Beaming Sonny Home (11 page)

And then, with balloons coming off the ceiling everywhere she turned her eyes, Mattie remembered that cold winter when Sonny had painted an entire scene that Jack Frost had left behind on the windowpane. He had taken his watercolors and turned Jack's white trees into beautiful sweeping green ones, above brown-bark trunks. Right on the window glass, those flowery swirls of frost had become red and yellow and blue blossoms, magnificent things in the heart of a winter's day. And then Sonny had bordered the whole scene with a fernlike border of brilliant green. “Come see what Sonny done!” Rita had burst into the kitchen and announced. Mattie had opened the door to Sonny's bedroom and just stood there in her slippers and stared, so stunned was she to see this magnificent scene. She should have punished him, there was no doubt about that, because he knew better than to paint on any of the walls or furniture. She never did tell him to leave the windows alone, however, and she retained this thought as she stood with her mouth open and let her eye trace the swooping lines, drink in all the mischievous color. She had had no idea, none whatsoever, that Sonny Gifford was capable of such artwork. And her heart swelled with pride to learn of it now. “You ain't mad, Mama?” he had asked. “No, I ain't mad, son,” Mattie told him. That was when Rita and Marlene and Gracie flew into the room, like little snowbirds, and stopped dead in their tracks before Sonny's masterpiece. “Ain't you gonna punish him, Mama?” Those were the very words out of Rita's and Marlene's mouths, at the same time, little stereos, as they stood there breathless and winded. “You gonna punish him good, Mama?” they wanted to know. Mattie had simply pushed them out of the bedroom, had closed the door on Sonny and his work. God and all his angels knew that when the sun hit that masterpiece, it was gonna be the most colored mess of shit you ever laid your eyes on, but for a while, for an hour or two, she and Sonny could look at it in peace, could imagine it was a place where they both lived, happily, maybe even ever after. “If
we
painted on the window,” Rita had noted, her lip flopping downward like the tongue of a shoe, “you'd have a fit.” Mattie could merely nod. Maybe she had never been in a fancy museum in her life, but she knew art when she saw it. And Sonny had created
art
. If the girls had painted on the window, it would've been garbage. When had the battle started between Mattie and the girls, with Sonny caught in the middle? Between her and Lester, with Sonny caught in that same damaging hub? When did they trap themselves into their jobs of attacking Sonny? When did she, his mother, take up her career of defending him? Because now it had come to seem to Mattie that they were
all
hostages, she and her daughters, Lester, all of Mattagash. They were hostage to one way of life or another, one crazy notion or another that they'd each hung on to all their lives. It was the individual ear of corn dangling in front of each of them that led them onward, led them blindly up the path to the Protestant graveyard on the hill overlooking the Mattagash River, or onward to the Catholic graveyard down by that clutch of pine trees near the old meadow. The girls were hostage to hating Sonny, mindful of his every mistake. And Mattie was hostage to loving him, despite the wildest blunder he ever made. Keeping this thought in mind, Sonny suddenly seemed to be the only one who was free, the one who never opened the door expected of him, too interested was he in the shiny knobs on all those other doors. And here Mattie was, holed up in her own little house, holed up while her daughters kept on trying to brainwash her about Sonny, changing her mind almost,
talking
talking
talking
at her until there was no place left in her head to think.

That night, Mattie slept with the television on, its round eye open all night, like it was one of Sonny's own eyes, staring down the hall at her while she slept.

By the next morning, which had broken to a heavy rainfall, Sonny was again decorating the front page of the
Bangor
Daily
News
. Pauline Plunkett had called from Watertown to tell Mattie so.

“The paper's already out down here,” Pauline said. “Want me to bring you a copy? That way, you won't have to wait for Simon to fill you in. I'll just put it in your mailbox and toot.”

“
Don't toot more than once,” Mattie told her. “I got three big babies asleep in this house.”

