Night Freight

I Think I Will Not Hang Myself Today

The leaves on the trees were dying.

She had noted that before, of course; neither her mind nor her powers of observation had been eroded by the passing years. But this morning, seen from her bedroom window, it seemed somehow a sudden thing, as if the maples and Japanese elms had changed color overnight, from bright green to red and brittle gold. Just yesterday it had been summer, now all at once it was autumn.

John had been taken from her on an October afternoon. It would be fitting if autumn were her time, too.

Perhaps today, she thought. Why not today?

For a while longer, Miranda stood looking out at the cold morning, the sky more gray than blue. Wind rattled the frail leaves, now and then tore one loose and swirled it to the ground. Even from a distance, the maple leaves resembled withered hands, their veins and skeletal bone structure clearly visible. The wind, blowing from east to west, sent the fallen ones skittering across the lawn and its bordering flower beds, piled them in heaps along the wall of the old barn.

Looking at the barn this morning filled her with sadness. Once, when John was alive, the skirling whine of his power saws and the fine, fresh smells of sawdust and wood stain and lemon oil made the barn seem alive, as sturdy and indestructible as the beautiful furniture that came from his workshop. Now it was a sagging shell, a lonely place of drafts and shadows and ghosts, its high center beam like the crosspiece of a gallows.

So little left, she thought as she turned from the window. John gone these many years. Moira gone—no family left at all. Lord Byron gone six months, and as much as she missed the little Sealyham's companionship, she hadn't the heart to replace him with another pet. Gone, too, were most of her friends. And the pleasures of teaching grammar and classic English literature, the satisfaction that came from helping to shape young minds. ("We're sorry, Mrs. Halliday, but you know the mandatory retirement age in our district is sixty-five.") For a time there had been a few students to privately tutor, but none had come since last spring. County library cutbacks had ended her volunteer work at the local branch. The arthritis made it all but impossible for her to continue her sewing projects for homeless children. Even Mrs. Boyer in the next block had found someone younger and stronger to babysit her two preschoolers.

The loneliness had been endurable when she was needed, really needed. Being able to help others had given some meaning and purpose to her life. Now, though, she had become the needy one, requiring help with the cleaning, the yardwork, her weekly grocery shopping. All too soon, she would no longer be able to drive her car, and then she would be housebound, totally dependent on others. If that happened...

No, she thought, it mustn't. I'm sorry, John, but it mustn't.

She thought again of the old barn, his workshop, the long, high rafter beam. When it had become clear and irrefutable what she must one day do, there had never been any question as to the method. Mr. Gilbert Chesterton had seen to that. She had bought the rope that very day, and it was still out there waiting. She would have to stand on a ladder in order to loop it around the beam—not an easy task, even though the knot had long ago been tied. But she would manage. She had always managed, hadn't she? Supremely capable, John had called her. That, and the most determined woman he had ever known; once her mind was made up, nothing would change it. Yes, and the end would be quick and she would not suffer. No one should ever have to suffer when the time came.

Chesterton's lines ran through her mind again:

The strangest whim has seized me.

. . . After all

I think I will not hang myself today.

She had first come across "A Ballade of Suicide," one of his minor works, when she was a girl, and there had been something so haunting in those three lines that she had never forgotten them. One day, she would alter the last of the lines by deleting the word "not." This day, perhaps...

Miranda bathed and dressed and brushed her hair, which she kept short and wavy in the fashion John had liked. Satisfied with her appearance, she made her way downstairs and fixed a somewhat larger breakfast than usual—a soft-boiled egg to go with her habitual tea and toast. Then she washed the dishes—her hands were not paining too badly this morning—and entered the living room.

John had built every stick of furniture in there, of cherry wood and walnut. Tables, chairs, sofa and loveseat, sideboard, the tall cabinet that contained his collection of rifles and handguns. (She hated guns, but she had been unable to bring herself to rid the house of anything that had belonged to him.) Handcrafted furniture had been both his vocation and his hobby. An artist with wood, John Halliday. Everyone said so. She had loved to watch him work, to help him in his shop and to learn from him some of the finer points of his craft.

The photograph of John in his Navy uniform was centered on the fireplace mantel. She picked it up, looked at it until his lean, dark face began to blur, then replaced it. She dried her eyes and peered at the other framed photos that flanked his.

