Something shattered in the room like old glass. Matt Coffin looked at her as if betrayed. He stood up.
“I don’t mean to pry, Matthew.”
The screen door slapped behind him as he left the house.
“Matthew,” she called.
He did not come the next evening. Mrs. MacKnockater wrapped the meatloaf without onions in tinfoil and put it away in the refrigerator.
Three days later, when Mrs. MacKnockater went to preside over the opening ceremony of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls, the missing Matthew Coffin was all she could think about.
Fall Semester
September–December 1968
Obstacles
Three
When Meryl Lee and her parents drove onto the grounds of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy that first morning, girls in regulation green and gold school uniforms were holding dark umbrellas and pointing the way to the dormitories. They smiled in the rain as if they were the happiest girls in the world, and they waved as if Meryl Lee were a long-lost friend finally come home.
Meryl Lee did not wave back.
Her father followed the signs to Margaret B. Netley Dormitory, where portly Mrs. Kellogg, who was the dorm matron and looked exactly like what a dorm matron should look like, was waiting beneath the overhang on the front porch. While the Kowalskis stood with Mrs. Kellogg, two girls in black dresses and white aprons—they didn’t have dark umbrellas and they weren’t smiling—unloaded Meryl Lee’s suitcase and two shopping bags. The shopping bags, Mrs. Kellogg said, were to be taken up by Alethea, the suitcase by Bettye. They were to carry everything to Miss Kowalski’s room: Netley 204.
Meryl Lee watched them go.
“We’re so glad to have you here,” said Mrs. Kellogg.
“Thank you,” said Meryl Lee. She did not believe that Mrs. Kellogg, who sounded as if she were reading her lines from a script, was really all that glad to have her there.
“We hope that you’ll be very happy at St. Elene’s,” said Mrs. Kellogg.
Meryl Lee didn’t believe that either.
If Holling had been there, Meryl Lee would have turned to him and said, “See what I mean?” and Holling would have said, in some sort of robot-y voice, “We are so glad to have you here, Meryl Lee. We hope that you will be very happy at St. Elene’s, Meryl Lee. The girls of Margaret B. Netley Dormitory are eager to meet you, Meryl Lee, Meryl Lee, Meryl Lee.”
Then Mrs. Kellogg shook Meryl Lee’s hand and said, “The girls of Margaret B. Netley Dormitory are eager to meet you, Meryl Lee.”
Really, she said that.
Holling would have been rolling on the ground, holding his stomach, laughing.
“I think it’s time,” said Meryl Lee’s father.
She felt as if someone—maybe Mrs. Kellogg—had punched her in the stomach.
Her mother hugged her and her father kissed her on the top of her head, and suddenly Meryl Lee knew it was really going to happen. They were going to leave her at St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls and Holling wasn’t there and she would be very, very alone.
The Blank.
The howling echoes in her empty chest.
She followed them to the car and stood beside it. In the rain. Without a dark umbrella.
Her parents got in. They closed the doors.
Her mother rolled down her window.
“Mom,” said Meryl Lee.
“It will be all right,” said her mother.
“You are not leaving me here,” said Meryl Lee.
“Meryl Lee, this is a new start. It will be all right.”
“No,” said Meryl Lee. She put her hand on the back door handle. It was locked.
“Meryl Lee, you’ll be used to all of this in a day or so. You will. I promise.”
Rain coming down harder. Meryl Lee wiping at her eyes.
She looked over the car at the clapboard buildings of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls. She looked at the white chapel across the commons, more gray than white in the rain. She looked at the steps of Margaret B. Netley Dormitory, where the waiting Mrs. Kellogg, standing strategically under the porch roof, purposefully wound the watch dangling from a dark braid from around her neck. She looked at the green and gold uniformed girls walking in and out of Margaret B. Netley Dormitory in umbrellaed groups, smiling as though they had been walking in and out of Margaret B. Netley Dormitory in those same umbrellaed groups together since, oh, first grade. Smiling with friends they had known all their lives.
Oh, smiling with friends they had known all their lives.
The two girls in the black and white uniforms had come back and were standing behind Mrs. Kellogg. They were both very wet. They both looked down at the ground.
“You are not leaving me,” said Meryl Lee.
Her father leaned across the car seat toward her. “Meryl Lee, we’ve been over this. There will be wonderful opportunities here, and new people, and new friends. St. Elene’s is one of the finest academies in all New—”
“Do you see that brick wall?” said Meryl Lee, pointing. “Do you know why it has iron spears on top?”
“That’s wrought iron on top, Meryl Lee.”
“So if anyone tries to get out, she’ll fall on the spears.”
“It’s time to go,” said Meryl Lee’s father.
“And do you see the ivy climbing the brick wall?”
Meryl Lee’s mother began rolling up her window.
“That’s poison ivy.”
“It is not poison—”
“No, it really is. And if you touch poison ivy that thick, you know how infected you’ll get? Do you really want to leave me in a place surrounded by a brick wall with spears on top and covered with poison ivy?”
“Meryl Lee,” said her father.
“This is a big mistake,” she said.
“Meryl Lee,” said her mother, “you’re going to love St. Elene’s. And you’re going to love Dr. MacKnockater. In every call we’ve had, she’s assured us that St. Elene’s will be just what we hoped for. A month from now, St. Elene’s will feel like another home.”
“Who knows if I’ll be here a month from now?” Meryl Lee said.
“Of course you’ll be here a month from now,” said her mother.
“Holling isn’t.”
The Blank.
Her mother got out. She took Meryl Lee’s hands. “No, he isn’t. And we all miss him. And we’ll always remember him. But you are here. You are. And now it’s time to live your own life, because you must.”
Meryl Lee knew her mother was right. She must. What else could she do?
“And you’re going to make the most of this new beginning. And we’re going to be so proud of you.”
Meryl Lee could not speak.
“We already are,” her mother said.
Meryl Lee nodded, and she tried to smile—because her mother wanted her to smile.
Her mother got back in. Her father put the car in gear.
“We love you,” said her mother.
“Don’t get too close to that poison ivy,” said her father.
They waved, and she watched them drive down the road toward the main gate—which also had spears on top—the dark wet gravel crunching under the tires. She watched the brake lights come on for a moment—“Please, please,” she whispered—and then the car pulled out of St. Elene’s and was gone.