The Bullet (5 page)

Nine

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2013

I
woke up hungry, which—considering I hadn't eaten in four days—seemed a good sign.

My favorite breakfast is a ham-and-cheese croissant from Pâtisserie Poupon on Wisconsin Avenue. This pleasant spot is cramped but sunny, and the only place in Washington that produces croissants and baguettes that taste remotely the way they do in Paris. They also bake a bacon quiche that—trust me on this—will change your life. Amazing what a pastry chef unafraid to embrace obscene quantities of butter, salt, and pork can achieve. I suspect the same formula is at work in the
croissant jambon fromage
, which is why, for the sake of my thighs, I try to limit myself to stopping by no more than twice a week.

Pâtisserie Poupon is only a few minutes' walk from my house. I could head there for a croissant and tea, swing back home for my suitcase, and still make it to the airport in plenty of time. When I got there, though, I was greeted with a locked door and a
CLOSED ON MONDAYS
sign. No, no, no. I always forgot this inconvenient detail. I pressed my nose against the glass and squinted, desperate enough to beg an off-duty employee to open up and sell me yesterday's remnants. But the bakery was deserted, swept clean, chairs neatly stacked on tables, sunlight glinting off empty display cases. Not a croissant in sight.

Discouraged, I retraced my steps home. I would have to settle for a
gluey bagel at the airport. More taste of cardboard. Although wasn't there a café that sold decent prosciutto paninis, right after the security line? Which terminal was that again? I was trying to recall as I rounded the corner onto my block and spotted a man standing on my front step.

I stopped in my tracks.

It was Will Zartman. My doctor, leaning on my doorbell and looking agitated.

“Dr. Zartman? Is that you? What on earth are you doing here?” I glanced at my watch; it was not yet nine o'clock.

“Caroline! Hi. Hi there. I told you, call me Will.” He heaved a deep breath. “I thought I'd missed you.”

“You did, nearly. I'm just grabbing my bag. But why are you—”

“I got your message when I woke up. I've been trying to call. I must have tried you five times. Don't you ever answer your phone?”

I considered this. I'd left my cell phone in the house, propped on top of my suitcase. I often wander out without it. Not out of forgetfulness, but because I spend too much time around teenage students who can't conduct a five-minute, face-to-face conversation without twitching for their phones. I like my friends as much as the next person, but I don't feel the need to tweet them my thoughts a dozen times a day. And anyone who needs to reach me can probably wait an hour or two. I don't have the kind of job that demands urgent responses. So, no—on an early walk for my morning croissant, I don't ever answer my phone.

“Why are you here? Is something wrong?”

“Is something
wrong
? You mean, aside from your experiencing a burning sensation in your neck, and the fact that an X-ray just confirmed there's a bullet in there? I thought we'd agreed that you would see Marshall this week. The surgeon. You need to talk to him.”

“I will. As soon as I get back. I just need a couple of days.”

“No. Leaving town is a bad idea. That's why I kept calling. You shouldn't be traveling. I'm worried that you—”

“But
why
are you worried? A week ago you barely knew who I was, and now here you—”

“I knew who you were. Any man under the age of ninety and still in full possession of his faculties would notice who you were.”

I raised my eyebrows.

To my surprise, he did not blush or back down. Instead he leaned forward and gripped my right wrist. “Look, you need to take this seriously. A bullet rubbing against your spine is not something to mess around with.” He turned my arm over, studied it. “You're not wearing your wrist guard.”

“It's been feeling better.”

“No, I'll bet it hasn't.”

“Oh my God! I know whether my own wrist hurts. And anyway, whether it hurts or not is none of your—” I clamped my mouth shut. Whether my wrist hurt was of course precisely his business. “I'm going to be late,” I said, changing tack. “I promise I'll go see your friend Marshall. Later this week, if you like. Now excuse me.”

I unlocked the door, plucked my phone and suitcase from the front hall, and pulled the door shut again.

Will was still standing there. “How are you getting to the airport?”

“Taxi. I'll get one on M Street.”

“You'll be lucky to catch one in rush hour.” He pulled out his phone, glanced at the time. “My first patient isn't booked until ten. My car's right here. I'll drive you.”

“Across the river? To National Airport?” It wasn't far, maybe twenty minutes' drive. Still. “I'll be fine.”

“For God's sake, get in the car.”

