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Surrogate Child Page 6


  The illusionary Solomon turned away from the window slowly, but it wasn’t until he was facing her that she saw the noose around his neck. Beneath the rope, she could see the thick, red ropeburn. His facial features were just as distorted as they were that day he hanged himself, and he wore that same sneer.

  She brought her hand to her throat. It seemed to have closed as if her body were shutting itself down. She closed the door quickly and almost immediately felt a shortness of breath. When she touched her cheeks, her face felt clammy. She immediately went to the bathroom and dabbed herself with cold water. Her reflection in the mirror was ghostly pale. Indeed, she felt like someone who had just gazed into a coffin.

  Her mind was playing a terrible trick on her. She knew why it was happening—she was feeling guilty. Solomon was being replaced. If he could come back from the dead and speak to her, he would show his anger.

  But it wasn’t fair. How about her anger? How about what he had done to her? He had no right to be upset; there was no reason for her to feel any guilt.

  One thing was for sure: She wouldn’t tell Joe about this. That’s all she had to do, and it would confirm his misgivings and make everything impossible. She had to deal with this herself; she had to find the strength to overcome it. Determined to do so, she knew she had to face down the illusion immediately. She turned from the bathroom mirror and went back to Solomon’s bedroom.

  This time when she opened the door, she confronted an empty room. There was no image standing by the window, and all was quiet and untouched. She took a deep breath. Confident and satisfied, she closed the door and went on to work on her and Joe’s bedroom.

  She had barely completed her morning housework when the phone began to ring. Sally Cirillo called first, followed by Sandy Miller and Mindy Baker. Of course, everyone wanted to know about the new boy and what he was like, but she heard the unasked questions, too. Was it painful to have a teenage boy living in Solomon’s room and using Solomon’s things? How was Joe reacting? Were you continually making comparisons between the new boy and Solomon? Were you sorry now that you had agreed to do this?

  She revealed little or nothing about her true feelings. She never mentioned Solomon once, and she talked about Jonathan as though he had been living there for years. She sensed the disappointment in their voices. Mindy was the only one who was somewhat direct.

  “Don’t become a slave to the kid like you were a slave to Solomon.”

  “I wasn’t a slave. I never did anything I didn’t want to do,” she responded. Her voice began to sound small and weak to her.

  “The quicker you get them on their own, the better it will be for all concerned, believe me,” Mindy said.

  “Why do we have children if they’re such a burden?” Martha replied. It was her strongest statement of the day. Mindy didn’t answer. She simply repeated her advice and babbled on about a new restaurant in Goshen.

  “The Coopers want to go, too, so maybe the six of us can go down this weekend. Kevin will talk to Joe.”

  “Okay,” Martha said. There was no commitment in her voice. She was relieved when the conversation ended.

  Joe called from the road. He was in Port Jervis, but he thought he would be home by five. He didn’t ask anything about Jonathan. She went to the supermarket to stock up on the kinds of snacks and cereals she recalled Solomon liking, and by the time she returned and had everything organized in the kitchen, she heard the school bus pull up in the front of the house. For her, the day just seemed to have flown by. She couldn’t remember time passing so quickly since Solomon’s death. The days between then and now were all long ones. Time seemed to torment her. She remembered the days she would simply sit and look at the clock and think about all the things Solomon would be doing at this moment or that, if he were still alive.

  She went quickly to the front and looked out just as the bus was pulling away. Jonathan came down the sidewalk, carrying his newly issued schoolbooks under his right arm. Just like Solomon’s hair would be, Jonathan’s was as neatly in place as it had been in the morning. He had the same good posture when he walked—his head held high, his shoulders back.

  Martha had always enjoyed studying Solomon from a distance, observing him when he was unaware she was doing so. Most of the time, that was impossible because he usually sensed her presence, but sometimes he was in such deep thought about one thing or another that he didn’t seem to know she was peering down at him from a window or looking out at him from behind a curtain. Then again, she thought he did know but pretended he didn’t, maybe for her sake.

  Jonathan looked deeply pensive as he approached the house. His eyes were small and his face was still, the smooth and remarkably blemish-free skin of his cheeks drawn tightly down to his jawbone. He looked ethereal, otherworldly. Solomon had had a slightly softer chin, and his facial bones weren’t as emphatic. In some ways, Jonathan was better-looking, she thought. He already had a more mature, masculine appearance. Again, she thought that could be another thing that was somehow a result of the hardships he had already endured.

  In contrast, Solomon’s life had been soft and smooth. He was always well protected and well cared for; he lacked nothing and suffered few disappointments, as far as she could tell. All that he had, he had gotten with relatively little effort on his part. There were no struggles that compared with Jonathan’s struggles.

  She greeted him at the door. He looked as if he had expected her to. Would she have as much difficulty surprising this boy as she had surprising Solomon? Was she so predictable? She made a mental note to ask Joe about that sometime when they were alone.

  “Hi,” he said, and stopped in the hall beside her.

  “Good day?”

