The Hollow Ground: A Novel (17 page)

Daddy took Ma’s hand and kissed it. “I was going to keep this a secret”—he nodded at me to shut the door and lowered his voice—“but I might as well tell you now. Jerry and I have been looking at apartments. Soon we’ll be out of here, living near your brother, just like you always wanted.”

Ma’s mouth opened and her bottom lip trembled reminding me of a baby bird I’d found and fed with a dropper. Ma pressed Daddy’s palm to her cheek. “Oh, Adrian, how soon can we go?”

“But I don’t want to leave,” I said. “I’ve got friends here.”

“Can’t you think of anyone but yourself?” Ma snapped.

“Can’t you?” I snapped back and flung open the door and bolted before either of them had a chance to smack me.

*   *   *

Later that night Daddy found me out by the catalpa tree and put his arm around me. He said not to be mad at Ma for taking back the doll. He said she was so overcome by finding her brother she couldn’t think of anything else. He told me that he was proud of me for being as nice to Ma as I generally was, even though sometimes Ma said thoughtless things.

He kissed the side of my head, pointing first at Taurus romping around the sky, then Orion readying for battle, then the sweet sad little cluster of the seven Pleiades sisters, the seventh little sister twinkling in and out, so difficult to see. It was then Daddy told me something crazy. He said that Gram and Ma fought so much not because they hated each other, but because they loved each other. He said they each wanted the other’s love so bad they could taste it. “One of them has got to give the love first, though,” Daddy explained, “and they’re each so stubborn they won’t do it. So they hold on to the love for each other and it turns all ugly inside them.”

We pondered that in silence for a while and then Daddy asked me all about school and what I’d been up to while he was away. He was especially interested in my teachers, wanting to know if they were mean or nice and it reminded me of countless afternoons in Centrereach when Daddy would pick me up from school and ask about everything that had happened to me that day. If it had been something bad, he’d make up tall tales to make me feel better, returning often to my favorite stories, the library monster who was going to eat mean old Mrs. Blot or the fairy angel who would sprinkle star dust in my eyes and make anything that upset me disappear.

That night by the catalpa, Daddy leaned against the tree’s trunk and his face caught some of the living-room window’s light. His cheeks looked thin and his eyes hollowed out and I realized that working in Allentown must have been a horrible strain on him.

“Daddy,” I said, “something happened while you were away.” And I told him what crazy old Mrs. Novak had said about the dead man being her son. And I told him that she thought Gramp had been the one to kill him. And then I did something that we hardly ever did in my family: I asked a question that I knew Daddy wouldn’t want to answer. “Could it be, Daddy? Could she be right?”

Daddy shook his head and said, “Jack Novak had a lot more enemies than friends, but then being a fire boss who takes bribes—” He turned to me and stopped talking. He shook his head some more before he continued, “No, princess. That dead man isn’t Jack Novak. Jack Novak killed himself. He was seeing this girl over in Minisink Ford. One day he walked right onto the Roebling Bridge and dived straight off it into the Delaware River. People saw him do it. A fisherman even tried to rescue him. They never found his body. Old Mrs. Novak just can’t accept what happened. It made her crazy, I guess, pretending that he was missing or had died some other way.” Daddy sniffed and wiped at his nose. “That bridge was actually built by John Roebling. The same man who built the Brooklyn Bridge. It used to be the Delaware Aqueduct and was part of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Actually, it’s not far from a Revolutionary battle site.” Daddy went on to talk about that battle and what was at stake for the colonies until I shivered. The night had grown starkly cold as we’d stood out there.

“We should head in,” he said and reached out his hand for me to take it.

“You’re the best daddy ever,” I said, playing the game we used to play in Centrereach, a time that seemed so long ago it felt separate from me, as if it was some other little girl and her daddy that I was remembering.

Daddy smiled, playing along. “And you’re the most wonderful princess in the world,” he declared.

As we walked to the house I made him promise to always be my daddy and always be Ma’s lover boy.

“Of course, princess,” he said. “All I am is a daddy.” And then he told me about the first time he saw Ma standing in the great big doorway of the mill and how she’d stolen his heart that very moment. “That’s right, princess. She stole my heart. And don’t you know your ma. Once she takes a thing, she never gives it back.”

And we smiled in sympathy with each other at Ma’s hard, edgy ways.

