If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

 TWENTY

FOUR

 

BRIGHAM STREET BRIDGE

THERE  WAS NO CLINIC IN Geschichte Falls. On the last day before Christmas break, Niall left school at a little around eleven, right after Jeff Cordino’s history class. He went out the back, and around the pool, always thinking each window of the school was an eye staring at him, that a teacher would open one up and shout for him to come back inside.

He rounded the school and walked up Lincoln Street to catch the Number 10. The ride was forever. At Main Street he hopped the Number 5 which took him to Rosary, and as he got off the bus he wondered if he couldn’t have walked and got here just as quickly. Sonia had said to be early so that she wouldn’t have to wait in the lobby too long. One of the nuns might call her back in then.

Niall entered the terrazzo floored lobby of Mary Queen of the Rosary High School. In the middle of the floor, sympathetic to any plight but his own, there stood the Mother of God with a crystal rosary draped over her folded hands, and as Niall contemplated her, he heard the staccato of Sonia’s heels and there was with her backpack over her shoulder in her knee high navy socks and green plaid jumper.

She was white as a sheet and a little clammy, and her voice was overly excited.

“We’ll go to the corner of Nassau and catch the 5 back to Main,” she said. “We don’t want anyone seeing us standing out in front of the school.”

Niall nodded. They linked clammy hands, in plaid skirt and dress pants and jacket, book bags over their shoulders, faces blank, the two of them looked like refugees from Catholic Land. By something that could not appropriately be called grace, the bus back to Main arrived at the corner as soon as they did. They rode the bus over potholes in a rumbling silence and at Main caught the Number 3 which took them over the Brigham Street Bridge through Little Poland and into East Sequoya. That whole winter day was so beautiful, and crossing the river Niall could see how wide and blue it was, how it glistened under the sun like gold and sapphire scales. How many times before, on beautiful days like this, had people like him been doing ugly things he wondered?

As they passed the old bungalows, the shops on the first floors of three flats, and wound themselves about the massive structure of Saint Celestine’s, Niall looked at Sonia.

She was looking at nothing.

 

Cameron Dwyer was on her way to calculus when she got summoned to the principal’s office over the PA system. Sister Fredricka told her, “It’s your brother. He says only you will do.”

Cameron nodded with a mix of relief and fear and took the phone on Sister’s desk.

“Niall?”

“Cameron, I need you to come and get me.”

“Where are you?”

There was silence as if Niall had forgotten where he was, and then he said, “In East Sequoya. We’re at… It’s a care facility.”

“A care facility?

“Like… a Planned Parenthood or something.”

“We—” Cameron started, then said, “Sonia?”

“Yeah. Could you—”

“I’ll be there right away,” Cameron hung up the phone.

“Sister, can I make a call?”

The nun stood up and said,” Dial nine to get out of the school,” and then she got up and left Cameron alone.”

Chayne picked up the phone in his house, and when Anigel was there she almost started crying.”

“What’s going on?” Anigel demanded.

“Can you come and get me. I need to go to Niall right away?”

Like a good friend, Anigel only said, “You’re at Rosary?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She had hung up before Cameron knew it, and Cameron put the receiver down, and took a few breaths before coming out o the principal’s office.

“Cameron?” Sister Fredricka asked, “is everything…”

“Sister, I have to go. A friend is coming in a few moments to get me.”

“Alright then,” Sister Fredricka said. “Your friend is reliable?”

“Her name is Anigel Reyes.”

“Anigel Reyes!” the nun remembered her former student. “Speak of the….. Well, you better get your bags.”

She nun hugged the girl roughly and said, “I hope your Christmas is well, dear.”

 When the large El Camino rolled up in front of the school, Cameron was numb and tingly, and her face felt dry. She was trying to push away all thought from her mind. She told Anigel where they were going, and Anigel made no comment. Now Niall’s distress made sense, but this was not the time to say that.

