even want it, but it’s my specialty and I just couldn’t resist making it for you. If you don’t want it, just throw it away — I’m sure that’s what everyone else does.”

“Nobody throws it away, and you know it,” Max assured his wife as Caroline took the tureen. “Alicia’s chicken soup is famous. And I brought something for the boy.”

Ryan, who hadn’t followed his sister and Rebecca up to the second floor of the apartment, edged closer to his mother, slipping his hand into Caroline’s as he gazed suspiciously at the plastic bag with a Sports Authority logo that Max Albion was offering him.

“It’s all right,” Caroline said, gently disengaging Ryan’s hand from her own.

Ryan reluctantly moved just close enough to Max Albion to take the bag, and when he opened it he did it almost as if he expected a snake to rise from its depths. But when he saw what was in the bag, the suspicion in his face suddenly turned to disbelief. “Wow,” he breathed, pulling the baseball mitt from the bag and slipping it onto his hand. “Awesome!” Then he was holding it up so his mother could see it. “Look! It’s the one I wanted!”

But Caroline had recognized the Wilson mitt as quickly as Ryan — the last time she’d seen it was the day before the wedding, when Ryan had dragged her into the Sports Authority on 57th for at least the dozenth time that summer, explaining once more why he absolutely couldn’t live without the mitt. Its hundred and fifty dollar price tag had been enough to explain to Caroline why he absolutely could not have it, though the commission on Irene Delamond’s remodel had been enough so that she had been at least tempted. Now she looked uncertainly at Max Albion. “You shouldn’t have. It’s too much.”

Albion shook his head, his florid jowls shaking slightly. “Nonsense,” he insisted. “A boy should have a mitt, and it shouldn’t be just any old mitt.” His attention shifted to Ryan. “Well, what do you say?” he asked. “Will it do?”

Ryan, already slamming his right fist into the mitt to start working on a pocket, looked up. “It’s great! I’ve been asking Mom for it all summer, but she said it cost too much!”

“And it did,” Caroline insisted. “It’s very nice of you, Mr. Albion, but I’m not sure Ryan can accept it.”

“Don’t be silly,” Max Albion boomed. “Of course he can accept it. Besides, it’s too late to take it back now — he’s already damaged it.” Obviously horrified at the idea that he might have done something to the mitt, Ryan looked up just in time to see his benefactor winking at him. “Isn’t that right, Ryan? Once you’ve started breaking in a glove to your hand, no one else can use it, can they?”

Ryan nodded solemnly even though he was perfectly aware that it would take him months to get the mitt properly broken in.

Caroline, recognizing defeat, gave in as gracefully as the mother of an eleven-year-old can. “Aren’t you going to thank Mr. Albion?”

“Thank you, Mr.—”

“Uncle Max,” Max Albion cut in. “Call me Uncle Max. And maybe we can break that mitt in right next weekend.” He turned back to Caroline. “You have no idea how good it feels to have a boy in the building. Things get too quiet with nothing but girls. Not healthy for us men,” he added, tipping his head toward Tony.

The rest of the day was a steady stream of neighbors, every one of them bearing something — a basket of scones, a plate of cinnamon rolls, a plate of homemade fudge that was smoother than anything Caroline had ever seen in a store, until by dinnertime it seemed like every surface in the huge kitchen was covered with plates, casserole dishes, and baskets. Even Virginia Estherbrook had shown up, bearing a spectacular arrangement of flowers, mostly tulips and daffodils, every one of them out of season. “For the springtime of your marriage, if not of the year,” she announced as she set the vase — a crystal object in the form of two nestled doves that Caroline had admired for years in the Lalique shop over on Madison — on a Victorian table in the entry hall, where it couldn’t possibly be missed by anyone coming into the apartment. “In another life, I must have been a florist,” she announced as she made an adjustment to the display that was so minute Caroline was almost certain it was more stage business than anything else. She stepped back, admired her work, then uttered a sigh that suddenly dissolved into a hacking cough.

“Are you all right?” Caroline asked, reaching out to steady the elderly actress.

Virginia Estherbrook waved her away. “Nothing serious. I’m just so tired I think I shall crawl into my bed and sleep for a month! Tell me you don’t mind if I simply drag myself home.”

