Part 28 (2/2)
”He'll be fine,” I a.s.sured Ronnie. ”I'm so glad Alvin got you out of jail. How do you feel?”
There was still a small bandage on Ronnie's ear. He looked pale and drawn, but otherwise he seemed all right. At least for a guy who was terrified of facing the real world.
”I'm okay,” Ronnie said. ”I still can't believe that that nurse killed Carol. And then Kendra's mom killed the nurse. That seems just plain wacko to me.”
Kathy Addison had come out of her coma on Thursday. She had admitted striking the fatal blow to Henrietta's skull, but insisted that the victim had threatened to kill her first. It seemed that Kathy was right: a butcher knife had been found under Henrietta's body. Vida and I had never seen it, because we didn't see the corpse being taken away.
Maybe the Addisons would somehow heal themselves and be a family with Kendra again. She was their daughter. Some birth mothers must discard their children, for various reasons. The burden of raising them, with whatever motives, falls on the adoptive parents. We are complicated creatures, and rarely are any of our actions pure.
”Roy's takin' care of Buddy right now,” Ronnie said, finis.h.i.+ng his hamburger. ”Roy's okay. Maybeth don't like Buddy, but she'd never hurt him. Can you drop me off at the apartment?”
”Of course,” I said. ”Do you think you'll get your old job back?”
”I hope so,” Ronnie said with feeling. ”Mr. Lang's a good guy. Maybe I gave him a lot of s.h.i.+t. I'll try harder this time.”
”That's a good idea,” I said, and picked up the tab.
The last time I saw Ronnie he was running to meet Buddy outside of the apartment house in Greenwood. He embraced the dog, then stood up to wave at me.
”Hey-keep in touch, okay?” he called.
I leaned out of the car window. ”I will, Ronnie. I promise.”
Ronnie nodded, then picked up something and threw it about twenty feet away. Buddy ran after the object and brought it back to Ronnie. Man and dog embraced again.
I drove away, wanting to remember Ronnie as happy. After a mile or so, I realized that Ronnie was happy, in his own strange way. For him, happiness was a simple thing-a dog fetching a stick. For others, like me, it was more complicated. I shouldn't judge the Ronnies of this world. We were all different.
And, as Ben had reminded me, we were all the same.
Family.
MARY: Welcome back to the Big City, Emma. You grew up here in Seattle, but you've lived in Alpine for almost ten years. I've lived in small towns twice in my life, and frankly, I had trouble adjusting. How do you manage?
EMMA: It's att.i.tude, Mary. When I made the decision to buy The Alpine Advocate, I knew it would be a long-term investment of my life, maybe even a permanent one. That made it easier for me-I knew I was going to stick around. The other thing that helped was being the local newspaper's editor and publisher. I automatically became part of everyone's life. I had an ident.i.ty. But don't get me wrong-since I wasn't born in Alpine, I'll always be something of a stranger. And, yes, I definitely miss the cultural and sports activities of a big city. Weekend high school football and the St. Mildred's Christmas pageant just don't do it for me. And while they got rid of Log-gerama, I don't think I can stand another year of Ed Bronsky as the Winter Solstice Parade's grand marshal. Ed should never ever wear anything diaphanous.
MARY: I don't really want to think about that. Let's talk career paths. Like you, I always thought I had printer's ink in my veins and started out in newspapers. Then I discovered you had to walk a lot, so I went into P.R. What made you hang in there?
EMMA: For one thing, Mary, I don't have flat feet like you do. Maybe the real difference is that I do have printer's ink my veins. Keeping the public informed, having the power to wield some influence (though it be rather small) through my editorials, and meeting deadlines all keep me alive. There's an enormous satisfaction to producing a paper every week. You can see what you've done. You can share it with the community. You feel as if your job has some meaning in a nutty world where personal achievement is hard to find.
MARY: You also have a knack for sleuthing. How did you develop this, or is it a gift?
EMMA: Journalism is all about sleuthing. It's tracking down graft in the union pension fund, it's figuring out the rationale of timberland swaps, and sometimes it's as simple-and important-as making sure you've identified the right John Smith in an article about s.e.xual perversion. I once made a horrendous mistake in The Oregonian. There were two Alan Barkers in the news. Alan L. Barker had won a prestigious poetry prize. Alan R. Barker had been arraigned for indecent exposure at Jantzen Beach. I got them mixed up, and there was all h.e.l.l to pay. What made it even worse was that at the trial the Barker exhibitionist quoted Tennyson's ”Some civic manhood against the crowd.” The jury was bewildered.
MARY: Speaking of sleuthing, don't you feel that the murder rate is rather high for a town the size of Alpine?
EMMA: You mean since I arrived? I have to admit, sometimes I feel like a one-woman crime wave. But, in fact, the murder rate has risen in smaller communities over the past few years. People are increasingly transient, communication is so much faster, and while small town residents didn't used to feel the same pressures as city dwellers, that's changing quite rapidly. Also, historically, Alpine has been a lumber town. It's a rough, dangerous way to make a living. Life and death in the woods goes back five or six generations. Violence is no stranger here.
MARY: Let's get personal, Emma. Do you ever see yourself married to Tom Cavanaugh? Or do you ever see yourself married, perio d?
EMMA: That's a toughie. I've thought and thought about it, and I can't come up with a straight answer. I love Tom. I've tried not to, but you can't simply tell love to go away. I realize that maybe it's not a healthy att.i.tude. There are practical considerations, too. I can't quite envision Tom living in Alpine. On the other hand, I can't imagine giving up The Advocate. Maybe what I'm really saying is that I've put my career between us, though that sounds horrid to me. I mean, newspapers are a dying breed. Ten years from now, there may be no Advocate. In fact, there's a radio station starting up in town. How will that affect us? Again, I don't have any cut-and-dried answers.
MARY: What will you do if Vida Runkel, your House and Home editor, ever retires?
EMMA: I can't even think about that! An Advocate without Vida would be like Alpine with no mountains. But I don't think she ever will-she's strong as a horse, and she couldn't bear not to be involved with the paper. If printer's ink runs through my veins, curiosity runs through Vida's. I'm not sure she needs a rationale to snoop, but as long as she's on the staff, she has an excuse.
MARY: One last question-do you think that you and Milo Dodge can ever be real friends again?
EMMA: I hope so. I actually love Milo, but not necessarily in a romantic way. I suppose I've always felt he's rather limited as a person. That's not fair-who isn't limited? But now that I see him in a new relations.h.i.+p, I must admit I feel jealous. Maybe annoyed is a better word. Or perhaps I worry about him. He's kind of vulnerable, and I don't want to see him hurt. I already did that to him, and he doesn't deserve another unappreciative woman. I do wonder, if there had never been a Tom Cavanaugh, would there have been an Emma Dodge? But that's speculation, one of the things I am good at.
MARY: Well, keep your spirits up, Emma. And thank you for the insights.
EMMA: I'm the one who should be thanking you.
By Mary Daheim.
Published by The Ballantine Publis.h.i.+ng Group.
THE ALPINE ADVOCATE.
THE ALPINE BETRAYAL.
THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS.
THE ALPINE DECOY.
THE ALPINE ESCAPE.
THE ALPINE FURY.
THE ALPINE GAMBLE.
THE ALPINE HERO.
THE ALPINE ICON.
THE ALPINE JOURNEY.
THE ALPINE KINDRED.
THE ALPINE LEGACY.
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