Free Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

the wall and clattered onto the counter. Parakeets, canaries! What a commotion! I was sorry to have frightened Gladys Higham, I had not meant to upset her. She was calling for her husband Walter, in another part of the house. I was trying to comfort her, I think. I’d barged into her house, into her kitchen to grab at her telephone, to leave smears of my mother’s blood on the plastic receiver. I thought, how terrible Mom would feel, upsetting Gladys Higham! Upsetting any neighbor! What was private, spilling over across the street, into a neighbor’s house! Mom had made us promise, Clare and me, years ago when she’d had a biopsy for a pit-sized growth in one of her breasts, that if the test came back “positive,” if the growth was malignant, we would tell no one.
    We’d promised, of course. Clare and me, exchanging a look of complicity. How could such news be a secret, in Mt. Ephraim! Where so many people knew Gwen Eaton.
    But we would promise, wouldn’t we, Mom begged.
    Mom dreaded people talking about her as a cancer patient. Feeling sorry for her or worse yet feeling they should feel sorry for her.
    The biopsy came back negative.
    A false alarm! No cancer.
    Elderly Walter Higham was staring at me now. Gladys was clutching at his arm, repeating what I’d said. The look in Walter Higham’s face! Such a tittering of birds!
    Now it would begin. Now was the start. Nothing could prevent it. Nothing could shield us from it.
    Gwen? Gwen Eaton?
    Not Gwen! No.
    It isn’t possible: Gwen Eaton?
    I don’t believe it. Can’t believe it. No.
    My God, no. Not Gwen.
    Of all people, not Gwen.
    Gwen Eaton! Gone.
    Murdered.
     
    I stood in the driveway, shivering. I was aware of the garage, the opened door, at my back. By now the sky was beginning to darken, in the west the sun had become a broken, bleeding red yolk. It was the kind of mottled-luminous twilit sky you might lose yourself staring into, in other circumstances.
    I wondered if I should move my car. There would be emergency vehicles, my car might be in the way. I peered through the window and there was my cell phone on the passenger’s seat. I retrieved it, and called Clare’s number. My fingers were clumsy, I punched out the wrong number and had to begin again. At the same time, I was aware of Mom in the garage, on the concrete floor where she’d fallen.
    It was difficult to resist thinking: Mom is going to be all right. I have called an ambulance, Mom will be taken to the hospital and will be all right. A part of my mind was urging me to believe and I was weakening yet I would not give in.
    As if she’d been waiting impatiently for my call, Clare answered immediately, like the 911 dispatcher. Clare answered before I was ready to speak with her. I’d hoped for more time. I’d hoped for Clare’s voice mail. I was saying, “Clare. I’m at the house. Mom has been hurt.” Clare cried, “Hurt! Oh, God! I knew it. What—” I could not speak, my mouth had gone dry. I saw a Mt. Ephraim Police patrol car turning onto Deer Creek Drive, moving swiftly. And another patrol car, close behind. They braked to a stop in front of our house, at angles to block the street. I was distracted by these maneuvers so deftly executed. Across the street at 44 Deer Creek Drive, Walter Higham was standing in his driveway, staring. I had not remembered Mr. Higham so white-haired, a stoop to his shoulders. Talking with Dad at their mailboxes, which were side by side as if companionable, on solid wooden posts on the Highams’ side of the street, Mr. Higham had been my father’s height which was at least six feet.
    Clare’s voice was sharp and fearful in my ear. I tried to explain: Mom was hurt. Mom was badly hurt. I could not utter the word dead, and speaking to Clare I could not utter the word murder . I did not want to break down! It was my responsibility not to break down now that I’d summoned police.
    One of the uniformed officers approached me to ask if I had called 911, if