And so, Mattie got her paper long before the other rural subscribers along Simon Craft's gossipy mail route. She stared at the clear, crisp shot of Sonny's handsome face hovering in the door of the house trailer, the poodle in his arms waving a paw at the public. A bold, black heading rode above Sonny's picture: HOSTAGE-TAKER WOOS PRESS. Mattie stared at her son's face for a long time as she drank her morning coffee. She hadn't bothered with the bacon and toast, her stomach still too agitated from a fitful night's sleep. And now, with rain battering the roof of the little house, she sat bleary-eyed and looked at the picture. The story itself was so much longer and newsier than the day before that it had to be continued on page six. Milly had been telling the truth about that reporter nosing about the store. Now everyone in Maine would read that Sonny Gifford had been an adopted child. His parents, Ronald and Louise Gifford, were both deceased. Mattie could thank Donnie Henderson for his help in hiding the truth from those newspaper people. Donnie had always been a good friend to Sonny Gifford. And it was Sonny Gifford who saw to it that Donnie got the second best-looking girl at every dance those two turned up, at every bar they raised a beer. It was a simple fact of nature that people like Donnie just seemed to fall into step behind people like Sonny.

On page six Mattie was surprised to find a second photograph, this one of Ronald and Louise's shared gravestone, the one with the big GIFFORD above both their names and birth-death dates. She peered deeper at the picture. Someone ought to go out there, to the Catholic graveyard, and mow around that gravestone now that summer had arrived and the grass was sprouting in every which direction. She wondered what poor old Ronald Gifford would think if Martha Monihan let him know, via the Ouija board, that he had finally made the hallowed pages of the
Bangor
Daily
News.

There was no mention of Sonny being found in a biblical potato basket. Even a reporter must sometimes know when his leg is being pulled. The rest of the story was mostly a recap: Sonny Gifford, estranged husband of Sheila Bumphrey Gifford, was holed up with two hostages, Stephanie Bouchard and Vera Temple, in a house trailer in Bangor, Maine, because John Lennon's face had appeared to him on his television set. And, oh yes, Stephanie Bouchard's poodle was named Winston, according to a statement made to police by the Bouchard family. Winston Bouchard was also a hostage of sorts, although it looked to Mattie that, in Sonny's arms, Winston was having the time of his life. The article went on to praise the local Bangor Police Department for bending to Sonny's demands that he speak directly to the press. The department was hard at work, according to Chief Melon. “We're doing everything possible to avert any kind of tragedy,” he assured readers. “What we want is to get those women out safely. And we want to do so without anyone getting hurt, including Mr. Gifford.” Mattie read on. The police department was hoping to bring in a hostage expert from Boston, someone to reason with Sonny, she supposed. Wait until the girls read about this.

While rain beat furiously against the windows and on the shingles of the roof, Mattie admired the picture of her son in the
Bangor
Daily
News
. She could see Lester's eyes nestled there on his face, beautiful chestnut eyes with dark, curving lashes. She could see Lester's nose, the straight bridge, the perfect tip. Lester's full lips, the dimpled chin, the dark, silky hair, hair beautiful and soft enough to be a woman's. The only thing Lester Gifford left to his son, he left by accident, and that was his own good looks. Because whether you liked him or not, Lester Gifford, in his prime, had been the best-looking man to ever traipse through the female bedrooms of Mattagash, Maine. But sometimes good looks were like too much money in a dull town. They got you into more trouble than you'd find yourself in if you'd been born a little higher up on the ugly tree. And Sonny was no exception. How could anyone expect Sonny to settle down with one girl and raise a family when women as far away as Bangor were throwing themselves at his feet? And then along comes this Bumphrey woman, with two little ragamuffin children from a failed marriage. Something about her had caused Sonny Gifford to go a little love crazy for the first time in his life. And how could it be any other way? Sonny had had no experience in any kind of female rejection. On the pond of love, he was a sitting duck.

The phone rang, causing Mattie to jump with the
Bangor
Daily
in her hand. She tucked the paper under the seat cushion of her chair and then quickly grabbed the phone in the midst of its second ring. She didn't want the girls to stir any earlier than necessary. It was Cecilia Hart, pretending to talk about the weather, which was still thundering down rain. Then Cecilia went on to discuss the new section of road the state was finally putting in, at the turn where the Mattagash River was eating into the riverbank. Then she mentioned that her Skin So Soft, the large size, was back-ordered, and she hoped Pauline got it to her before the summer mosquitoes carried her off. Ha-ha.

