"What's going on?" I asked her.
"They found him," she said.
"Where?" I asked, my voice not much more than a whisper.
"Washed about a mile downstream."
17
The Gift
.
Before they had found Elliot, they had found
his blanket by the pine tree. We didn't know it all immediately, but they also found remnants of his marijuana cigarettes. However, it was what they had found in his pants pocket that brought the police back to our front door. They didn't come until early in the evening. I was upstairs in my room when I heard the doorbell ring. The sound made my heart race. With all the sirens, the sounds of far more traffic and people on our road and around our property. I couldn't help being anxious.
After we had heard that Elliot was found apparently drowned and washed ashore farther downstream. I had gone off to be alone as quickly as I could. I was sure Mommy would take one glance at my face and know I had lied to her and had kept things from her. I was more afraid of her
disappointment in me than I was of her rage.
As I sat there thinking about the horror of it all. I told myself that even though I had seen Elliot get carried farther down the creek and around the turn. I had good reason to assume he would be all right. From the years when we didn't have much of a snowfall and spring rain, I knew the creek had so many rocks and hills under it, making it very shallow in many places.
I had good reason to conclude he would eventually find his footing and pull himself safely to shore. He didn't really scream for help. I had no idea he wasn't a good swimmer, and in the beginning, when he dipped his foot in the water and even after he fell in, he was laughing about it and clowning around.
But what fascinated and even frightened me somewhat the whole day after I had heard the news was the possibility that this was what Daddy's spirit had meant when I thought I had heard him whispering in the wind to be patient. I recalled the way Elliot had toppled into the water. He did cry. "Who pushed me?" Had he really felt some force knocking him off the rock or was that shout and the surprise just part of his joking around with me?
Could it really be that our spiritual protectors had done this? If so, wasn't it all ultimately my fault? If I hadn't done what I had done that day and exposed myself to the world and to Elliot, none of this would have happened. Complicating it even further, I had not told Mommy. I had kept it all a secret. and I had let it continue. Now what would happen to us?
I heard Mommy calling for me from the entryway. Slowly rising from my bed. where I had been sitting and thinking, I walked to the door and then descended, feeling like a convicted felon approaching the gallows. Mommy stood there looking up at me with her arms folded under her breasts so tightly, they looked locked in place forever. The policeman and a man in a dark gray sports coat and tie stood just behind her, waiting for me. He had a chiseled face with a brow that hung like a cliff s edge over his eves. His lower lip drooped just enough to show most of his lower teeth.
As I drew closer. I saw the fire in Mommy's eyes, each holding the tip of a candle flame. Her lips were pursed, pressing up the crests of her cheeks. Some loosened strains of hair fell over her temple and down to the right side of her mouth.
"Officer Harold and Detective Young want to ask you some questions. Noble. I want you to answer them honestly." Mommy said, pronouncing each word with crystal clear and sharp consonants and vowels, which I knew was how she spoke when she was battling to control the rage roam' g m' side her.
I nodded and turned to them. Detective Young stepped forward, "Do you recognize this?" he asked and op
ened his fist to show me the red coral amulet.
I couldn't help looking up from it quickly at Mommy. She stared, her face a closed book to anyone else, but to me speaking volumes and volumes of angry disappointment. She knew it was the one she had (riven me, of course. Her eyes flickered, rage feeding the fire.
"Yes," I said in a voice so small. I wasn't sure myself that I had spoken.
"Elliot's father and his sister told us he didn't have this when they had last seen him, and in fact they had never seen it. They have no idea how he got it or even what it is, but his sister thought you might know."
"Why did she think that?" Mommy demanded, spinning on the detective,
Detective Young looked at her for a moment, obviously considering how to reply.
"Her brother told her things about your son and you that led her to believe it. I guess he described what your son is wearing right now," he said, referring to my amulet. He turned back to me. "What is it, and how did Elliot Fletcher come to have it in his possession at the time of his death?"
"It's an amulet." I said. "Red coral."
"An amulet?" Officer Harold muttered, "What is that. exactly?"
I looked at Mommy.
"An amulet is a talisman, a good-luck charm, if you will," Mommy explained for inc. "Red coral is said to have certain beneficial properties for the wearer."