Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye

To the west, she could see the sun hanging lower in the sky over the mountains: an incredible view from the top of each hill, as the road lifted itself now and then above the level of thick forest and held her there for a moment at a brief crest. She could see lakes, brilliant as broken glass in the reflected light of the low sun, to her left in the distance; and again and again she saw the river with its Indian name, Penobscot, surging heavily in its endless trip south to meet the ocean. Sometimes, she knew, the logs were sent south on the river in great log drives; she noticed, along its banks, occasional logs caught and wedged by rocks, held firmly there, perhaps forever, and causing the swift water to part and move around them in foamy interrupted patterns.



The woods, she knew, were filled with wild creatures: deer, moose, and bear, and the smaller animals that rustled the undergrowth and moved in and out of their deeply hidden burrows in search of food. She had never been, before, to the great central uninhabited part of Maine. It seemed a trip into a primeval time.



When from the top of a hill, suddenly, she could look down and see the town of Simmons' Mills spread like a small blemish beside the gray river and the vast deep green of woods, she pulled the car to the side of the road and stopped.



The forest parted only slightly for the town, as the river had reluctantly parted to surge around the caught logs. A huge paper mill stood by the river, its tall stacks spewing smoke that hung above them in flattened clouds and then dispersed, its gray tinged pink by the sun that was setting now. Natalie glanced at her watch uneasily; it was almost seven. She had, she realized, made this journey without sufficient preparation for the simple practicalities. She had expected a town to have motels. She had never been in a town without motels; now, looking down at Simmons' Mills as she eased the car back onto the road and started down the hill, she realized that Simmons' Mills was not a place that tourists would come to. From the hill, she could see that the outskirts, the place where one ordinarily found motels and restaurants, consisted only of a few farmhouses on land carved from the woods, placed at random like ornaments dangling from a string—the road—that fell in curves as if it had been dropped in haste.



She passed the farms, poor ones, with boulders in their pastures, and barn roofs sagging from the great weight of snow in winter, and drove into Simmons' Mills. One main street. She smiled, remembering that she had wondered briefly why Foster H. Goodwin's letter to her parents had had no street address. Now she realized that it wouldn't be necessary in a town the size of Simmons' Mills. But the telegram had directed her parents to 43 Main Street; she was passing that now: a brick building, two stories, with a drugstore on the ground floor. Offices upstairs, she supposed. That's where I will find Foster Goodwin. That's where, she realized suddenly, my parents came to get me. What a strange feeling it must have been, for them, to come to the top of that hill, to look down at this town, and to think "Our daughter is there."



Finally she breathed deeply and smiled in relief. Around the corner from Main Street, beside a church, she saw a white frame house with a sign in front of it: guests.



Well, thought Natalie, I will be a guest in my own home town. She pulled her car into the driveway, and went to the front door.



The woman who answered her ring was pleasant, with a pink, lined face, bifocal glasses, and some knitting in one hand. From another room, Natalie could hear a television set; a familiar voice was giving the evening news in solemn tones. So Simmons' Mills isn't the end of the earth after all; they still listen to the news of wars and crime and disasters, Natalie thought. I bet they haven't had a crime here in years. Who would bother?



"Are you all alone, dear?" The woman glanced over Natalie's shoulder, toward her car.



"Yes. I need a place to stay tonight. Maybe tomorrow night, too."



"Well, I can give you a nice room. You'll have to share the bathroom, but I only have one other guest right now. He's permanent; he works at the mill."



"That's fine." Natalie smiled. She was tired and hungry. The thought of a warm bath was inviting.



"It will be seven dollars a night. But that includes breakfast, dear." The woman sounded apologetic.



"All right. That sounds perfect. My name is Natalie Armstrong."



"And I'm Mrs. Talbot. Anna Talbot. Please come in, Natalie."



"Well, I'll get my things from the car, Mrs. Talbot. And is there someplace in town where I could get some supper?"



Mrs. Talbot frowned. "Oh, goodness. This is Thursday. I'm afraid every place is closed by now. On weekends, you know, there are places that stay open in the evening, but Thursday—well, you run out and get your bag, Natalie, and I'll fix you a bowl of soup and a sandwich. Would that be all right? I'll just add a little to your bill."



Natalie smiled gratefully and went to her car for her small suitcase. Every town, she thought, should have an Anna Talbot, to make strangers feel at home.



I bet anything, she thought, as she took her things to the room that Anna Talbot pointed out, that she knows my parents. As she washed her hands, she looked in the mirror. Her face was tired; it had been a long drive. I wonder, she thought, who it is in this town who has dark hair and blue eyes, like mine.



She sat in the kitchen, ate homemade vegetable soup and a thick chicken sandwich, and drank a glass of milk. Anna Talbot hovered politely, making sure she didn't need anything else, and then took her knitting to the small sitting room where the television set was still on. When she was finished eating, Natalie rinsed her dishes in the sink, and then went tentatively to the door of the sitting room.



"That was delicious, Mrs. Talbot. Thank you."



"You're welcome, dear. Just let me know if you need anything."



