Beaming Sonny Home (18 page)

Pauline sighed. “What I could do with money like that,” she said.

“Is Sheila Gifford there at the trailer park, Donna?” Dan's voice asked. Mattie was growing tired of these two people, two strangers discussing her son, examining his life under a microscope.

“Yes, Dan, she is,” Donna answered.

“Look!” said Marlene, and pointed at the screen. The camera had fallen upon a woman standing next to Chief Melon, who seemed to be giving her instructions. Mattie saw his hands moving like batons as he spoke, his head bobbing at the trailer. “That must be her!”

“What's so special about
her?”
Mattie heard Gracie say. The woman on the television screen had long, stringy hair, brownish-blond, tired hair that looked as though it could use a good washing. Of course, Sheila had probably driven all night from Atlantic City. The camera zoomed in tight on her face.

“Sheila Gifford,” Mattie could hear Donna's voice announcing somewhere in the land of television. Sheila's eyes were almost too big for her narrow face. A heavy, dark line ran beneath both of her bottom lashes, and Mattie knew from having daughters that Sheila's mascara had outlived its usefulness and had fallen off, creating black rings beneath her eyes. She looked as though she could use a good shower. She turned her head and spoke to a woman standing behind her, a friend, relative maybe, and Mattie could see the narrow bridge of her nose, long and thin, as if it didn't belong on her pale face, a face made for a shorter nose.

“Lord,” said Gracie again,
“this
is the face that launched a thousand ships? What does Sonny see in
her?”
Mattie had no idea what Gracie was talking about, what with college loading her head full of all kinds of nonsense these days. Things you couldn't use in times of emergency. As a result, Gracie was a truckload of information with no brakes. Just a couple weeks earlier she had called Mattie up and said, “Mama, did you know that the Mayans were chewing gum over a thousand years ago?” Well, no, Mattie hadn't known that. Another time, Gracie had been sitting at the kitchen table, having coffee, when she looked right at Mattie and said, “The ancient Egyptians kneaded their bread with their feet.” Mattie had tried not to think about this, about dough being squished up between brown Egyptian toes. It seemed almost as if Gracie needed to fill her head up with this stuff to keep thoughts of Charlie from seeping in. So what harm could it do? So much for
launching
ships
, but as far as what did Sonny see in this woman? This was something Mattie understood but couldn't answer. What did Charlie Craft see in Sally Fennelson, that he left Gracie behind to take up with her? What did good, soft-spoken Henry see in Rita? What did Lester Gifford see in Mattie that he came into her garden that day, still wearing his army uniform, still nursing his war wound by limping on that bad knee? What did anyone see in the people they either love or need?

“Maybe he
does
have to take women at gunpoint now,” said Marlene, “like Wesley said.” But Mattie knew the truth about it. She knew Sonny had found something uncommon in this common woman, something soft and caressing. Maybe it was how she ran her fingers through that stringy hair, how she walked, the way her mouth moved when she talked. Maybe it was the velvety way she held her children, as though they were fragile petals. Maybe it was how she held
him
. Whatever it was, there was some kind of magic working there for Sonny, and it had lifted this Sheila woman up and above all other earthly women he had known.

“Hush!” said Pauline, and Mattie was relieved to have her there, to feel those big hands upon her shoulders. Donna's face was back.

“It seems that what Mr. Gifford wants at this time, Dan, is his dog. A few minutes ago, in a telephone conversation with Chief Melon, he indicated that if he gets the dog, he will let the hostages go.” Before Mattie could hear more, the door burst open and Rita blew back in. Mattie hadn't even heard the sound of a car, so caught up was she in Channel 4. Rachel Ann's face was peering like a pale balloon from behind Rita's shoulder. Rita obviously hadn't found the Buick. God had told her to sell it, but He apparently couldn't tell her
where
it
was.

“Has he come out yet?” Rita asked. “We heard the news while we were gassing up at Blanche's Grocery.” Her hair seemed electrified. She'd had quite a day. Her purse sailed across the room and landed next to Gracie's on the sofa. Pauline held up a hand that said
be
quiet.

“Is the dog there, Donna?” Dan asked. The camera swept the crowd and then stopped again at Sheila Bumphrey Gifford. Police were working hard to keep the onlookers back. Signs were everywhere. University students, with big
U
of
M
s on their T-shirts and sweatshirts and sweatpants, were waving vigorously at the camera.

