things away, it said. And it said, I guess it all depends on how stubborn your
subconscious wants to be.
I lay back down and after a while I was able to go to sleep. I dreamed I was in Central
Park, feeding the ducks, when all at once there was a loud noise like a sonic boom and
smoke filled the sky. In my dream, the smoke smelled like burning hair.
I thought about Tonya Gregson in Rahway—Tonya and the child who might or might
not have Roland Abelson’s eyes—and thought I’d have to work up to that one. I
decided to start with Bruce Mason’s widow.
I took the train to Dobbs Ferry and called a taxi from the station. The cabbie took me
to a Cape Cod house on a residential street. I gave him some money, told him to
wait—I wouldn’t be long—and rang the doorbell. I had a box under one arm. It
looked like the kind that contains a bakery cake.
I only had to ring once because I’d called ahead and Janice Mason was expecting me.
I had my story carefully prepared and told it with some confidence, knowing that the
taxi sitting in the driveway, its meter running, would forestall any detailed cross-
examination.
On September seventh, I said—the Friday before—I had tried to blow a note from the
conch Bruce kept on his desk, as I had heard Bruce himself do at the Jones Beach
picnic. (Janice, Mrs. Lord of the Flies, nodding; she had been there, of course.) Well, I
said, to make a long story short, I had persuaded Bruce to let me have the conch shell
over the weekend so I could practice. Then, on Tuesday morning, I’d awakened with
a raging sinus infection and a horrible headache to go with it. (This was a story I had
already told several people.) I’d been drinking a cup of tea when I heard the boom and
saw the rising smoke. I hadn’t thought of the conch shell again until just this week. I’d
been cleaning out my little utility closet and by damn, there it was. And I just
thought…well, it’s not much of a keepsake, but I just thought maybe you’d like
to…you know…
Her eyes filled up with tears just as mine had when Paula brought back Roland
Abelson’s “retirement fund,” only these weren’t accompanied by the look of fright
that I’m sure was on my own face as Paula stood there with her stiff hair sticking out
on either side of her head. Janice told me she would be glad to have any keepsake of
Bruce.
“I can’t get over the way we said good-bye,” she said, holding the box in her arms.
“He always left very early because he took the train. He kissed me on the cheek and I
opened one eye and asked him if he’d bring back a pint of half-and-half. He said he
would. That’s the last thing he ever said to me. When he asked me to marry him, I felt
like Helen of Troy—stupid but absolutely true—and I wish I’d said something better
than ‘Bring home a pint of half-and-half.’ But we’d been married a long time, and it
seemed like business as usual that day, and…we don’t know, do we?”
“No.”
“Yes. Any parting could be forever, and we don’t know. Thank you, Mr. Staley. For
coming out and bringing me this. That was very kind.” She smiled a little then. “Do
you remember how he stood on the beach with his shirt off and blew it?”
“Yes,” I said, and looked at the way she held the box. Later she would sit down and
take the shell out and hold it on her lap and cry. I knew that the conch, at least, would
never come back to my apartment. It was home.
I returned to the station and caught the train back to New York. The cars were almost
empty at that time of day, early afternoon, and I sat by a rain-and dirt-streaked
window, looking out at the river and the approaching skyline. On cloudy and rainy
days, you almost seem to be creating that skyline out of your own imagination, a