The memorial service for Ted Cole was conducted in an impromptu fashion at the public school for grades one through four in Sagaponack. The school board, and the past and present teachers at the school, had called Ruth and offered her the premises. Ruth hadn’t realized the degree to which her father had been a benefactor of the school. He’d twice bought them new playground equipment; every year he donated art supplies for the children; he was the principal provider of children’s books for the Bridgehampton library, which was the library used by the schoolchildren in Sagaponack. Moreover, unbeknownst to Ruth, Ted had frequently read to the children during Story Hour, and, at least a half-dozen times during each school year, he came to the school and gave the children drawing lessons.
Thus, in an atmosphere of undersize desks and chairs, and with the surrounding walls displaying children’s drawings of the most notable themes and characters from Ted Cole’s books, a local remembrance was held for the famous author and illustrator. A most beloved retired teacher at the school spoke fondly of Ted’s dedication to the entertainment of children, although she confused his books with one another; she thought that the moleman was a creature who lurked under the terrifying door in the floor, and that the indescribable sound like someone trying not to make a sound was that of the misunderstood mouse crawling between the walls. From the children’s drawings on the walls, Ruth saw sufficient numbers of mice and molemen to last her a lifetime.
Except for Allan and Hannah, the only noticeable out-of-towner was the gallery owner from New York who’d made a small fortune selling Ted Cole’s original drawings. Ted’s publisher couldn’t come—he was still recovering from a cough he’d caught at the Frankfurt Book Fair. (Ruth thought she knew the cough.) And even Hannah was subdued—they were all surprised to see so many children in attendance.
Eddie O’Hare was there; as a Bridgehampton resident, Eddie was no out-of-towner, but Ruth hadn’t expected to see him. Later she understood why he’d come. Like Ruth, Eddie had imagined that Marion might show up. After all, it was one of those occasions at which Ruth dreamed that her mother might make an appearance. And Marion was a writer. Weren’t all writers drawn to endings? Here was an ending. But Marion wasn’t there.
It was a raw, blustery day with a wet wind blowing from the ocean; instead of lingering outside the schoolhouse, people hurried to their cars when the makeshift service was over. All but one woman, whom Ruth judged to be about her mother’s age; she was dressed in black, she even wore a black veil, and she hovered in the vicinity of her shiny black Lincoln as if she couldn’t bear to leave. When the wind lifted her veil, her skin appeared to be stretched too tightly over her skull. The woman whose skeleton was threatening to break through her skin stared at Ruth so intently that Ruth jumped to the conclusion that the woman must be the angry widow who’d written her that hateful letter—the so-called widow for the rest of her life. Taking Allan’s hand, Ruth alerted him to the woman’s presence.
“I haven’t lost a husband yet, so she’s come to gloat over the fact that I’ve lost a father!” Ruth said to Allan, but Eddie O’Hare was within hearing distance.
“I’ll take care of this,” Eddie told Ruth. Eddie knew who the woman was.
It was not the angry widow—it was Mrs. Vaughn. Eduardo had spotted her first, of course; he’d interpreted Mrs. Vaughn’s presence as another reminder of the fate to which he was doomed. (The gardener was hiding in the schoolhouse, hoping his former employer would miraculously disappear.)
It was not that her skeleton was breaking through her skin; rather, her alimony had included a sizable allotment for cosmetic surgery, of which Mrs. Vaughn had partaken to excess. When Eddie took her arm and helped her in the direction of the shiny black Lincoln, Mrs. Vaughn did not resist.
“Do I know you?” she asked Eddie.
“Yes,” he told her. “I was a boy once. I knew you when I was a boy.” Her bird’s-feet fingers were like claws on his wrist; her veiled eyes eagerly searched his face.
“You saw the drawings!” Mrs. Vaughn whispered. “You carried me into my house!”
“Yes,” Eddie admitted.
“She looks just like her mother, doesn’t she?” Mrs. Vaughn asked Eddie. She meant Ruth, of course, and Eddie disagreed, but he knew how to talk to older women.
“In some ways, yes—she does,” Eddie replied. “She looks a little bit like her mother.” He helped Mrs. Vaughn into the driver’s seat. (Eduardo Gomez would not leave the schoolhouse until he saw the shiny black Lincoln drive safely away.)
“Oh, I think she looks a lot like her mother!” Mrs. Vaughn told Eddie.
“I think she looks like her mother and father both, ” Eddie tactfully replied.
“Oh, no!” Mrs. Vaughn cried. “ No one looks like her father! He was one of a kind!”
“Yes, you could say that,” Eddie told Mrs. Vaughn. He closed he
r car door and held his breath until he heard the Lincoln start; then he rejoined Allan and Ruth.
“Who was she?” Ruth asked him.
“One of your father’s old girlfriends,” Eddie told her. Hannah, who heard him, looked after the departing Lincoln with a journalist’s fleeting curiosity.
“I had a dream they’d all be here, all his old girlfriends,” Ruth said.
Actually, there was one other, but Ruth never knew who she was. She was an overweight woman who’d introduced herself to Ruth before the service in the schoolhouse. She was plump and fiftyish, with a contrite expression. “You don’t know me,” she’d said to Ruth, “but I knew your father. Actually, my mother and I knew him. My mother committed suicide, too, so I’m very sorry—I know how you must feel.”
“Your name is . . .” Ruth had said, shaking the woman’s hand.
“Oh, my maiden name was Mountsier,” the woman said in a self-deprecating way. “But you wouldn’t know me. . . .” Then she’d slipped away.
“Gloria—I think she said that was her name,” Ruth told Eddie, but Eddie didn’t know who she was. ( Glorie was her name, of course—the late Mrs. Mountsier’s troubled daughter. But she’d slipped away.)
Allan insisted that Eddie and Hannah join him and Ruth at the Sagaponack house for a drink after the service. By then it had begun to rain, and Conchita had finally freed Eduardo from the schoolhouse and taken him home to Sag Harbor. For once (or once again) there was something stronger than beer and wine in the Sagaponack house; Ted had bought an excellent single-malt Scotch whiskey.
“Maybe Daddy bought the bottle because he was thinking of this occasion,” Ruth said. They sat at the dining-room table, where, once in a story, a little girl named Ruthie had sat with her daddy while the moleman waited in hiding under a standing lamp.
Eddie O’Hare had not been in the house since the summer of ’58. Hannah had not been in the house since she’d fucked Ruth’s father. Ruth thought of this, but she refrained from comment; although her throat ached, she didn’t cry.