Hannah's Dream (17 page)

“Who?”

Harriet called out through her open office door, “Come in, Sam.”

Sam walked in slowly and stood in front of her desk, cap in hand. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Were you here last night when Neva Wilson brought in the drums?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“She lied, then. She said no one else knew about it.”

“I didn’t know, ma’am—I was already here.”

“Why?”

Sam ducked his head. “Me and Mrs. Brown come in the evenings sometimes to keep Hannah company.”

Harriet frowned. “Do you? I wasn’t aware of that. How often?”

“Not often, ma’am,” Sam said, alarmed. “Maybe once a week, sometimes twice.”

“And how long do you stay?”

“Maybe an hour or two. It does Hannah good to—”

Harriet was shaking her head. “I can’t have that, Sam.”

Stunned, Sam said, “Why?”

“You’re an hourly employee. I can’t have you here working hours I’m unprepared to pay you for. There are liability issues.”

“I don’t do it to get paid, ma’am. I’m just giving Hannah a little extra company. She gets lonely chained to that—”

“I’m sorry.” Harriet’s attention was already moving on. She began sifting through a pile of papers. “Please let Geneva know, also. You may not be on the premises except during your regular hours.”

Sam scrambled. “We could change our shifts around, so one of us is here early and the other is late.”

Harriet paused, frowning. “No, I don’t think so. I need you both here during regular zoo hours, to keep up the exhibit.”

“But, ma’am,” Sam protested with growing alarm. “Hannah’s already alone in that barn for twelve, fourteen hours a day sometimes.”

“That’s all, Sam. Thank you.”

“Miss Saul, you’re doing the wrong thing, the
wrong
damn thing for that elephant,” Sam said bitterly.

“I don’t appreciate being sworn at, Sam. And I really must insist that you call me Maxine.” Harriet began to write notes in the margins of a document on her desk. “Maxine Biedelman.”

Teriyaki Time was packed
when Truman got there, but Thomas had saved a table for them. Truman stood until Neva had slipped into the booth, a gesture of respect his parents had drilled into him early.
Women are stronger and smarter than we are, Truman, as your mother will tell you,
Matthew had often said ruefully.
If the world is ever in the throes of Armageddon, it’s the women who’ll be left standing.
Nothing in Truman’s experience had ever successfully challenged this.

Now, as he slid into the booth, he thought Neva looked strained and tired. Even her hair seemed at odds, pulled into a messy bun from which strands kept escaping. He’d never seen anyone less able to disguise what she was feeling. Whatever toughness she had achieved must have come at a high price. Was there a man? Had there ever been a man? Or had her life been invested in a succession of needy animals? He envisioned her standing on the deck of an ark, Noah-like, surrounded by pairs of animals stretching all the way to the horizon.

“What?” Neva said, blushing. She attempted a smile, but it failed before it even reached the corners of her mouth.

“Nothing. You look tired. Tired and discouraged.”

Neva opened a packet of sugar, shook some onto the table, and absently pushed it around with her finger. “How do you do it?” she said.

“Do what?”

“I’ve known rhinos with better dispositions. And I hate rhinos.”

Truman conceded the point.

“So where’s Winslow?”

“Ah. He’s with his mother. She got into town last night. He’ll be with her through Thanksgiving.”

“Is that okay?”

Truman shrugged. “Rhonda’s always believed in spontaneity. It plays hell with planning, but I think Winslow was glad to see her.”

“How long have you been divorced?”

“Just about a year.”

“Why?”

“Why did we divorce?” Truman blew out a ruminative breath. “I guess you could say we had trouble synchronizing. You know that carnival ride where two cages swing in opposite directions, going higher and higher until they go over the top? That was us. We passed each other all the time, but we never actually stopped in the same place until it was time to get off the ride.”

“So that doesn’t sound good,” Neva said.

“No.”

“How is Winslow dealing with it?”

“Mostly okay—frankly, I think he’s relieved that she’s not around very much. She tends to take up a lot of space.”

Neva looked at him for a long moment, weighing something. Then she said, “I have a son Winslow’s age.”

Truman put down his fork.

“Surprising, I know. I don’t seem like the motherly type. I
wasn’t
the motherly type. I gave the baby up for adoption. I was twenty-five.”

Truman leaned toward her across the table. She leaned back, shrugging. “It’s not glamorous. My birth control pills failed.”

“But you went through with it.”

Neva nodded.

“Did you ever think about keeping him?”

“No. I only saw him for a minute, and then he was gone.”

“Why?”

“Why didn’t I keep him? My work doesn’t mix with childrearing. I didn’t think it would be fair. He deserved not only to live, but to live with someone more suitable than me. If it were to happen again today, I’d probably make a different choice, but then I still had too much to do, to prove.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No. I thought I saw him once in New York, but that’s not likely. I lived in San Diego when he was born.”

