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Chapter 28:   Falling

            Teresa lets her hands fall away from the computer.  They rest like surrendering puppies in her lap.  Her sister, Dolly, never seemed to seek Father’s approval.  She modeled herself after Angelina.  Debo channeled her frustration and anger at Father into the military academy.  Now, in her work as a police officer, Debo has power and control, and she earns male approval.  But I never figured it out, Teresa thinks.  I never stopped trying for what Father couldn’t or wouldn’t give me.  Teresa wipes tears from her cheeks.

            “Enough of ghosts!” she says aloud.  “I need a break.”  She takes her backpack and drives into town.

            She spends the afternoon at the cinema, watching an entertaining but predictable romantic comedy.  Then she has a Chinese dinner in a restaurant crowded with a busload of American tourists homesick for familiar food.  Listening to their loud conversation, Teresa shrinks back into her booth, hoping that she looks British, or at least as if she’s from somewhere other than Baltimore.  But no one tries to engage her in conversation.  After her mu shu chicken and green tea, Teresa strolls along the breakwater and eats an ice cream. 

            Teresa sees Eddie Thomson walking toward her with a little boy in tow.  The child is suntanned with a shock of dark, unruly hair.  His face is a little grubby, the way a child’s face looks after a day outdoors.  When she is within talking distance she says, “Good evening, Mr. Thomson.  Who is this handsome little fellow?”

            Eddie looks up, puzzled.  Then he grins in recognition, “Oh, it’s the wrecker lady.  This is me grandson, little Frederick.”

            Teresa squats down to the child’s eye level.  “Hello, Frederick,” she says.  “My name is Teresa.  Let me guess.  I think you’re about five years old.  Am I close?”

            “Five and a half,” Frederick answers.  He gazes at her with a frank, open stare. 

            “You know, Frederick, I just had dinner at the Chinese restaurant, and the waiter gave me some fortune cookies.  Would you like one?”  Teresa pulls a crinkly paper package out of her jacket pocket.  She glances up at Eddie.  “Is it all right?”

            “Sure, if he wants,” he says.

             Frederick nods and takes the cookie.  “I’m going to show it to me mum first,” he says.  “She can read it to me.” 

            “Sounds good.  Nice meeting you, Frederick.  Ciao, Eddie,” Teresa waves and continues her walk, musing.  That child, she thinks, is Margaret’s descendant.  I wonder if Margaret knows he exists.  Shall I tell her?  Teresa walks the length of the town and then back again.  When the first stars appear and she’s tired enough to brave another night with the dreams that may come, she drives home.  She has some warm milk and goes to bed.

            The dream comes on in a rush of movement and sound: a flickering fire, a child’s sing-song, the clank of a pot lid.  Once again Teresa is the observer and the player.  The place is the interior of a sparse cottage.  A woman with dirty blond hair and a pinched-up mouth is bending over the open hearth, stirring something in a cast-iron pot.  A toddler sits on a low stool playing with a length of soiled string. 

            The woman turns to Teresa who is also Maggie and says, “Take the babe and go peg out the wash.”

            “He’s fine as he is,” says Maggie.

            “I said take the babe.” The woman scowls, hand on hip.

            From the doorway, the man speaks.  “Do as your mam says, Maggie.”

            “She’s not me mam,” says Maggie.  “And Josiah’s fine as he is.”

            The woman steps up to Maggie and grabs her arm.  “Yer mam was a weak, sniveling thing, and she’s dead and gone.  Ye’ll answer to me now and do as I say.”

            “Now, Mary,” says the father, “no need to be hurtful.”

            “You stay out of this, George Braithewaite.”

            Maggie shakes free of Mary’s grip.  “I hate this place and I hate the both of you!”   She pulls her cloak off a hook and swings it over her shoulders.  “You disgust me!  You’re cheaters and liars!  As soon as I’m able, I’m leaving forever!”  She runs out the door and across the farmyard. 

            The scenery blurs and shifts into dark weather.  Beneath her feet the earth seems to tip.  Wind and rain and crashing waves fill her ears with a great, hungry roar.  Slick boards slope up under her.  She is sliding.  Then a wave swallows her, and she is falling, screaming, and falling.

            Teresa wakes up, drenched in cold sweat.  Moonlight is pouring through the window.  Before she turns on the lamp, Teresa sees a dim shape whose edges seem to shimmer.  As if watching a Polaroid photograph assemble, Teresa sees a woman materialize.  She is translucent as fog, but the outlines are definite.  Margaret’s eyes meet Teresa’s with a steady, solemn gaze.  She nods her head, slowly, once.  She touches a finger to her lips, as if cautioning secrecy, and fades away in a swirl of mist.

            Once the fear engendered by the dream subsides, Teresa finds that she is thrilled to have seen Margaret, however briefly.  She takes the legal pad and pen from the nightstand and writes:

            Margaret: was wearing a sort of ruffled cap over dark curly hair that fell below her shoulders.  Simple long dress of a light colored, flowered fabric.  Didn’t see her shoes.  Face a long oval, pale, slightly beak nose, full lips, wide cheekbones, large, dark, sad eyes.  Do spirits choose the age at which they wish to appear?

            Teresa pauses, pen in hand, and looks out the window.  She can detect the subtlest lightening of the sky.  Dawn is beginning but the stories, hers and Margaret’s, are coming to an end.  Teresa pulls her computer off the desk and settles it on top of her knees.  She wonders what Janine, her editor, will say about the part Teresa is going to write now, the part about Father’s ghost.