So I did. He was right; traffic was terrible. We inched along in silence. An accident had narrowed Memorial Bridge down to one lane for cars crossing into Virginia. Beneath us the river flowed sullenly, the water choppy and brown.

Will's Jeep had a baseball glove and tennis rackets thrown in the back. The radio was tuned to NPR. We listened as the
Morning Edition
anchors delivered gloomy updates on the latest horrors in Mali, in Syria, on Capitol Hill. Strangely, my mood lifted as they forged on. So many
people in the world had worse problems than I did. By the time the newscasters introduced a story about an oil spill and the resulting environmental catastrophe off the coast of Norway, I broke into a grin.

Will glanced over. “Oil spills are funny?”

“No, but honestly, are you listening to this?” I shook my head. “If we don't all die from toxic oil fumes, we'll be overwhelmed by rising ­Islamist militants from the Middle East. There's no hope.”

He grinned, too. “I was only playing NPR to impress you. Want music instead?”

“Sure. Whatever you like to listen to is fine.”

He hesitated. “Country, actually. You probably think it's corny. But, yeah, I love it. Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, all the old honky-tonk stuff. Garth Brooks isn't bad.”

“No. Seriously? Garth Brooks?”

“Well, but mostly I listen to C-SPAN radio. Obviously. Unlike you, I find there's nothing like live coverage of a House Agriculture subcommittee to get a guy going in the morning.”

I smiled. We fell quiet again, but the silence was more amiable now. I studied his hands on the steering wheel. No wedding ring.

Will Zartman was not my type. I tend to go for undernourished, slightly tragic-looking academics. You know the sort: pale, artsy guys who chain-smoke while wearing skinny jeans and black turtlenecks. It's a pathology, I know. Too much time spent studying abroad in Paris during my formative romantic years. My penchant for the Euro look has provided endless amusement for my brothers over the years; they excuse themselves to the kitchen and break out in the “Sprockets” routine from
Saturday Night Live
whenever I bring a new boyfriend home. Tony in particular has perfected Mike Myers's mincing hip wriggle (“Now is ze time vhen ve dance!”).

Annoyingly, I had the feeling that Tony and Martin would like Will. He looked both robustly healthy and robustly American. He was into country music, of all things. Definitely not my type.

Will pulled up to the curb at airport departures exactly fifty-two
minutes before my flight was scheduled to take off. I didn't have luggage to check; I should just make it.

“Thanks for the ride. It was awfully nice of you.” I reached for the car door. He saw me flinch as I jerked at the handle with my right hand.

“Hang on.” He put the car in park, jumped out, ran around, and opened my door from the outside. “Door-to-door service. There you go.”

I felt simultaneously charmed and irritated. “Okay. Well. Thanks again.”

“I'm going to make that appointment for you with Marshall Gellert. How about the end of this week?”

“Fine.”

“But will you back here by then?” He searched my face.

I nodded. “By Wednesday or Thursday, I would think. I need a few days down in Atlanta. To try to make peace with things. And to see their old house and whatever else is left to see, which I'm guessing isn't much.”

“Right. But, Caroline, if that bullet is pressing down on a nerve . . . if that's what has inflamed your wrist . . . then you really need to get it checked. Before there's any further damage. Promise.”

“Cross my heart.”

Then, before I quite understood what was happening, he stepped close. I smelled soap and coffee and something else, an animal scent, as though he'd recently been in the company of a warm dog. He lifted a lock of my hair. His fingers slid down the dark curl, then closed around it and held still for a moment. My breath caught. The gesture was astonishingly intimate.

He dropped the curl lightly on my shoulder and stepped back. “Be careful. Take care of yourself.”

“I will.” I couldn't think what else to say, so I turned and walked ­toward the bright lights of the terminal. Glass doors slid open and then sealed shut behind me. I did not look back, and for two days I did not again think of Will Zartman.

PART TWO

Atlanta

Ten

I
wish that I could report a dramatic development the first time I stood outside that house on Eulalia Road.

It was early afternoon on Monday when I pulled my rental car up to the curb. The front of the house was in shadow, and the street was quiet. Either few children lived on this block or else they were not yet home from school. Wind rustled the leaves of the graceful elm tree that dominated the front yard. How old must that tree be? Fifty years old? Seventy-­­five? It was stout enough that it must already have been well established when the Smiths lived here. I must have played under these branches, must have tried to wrap chubby little arms around this trunk. I waited for an epiphany. For some ancient shard of memory to dislodge itself and come rushing back to me.