Fourteen

Ma slept poorly in those weeks after Daddy told her we’d be moving to Allentown. She’d toss and turn, wanting to gossip about the mill girls or discuss decorations for our new apartment. I did my best to fake sleep and ignore her, but that didn’t last for long. No matter how much I wanted to keep my heart hard to Ma, I couldn’t do it.

“I knew if I waited long enough,” Ma told me, “everything I wanted since I was little would happen. I’d almost given up.
Almost,
” Ma repeated as if she
had
finally given up, the good stuff would never have happened at all.

Often during the night I’d wake up at 3:00
A.M.
to hear Ma talking to Mr. Smythe. Ma usually asked about the gas levels in the houses nearby and then she’d say something like, “Well, we don’t got to worry about that no more. We won’t be a bother to you soon enough.” Or she’d tell him yet again how her brother invited us down to live by him. “In Allentown,” she’d add, “where they ain’t got no fire.”

Mr. Smythe’s response was always the same, “Glad to hear it, Mrs. Howley. Now go to sleep.”

In the weeks after Daddy told us we’d be moving, me and Marisol spent even more time together. Sometimes we’d hunt for hawthorn or wild thyme or other herbs Marisol’s mother wanted to brew in teas to help her breathe better. And it would remind me of the many times me and Auntie went on what we called “herb hunts,” taking long hikes to find the weeds and flowers she needed for her remedies. Auntie and me would wander the woods and overgrown fields along the highway, the sun streaking the dusty air, Auntie humming tunes I’d never heard sung by anyone but her. The way the sounds of the approaching, then passing cars grew, then faded, always turned me lonely inside. So on those herb-hunting walks with Marisol I got to feeling wistful and sad and happy all at once.

Marisol was especially worried about her mother’s health. She was sure her mother had taken a turn for the worse because Detective Kanelous had been to the house three times in the last two weeks and had asked questions about her father.

“Next time he comes,” Marisol said, “I’m going to tell him to come straight out and say my father is the killer.”

I stopped short on the fire trail we were walking and pretended to be interested in the lichen greening up a tree. “He thinks your daddy did it?” I shook my head as if that could help me get my thoughts around such an idea.

Marisol kicked at the hunk of artist fungi that was growing off the tree’s bark. “He keeps asking the same questions about him and I keep saying the same things—William Sullivan was a cheater and a liar and the only good thing he ever did was listen to my mother and get out of our lives.”

“You told Detective Kanelous
that?
” I said, my eyes widening with shock and respect—and hope. Maybe Gramp hadn’t killed that man down in the bootlegging hole, maybe Marisol’s father had.

“You bet I told him that. I’ll tell you something else too. I hope my father did bash that guy’s brains in because if he did, then the cops will find him and I’ll get to tell him right to his face how much I hate his guts.”

We’d stopped in a patch of sun and Marisol’s eyes in that light were such a deep green they were nearly brown and you could see glistening within them little flecks of hurt. “Actually,” she continued, “I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I wouldn’t talk to him at all.”

We spent the rest of that afternoon at Marisol’s. She and her mother lived in an apartment building on the south side of Barrendale, seven blocks from the river that divided the main part of the city from the fire zone. We sat on an old sheet on the floor of Marisol’s room making grapevine wreaths from vines we’d yanked off the fence in the lot behind Marisol’s building. We used wire and pliers and twined the long vines into something resembling circles that we planned to sell, but where we’d sell them we didn’t know.

That day as we twisted vines, Marisol talked about her grandfather and told me about something called Espiritismo. Ever since she was little, she said, she’d seen spirit shadows. “I didn’t want to scare you, so I didn’t say anything, but the week before we found the dead body I saw a shadow. It was the size of a cat and it ran out from the kitchen table and then just disappeared.” Marisol flung her hands up and made a whooshing sound. Then she pointed at the space between the radiator and bed. “And just this morning, I saw another one right there. It must be the soul of the dead man. He must want something.”

“Like what?” I said with a wariness I’d heard Ma occasionally use.

Marisol shrugged. “Depends. If my father was his killer maybe he wants to seek his revenge on me. Or maybe he wants to seek his revenge on us—for something we did to it in a past life.” Marisol said this coolly but the muscles around her mouth tightened into a frown.