Late in the afternoon Beverly Amondson and Rochelle Newman had arrived, Beverly with a bouquet of asters and Rochelle carrying a pound of Godiva chocolates. Beverly’s smile froze slightly when she saw the vase filled with tulips and daffodils, and Rochelle shook her head at the bounty in the kitchen as Caroline took her two friends on a tour of the duplex. “What kind of welcome wagon do they have in this building? It looks like a catering truck must have brought all this.”

Caroline shrugged. “They made everything themselves. I’m not going to have to cook for a month.”

“But I can see what you are going to have to do,” Beverly said as they moved from room to room. It seemed that everywhere they went, there was some kind of work to be done. In the rooms upstairs, most of the ceilings were stained by what must have been a serious leak from somewhere above—“which your husband apparently didn’t even notice for a year or so,” Rochelle archly observed — or the wallpaper was peeling and faded, or the carpet was so threadbare the backing was showing through. Some of the rooms smelled stale and musty, as if nobody had been in them for years.

And when the women got to Ryan’s room, they found the boy sitting forlornly on the bed, his mitt still on his hand, but his eyes brimming with tears.

“What is it, honey?” Caroline asked sitting down next to him.

Ryan looked up at his mother. “Can’t we go home?” he asked plaintively.

“Honey, this is home now,” Caroline reminded him. Her son’s mournful gaze wandered around the room he had been given. Though not quite as large as Laurie’s, it had still swallowed up his bed, his desk, the chest of drawers his clothes were in, and his father’s old footlocker as if they were nothing more than appetizers. Its ceiling was as stained and its walls as dingy as those of so many of the other rooms in the apartment, and there was an empty feeling to it that made Caroline understand exactly how Ryan felt. “I know it seems awfully big,” she said. “But in a few days you’ll get used to it, and it won’t seem nearly so empty.”

“It smells bad,” Ryan declared, wrinkling his nose, but dragging the sleeve of his shirt across his eyes to clear them of the tears that had flooded them a moment ago.

“Well, we can fix that next week,” Caroline assured him. “We’ll get rid of the wallpaper and paint it, and we’ll do it any way you want. And in the meantime,” she added as Ryan gave a snuffle that told her he was feeling a little better, “you’ve got that new mitt that Uncle Max gave you.”

Instantly, Ryan’s expression clouded again. “Do I have to call him Uncle Max?”

“Of course not — not if you don’t want to. But I thought you liked him.”

Ryan shrugged. “I guess he’s okay,” he said with absolutely no conviction in his voice at all.

“Well, he was nice enough to bring you the mitt, and he seems to like you,” Caroline said, giving him a hug, then standing up. “But you certainly don’t have to call him Uncle Max. And stop worrying — everything’s going to be wonderful. Just give it a chance, okay?”

Ryan nodded, but as they left his room, he was still sitting on the bed, staring miserably at the floor. “I’ll come say goodnight later,” Caroline said as she closed the door.

“Who is Uncle Max?” Rochelle asked as they went back downstairs.

“Max Albion — one of the neighbors. He and his wife have a foster child that Laurie’s already made friends with.”

Beverly raised an eyebrow. “Would that be the little girl Andrea’s so worried about?”

Caroline nodded. “The very one.”

Rochelle’s eyes went into full roll. “Oh, boy. Don’t let Andrea hear what Uncle Max did for Ryan — she’ll be yelling that he’s some kind of pervert. Or has she already given that title to Tony?”

“Oh, come on — Andrea’s not that bad. She just sees all the worst people, so she thinks all people are bad. Just like cops think everyone’s a criminal, and doctors think everyone’s sick.”

They came to the foot of the wide staircase, and Beverly looked around once more at the spacious foyer and the vast rooms opening off it. “She’s also the one who wanted you to hang up on Tony, remember? So just don’t let her wreck all this for you.”

“Don’t worry — she’s as happy for me as you are.”

Rochelle turned and looked Caroline straight in the eye. “If you believe that, you’re crazy. She doesn’t wish me well, and she doesn’t wish Beverly well. We both married far too well. When you were with Brad, that was okay — he wasn’t as poor as she might have hoped, but he wasn’t rich, either. But this—” Her eyes wandered over the faded opulence of the huge apartment. “This, she’s jealous of, and once you’ve fixed it up and you and Tony really settle in, I’ll bet she does everything she can to ruin it for you.”

A few minutes later, both Rochelle and Beverly were gone, and by nine, everyone else was too.

By ten, the children were in bed and asleep.

By eleven, Caroline and Tony were making love.

And at midnight, after Caroline had fallen sound asleep, the noises began…