“Yes, it is, Dan,” said Donna, “but we haven't seen it yet. From what we're told, Chief Melon is talking with Sonny Gifford at this time. It looks as though this unfortunate matter will be resolved soon.” And then, with a promise to interrupt the regularly scheduled program when negotiations were completed, Channel 4 went back to Martha Monihan's favorite soap opera.

“Do you want me to stay?” Pauline asked Mattie. The three girls were in the background, discussing whether they should go to Lola's in case CNN was still covering the hostage incident, or stay with their mother, who was still, as Marlene once said,
vulnerable.

“No,” said Mattie. She stood up and turned the sound of the soap opera down. The girls would be sure to crank the volume back up when things started happening again at Marigold Drive Trailer Park. Mattie had no doubt about this. She had unwittingly raised three good watchdogs. Nothing would be missed, and a good time would be had by all. “You go on home and see about your kids,” she told Pauline.

“I'll call you later,” Pauline said, and Mattie held the front door for her.

“Is Elmer home?” Mattie whispered as Pauline edged past. “Is his pickup back?” There might still be time. What if it took a few hours before Sonny agreed to send the hostages out? Pauline turned and looked closely at Mattie's face.

“He ain't back,” Pauline said. She paused, as if uncertain about what she could or should say. “I know where your mind is right now,” she finally told Mattie. “And I'd drive you myself if I could. But my car probably wouldn't make it past Caribou. I'm lucky it ain't gone out on me already. And then, I can't leave Frank with the kids, sick as he is.”

Mattie shushed her. “I know all about it,” she said. “You just go on home.”

Before Pauline drove off, she threw Mattie an invisible kiss, and then a thumbs-up. Mattie waved her out of the driveway before she closed the door. Marlene and Rita were in the kitchen making sandwiches. Rachel Ann Parsons asked directions to the tiny bathroom, so that she could relieve herself and then go on home, go back about her usual business of saving lost souls. Gracie had started her exercises now, her legs bicycling around and around in the air, going nowhere.

“Marlene?” Gracie shouted out to the kitchen. “Bring me a glass of water.”

“What's the matter with
you?”
Marlene wanted to know from the kitchen. “Your feet gone to lunch or something?”

Rachel Ann came out of the little bathroom, the sound of flushing water rising up behind her. She paused at the kitchen door and listened for a bit to Rita and Marlene, who were arguing over the intricate makings of a sandwich.

“You put the bacon on the
top
,
”
Marlene was instructing Rita. “The lettuce goes on the bottom, and the tomato goes in between.”

“Well,
you
can put the bacon where you want to,” Rita said. “But I personally believe in the
tomato
going on top.” Rachel Ann moved away from the kitchen door, saying nothing. She found her own purse from among the collection of purses on the sofa, and threw the strap over her shoulder. She stopped before Mattie and stood for a minute, waiting, searching, it seemed, for the right words.

“Do you want me to pray with you?” Rachel Ann asked. She seemed about to collapse from exhaustion. After all, it was a big, big world, and there were so many wretched souls to salvage. Just the follow-up on saving Rita had obviously worn her down. “I'm more than willing to pray with you,” Rachel Ann offered again.

“Thank you, Rachel Ann,” said Mattie. “I appreciate your offer, but I been praying alone now for over sixty years, and well, I've grown kind of accustomed to it.” Still Rachel Ann lingered, looking back again at the kitchen, listening to the music of Rita's shrill voice.

“God first spoke to me in 1972,” Rachel Ann said now, as though she were answering a question on some test. She looked at Mattie, her small eyes expressionless. “And now He's talking to Rita, too.”

“Ten!” Gracie announced from her spot in front of the television set. She was doing sit-ups now, her legs having stopped their useless cycling.

Rachel Ann went on out to her little blue car. Mattie stood in the door and watched as it pulled out of the driveway and pointed itself toward the life Rachel Ann had chosen to live for herself, her own Mattagash version of time spent on the planet. Then Mattie closed the door to her mushroom of a house.

“I wish God would tell you how to make a BLT,” she heard Marlene tell Rita.