But no: it was just a tree. The house was just a house.

I felt nothing.

I crossed the lawn, climbed five brick steps to the front porch, and knocked.

No answer.

I knocked again and was about to conclude the house was empty when the door cracked open.

“Yes?” An older woman's voice. I could see a patch of gray hair above the safety chain, which remained fastened.

“Hello, forgive me for disturbing you. My name's Caroline Cashion, and I used to live in this house, when I was a child.”

Silence.

I fished in my handbag and produced my business card, embossed with the university seal and indicating my status as a member of the faculty. I'd found that pulling rank as a professor could prove useful. Even in Washington, where the average government intern probably wields more actual power than I do, the title commands respect. It's as if people hear
professor
and are transported back to their student days, a period in their lives when teachers represented ultimate authority.

Sure enough, the chain dropped and the door swung open.

Inside, the scrawny, nervous-looking woman introduced herself as Nan Dorminy. She loved the house, she told me. Great morning light. She'd bought it nine years ago, when her husband left her. He was a good man, she insisted, misinterpreting my startled look. I shouldn't think otherwise. He just needed his space.

I nodded politely. Were Southerners always this forthcoming around strangers? “Men can be like that,” I offered, hoping this was an appropriate response.

Apparently it was, because Nan Dorminy clasped her hands together as though a point of disagreement had been settled. Now then, she asked, when exactly had I lived here, and what could she help me with?

“Thirty-four years ago,” I told her.

“Oh, I've no idea who was living here then.”

“My parents were the Smiths. Boone and Sadie Rawson Smith.” I watched for a sign that she recognized the name. Surely it would have been notorious for a while in this neighborhood.

But she shook her head.

I tried again. “They were—it's a terrible story. But they died in this house, I think. They were killed. Back in the seventies.”

Her chin jerked up. “Oh. Oh, yes. Old Mrs. Carter told me something about that. Years ago, when I moved in. There was a whole nice
family that died. A little girl, too. But the property's changed hands several times since then.”

“No, that's just it. The little girl was me. I was—I was injured, when they died. But I survived. I moved away.”

“Good heavens.” Her hand fluttered to her heart.

We stood without speaking for a moment.

Then I asked, “This Mrs. Carter you mentioned. Is she a neighbor? Did it sound like she knew my parents?”

“She might have. But I'm afraid she's dead now, too. She passed away last summer. Or was it two summers ago? Her niece got the house.” Mrs. Dorminy frowned. “I can't think of anyone on Eulalia who goes back that far. Thirty-four years. A long time.”

She agreed to show me around, in case anything jogged my memory. But she was right. Thirty-four years is a long time. The house had been renovated. She pointed proudly to where previous owners had blown out the back to build an eat-in kitchen, and how she herself had knocked two bedrooms together to make space for a master bath. The old pantry had been converted to a laundry room. None of the internal walls were where they used to be.

There was only one moment, when I asked what lay behind a door off the main hallway.

“Oh, that's just the attic,” she sniffed. “Hot as Hades up there in the summertime.” She opened the door to reveal a dark staircase leading up. The steps were worn wood, stacked with paint cans piled three and four high. An assortment of dried-out paintbrushes and mixing pans clogged the remaining surfaces. She appeared to use the staircase as shelving, storage for tools for half-forgotten home-improvement projects. But something about the slant of the stairs, and the sharp smell of dust and unfinished wood, tugged at me. I closed my eyes and breathed in. Something flickered. It felt as if there should be a light switch, on the left, not a modern flip switch, but the old-fashioned kind, a metal chain you have to yank. When I peered into the dim opening, there it was.

But Mrs. Dorminy was already pulling me back. “It's been cleared
out up there, if that's what you're wondering,” she said, not unkindly. “It's only my old clothes up there now. I'm not the kind of person who would move into a house filled with other people's things.”

She shut the door and the moment passed.

Afterward I sat in the rental car, staring at the elm tree. It was still just a tree. Just bark and branches, no epiphanies hiding there. Faulkner's famous line came to me:
The past is never dead. It's not even past.
William Faulkner would know. Southern writers feel the weight of the past more heavily, capture it more precisely, than those from anywhere else. Not even Proust, not even Joyce, can touch them.

In this case, though, Faulkner had missed the mark.

The past was past. Whatever love or laughter or fear or sorrow I had known in that house remained lost to me. The girl who had once climbed those attic stairs was a ghost, nothing but a ghost.