“No! Not at all. It was nothing.”
“Was it—is that—a bomb?”
“No. It is not a bomb.”
Yet there was the package, partly unwrapped. It was the center of attention, on the Formica-topped counter. Presumably, the woman named Ellen had opened the package. Or had almost opened it.
(Had someone stopped Ellen? Shouted at her? Shoved her away from the counter? There was an air of heightened vigilance in the room as of disaster deflected.)
The mysterious package measured approximately twelve by eighteen inches. It appeared to be ordinary—of course. Yet its presence had badly frightened a number of individuals.
Our father came to us, and roughly hugged us, each in turn. He appeared dazed. He was trying to smile. What we heard from him sounded like You kids! Jesus! He gripped us very tight, and then released us. Though his manner was meant to be casual, and not agitated, it was clear that our father was agitated; it was clear that he didn’t realize how hard he squeezed us, causing Melissa to whimper. We could not respond to his embrace, for it was too tight, and then it was too fleeting; we could not breathe for to breathe in this place was to breathe in the sharp medicinal odor, which was repulsive to us. Even Darren was frightened, and Naomi was terrified that she would gag and vomit. Melissa whimpered with fear, so that our mother had to kneel beside her, and comfort her—“Melissa, honey! Nothing has happened, you’re all right. We are all perfectly—all right!”
Our mother laughed breathlessly as if this was a way to convince the panicked child.
Melissa whispered in our mother’s ear Did somebody die? and our mother replied with her startled breathless laugh Of course not, silly. Absolutely not.
It was a scene of confusion. Badly Naomi wanted to be elsewhere to suck her fingers, and be still.
Yet our father Dr. Voorhees was in charge here. There was comfort, there was solace, in the fact of Dr. Voorhees.
Our father had positioned himself to block our view of the counter as he seemed to be trying to block a clear view of us, his distraught family, from his staff. With what startled and alert eyes, the nurses stared at our mother, and at us.
Dr. Voorhees’s family. His children . . .
Always, there is curiosity about the abortionist’s children.
What was inside the package, the cardboard box, obscured by wadded newspaper pages, something small, mechanical, possibly an alarm clock, ticking?—we could not see.
Irritably, nervously our father was saying: “It’s nothing. It’s a false alarm. Rhoda, clear the office—please take care of Ellen. Let’s get back to normal, we’ve wasted enough time.”
False alarm. Bomb? But no, not a bomb.
Nor did the package contain what the greasy white box had contained, that my classmates in Saginaw had given me.
At least, we could not see anything like that in the box on the counter. Someone had shut up the box, stuffed in the newspaper pages. Should the police be called?—Dr. Voorhees did not think so.
False alarm, no need for police. No need to call attention to the Center.
We can handle this. Return to normal. In stride.
And so within minutes, it seemed to be so: most of the staff had left the room, and the middle-aged woman named Ellen who’d been sitting down, panicked, light-headed, was dabbing at her flushed face with a tissue, joking of hot flashes.
“Let me see that box”—inevitably, our mother would say these words.
We had known, without knowing that we knew, that, being Jenna Matheson, our mother would say Let me see that box.
And we’d known that our father would say sharply—No.
“You don’t think that you should call 911, Gus?”
And again our father curtly told her—No. The situation was entirely under control, and that was it.
Our father escorted us out of this room and into another, smaller room, that was his office. Clearly he wanted to speak with my mother, and he did not want his staff to overhear.
The desk in this office was heaped with papers, documents, manila folders. Aluminum bookshelves against the walls were crammed. Amid the clutter on the desk was a single family photo in a faux-leather frame—the Voorhees family of several years ago when Melissa had been a toddler, and Daddy’s beard had been darker.
Strange to see us smiling so happily at the camera—including little Naomi with shy shadowed eyes.
“That photo! I was wondering where it had gone.”
Our mother spoke with an air of pleasurable surprise. The tension between her and our father had not yet abated.
Haphazardly taped to the wall in our father’s office were newspaper articles and photos. These were mostly impersonal—