The weather changed. The sky was bright and open, and the rain came decorously twice a week. Lawns thickened, drooping shrubs revived, and a gilt edge began to show along the outlines of the maples and Bradford pears. Lacey took Dr. Vlk’s advice and began to walk around the neighborhood. In the shining health of these autumn days, with the windows open and every room freshened, even with Drew her constant companion, she found it hard to imagine anything unwholesome in her house. Lately Drew was so sweet, he was good company and she liked him; it took some effort for her to remember his anger and the damage he had done to Ella Dane’s room.
But CarolAnna said it wasn’t a good house for babies. It popped into her mind at odd moments, spoiling her pleasure and making her feel nervous and guilty. She should do something about it—but what? Day after day, she delayed.
The days were so clean, and her skin craved the fresh air. On warm afternoons she put on a bikini and sat on the deck to sun her belly. Did the light come through the tight dome of her flesh, brightening her baby’s dark world into red, like a flashlight shining through a hand? She thought it must; she felt him turn and stretch. One afternoon, when the wind was just a little too cold for sunbathing, she took paper and crayons out to the deck and taught Drew how to make leaf rubbings. It was one of his friendly days. He pressed the crayon too hard and laid the wax down thick and flaky.
“Lightly,” she said. “Let go.” She stripped the paper off the gold crayon. “Here.”
He looked up, smiling. Her eyes prickled at his sweetness, as bright as the tall October sky. Stupid hormones. Only a sentimental idiot would feel like crying because a little boy had a beautiful smile. They all did, all the noisy boys, they all had that bright, soft, vulnerable smile; she had never seen it on a grown man. Something happened to them. Lacey’s private classroom goal, one she never wrote down or told anyone, was not to be the thing that happened. She sent her boys into fifth grade smiling the same undamaged smile.
Lightly he rubbed the gold crayon, picking up the veins and edges. “You carry on,” she told him. “I have to make a couple phone calls.”
Not a good house for babies. Time was running out and she had to know the truth. She remembered the name CarolAnna gave her and found three Honeywicks in the phone book. The first was an insurance agency. The woman who answered the phone said, “There hasn’t been a Honeywick here for years. Would you like Mr. Carruthers?”
“No thanks.” If CarolAnna had been nine, that had to be twenty years ago at least. The Honeywicks might have moved to Oregon, Nevada, anywhere. For a moment, she lost hope. But even if her Honeywicks were gone, some of the others knew where. It wasn’t like calling people named Jones and asking for their cousin Emily.
The second Honeywick number was answered by a teenager who seemed not at all able to understand what Lacey wanted. “How long ago?” she asked.
“Twenty years,” Lacey said.
“Twenty, are you kidding me, years, and you’re calling on the phone? Why don’t you Google them? Or haven’t you heard of Facebook?”
“I don’t know their first name. I don’t want all the Honeywicks on earth,” she replied, and the teenager snorted and hung up on her.
The third one was an old man who, again, had trouble understanding what Lacey wanted. “Twenty years ago,” she said for the third time.
“And what was the address?” he asked.
“571 Forrester Lane.”
“And where did they move to?”
“Sir,” Lacey said with desperate politeness, “I don’t know. But I need to ask them a question. If you could just give me their first name,” because, now she thought about it, the teenager’s suggestion was not bad. And even if she had to search through all the Honeywicks on earth, how many could there really be?
“That’s the bad house, isn’t it, honey?” the old man said.
“Oh, yes, please,” Lacey said. “Can you tell me their name?”
The old man put the phone down and wandered away. She heard household noises: water, a toilet flushing, more water, doors opening and closing, a burst of thin laughter from a TV or radio.
She could hang up. She didn’t have to know these things. Drew was the same as any other boy, and as for the smashed room—everyone had a bad day, once in a while. Was she going to hold it against him forever, one little tantrum? It wasn’t so bad, she could live with it. She squeezed the phone and wouldn’t let herself put it down.
“Sir?” she said. “Hello? Are you still there?”
Slow footsteps neared the telephone. “Greeley,” he said.