  “Yes,” he said. He nodded with a sincere look of satisfaction on his face. “I like the school, and for the most part, I like the kids.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said. “I was so afraid the other students wouldn’t be as friendly. I know how it can be when you’re a new kid on the block.” She wiped her hands on her apron even though she had nothing on them. The nervous gesture made her conscious of how closely she was standing to him. She saw the way two little hairs on his eyebrows curled upward.

  “No problems. I got to meet quite a few of them, too. Quite a few of Solomon’s friends,” he added.

  “Really?” She couldn’t help the way her incredulous smile froze on her face. She had always thought Solomon’s friends were special. His friends were the brighter and more talented kids, but they were also somewhat snobby. From what she had learned about them when they were at the house and from the things Solomon had told her, they weren’t the types who would take in a new person easily.

  “Yea. I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but I invited someone over tonight. She’s going to help me catch up on a few things. It’s hard enough to start classes in the beginning, much less toward the middle of the year.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t mind. That’s wonderful. Next time you can invite someone to dinner.”

  “Thank you. Well, I’d better get a little of this done before she comes tonight,” he said, indicating his homework.

  “Great. We’re having veal and peppers, one of your favorite meals,” she said, and then laughed quickly. “I meant—”

  “I know. It was one of Solomon’s. That’s all right. It’s one of my favorites, too, although I haven’t had it much. See you in a while,” he said, and lifted his books again to indicate what he was going to do.

  “Great.”

  She went off to work on the meal when he started up the stairs. She had planned to make an apple cake for dessert, another one of Solomon’s favorite foods. Joe was fond of it, too. Now, after seeing how well Jonathan had done at school his first day there, she felt enthusiastic about everything.

  Jonathan was still upstairs working on the computer when Joe returned from work. He looked tired, and he explained that he had run into three major problems with a company’s computer system, all of which would requir
e him to spend at least two more days there.

  “They really need one more serviceman on this route,” he said, “but no one wants to believe me.”

  “Don’t do any more than you can, Joe. They’ll get the idea soon enough.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He looked about and then inquired about Jonathan.

  “He’s upstairs, working on the computer. He went right to it, just like—he’s very excited about the school.”

  “Oh? He’s spending a lot of time on the computer?”

  “He said the students took to him. He’s already made friends, many of whom were Solomon’s friends.”

  “You’re kidding. You mean like Arthur Griff and Larry Elias?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t mention names. Oh,” she said, “I almost forgot. One of the kids is coming over to help him catch up with some of the work. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Yeah. I guess he’s got more personality than I first thought.”

  “I knew he would succeed here. I just knew it.”

  “It’s great,” he said. “Who’s coming over?”

  “I don’t know. I forgot to ask.”

  Joe laughed.

  “What were you, in a daze? You don’t seem to know any details.”

  “I didn’t want to seem like I was prying,” she said, almost in a whisper. He wondered why she had lowered her voice so, and then he heard Jonathan coming down the stairs. They both turned to him as he approached.

  “Hi. Martha says you had a nice first day at school.”

  “Pretty good. Yeah. How was your day?” he asked. Joe smiled. He couldn’t remember Solomon even once asking that.

  “Not so good. I’ve got three malfunctioning hard discs in the PCs at this one firm.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, Joe,” Martha said. “I don’t.”

  “Yes, I do,” Jonathan said, but he looked like he regretted it immediately.

  “That’s an understatement,” Joe said. “Wait until you see what it can do.”

  “Sometimes I thought Solomon had become attached to it,” Martha said.

  “A lot of the kids have computers. At least, many of the ones I met today.”

  “Sure,” Joe said. There was a long moment of silence. Joe looked at Martha, who was beaming. He was feeling kind of good himself. “I guess I’ll go wash up for dinner. Smells like another feast. And apple cake, too.”

  “Well, I’ve got two hungry men to feed,” Martha said. “And we want to eat on time tonight. Jonathan’s got someone coming over after dinner.”

  “Oh, right,” Joe said. “Who’s coming?”

  “Her name’s Audra,” Jonathan said. “Audra Lowe.”

  For a moment Joe could not speak. He looked at Martha, but she didn’t seem as stricken. He decided not to attempt any words. Instead, he nodded and went upstairs, pursued by the vivid memory of Audra Lowe and Solomon all dressed up and seated in the back of the car. He was taking them to a school dance.

  But that was more than a year ago, maybe a month before Solomon’s death. She hadn’t been back since, of course. And they hadn’t seen or heard anything from her. Why should they? he thought. She was just a kid, a friend of Solomon’s who had, as far as they were concerned, died along with him, just as all his other friends had.

  But after only one day, the new boy had resurrected her, along with all the memories and all the pain.

  FOUR

  Audra Lowe was mature for her age in more ways than one. She always seemed to be a little ahead of herself, a little too perceptive and sophisticated for her age group. The second of four children, she was quite unlike her two younger brothers and her older sister, Debbie. She was rarely involved in sibling rivalries and most helpful to both her parents. As early as the age of seven, she was helping her mother in the kitchen. She was very dependable as a baby-sitter for her two younger brothers, when she was only ten herself.

