Eggs everywhere! Sky blue. Pink. Yellow. Lilac. Pastel treasures in a shaggy grass pie.
There were too many. He wanted them all. He wanted piles. He wanted armloads. He could not aim his attention at only one. He could not pick out the first.
Meanwhile, eggs were disappearing. Hands, as if triggered by his eyes, were snatching them as fast as he could spot them. There was a pink one! Gone. Over there! Gone. There! Gone. David was already breaking the Prime Rule of Easter Egg Hunting:
Be quick.
Gone. Gone. Gone. He was spinning himself silly. He moved nearer to the trees, looking for less busy areas. He knew now there would be no armloads. He would settle for some, several, a few. He saw big kids with three in each hand. They were ripping off the beautiful shells and chomping half an egg at a time and spewing white pieces as they laughed and pounced for more. Little kids were turning to the hilltop and hoisting their eggs and yelling, “Mommy! Look!”
And then, suddenly, he spotted one that everyone else was missing, buried in the grass, just a sliver of blue showing. He walked over to it casually, pretending he didn’t see a thing. He knelt down, combing his fingers through the grass, pretending to search. He snatched it.
It was his! A sky-blue miracle in his hand. He whirled to the sun-washed hilltop, thrust the egg high — and then the sun was gone, blotted by the bulk of a big kid.
“Where’d you get it?” the kid said.
David pointed. “There.”
The kid nodded. “That’s what I figured. It’s mine. I dropped it there.” He held out his hand. “Fork it over.”
Drat,
thought David. What rotten luck. He forked it over. The kid walked away. His pockets were bulging.
By now kids were racing back up the hill, waving their treasures. David went on sweeping with his eyes, his sneakers. Nothing. Nothing but grass trampled flat.
He moved into the trees, beyond the last hunter. He knew the bullhorn man had said there were no eggs in the trees, but he didn’t say you weren’t allowed to look. And besides, it was the only hope left.
Leaves left over from last autumn crinkled underfoot. He peered into the shadows. It was different here, quiet, peaceful, indoors-like. The trees, so tall, so still, seemed to be waiting for something.
Somewhere car engines were starting up. He moved deeper into the shadows, wading through leaves, looking, looking . . . and
there
. . . straight ahead, a gleam of color —yellow — the clear, unmistakable roundness. Egg!
As he approached, he half-expected it to vanish or the sun-blotting kid to show up. Neither happened. What did happen was that he noticed how tall the egg was. It was standing. A solitary yellow egg, standing on one end of a large hump of brown leaves.
He knelt beside it. He picked it up. The first thing he noticed was the red marking that circled the egg on the end where it had stood. The second thing he noticed was the dark hole that was left when he lifted the egg. How could there be a hole in a pile of leaves? With his fingertip, he moved a leaf. Red appeared. He moved another leaf. Another. He froze.
Lips.
David knew he had a choice. He could stand up and walk away and forget it all, or he could move more leaves. One thing he had learned already: the marking on the egg had come from the red lipstick on the lips of the open, O-shaped mouth that had held the egg upright like a golf ball tee. He wondered what rules were involved here.
He began to brush away leaves. A chin came into view. A nose. Cheeks. Eyes. The eyes were closed. The eyelids were a glittery purple, the cheeks a blush of pink.
He brushed away leaves until the whole face was showing. A lady’s face. Or a girl’s. He wasn’t sure. Whichever, it was the most beautiful face he had ever seen.
He spoke to the beautiful face. “Are you sleeping?”
The eyes did not open. He could not decide if he wanted them to open. The humped eyelids with their glittery purple were like tiny twin eggs, bird’s eggs.
“Are you going to say something?”
The mouth did not move.
“You’re dead, aren’t you?”
The beautiful face was as still as the trees.
He was not afraid.
“My name is David. I’m nine. My mother died too. She hit her head. Her name was Carolyn Sue Limpert. We used to live in Minnesota. That’s a state. I have a memento in my pocket, but nobody’s allowed to see it.” He thought for a moment. “I guess it’s okay to show it to you.” He took out the memento and held it before the closed, glittery eyes. They did not move. He returned the memento to his pocket.
A button on threads — daddy longlegs — came walking across the leaves onto a cheek. With a finger flick he sent it flying. His name was being called.