They waited. Within a half hour the house had filled with grandchildren. News travels fast, especially in Mattagash, Maine. Robbie was back, in her crazy tie-dye dress, her face eaten up with concern for Uncle Sonny. Willard had found a spot on the corner of Mattie's sofa and was reading some magazine while he twitched and blinked. With his greenish head bobbing, with his long stick arms bent at the elbows, he reminded Mattie of a praying mantis. Steven and Lyle, Marlene's two boys, were sitting cross-legged in front of the set with Gracie, who looked younger than ever, a neon sweatband encircling her forehead, her fetlock stockings about her ankles in neon colors. Mattie feared that Gracie was growing so young, so fast, with each passing day that Charlie stayed gone, that she might just up and disappear. She might die of young age, instead of old age. Rita's younger son, Josh, had fallen asleep in the recliner. Marlene was taking a shower and Rita had water boiling in a pan on the stove, hoping to make a big enough pot of spaghetti to feed this unusual family reunion.

“Henry's coming over later,” Rita told Mattie, and she nodded. It'd be good to have Henry around. He was solid, the way Elmer Fennelson could be solid. “Wesley's fishing,” Rita added, “or we'd all be here, the whole family, all except Sonny, of course. I wonder if this is what Gracie means by
bonding.”
She broke a handful of spaghetti in two and plunged it into the boiling water.

“If Wesley Stubbs had been born Indian,” said Mattie, “they'd have named him Skidoo That Rides Like the Wind.” She looked at Rita, and Rita smiled. “They'd have named him Brave Who Cheats Workman's Comp.”

“It sounds like Sonny
is
here,” Rita said.

Mattie fixed herself a glass of vinegar and water for her varicose veins, not knowing what else to do. Waiting for news of Sonny, she felt as if she were at some kind of funeral wake. But not a wake like in the old days. In the old days, when someone died, folks skilled in funeral things would come to a person's house and dress the dead body, get it ready while family and friends set up a vigil downstairs. There was a softness in this kind of waiting, with the clock ticking on the wall, with someone boiling tea, someone stoking the fire. Mattie had seen her father leave the world this way. She had brought a funnel cake to Eliza Fennelson's home, while Eliza lay upstairs in her own bed, struck down by cancer instead of Cupid's arrow, but free of sin. And Constance Mullins. Horace Craft. A whole bundle of Mattagashers. And then people started dying in hospitals, where rules existed, rules that said, “You can touch your loved one between the hours of such and such. Outside of that time, toodle-oo.” These days, when people died, they were whisked away by professionals, whisked away in a hush-hush manner, as though dying was an embarrassment, as though dying had disgraced the whole family. And when the body appeared again, in its casket, in some joyless room built just for
holding
dead
bodies
and not for raising up big families like a real home is, when the body surfaced again it would be all prettied up. Mattagash women who'd never worn rouge in their lifetimes went to paradise with cheeks round and red as a clown's. Mattagash lumberjacks who'd never had clean fingernails in the flesh would be manicured to the hilt. This was how Mattie felt, waiting for news of Sonny. It was a sterile feeling, as though the house had been disinfected. Professionals now had her son's living body, and they would let his mother view it again when they were good and ready. Mattie let out a weary sigh. There was nothing quiet in this present waiting. How could she hear her old clock ticking from its spot on the shelf when a living room full of noise was competing with it? Steven and Lyle were now fighting over some handheld video game. Gracie was watching Channel 4, the volume ricocheting off the walls. Robbie was washing dishes. Willard was flipping the pages of his magazine with a steady, annoying
flick, flick, flick
. Rita was shouting instructions to the boys. And Marlene had yet to get out of the shower and add her own two cents. Maybe in her bedroom, Mattie could find a lavender patch of quiet from the newly gathered family.

“Call me,” she said to Gracie, “the minute something happens. I'm going to take a nap.” Gracie nodded, a thick ponytail bouncing like a teenager's off the left side of her head.

