“I was thinking,” sniffled Lucy, dabbing at her eyes, “how proud Mimi would be of her boys in their suits and haircuts and she probably never saw them like that.” Lucy was really crying now and Phyllis got up and enveloped her in a big Jean Nate-scented hug. “She never got to see them graduate from high school or get married or have kids of their own.”
“I know. I know,” said Phyllis, patting her on the back.
“And it isn’t like she had cancer or something that wasn’t anybody’s fault,” continued Lucy. “Somebody killed her. Stabbed her. Who could do something like that? Why would they do it?”
“From what I’ve heard, everybody thinks it was her husband,” said Ted, looking very somber. “In fact, that’s what I’m writing my editorial about this week. The nationwide increase in domestic violence and how we’re not immune from it even here in Tinker’s Cove.”
Lucy wiped her face and blew her nose, pulling herself together, and went over to her desk. “I don’t know why I’m acting like this,” she said. “I didn’t even like her and she sure wasn’t popular with her neighbors on Prudence Path. But I saw this man, he looked like he’s been living in the woods, and he looked really sad. Much sadder even than Fred and the boys. He was crying.” Lucy shrugged. “Maybe grief is catching. Maybe I caught it from him.”
“You know, I think I saw that guy yesterday,” said Phyllis. “He’s got long hair and a beard and wears one of those olive green Army jackets?”
“That’s the one,” said Lucy. “He looks like a homeless person.”
“Could be. I saw him hanging around the back of the IGA, near the Dumpsters.”
“Probably looking for food,” said Lucy, shuddering at the thought.
“I always expect to see homeless people when I go to Boston or some other big city, but not in Tinker’s Cove,” said Ted. “Here we take care of each other.”
By and large he was right, thought Lucy. Fore-closures and evictions were a thing of the past since several churches and social service agencies had gotten together and formed a committee that provided financial assistance to people who needed occasional help with rent or mortgage payments. They’d discovered it made a lot more sense, and was a lot more economical, to help people stay in their homes instead of helping them find scarce affordable housing after they’d been evicted.
“He must have some connection to Mimi,” said Phyllis. “Otherwise why would he go to her funeral?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out,” said Lucy. “Fred said Mimi had no family except for him and the boys.”
“Even if he is some long-lost relation, how would he have heard?” asked Phyllis. “It’s not like he’s a subscriber to the Pennysaver.”
“There was a brief in the Sunday Globe,” said Ted, referring to the Boston paper. “Homeless people use discarded newspapers for bedding, for padding their clothes when it’s cold, for stopping holes in their shoes—he could’ve seen it.”
“So how’d he get here?” asked Lucy. “Hitch-hike? I wouldn’t pick him up.”
“Some trucker might’ve been glad for some company on a long overnight haul. Or maybe he took the bus. He could have got the fare panhandling.”
“I wish I could have talked to him,” said Lucy. “Maybe I could have helped him. He seemed really upset.”
“You better be careful, Lucy. He might be crazy,” said Phyllis. “Forgot to take his meds and found himself at a fu…”
Phyllis was talking but nobody could hear a word she said thanks to the fire truck that was screaming down the street, horn honking and siren blaring. It was followed by an ambulance and a couple of police cars. As soon as they’d passed, Ted raised the volume on the scanner and as the wail of the siren receded they heard the dispatcher announce the Stantons’ home address.
“I’ll go,” said Lucy, grabbing her purse.
Ted was so absorbed in his editorial that he didn’t object. “Let me know what’s happening,” he said.
“I will, just as soon as I know,” promised Lucy.
When she got to Prudence Path, the little cul-de-sac was filled with emergency vehicles. The sound of their throbbing diesel engines and rhythmic flash of their roof lights triggered Lucy’s emotions; these accompaniments to disaster never failed to fill her with dread and she found her pace slowing as she approached the Stanton house on foot. An officer had been stationed at the end of the road and was turning everyone away, so Lucy had parked in her own driveway and taken the path through the lilac bushes that separated her property from the Prudence Path development.
As was usual on a weekday, the street was deserted. Only Bonnie and Chris, along with Pear and Apple, were standing at the edge of the Stantons’ driveway and Lucy approached them. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Tommy Stanton tried to kill himself,” whispered Bonnie.
Lucy wasn’t surprised, she realized, which meant that on some level she’d been expecting Tommy to do something like this.
“When they got back from the funeral I went over to see if there was anything I could do for them. I was there when Preston went in his room and found him.”
“How awful,” breathed Lucy.
“He was barely alive,” replied Bonnie. “They’re still working on him, trying to resuscitate him.”
“What did he take?” asked Chris, who had Apple on her hip and was pushing Pear back and forth in her stroller.
“Nothing. He hung himself.”
Lucy was sick with horror—and guilt. She’d sensed Tommy’s desperation and unhappiness, but she hadn’t actually given it much thought. She was like a person who hears a gunshot and thinks it’s a car backfiring.
Chris gave Apple a squeeze and buried her nose in her soft, blond hair. “The funeral must have been too much for him.”
Lucy remembered the night she’d given him Gatorade and how grateful he’d been for such a small kindness. She wished they’d insisted he get in the car when they passed him on the road after Sue’s cookout and she couldn’t put the image of his skinny, hunched body out of her mind. He’d looked so fragile and alone then. Maybe if they’d reached out to him it would have been enough to tip the balance and he wouldn’t have felt so desperate.
“I hope he makes it,” she said.
“It’s in God’s hands,” said Bonnie.
“God and the rescue squad,” said Chris. It seemed a long time before the porch door opened and a couple of EMTs emerged pushing and pulling a stretcher. Tommy’s prone figure was hooked up to an IV and his face was uncovered.
“He’s alive at least,” said Bonnie, echoing Lucy’s thoughts.
She knew those were good signs and she hoped Tommy was out of the woods. At the same time, she feared he might have suffered irreversible brain damage. They continued to watch as the stretcher containing his motionless body was loaded into the ambulance and Lucy’s mind flashed back to a similar scene the day his mother died.
“The rescue squad is here too often,” she said.
“It’s always the Stantons,” said Bonnie, a hint of resentment in her voice.
“They sure are unlucky,” said Chris.