“It's still cool in the evenings,” Cecilia announced, as though this was something Mattie didn't know. “And I suppose the mosquitoes hate the cool weather as much as we do.” She shuffled out another unnatural laugh. Mattie merely grunted a swift response. What would Cecilia know about mosquito likes and dislikes? She spent most of her time curled up on her couch, in front of the television. After her big family of children chipped in together and got her that satellite dish for Mother's Day, Cecilia was hardly ever seen at Mattagash functions. Which was fine with Mattie.

“Well,” said Mattie, “I got a baker sheet of biscuits in the oven. I'd better go see about them, Cecilia.” And that's when the truth about the phone call presented itself, a truth Mattie had suspected the minute she heard Cecilia's voice.

“Oh, by the way,” Cecilia finally asked, as if offhanded. “Where's Sonny these days?” Mattie could feel her face and neck growing warm with indignation as these words settled in. Why couldn't most Mattagash women just come on out and say what they wanted to say? Why all the sniffing around first, like dogs at fire hydrants? Mattie waited for a few seconds before she said anything. She could hear Cecilia's feathery breath on the telephone line, coming in excited puffs as she waited for Mattie's answer.

“I would've thought that you'd know all about where Sonny is, Cecilia,” said Mattie, finally. “What with that big spacecraft you got sitting in the field below your house. How many stations do you get on that dish? Enough to keep you up on news in China, I'd think.”

“Well,” said Cecilia, who had never been one for a good comeback. So Mattie didn't wait for one.

“You know damn well where Sonny is, Cecilia Hart. He's in a trailer down in Bangor with a long red pinstripe running through its middle, with two women and a poodle. Is that enough detail for you? Now, where's
your
son? You remember Reginald, don't you? The son who run off with that crowd of gay hippies from Quebec City? If I was
you
, Cecilia Hart,
that's
the mystery I'd be working on this early on a Wednesday morning, and I'd never mind about Sonny Gifford.” Just before Mattie slammed down the phone, she heard Cecilia say, “Well,” one more time.

She had no sooner gotten off the line with Cecilia, when Theresa Craft called, all the way from Connecticut. Theresa had been good friends with Sonny back in school. And then, like a lot of other Mattagashers, she had gone off to Connecticut to work, had married a Polish man down there. Now her name was Theresa
Something-Polish
, as Rita liked to say. It started with a
K
was all Mattie could remember and was long enough to cover the body of a pulp truck. And it ended in
ski
. Rita once joked about it. “Do you know why so many Polish names end in
ski?”
Rita had asked when she heard of Theresa's new name. “Because Polacks can't spell
toboggan.”
Sonny had considered this, in Sonny's slow and thoughtful way. “How
do
you spell
toboggan
, Rita?” he'd asked his sister, who was finally forced to try. She left out a
g
and then ended the whole thing in
on
, instead of
an
. “Oh, never mind, for crying out loud,” Rita had finally said, flustered. “It was just a joke.” Sonny considered this, too. “You ain't a Polack, are you, Rita? Was you adopted, by any chance?” Well, lessons lay in the strangest of places, it was true. And Sonny seemed destined, his role in life, to deliver most of those lessons to his sisters.

“I hear Sonny's holed up in a camper somewhere on a lake,” Theresa's voice was saying, tinny and long distance. “What the hell's going on, Mattie?” Mattie heard angry voices in the background. It sounded like shouting.

“What the hell's going on down
there?”
Mattie asked.

“My teenagers are in a fight again over the car,” said Theresa. “Can you believe I got kids that old, Mattie?” And then she laughed, that sweet, musical laugh that was Theresa's own. She was another of Sonny's old girlfriends who couldn't seem to get him out of her system. Sonny remained friends with everybody who ever loved him. This may have been another accidental gift Lester had left him.

“At least it ain't reached Connecticut yet,” said Mattie. “I expect it will.”