I stared at the space between the radiator and bed, afraid that I knew exactly what that spirit shadow wanted, and I prayed hard that it would never tell us that Gramp had been its killer. My cheeks flushed with the effort of the prayer and I could feel Marisol looking at me, her gaze bright and glossy. Could she feel my thoughts the way she could
feel
Auntie around me? But all she did was brush the dust off the head of one of the saints’ statues on her dresser. Her dresser top was crowded with statues and bottles of holy water and rosaries of various colors. She took her time describing to me the different rituals and prayers needed in order to get good health or money or love.

“What if you don’t want to pray for something you want?” I asked. “I mean what if there’s something you don’t want? Like bad luck or a curse or something?”

“My grandfather says that a curse comes from an ignorant spirit who is angry because of something the cursed person did to it, in a past life or this one. When someone cursed comes to him, he goes into a trance.” Marisol shut her eyes and swayed. “He tries to get the ignorant spirit to understand it’s dead and to be sorry for all the evil it’s done to the cursed person.” She opened her eyes and shook her finger at me. “But he says not to be afraid of ignorant spirits because as long as your own spirit is strong, the bad spirit can’t bother you. That’s why he says it’s important to pray and do good—so you’re strong enough to keep evil away.”

My hands and arms stung from scratches I’d gotten off the vines. A woody green taste was in my mouth from when I’d tried to gnaw a vine I hadn’t been able to cut. Suddenly I felt tired and worn out and beaten. Desperately I wanted to tell Marisol about the curse, but I was scared of what would happen. I’d never told anyone about it before. Instead, I asked her what kind of prayers would keep the bad spirits away.

“Next time Mommy calls home I’ll ask,” Marisol said, pleased, I could tell, that I was interested in her grandfather’s work.

From out in the living room came the sounds of Mrs. Sullivan walking in the door. Her keys hit the table, she coughed. Then we heard a knock and Mrs. Sullivan invited someone in. I recognized Detective Kanelous’s voice immediately, it was so fast and ugly with hints of New York.

Marisol shushed me with a finger to her lips. Stealthily she opened the door and stepped out. At first I heard little else but Mrs. Sullivan saying yes to Detective Kanelous’s muffled words. I lied down on the bed and tried to think of ways I could be good. I’d have to be more than good, though, to get rid of a century-old curse, a curse that damned my whole family, not just me. I’d have to be like Joan of Arc, I thought, getting lost in a fantasy where flocks of people cheered me as I was wheeled on a horse-drawn cart to the stake. I was so lost in the fantasy that Mrs. Sullivan’s wails followed by Marisol shouting “Liar” snapped me upright, confused as to where I was.

Detective Kanelous raised his voice to say, “Sorry, but it’s true.” And Marisol screamed, “Get out. Get out and don’t ever come back!”

My blood pumped so loud in my ear that I couldn’t understand what Marisol was saying to her mother. Mrs. Sullivan was sobbing and Marisol was saying things, possibly in Spanish. Had Detective Kanelous just told them that Gramp was the killer? That I’d known he was the killer all along?

Briefly the window lit golden and then the sun sank deep into the fire zone and dusk gradually speckled the air gray, then blue. I needed to get home. I hadn’t yet set the table for supper and Gram would be raising holy hell about that by now.

It was totally dark outside by the time the bedroom door slowly creaked open and Marisol stepped inside. “I gave her a pill. She’s sleeping now.” As soon as Marisol flicked on the dresser lamp, her shadow spiked up the wall. “It was my father,” Marisol said, her voice flat and dull. “The dead body was, is, my father. I can’t believe it.” She crossed herself and shivered. “He must have wanted us to go into the mine. He must have wanted us to find him. Maybe he wanted me and Mommy to know he’d never left us. Maybe he’d wanted us to know that he was killed and that’s why he never came back home.” For some time she stared at the space beside the radiator.

I said nothing. My blood was still throbbing hard in my ears and my breathing was so shallow that my chest hurt. I was relieved when Marisol finally broke the silence.

“It must have been his spirit shadow I saw this morning,” she said. “He must have known the detective would tell us today. He must have been hoping I’d understand what he was trying to tell me.” Her gaze flicked onto her startled image in the mirror, then roamed over the statues on the dresser. Her voice was hushed as she said, “All my life I thought he never wanted to talk to me, but he’s probably been trying to talk to me all along. I think we need to Ouija. I think he wants me to find his killer. I think he wants revenge.”