He stood. “I have to go now.” He started to walk away. He stopped and came back to her. With great care he placed the yellow egg back on her mouth. “Bye,” he said, and ran.
When he saw that he was the last kid heading back up the hill, when he saw his grandmother’s eyes wild with worry, he slowed down.
David had dreams that night. He kept hearing his mother’s voice, calling him from the top of a sunlit hill. She was a shadow within thin tinted shells of eggs, speaking to him in sounds he did not understand. He saw leaves, a figure darkly rising, shedding dry leaves, rising silently as moss in wooded silence, and he tried and tried but he could not see her face.
There was no school the next day. Easter vacation. David bolted from the house as soon as he woke up. Let his grandmother figure out where he was. He rode his bike. He did not need directions. Even though the park was a mile away, he had biked there before. He had biked all over this new town of his. Perkiomen. Not that he really wanted to, but he wanted even less to be stuck in the house with his grandmother. Plus, biking was something you could do by yourself, which he usually was.
It was hard to pick out the hunting ground without all the people around, but when he walked his bike down the steep hill and onto the trampled grass, he knew he was there. Pastel chips of eggshell glittered in the thatch. He parked his bike at the tree line and reentered, it seemed for an instant, his dreams.
He went straight for the spot, and knew at once that something was wrong. The yellow egg was gone. And the leaves, still a pile, were shallow now, not heaped as before. Gingerly at first, then more forcefully, he kicked at the leaves, broomed them away with his foot until they lay flat and scattered on the ground. No lips. No eyes. No beautiful face. Nobody.
He went deeper into the trees, seeking tracks, scraps of clothing, evidence. Had animals carried her off in the night? Eaten her? Had someone found the body and notified the police? Yes, he decided, that was it. The police had come and taken photographs like in the movies and carried her away on a stretcher with a sheet over her from head to foot.
When he returned home his grandmother was in a tizzy. She talked in that whispery, patient voice of hers; she never yelled. As usual, she was full of whys. Why this? Why not that? She couldn’t get it through her head that he didn’t give a rat’s rump about whys.
As usual, she slipped his father into it. “If you won’t behave for my sake, David, or even your own, you should at least behave for your father’s sake. He’s trying his best to provide for you. That’s why he drives all the way to Connecticut and back every week. That’s why he’s so tired all the time. He’s overwhelmed.”
His father’s company needed him to manage a shopping mall in the state of Connecticut, over 200 miles away. He was home only on weekends. David knew exactly what “overwhelmed” meant. It meant less time for David.
She finally came to the end of her speech, saying, “I think you ought to stay in the house for the rest of the afternoon.”
This was how she introduced all of her infrequent punishments: “I think you ought to . . .” More plea than command. She delivered punishment the way she drove a car: timid, nervous, afraid of a backfire. David’s usual answer was, “I
don’t
think I ought to . . .” And he would do as he pleased.
But this time he had a problem. He actually wanted to stay in the house, because he wanted to be there the instant the daily newspaper arrived. He was sure news of the body would be all over the front page. But staying in the house would give his grandmother the impression that he was obeying her, which was unthinkable. He could not leave. He could not stay.
He sat mired in the living room, wondering what to do. His grandmother went back to her housework. Every so often she would glance over at him. Her looks became more and more kindly, sympathetic. Any minute now she might decide to say, “Okay, David, you’ve stayed long enough. You can go out and play.” And for the rest of her life she would smugly believe she had successfully punished then pardoned him. He could not allow it.
Think. Think.
He went into the kitchen and got a Mango Madness from the refrigerator. There were always bottles of Mango Madness on the bottom shelf. As he drank at the kitchen table, the answer came.
He popped up and swaggered past her as she was watering a plant. “Guess I’ll go out,” he said as if to himself and headed for the door. “David,” she called, but she had lost and she knew it. One more limpid “David” and he was out the door, slamming it behind.
He took his time. She would not come to the door. She would not call after him. She would not do anything to upset him. She would sigh and close her eyes and remind herself that he had already had enough upset for a lifetime. It was all part of what she called “The Sadness.” Nor would she tell his father, for he was already “overwhelmed.”