Mother, so slender and fragile, the black velvet-banded cameo she'd always worn hiding the grease burn on her throat. Father in cap and gown at one of his college graduation ceremonies, looking as young as one of his students. Moira and herself at ages four and seven, all dressed up for some occasion or other, and wasn't it odd how much prettier she had been as a child, when it was Moira who had grown into such a beautiful woman? Uncle Leon, his mouth full of the foul pipe he favored, and Aunt Gwen as round and white as the Pillsbury Doughboy. Gone, all gone. Dust. Sweet-sad memories and scattered specks of dust.

Miranda moved to the bookcases on the near side of the fireplace. Her domain; John had never been much of a reader, despite her best efforts. Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Shakespeare, Chaucer. Scott, Dickens, Hawthorne, the Brontë sisters, Stevenson. Browning and Byron and Eliot and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Nearly a dozen volumes of fiction and nonfiction by Chesterton, always her favorite. Oscar Wilde, so amusing and ironic—

The phone was ringing.

She may have heard the first ring, or the bell may have sounded two or three times before she grew aware of it; she wasn't quite sure. She went to answer it.

"Miranda, dear, how are you?"

"Oh, hello, Patrice."

"You sound a bit melancholy this morning. Is everything all right?"

"Yes. You mustn't worry about me."

"But I do. You know I do."

Miranda knew it all too well. Patrice was one of her oldest friends, but their closeness was neither deep nor confiding. Patrice's life had been one long, smooth sail, empty of tragedy of any kind; she had never needed anyone outside her immediate family. And ever since Miranda's own tragic loss, Patrice's friendship and concern had been tinged with thinly concealed pity.

"I called to invite you to lunch tomorrow," Patrice said. "You need to get out more, and lunch at the Shady Grove Inn is just the ticket. My treat."

"That's good of you, but I don't believe I'll be able to accept."

"Other plans, dear?"

"I . . . may not be here tomorrow."

"Oh? Going away somewhere?"

"Possibly. It's not quite certain yet."

"May I ask where and with whom?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Of course, I understand. But talking about something in advance really doesn't prevent it from happening, you know."

"It can," Miranda said. "Sometimes it can."

"Well, you must tell me all about it afterward."

"It won't be a secret, Patrice. I can promise you that."

They talked a few minutes longer. Or rather, Patrice talked, mostly about her grandchildren. Miranda only half listened. It seemed quite cold in the house now, despite the fact that she had turned up the heat when she came downstairs. Imagination? No, she could hear the wind in the eaves, gusting more strongly than before, and when that happened the house always felt drafty.

When Patrice finally said goodbye, Miranda returned to the living room and put on the gas-log flame in the fireplace. She sat in front of it with a copy of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest open on her lap and tried to read. She couldn't seem to concentrate. I wish I had something else to do, she thought, something useful or important.

Well, she thought then, there is something, isn't there? Out in the barn?

But she was not ready to go out there yet. Not just yet. She picked up Wilde and tried again to focus on his words.

She was dozing when the doorbell rang. Dreaming about something pleasant, something to do with John and their honeymoon in the Caribbean, but the jarring sound of the bell drove it away. A visitor? She so seldom had visitors these days. The prospect hurried her steps to the door.

But it wasn't a visitor; it was Dwayne, the mailman, on the porch outside. "Morning, Miz Halliday," he said. "More mail than usual today so I thought I'd bring it up, save you the trouble."

"That was good of you, Dwayne."

"Catalogues, mostly. Not even the end of October and already we got piles of Christmas catalogues. Seems like they start sending 'em out earlier every year."

"Yes, it does."

He handed over the thick stack, being cautious about it because he knew of her arthritis. "You going out today, Miz Halliday?"

"I may, yes. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's pretty cold out. Wind's got ice in it, first breath of winter. Real pneumonia weather. Better bundle up warm if you do go out."

"I will, thank you."

He wished her a good morning and left her alone again.

Miranda sifted through her mail. No personal letters, of course. Just two bills and three solicitations, one of the solicitations addressed to "Maranda Holiday." She laid the bills, unopened, on the kitchen table, put the solicitations in the trash and the catalogues in the recycle box.

Except for the wind, the house was very quiet.

And still unwarm.

And so empty.

In her sewing room, she removed the letter—three pages, carefully folded—from the bottom drawer of her desk. She had written it quite a long time ago, but she could have quoted it verbatim. The wind gusted noisily as she started out with it, rattling shingles and shutters, and she remembered what Dwayne had said about bundling up warm. The front hall closet yielded her heaviest wool coat and a pair of fleece-lined gloves. She had the coat over her shoulders, the letter tucked into one of the pockets, when the phone rang again.

"Mrs. Halliday? This is Sally Boyer?"

"Yes, Mrs. Boyer."