“What's going on?” Theresa asked again. So Mattie told her what little she knew, because it seemed as if no one, including Sonny, had figured out what John Lennon had to do with it all, or what kind of a statement Sonny was hoping to make by taking hostages. And then Mattie threw in the part about Sheila Bumphrey Gifford, and the sandpiles with the miniature shovels, sitting there in the sandbox in all those television shots.

“She's gone to Atlantic City with her new beau,” Mattie had finished.

“Oops,” said Theresa. “Sounds to me like the charming Mr. Gifford has finally met his match. Love has reached him at last.” Mattie agreed. The noise of the squabbling teenagers had finally receded in the background.

“Should I come up to Bangor, Mattie?” Theresa wanted to know. “Is there anything at all I can do? I mean, you and I know Sonny wouldn't hurt a flea, but the Bangor police don't know that. I'd hate to see this take a nasty turn.” Mattie felt relief rushing in. It was good to have someone to talk to, and with Pauline so busy with her kids and husband and Avon orders, Mattie had almost been tempted to swallow her pride and go back into Martha Plunkett's house. Maybe Lester could advise her again through the miracles of the Ouija board. YOO-HOO, LESTER, IT'S ME AGAIN. GUESS WHAT? SOMEONE NAMED SHEILA LIT A FIRE UNDER SONNY'S PANTS AND NOW HE'S HOLED UP IN A MOBILE HOME WITH TWO WOMEN AND A DOG. WHAT DO YOU THINK? IS IT FINALLY TIME FOR THAT FATHER-SON CHAT?

“I'm worried, too,” said Mattie. “But Sonny called me yesterday and told me to stay put. He said he had it all under control. I think the minute this Sheila woman turns up and gives him her undivided attention, Sonny's gonna set them women and that dog free. In the meantime, all I can do is keep my fingers crossed. I'll let you know, Theresa, the minute I hear something new.” She hung up the phone and wished Theresa was there at the kitchen table, a cup of tea in front of her, helping Mattie look for the blue piece of eyeball. Mattie had always liked the girlfriends in Sonny Gifford's life. So why did she have such a heavy heart over this Sheila Bumphrey?

She thought the knock at the door might be Elmer, appearing like Lazarus after nearly three days of being dead. But Mattie opened the door to see Roberta, her granddaughter, Gracie's only child. Out in the driveway, behind Robbie's shoulder, a little red car was sparkling with raindrops. Gracie's wheels. Gracie had complained the evening before that Robbie borrowed the car too much. Next to Rita's big Buick, the little red car looked like a cowering potato bug. Mattie could see that the rain had let up and was now dripping slowly from the eaves of the roof. Good. Later, after a little
picture
puzzle
addiction
, she would take a brisk walk over to see if Elmer's pickup was back in the yard, Skunk returned to his porch rug.

“Grandma?” Roberta asked, her small, blue eyes on the St. Francis of Assisi birdbath. She had clunked up onto the porch in shoes with heels so tall she may as well have been wearing stilts. And the heels were big and square as door stoppers.
Combat
boots,
she called them. What would make fairly intelligent children act the way they all seemed to be acting? Television, that was what. “Can you spare a few minutes? I got something I want to talk to you about.”

Mattie came out onto the porch and shut the door behind her softly. It was almost ten o'clock, but the Gabor sisters were still in bed. No need to stir them up any earlier than necessary.

“Your mother's still asleep,” Mattie explained.

“What else is new?” Roberta wanted to know. “Ever since she started college, she's been acting like a teenager.”

“What's bothering you, sweetie?” Mattie asked. “And what in the world have you got on?” She was looking at Roberta's T-shirt, one of those tie-dye jobs, splashes of red and yellow and blue and green all spread out, as if someone crashed into a rainbow doing ninety miles an hour. “I thought that stuff went the way of the dinosaur. And what's gonna happen if you fall off them shoes? You're sure to break an ankle.” Mattie motioned to Roberta to step down from the porch so they could take a walk over to where the garden would be, if she'd planted one. She had had a vision of one or all of the girls with their ears and eyes glued to the window. And judging from Roberta's sad face, this was a private problem. They stood where the sweet peas used to spiral their way up the fence. Mattie waited.