It was on the way to her bedroom that Mattie spied the little piece of puzzle, the blue eye of Jesus, lying beside the leg of a kitchen chair. She picked it up before anyone could see it there, and stared down into the sad pupil, into the very soul of a young man who had all of humanity resting upon his narrow shoulders. As she slipped the piece into her apron pocket, she felt from far down within her a surge of anguish rise up, a mother's anguish for a lost boy. But Sonny was more than her boy. He was the side of her that she herself had never developed. He was her sense of humor, a thing she had owned once as a girl and then lost somewhere, maybe at the bottom of that trunk where she still kept her wedding picture and Martha Monihan's friendship plate. Only with Sonny had she truly felt the power of pure laughter. Theresa Something-Polish had said that very thing, on the phone to Mattie, from her new home and life down in Connecticut. “I heard that Sonny won a hundred dollars in the lottery,” said Theresa, “and that he quit his job as a result.” Mattie smiled, remembering. It was true. Sonny quit his job with Watertown Electrical Repair, which he had held for almost three months. “I did it for all them folks too stupid to quit when they win millions,” Sonny had explained. And the event had gone into the big book of laughs Mattagash had been keeping on Sonny Gifford. “Nobody in my whole life since I left Mattagash, Maine, has ever been able to make me laugh the way Sonny did,” Theresa told Mattie. Mattie knew what she meant. That's how she herself felt around Sonny, that she was his favorite girlfriend, the one he would never walk away from. She felt
courted
, didn't she, the way Lester had never courted her. All Lester had done was wear his army uniform and look handsome until one warm August day when Mattie heard herself saying, “I do,” and then it was all over.

From her window, Mattie stared at the river while the yellow walls of her bedroom rose like pale wheat all around her. This was where she had stood, all those lonely nights, pondering the whereabouts of her husband. Now the window seemed like a picture frame, designed to encircle a picture puzzle.
Woman
Waiting
at
Window
, the puzzle might be called. It had bordered a good part of her life, this window, this frame, and now here she was again. It reminded her of the day she had stood at the window of her childhood bedroom and tossed her mother's valentine out to the wild winds.
A
mother's heart is always true, even if her heart is blue
. And now, nothing could change Mattie's own blue heart, for she knew things were not going well in Bangor. Never mind that Pauline said it would all work out. Never mind what Donna, the reporter, said. Or what Chief Melon was hoping for. Never mind all of that. Mattie
knew
. Just like that mother whose son had been aboard the space shuttle when it exploded and came falling back to earth. She told everyone who listened that she knew her boy was still alive when he went into the ocean. And that he lived for some time after that. Never mind what NASA said. This mother
knew
. And so did Mattie, even before Gracie screamed out from the living room, from her vigil in front of the television set, to come quick, Mattie knew.

“That poor boy!” Mattie thought she cried out, in answer to Gracie. Then she realized that she hadn't said a word.

“Them poor dead boys,” Mattie now said aloud. And she reached into her pocket and touched a finger to the blue piece of eye puzzle.

“Turn it up, quick!” she heard Rita shouting from the kitchen, and then the scuffle of feet, the tinny voice of a newscaster. Didn't those newspeople have better things to do? Didn't they have their own children to fret over?

“Sonny's coming out!” Gracie shouted.

“Stevie, quick!” Marlene's voice. She must have finished her shower. Mattie knew without seeing her daughter how she'd look, a towel wrapped about her wet hair, wearing Mattie's old tan bathrobe, which tried to mind its own business on a nail behind the bathroom door. “Make sure the VCR is taping!” Marlene instructed. “Your uncle Sonny is about to make his splash!”

And so Mattie came out of her bedroom and stood before the great set, surrounded by all of her family, grandchildren and children. They were all there but Sonny. She stood before a box of magical dots and wires and transmissions, things she didn't understand, things no one she knew understood. You just turn a button and it speaks to you. Mattie stood before the television and hoped the dread that had settled into her heart was not a real dread but a mother's fear. She stared at the reporters, those midwives to her son, those people who now saw him more often than she did. They had all materialized. Like ghosts, their bodies had used those magical dots to take on shapes. They had all come.

“There has been a remarkable turn in the Gifford hostage case, Dan,” said Donna. Her small face seemed almost sad, drained of energy. Rita cranked the sound up yet again and now Donna's words seemed to be rocking the house, pitching it to and fro with excitement. “As I stated earlier, Sheila Gifford, the estranged wife of Sonny Gifford, who has barricaded himself inside this trailer with two hostages, has now come forward.” The camera was back to its usual panning, capturing all the principal players. Chief Melon had returned for an encore, busy with instructions and concern. Sheila Bumphrey Gifford stood straight, looking like a zombie. The house trailer loomed sharper than ever, the pinstripe running like blood across its middle. Even the crowd seemed more lively. Maybe it was a stunt crowd, flown in just for the occasion.