Because she had no idea where the clinic was, Anigel pulled over on Brigham Street at the first phone booth she saw. The day was windy and kept whipping her black hair in her face. She shut the door of the telephone booth and looked through the Yellow Pages. It was on the corner of Luckey and Brigham, which was good because this was the only street she knew in East Sequoya. So she kept driving down Brigham, hoping she hadn’t passed Luckey before she’d come to the phone booth. Even when she found it, especially when she found it, Anigel could only parallel park and not think too much. Cameron went ahead of Anigel into the place that had always terrified her and asked for Niall Dwyer and Sonia Cormorant.

“I’m not sure we can give that—” started the woman at the desk, and Cameron walked right past her. Before she could make a scene doors opened and Niall came out, cry, “What took you so long!”

“Excuse me?” it was Anigel who spoke.

“Sorry,” Niall said. “I’m just… We’re just… We took the bus here, but we didn’t know how weak she’d be af—”

“Get in the car,” Anigel said quietly.  She spoke very slowly. “Get her first and then come to the car. We will be outside.”

The ride back to Geschichte Falls was silent. Niall sat in the back with a pale Sonia. Anigel took out a cigarette and put on her shades as the sun shone in her face. Cameron’s ability to remain numb was fading.

“Where do you live, babe?” Anigel turned and asked Sonia, lowering her shades.

Sonia mumbled the address. Cameron had never known it was just the street behind them and three blocks down.

Anigel drove to Keyworthy and told Niall to walk Sonia in and be back in five minutes. He was back in about three, Cameron estimated.  

And now for you two,” Anigel said.

“She dropped them off in front of the large house beside the Lewises, and Niall climbed out, mumbling, “Thanks, Anigel.”

“Niall,” she said.

He turned around and she gestured to him and then hugged him and he started to cry. She kissed him on the head, and he heade into the house, wiping his face.

“Thank you, Ani,” Cameron said. “Thank you, If you hadn’t of been at home—”

“Chayne or Rob would have done it.”

“I don’t think I could have borne that.”

“Then it’s a good thing I was at home.”

Against the cold, the two women, Cameron standing, and Anigel sitting in the car clasped hands hard for a moment, and then Cameron went into the house and Anigel pulled out of the driveway.

“Goddamn,” Patti said.

Anigel nodded.

“Do you want a cigarette?”

“I already had one.”

“But do you want another one?”

Anigel blew out her cheeks and said, “Yeah, actually.”

She reached into Patti’s pack, and Patti said, “I’ll put the coffee on and call Cameron.”

“Should you?”

Scooping out the coffee, she said, “Well, she sees that big ass car of yours in front of the house. She must know we know.”

As Patti was pouring the coffee, Cameron arrived, giving Anigel a quick hug.

“Staying for dinner?” Patti asked.

Cameron nodded and then remembered herself.

“If it’s alright?”

“Of course it’s all right. That’s why I called. Thom should be home in a few minutes. Is your father driving or you uncle? I can’t remember.”

“Uncle Dave,” said Cameron. “Dad had to go to his health spa tonight.”

Patti stopped her eyebrow from rising, but heard Anigel clear her throat. In the tone of the girl’s voice the older women discovered that Cameron did not believe in the health spa anymore than they did.

“Anigel, are you staying?”

“Might as well.”

“It’s plenty of food,” Patti said. “Call Chayne and Rob, but tell those assholes to bring wine and dessert.”

She shouted upstairs, “Russell! Cameron’s here!”

After that Patti said, “Why don’t you just go up and meet him. He probably didn’t even hear me.”

Halfway up the back stair, in the dimness of the unlit hallway at five-thirty in the evening, Cameron bumped into Russell.

“Cam! Come on up.”

Upstairs in his room, the greying west light let revealed her.

“My God, you look... What happened to you?” he demanded, shutting the door. 

And Cameron Dwyer sat on his bed and burst into tears.