"Well, I wondered if you might let me look at your telephone book, Mrs. Talbot. I have to see someone in Simmons' Mills tomorrow."



Anna Talbot chuckled. "Natalie," she said, "I'll give you the phone book." She reached to a nearby table and handed Natalie the thin volume. "But you could just ask me. I know everyone in this town. I can tell you where they live, whether they're home, how their health is, and who they voted for, for president."



Natalie laughed. "I came to the right place, then. You can probably tell me if Foster Goodwin's office is still at 43 Main Street. And whether I might be able to see him without an appointment, tomorrow."



Anna Talbot looked at her knitting, startled, as if she had dropped a stitch. Then she looked carefully at Natalie through the top half of her bifocals. Across the small room, the television screen had made the transition from a cheerful weatherman to a commercial for some kind of laundry detergent. A man in a white uniform was solemnly advising a frustrated housewife about the grease stains on her husband's shirt.



"Foster Goodwin," said Anna Talbot, puzzled, "has been dead for ten years."



16



Damn, THOUGHT NATALIE, and she felt the beginnings of tears rising hot behind her eyes. I am so stupid. I came up here like an idiot, expecting that everything would fall into place. Find Foster Goodwin, I thought. He's the only one who knows everything. Just find him, and he'll tell you. I forgot that it was seventeen years ago.



No, I didn't forget. But I thought it didn't matter. And of course it does. Everything changes in seventeen years. Foster Goodwin is dead. Now what?



I am so tired that I can't even think. I have to go to bed. But first I have to figure out what I'm going to do tomorrow. Somewhere in this strange town with one main street I can find my whole past, if I just figure out where to look. The doctor. What was his name? He was the one who delivered me; he'll know. He'll remember.



If he's alive. Natalie sighed, and sank down into the chair just inside the door to the sitting room. Anna Talbot was watching her. She had begun again to knit, her fingers moving automatically, lifting the yarn behind the needle again and again. Under her hands a blue mitten was taking shape.



"You look very tired, dear."



"Yes," said Natalie, "I am. It was a long drive." (What was his name? What was his name? The letters are upstairs in my suitcase, and I'm too tired to move.)



"Rest for a minute, Natalie," said Anna Talbot. "I'll make tea, and we can talk. Look—" she held up the mitten. "For my latest grandchild. I haven't ever seen him, and he's almost two. But they live in Kentucky. It's such a long trip."



Natalie looked around the room, and saw the framed photographs of grandchildren—all ages, some infants, some in graduation gowns. School pictures, their colors too bright, their smiles too forced. Snapshots, blurred, of children holding up fish, of young girls posing in party dresses, boys beaming in front of new bicycles, new babies dangled in front of an amateur camera.



"You have a big family, don't you, Mrs. Talbot?"



"Sixteen grandchildren," the woman said proudly. "Five children. All of my children grew up here and graduated from Simmons' Mills High School. Two of them graduated from college. Of course, I don't see them often enough. They've all gone away. Very few people stay in Simmons' Mills—young people, that is. My own children have all gone away years ago. But they write."



"You must miss them," said Natalie politely.



Anna Talbot smiled. "It's lonely, sometimes. My husband has been dead five years, now."



It's lonely, sometimes. What a sad thing, Natalie thought, to be lonely. I've never really thought of it before. Because Tallie is alone, and not lonely; Tallie loves the aloneness, though she misses Stefan still, even after all these years.



"Mrs. Talbot, I'd love some tea," said Natalie. "I just want to get something from my room."



She rose, went to the tidy bedroom at the top of the stairs, and took the letters from her suitcase. There it was. "The family was referred to me by Dr. Clarence Therrian," Foster Goodwin—the late Foster Goodwin (she winced)—had written.



Please, thought Natalie, coming down the stairs, let Clarence Therrian be alive. Because if he isn't, I don't know what to do next.



Anna Talbot poured tea from a graceful pot decorated with pink roses and thin gold lines. So different from Tallie's thick pottery that had in it memories of earth and strong hands. But this was more appropriate for Anna Talbot. Natalie thanked her and sipped her tea from a fragile cup.



"Mrs. Talbot," she said. "I came here because I need some information that Foster Goodwin had. The only other person who might be able to help me is a doctor named Clarence Therrian." Please, thought Natalie again. Please. When she was a child, her mother had called it a magic word.



"Poor Clarence," sighed Anna Talbot, taking up her knitting again, "poor, dear Clarence."



He's dead, too, thought Natalie, and her stomach wrapped itself around the warm tea in a tight and painful knot.



"I sent him a plant the other day," said Anna Talbot. "A cutting from that coleus in the kitchen. I potted it in a lovely little green pot that I'd been saving for something special. Poor Clarence. I hope he's able to enjoy it."



"What do you mean?"



"You don't know Clarence, dear?"



"No."



"A dear man. He was the only doctor in Simmons' Mills for years and years. He delivered all my children. He cared for my husband until he died. Now, of course, there are other doctors. In the past few years, young people seem to want to come to a place like this. So there are three young doctors in town now. All with beards." She grimaced. "Can you imagine, being examined by someone with a beard? Poor Clarence. He was always so meticulous about his appearance."