"I wonder if I could ask a big favor? I know it's short notice and I haven't been in touch in a while, but if you could help us out I'd really appreciate it?" Mrs. Boyer was one of those individuals who turn statements into questions by a rising interrogative inflection on the last few words of a sentence. More than once Miranda had been tempted to help her correct this irritating habit, but it would have been impolite to bring it up herself.

"What is the favor?"

"Could you babysit for us tonight? My husband has a business dinner, a client and his wife from Los Angeles who showed up without any advance warning? Well, he thinks it's important for me to join them and our regular sitter has band practice tonight and so I thought you. . . ?"

"I'm afraid I have another commitment," Miranda said firmly.

"You do? You couldn't possibly break it?"

"I don't see how I can, now."

"But I thought you, of all people. . . I mean. . ."

"Yes, Mrs. Boyer, I understand. And I'm sorry."

"I don't know who else to call," Mrs. Boyer said. "Can you think of anyone? You must know someone, some other elder . . . some other person?"

"I don't know anyone," Miranda said. "No one at all."

She said goodbye and replaced the receiver. She buttoned her coat, worked her gnarled fingers into the gloves, then crossed the rear porch and stepped outside.

The wind was blustery and very cold, but she didn't hurry. It would not do to hurry at a time like this. She walked at a steady, measured pace across the leaf-strewn yard to the barn.

The front half was mostly a dusty catchall storage area, as it had been when John was alive. On the right side was a cleared section just large enough for her car; the remaining floor space was packed with trunks, boxes, discarded appliances, gardening equipment, and the like. Some of the cartons had been there for so long Miranda no longer had any idea what they contained. She made her way along the passenger side of the car to the doorway in the center partition; opened it and passed through into John's workshop.

His last few woodworking projects, finished and unfinished, were bulky mounds under the dustcloths she had placed over them. His workbench, lathe, table saws, and such were also shrouded. The bench was where the coiled rope lay, but Miranda did not go in that direction. Nor did she glance up at the ceiling beam in the shadows above.

At the workshop's far end, more shadows crowded the alcove where John had kept his cot and tiny refrigerator. On those long ago summer nights when he had been deep into one of his projects, he had slept out here to avoid disturbing her. Now there was nothing inside the alcove, only the bare wood floor over packed earth.

Miranda knelt and raised the cunningly hidden hinged section. Underneath, the flowers she had placed there last week were already withered and crumbling, dust and petals scattered across the pair of old graves.

So many years since she'd found John and Moira together here that night. So many years since the strangest whim had seized her and she'd done what she felt she must—shot them both with one of John's handguns, quickly and efficiently, for no one should have to suffer when the time came. So many years since she had, in her supremely capable fashion, dug for each of them a final resting place and then, using the woodworking skills John had taught her, rebuilt the flooring to cover the graves.

No one had ever suspected. John Halliday had run off with his wife's beautiful younger sister—that was what everyone believed. Such a terrible tragedy for poor Miranda, they all said. But no one except her could know how terrible it really was to be left all alone with nobody to love except a little dog and fewer and fewer ways in which to atone for her sin.

It would be quite a shock when the citizens of Shady Grove learned the truth. And learn it they must; she had kept the secret too long and she could not carry it with her to her own grave—in the words of the poet Andrew Marvell, that "fine and private place." She had explained everything in the three-page letter; it would be her final act of atonement.

John and Moira knew all about the rope and the letter. Over and over she had told them that one day she must again do what she felt was necessary. Yet they were so reluctant to let her go. She could feel their reluctance now. Selfish. Even in death, they cared only for themselves.

"John," she said, "this is the proper day. Can't you understand how I feel?"

The wind mourned outside.

"Moira? We've hurt each other enough. Isn't it time we were together again?"

The last of the flowers suddenly trembled and broke apart. The earth seemed to tremble, too, as if there were stirrings within. It was only a draft caused by the wind, she knew it could be nothing else, yet it was as if they had caused it. As if they were beseeching and mocking her, saying quite clearly: "You can't leave us, Miranda. Who will tend to us once you're gone? Who will bring flowers and keep the weeds from growing up around us?

"We need you, Miranda. You know that, don't you?"

She did not argue; it never did any good to argue. She sighed and got slowly to her feet. "After all," she said, "I think I will not hang myself today."

She lowered the hinged section, thinking that she must buy fresh flowers to replace the withered ones because it was autumn and there were none left in the garden. But before she called the florist, she would ring up Mrs. Boyer and tell her she would be able to babysit tonight after all.