Truman stirred his rice.

“It’s okay,” Neva said. “It was a long time ago. I can’t believe I even told you.”

“Have you ever been married?”

“Not then. A couple of years later.”

Truman raised his eyebrows encouragingly. Neva pushed some rice around on her plate. “His name was Howard. His dream was to become a securities analyst. My dream was to
shovel shit
, as he liked to put it. Shit and securities don’t mix. Luckily, it only took us two years to discover that.”

“So you got out,” Truman said.

“So I got out. It was all very amicable—we did much better as friends than spouses. We still talk from time to time. When he remarried a few years ago, he invited me to the wedding and neither of us thought it was strange. I would have gone, too, but I thought it would make the bride’s family uncomfortable. She was a good choice for him. I think they’re happy.”

“So it’s not a sad story,” Truman said.

“No.”

“Good.”

Truman suddenly stood and beckoned with one raised hand to Sam and Corinna, who had just arrived.

“Now I know why you had Thomas put us at a big table,” Neva said. “How nice!”

Truman helped Corinna into a seat. “Thanks, baby,” she said, and then to Neva, “How are you, honey? Sam said it was a bad, bad day.”

“Yeah, it was,” Neva said.

“Well, I have some news that might help,” Truman said. Three faces turned to him as one. “Though we’re not quite sure what it means yet.”

“Spill it, honey,” Corinna said. “I think we could all use something good.”

Truman crossed his hands on the tabletop. “My father’s a retired judge. You probably know that the zoo’s financial situation isn’t the best, so a few weeks ago I asked him to go through some old city records to see if there might be a long-forgotten fund or an endowment that could help make up the zoo’s shortfall. He found something interesting. Sam, when Max Biedelman passed away, did anyone say anything to you about Hannah?”

“No, sir.”

“Not anything?”

“Not that I remember. Except that I got to keep my job.”

“Well, they should have. Before she died, Max Biedelman set up a trust that would be used for Hannah’s upkeep. It isn’t enough to cover all her costs anymore, but it helps.”

“She told me she was going to do that,” Sam said. “She said she didn’t want me or Hannah to worry about things after she was gone.”

“But she didn’t say anything else?”

Sam shook his head.

“Well, there was another piece to it. I wonder why she didn’t tell you. The trust was to be overseen by a trustee whose job was—is—to make sure Hannah’s being well cared for. The trustee is empowered to make decisions about anything that involves her welfare.”

“I never heard anything about that,” Sam said.

“You should have,” Truman said. “Because it’s you.”

“What?”

“You’re the trustee!” Truman grinned. “How d’ya like
them
apples?”

“Yes!” said Neva, and pumped her fist in the air.

“But what does it mean, honey?” Corinna asked Neva.

“I’m not sure yet, but I know it’s good,” Neva said.

“It means that Sam is Hannah’s legal guardian,” Truman said. “Technically, it means if he feels Hannah’s at risk in any way, or that her care doesn’t meet her needs, he can ask the zoo to make whatever changes he feels are necessary. And if the zoo refuses, he can withhold or withdraw the trust’s funds. In other words, what Sam says, goes—the zoo has to comply, or it loses roughly seventy-five thousand dollars a year. Which, let me tell you, it cannot afford to do.”

“Are you saying that the trust owns her?” Neva said.

“No. On the surface of it, the zoo owns her, because she was gifted to the city along with Max Biedelman’s other property when she died.”

“Rats.”

“
But
—and here’s where it gets fun—what if Sam deems that the
zoo itself
does not and cannot meet Hannah’s needs? Does he have the legal right to move her to a facility that can?”

“Like the Pachyderm Sanctuary,” Neva said.

“Like the Pachyderm Sanctuary. My father needs a little more time to look into this before he gives us his final opinion. And no matter what, we’ll probably wind up in court. But the bottom line is, things are going to get better for Hannah. Sam has the power to make that happen.”

“Someone going to tell that to Harriet Saul?” Sam asked.

“My father’s offered to talk with her and the city as soon as he’s had a chance to find a precedent or two and feels like we’re on absolutely solid ground. You know lawyers—they move like molasses. But he’ll get back to us as soon as he can.”

Truman and Neva sat in
Truman’s car watching the rain outside Teriyaki Time long after Sam and Corinna had driven away. “I don’t understand why no one ever told Sam he was the trustee,” Neva said. “That makes no sense. And it had to be on purpose, because who would forget to do something like that?”

Truman smiled and said, “I’d never have guessed it—you’re naïve!”

“Me? Naïve?”

