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FORTY-EIGHT

‘You want to what?’ Dory asked again. ‘Rachel … you’re upset … a night’s sleep …’ Rachel only shook her head. She could not explain to her mother why she had to go back. The feeling had risen in her the way a wind rises – an early stirring of the grasses, hardly noticed; then the air begins to move faster and harder, and there is no calm left; then the gusts become hard enough to make eerie screaming noises around the eaves; then they are shaking the house and you realize that this is something like a hurricane and if the wind gets much higher, things are going to fall down.

It was six o’clock in Chicago. In Bangor, Louis was just sitting down to his big, tasteless meal. Rachel and Ellie had done no more than pick at their dinners. Rachel kept raising her eyes from her plate to find her daughter’s dark glance upon her, asking her what she was going to do about whatever trouble Daddy was in, asking her what she was going to do.

She waited for the telephone to ring, for Jud to call and tell her that Louis had come home, and once it did ring – she jumped, and Ellie almost spilled her glass of milk – but it was only a lady from Dory’s bridge-club, wanting to know if she had gotten home all right.

They were having their coffee when Rachel had abruptly tossed down her napkin and said, ‘Daddy … Mom … I’m sorry, but I have to go home. If I can get a plane, I’m going tonight.’ Her mother and father had gaped at her, but Ellie had closed her eyes in an adult expression of relief – it would have been funny if not for the waxy, stretched quality of her skin.

They did not understand, and Rachel could no more explain than she could have explained how those tiny puffs of wind, so faint they can barely stir the tips of short grass, can gradually grow in power until they can knock a steel building flat. She did not believe that Ellie had heard a news item about the death of Victor Pascow and filed it away in her subconscious.

‘Rachel. Honey.’ Her father spoke slowly, kindly, the way one might speak to someone in the grip of a transitory but dangerous hysteria. ‘This is all just a reaction to your son’s death. You and Ellie are both reacting strongly to that, and who could blame you? But you’ll just collapse if you try to—’ Rachel did not answer him. She went to the telephone in the hall, found AIRLINES in the Yellow Pages and dialed Delta’s number while Dory stood close by, telling her they ought to just think about this, didn’t she think, they ought to talk about it, perhaps make a list … and beyond her Ellie stood, her face still dark – but now it was lit by enough hope to give Rachel some courage.

‘Delta Airlines,’ the voice on the other end said brightly. ‘This is Kim, may I help you?’ ‘I hope so,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s extremely important that I get from Chicago to Bangor tonight. It’s … it’s a bit of an emergency, I’m afraid. Can you check the connections for me?’ Dubiously: ‘Yes, ma’am, but this is very short notice.’

‘Well, please check,’ Rachel said, her voice cracking a little. ‘I’ll take standby, anything.’ ‘All right, ma’am. Please hold.’ The line became smoothly silent.

Rachel closed her eyes, and after a moment, she felt a cool hand on her arm. She opened her eyes and saw that Ellie had moved next to her. Irwin and Dory stood together, talking quietly and looking at them. The way you look at people you suspect of being lunatics, Rachel thought wearily. She mustered a smile for Ellie.

‘Don’t let them stop you, Mommy,’ Ellie said in a low voice. ‘Please.’ ‘No way, big sister,’ Rachel said, and then winced – it was what they had called her ever since Gage had been born. But she was no one’s big sister any more, was she?

‘Thank you,’ Ellie said.

‘It’s very important, isn’t it?’

Ellie nodded.

‘Honey, I believe that it is. But you could help me if you could tell me more. Is it just the dream?’ ‘No,’ Ellie said. ‘It’s … it’s everything now. It’s running all through me now. Can’t you feel it, Mommy? Something like a—’ ‘Something like a wind.’

Ellie sighed shakily.

‘But you don’t know what it is? You don’t remember anything more about your dream?’ Ellie thought hard, then shook her head reluctantly. ‘Daddy. Church. And Gage. That’s all I remember. But I don’t remember how they go together, Mommy!’ Rachel hugged her tightly. ‘It will be all right,’ she said. But the weight on her heart did not lessen.

‘Hello, ma’am,’ the reservations clerk said.

‘Hello?’ Rachel tightened her grip on both Ellie and the phone.

‘I think I can get you to Bangor, ma’am – but you’re going to be getting in very late.’ ‘That doesn’t matter,’ Rachel said.

‘Do you have a pen? It’s complicated.’

‘Yes, right here,’ Rachel said, getting a stub of pencil out of the drawer. She found the back of an envelope to write on.

Rachel listened carefully, writing down everything. When the airline clerk finished, Rachel smiled a little and made an O with her thumb and forefinger to show Ellie that it was going to work. Probably going to work, she amended. Some of the connections looked very, very tight … especially in Boston.

‘Please book it all,’ Rachel said. ‘And thank you.’

Kim took Rachel’s name and credit card number. Rachel hung up at last, limp but relieved. She looked at her father. ‘Daddy, will you drive me to the airport?’ ‘Maybe I ought to say no,’ Goldman said. ‘I think I might have a responsibility to put a stop to this craziness.’ ‘Don’t you dare!’ Ellie cried shrilly. ‘It’s not crazy!’ It’s not!’ Goldman blinked and stepped back at this small but ferocious outburst.

‘Drive her, Irwin,’ Dory said quietly into the silence that followed. ‘I’ve begun to feel nervous, too. I’ll feel better if I know Louis is all right.’ Goldman stared at his wife, and at last turned to Rachel. ‘I’ll drive you, if it is what you want,’ he said. ‘I … Rachel, I’ll come with you, if you want that.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘Thank you, Daddy, but I got all the last seats. It’s as if God saved them for me.’ Irwin Goldman sighed. At that moment he looked very old, and it suddenly occurred to Rachel that her father looked like Jud Crandall.

‘You have time to pack a bag, if you want,’ he said. ‘We can be at the airport in forty minutes, if I drive the way I used to when your mother and I were first married. Find her your tote-bag, Dory.’ ‘Mommy,’ Ellie said. Rachel turned toward her. Ellie’s face was now sheened with light sweat.

‘What, honey?’

‘Be careful, Mommy,’ Ellie said. ‘Please be careful.’