“Apparently, Dan, Sonny Gifford wished his wife well a few moments ago in a telephone conversation,” Donna was saying. “All he wants now, he says, is his dog, Humphrey. But once the hostages are released, the question will be whether or not Mr. Gifford will surrender himself to Bangor police. We understand that Sheila Gifford has offered to take the dog into her trailer, in the hopes of talking her estranged husband into giving himself up. But Sonny Gifford has declined this offer.” Mattie wasn't surprised. Sheila had run off with another man, after all. Sonny had his pride, especially while he was on television.

“And attention,” said Marlene. “All he wants is attention.”

“What does he
see
in that woman?” Gracie asked, her ponytail wiggling.

“It'll be over soon,” Robbie whispered to Mattie. “Uncle Sonny's gonna be just fine.” She put her small hands on Mattie's shoulders and began kneading, the way Pauline had done earlier. Did the Egyptians knead shoulders with their toes?

The television picture jerked about as the camera rushed into a new position, Donna keeping just ahead with her microphone.

“We're told that Sonny Gifford is getting ready to release the hostages now, Dan!” Donna said excitedly. Mattie could see the chief of police talking on a handheld telephone. He must be talking to Sonny. She wished she could butt in, interrupt the call, hear Sonny's voice for herself.
Take
it
easy
now, boy,
she'd tell him.
Take
it
easy
and
keep
your
head. You can still walk away from this movie with some dignity. You can still avoid this big fire blazing away under your pants. Hillary Clinton has called. Shirley MacLaine.
Boris
Yeltsin. By the looks of things, after a few months in jail, you might even get your own talk show.
Her heart started to thump and Mattie wondered if Robbie could feel it, right through the bones of her grandmother's body.

Rita and Marlene kept up their running commentary, on everything from Sheila Gifford's hairdo to how the lawn in front of the trailer needed mowing. Their voices filled the house with noise. Shutting them out as best she could, Mattie kept her eyes welded to the action on her television set. She noticed policemen at the edges of the screen, poised, holding rifles with scopes.

“Oh my God,” Mattie heard her mouth say. And then the camera pulled back enough that the door of the trailer zoomed into view and Mattie saw it open, saw two women step out onto the porch, Sonny's face appearing in the door behind them.

“The hostages,” Marlene whispered. One had long brown hair, just as in Mattie's dream, pretty brown hair. The other one, with short blondish curls, said something to Sonny, over her shoulder, and Mattie could see him nod. They appeared to be working well as a team, these hostages and their captor. The two women stood on the porch, their hands at their sides. Mattie could see only one of Sonny's hands, the left one, which he had clasped around the upper arm of the long-haired woman, holding her firmly before him. Did he have the plastic water pistol in his other hand? Mattie had known right from the very beginning that Sonny wouldn't hold a real gun on human beings. And not because holding a gun was too much work, as Marlene had said earlier, but because Sonny had another way with people. He didn't need a gun. He held most folks to him just by being Sonny, just as this huge wild crowd was now held to him. Sonny should've gone to Hollywood, that's one thing for sure.

The hostages stood stiffly, staring out at the crowd as though they were a couple of mannequins. Or two of those blowup dolls Sonny was always threatening to order one day. Mattie still couldn't see Sonny's right hand, which was concealed behind the long-haired woman's back. He had stepped out of the trailer now, the hostages inching forward on the tiny porch to give him room, reporters still vying for the closest spot to the plastic yellow ribbon. And then Sonny was telling the camera hello, bidding America good day. Questions began to fly instantly, like a swarm of summertime blackflies, good old Maine blackflies, with reporters shouting out to Sonny as they pushed and scrambled about on the lawn. “Is Sheila Gifford willing to give up the dog?” “Will you give yourself up?” “What will happen once you release the hostages?” This last question came from Donna and was the one that Sonny accepted, smiling down at Donna's little dog face, selecting her from out of the crowd. She had been, after all, his
first
reporter on the scene, and Sonny would remember her the way one remembers that first true love. Sonny had a loyal streak running through him the way white runs on a skunk. Mattie wouldn't be surprised if, this very next Valentine's Day, Donna found an anonymous valentine in her mailbox.