David sauntered down the street. No one, not grandmothers, not anyone, could touch him. His mother’s death had made him invincible.
The answer was so simple. All he had to do was wait outside for the paper girl, meet her down at the end of the block.
Hanging on the corner, he worked on his yo-yo stunts and thought about the paper. He was sure the entire front page would be filled with the story. There would be a big picture, maybe in color, showing the mound of leaves and the beautiful face and the yellow egg. And a headline with letters fat as fingers would say:
BODY FOUND IN PARK
He wondered if they would give her a name. He had never seen his mother’s full name in print until he saw it in the newspaper:
CAROLYN SUE LIMPERT
At last he spotted the paper girl. He ran to her, got the paper, fell to his hands and knees, and spread it out right there on the sidewalk. There was a headline all right, but it said:
LITTLE LEAGUERS
READY TO ROLL
The picture was in black and white and showed a kid batting a baseball to his dad. No mention of a body in the park. Not on page one, or two, or any of the other pages.
At five o’clock David went up to his room and turned on the news. Nothing there. Later, in bed, he watched the eleven o’clock news. Not a peep.
Tuesday was more of the same: a ride to the park, newspaper, TV. He even widened his search at the park, in case it was animals after all, and they carried her off and maybe buried her so they could go back and dig her up whenever they got hungry, like squirrels with acorns. He found nothing that looked like a freshly dug hole.
Wednesday he called the police. He thought about biking to the station and talking to them in person, but he chickened out.
The voice on the other end said, “Police Department. Sergeant Wolf speaking.”
David did not know what to say.
The voice repeated, “Sergeant Wolf speaking.”
David said, “Uh —”
The voice said, “May I help you?”
David said, “Uh —”
Silence, except for a beep that sounded every few seconds.
“You’ve reached the Perkiomen Police Department. Do you wish to speak to the police?”
Beep . . . beep . . .
David blurted, “Did you find a body?”
More silence, more beeps.
The voice said, “Will you repeat that, please?”
“Did you find a body?”
“Who is calling, please?”
“David.”
“David who?”
Why was this man asking questions? David was supposed to be asking the questions. “Did you find a body?”
“Did you
see
a body?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Where?”
“At the park, maybe.”
“Where at the park?”
“The trees.”
“And what did you say your last name was, David?”
David froze. He slammed down the phone. The receiver was wet from the sweat on his hands.
His grandmother was doing it again — mopping the kitchen floor. How many moppings did a floor need? Of all the things she did to torment him, this was the worst.
So he did what he always did at times like this. He walked right into the kitchen, across the wet floor to the sink. Then to the fridge. Then to the cereal cupboard. Not really looking for anything, just pretending. Pretending he didn’t know she was there, pretending he didn’t know she had stopped her mopping and was staring mournfully at him. He knew what she wanted to say — “David, please don’t walk on the wet floor” — and he knew as well that she would never say it, never ever use those words to him. As he left the kitchen, he looked back just to enjoy the sight of his sneaker tracks all over the wet floor.
By the time he was halfway through the dining room, the enjoyment had worn off, and all that remained was a grim reminder. He ran to his room and slammed the door shut. He lay facedown on his bed. The tears came.
It was a wet floor that had killed his mother.
A wet floor where she worked.
A wet floor that a custodian had just finished mopping.
A wet floor that had no sign saying
WET FLOOR!!!
And along comes his mother.
It wasn’t one of those spectacular head-over-heels cartwheel slips. It was just a little one. A tiny one. But it happened at the worst possible place: at the top of a stairway. Down she went. And even then, when she hit bottom, it wasn’t the world’s hardest bump on the head. Heck, David had had worse noggin-knockers himself. But again, it was in the worst possible spot, and that was that. She never woke up. Never called him “Davey” again. Never took him to see the sun rise.
It happened on April 29. Less than a year ago.
From that day forward, David had never even bruised a rule, much less broken one. (Except his grandmother’s, of course, and her rules didn’t count.) It was his most secret secret, one that he shared with no one on earth, not even the daylight. For David believed that if he went a long enough time without breaking a rule — a year, five years, twenty — piling up a million obediences, a billion — sooner or later, somehow, somewhere, a debt would be paid, a score would be settled, and his mother would come back.