  Her sister, Debbie, behaved more like a typical teenager. Her father often said that Debbie more than made up for Audra’s failure to waste time on rock music and boys. Debbie had smaller features and did seem more distracted by her own appearance and beauty, although Audra was far from unattractive.

  She had long, light brown hair that she always kept well brushed and soft. For the last three years, she had maintained its length at her shoulders, while her girlfriends experimented with every hairdo worn by every teenage star in sight. Debbie was always after her to do something different, but Audra wasn’t moved by fads.

  Her stability in dress and coiffure separated her from the pack. She wore jeans and sweatshirts, but also wore simple cotton blouses and skirts of conservative colors. And even when she wore an old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, she somehow looked neater than most of the other girls.

  Audra had a soft-spoken, easy manner that bespoke self-confidence and maturity. Her teachers loved her. She was a reliable and responsible student, concerned about her homework and her grades, but also able to look past the marks to the real purpose for studying the subject.

  Her physical maturity developed right along with her mental and social maturity. At fifteen, she stood five feet eight, had a full bosom and a narrow waist and hips that made older women drool with envy, yet she didn’t flaunt herself about. She seemed to have a quiet understanding about sex that ironically turned many boys off. They felt outclassed. To the high school boys, going out with Audra would be like going out with a girl who had already graduated from college. Except for Solomon Stern and some boys she was rumored to see occasionally in New York City, she was rarely involved with anyone.

  But that didn’t seem to bother her. She wasn’t as intense and as concerned as most of her girlfriends were about their romantic relationships. Her patience confused them. Was there really something she knew that they didn’t? Some sensed that she did because they came to her for advice. No matter how trivial the matter, Audra gave it serious consideration and made them feel that they were talking to someone much older.

  It seemed natural to them that Audra would have been close with a boy like Solomon Stern. He was so deep and so intelligent, most girls felt uncomfortable with him, especially when he was witty and sarcastic. Only Audra seemed to be able to contradict him openly. Only Audra seemed to understand what moved him. Only Audra seemed to care.

  The truth was Audra was comfortable with Solomon Stern because, like her, he wasn’t frivolous. He, too, seemed to have skipped over that period of youth characterized by waste and nonchalance. He didn’t appear threatened by his failure to be popular with most other teenagers, and when it came to romance and sex, he also had a calmness about him that suggested more maturity. They gravitated toward each other more and more, linked by every critical comment about other students and by their seeming unity of perception when it came to how people should conduct themselves.

  What bothered Audra the most about Solomon’s suicide was that she had absolutely no inkling that it was about to occur. She had had a telephone conversation with Solomon the night before he killed himself, and no matter how many times she went over that conversation in her mind and reviewed each and every word, she couldn’t see where he had been reaching out or in any way indicated what he was about to do.

  In fact, when Sally Kantzler called her to tell her, her first reaction was that Solomon was murdered and his death made to look like a suicide. She kept expecting such an announcement to follow, but, of course, it never did. She told no one about her idea because she thought it made her sound as though she were looking for justification for not being perceptive enough to see Solomon’s problem and prevent the suicide. But she never once thought that Solomon blamed her for not coming to his aid.

  All the while at the funeral, she imagined Solomon beside her making sarcastic comments about the conduct of the ceremony and the manner in which people behaved. The fantasy was so vivid she had to check the people who were really standing beside her to see if any of them were hearing what she was hearing. At one p
oint she nearly broke out laughing because she heard Solomon singing, “I did it my way . . .” She was sure that if he could come back from the dead, he would do that.

  She really did like him. She liked his offbeat sense of humor, the way he could suddenly stop talking and stare into her eyes, confident she could finish the thought, and she loved the way he handled people, whether they were teachers or fellow students. He could turn sincerity on and off like a faucet and always be convincing. A good deal of the time, she wasn’t sure herself whether or not he meant what he said. She would have to ask him afterward. Sometimes he was cagey and said, “What do you think?” But most of the time, he wanted to share his true feelings with her.

  If there was one thing she could point to in their relationship and say, “This is why I liked him so much,” it would be the fact that he never betrayed her. No matter what she told him, it remained with him. He knew when she was intense and when she wasn’t, and he knew, almost instinctively, what was important to her and what was not. She could trust him with her most intimate thoughts. In a real sense, Solomon Stern was the best friend she had ever had, and she mourned his death as though a part of her had died.

  That was why she was most intrigued when she heard about the coming of the new boy, the boy the Sterns had taken in to live with them. She knew he would live in Solomon’s room, and although she couldn’t imagine anyone taking Solomon’s place, she knew that he would fill some of the terrible gaps in the Sterns’ lives. Who had Mr. and Mrs. Stern chosen to do such a thing?

  The moment Audra set eyes on him, she experienced a chilling familiarity. The physical resemblances notwithstanding, she saw a similarity in expression and demeanor that not only brought Solomon to mind, but gave her the eerie feeling that his soul had somehow slipped into and possessed this new form. She shook the wild idea from her mind quickly. Solomon and she had discussed the occult and the supernatural, and they had both concluded that stories, movies, and television programs that dealt with it were nothing more than fairy tales on an adult level.