“Think about it. Sam is a black man. He was a black man in 1958 when Max Biedelman died.”

“So you’re saying it was racial?”

“I’m saying it’s a lot of money, and it seemed like even more money back then. I’m saying some small town leaders probably weren’t going to put an uneducated black Korean War veteran in charge of seventy-five thousand dollars a year.”

“Seventy-five thousand, is that how much the zoo gets? That’s less than a third of what we’d need for the sanctuary to take her.”

“No, no. That’s just the annual earnings—that’s how much goes into the zoo’s operating budget,” Truman said. “The trust itself is worth more than half a million.”

“God, I
love
you,” she crowed, and then she folded herself over the emergency brake and the gear-shift column and kissed him in a way he hadn’t been kissed in years or maybe longer; maybe ever.

In bed on their backs,
side by side in the dark, Sam took Corinna’s hand and placed it flat on his chest, over his heart. It was a gesture that went way back to when they were young and Corinna liked to tell him that with each beat his heart was saying,
I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours
. Who was Sam to disagree?

“She told me this afternoon we couldn’t go and sit with shug at night anymore,” he said after a while.

“Who said that?”

“That Harriet Saul,” Sam said bitterly.

“Big old mean-spirited cow. Why’d she say something like that?”

“She asked me if I knew about the Neva drums, and I said yes, which was my first mistake—I know, Mama, you were about to say it—but I didn’t want to get the girl in trouble so I said we only knew because we were there at the barn when she brought them in. So of course she wanted to know why we were there, and when I said we came in sometimes to keep shug company in the evenings, that’s when she said we couldn’t anymore. Said it was because she couldn’t pay me for the time—like I care about that. I told her, too, but she said it didn’t matter. She couldn’t pay me, plus something about liability, so we can’t be there. But maybe now this news, this other, means we don’t have to do what she says.”

“Maybe I’ll just put a little something nasty in her hair color next time,” Corinna said. “Grind up a little Hannah-doo, maybe.”

“Woman, you’re
bad
.” Sam started laughing and then Corinna started laughing, too; and both of them laughed so hard they thought they’d never stop, and if they didn’t, it might not be such a bad thing, after all they’d been through. When they finally returned to their senses, Sam took Corinna’s hand in his and said, “Looks like the Lord might have performed a little miracle for us today.”

“Do you know,” Corinna said, “He might just have.”

M
iles was dancing
with excitement when Truman came home from work—it had been another long day alone for the pig. Truman squatted beside him, Miles did his Fall of the Dead trick, and Truman scratched him all over, armpits included. Then he scooped some pig kibble into a dish and tuned the radio to a classical station that was likely to play Mozart for Miles in Winslow’s absence.

It was odd, being at home without the boy. They had developed a way of life together and there was a sort of companionable, bachelor comfort to it. He couldn’t imagine losing a child, the way Sam and Corinna had, or giving one up, the way Neva had. But then, Neva Wilson was a different flavor of fish. She was going to lose her job before this mess was over, and she must know it, yet she’d said nothing at dinner about the likely
effect their rescue mission would have on her personally. For that matter, Truman would probably lose his job, too, once his role in the intrigue became clear. In Harriet’s eyes, you were either loyal, traitorous, or an idiot; her childlike worldview lacked nuance. She sulked; she pouted and stewed and wheedled and undermined; she was as maddening as a nine-year-old. And yet her portrayal of Maxine Biedelman had been powerful and entertaining and fully developed. Was it possible to be better at being someone else than you were at being yourself?

Truman opened a bottle of beer and took it with him to the telephone, speed-dialing his parents’ number. He filled Matthew in about the disastrous day, and then spent the next hour with the telephone receiver pinned between his ear and shoulder, listening. Before they hung up, they agreed to meet with Sam and Neva before work the next morning.

At seven a.m., Truman, Sam, and Neva sat at a table farthest from the door of the Oat Maiden, nervously fidgeting with thick, mismatched mugs of coffee. It was the first time either Truman or Sam had been inside—and most likely would be the last, at least as far as Truman was concerned. The café’s walls were painted navy blue and all the tables and chairs apparently came from mothballed public high school classrooms. Cheerful little notes were taped to the walls everywhere, written in a childish hand and proclaiming,
TRY THE ORGANIC HAND-PRESSED CIDER
! and
WE CHEERFULLY SUBSTITUTE SOY MILK
. Only Neva seemed at ease.

Matthew and Lavinia arrived with heavy briefcases and broad smiles. They each shook Neva’s hand, and then Sam’s. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Brown,” Matthew said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Don’t know what there’d be to say about me, sir. But me
and Hannah and my wife are real grateful to you for helping like this. You can call me Sam.”

“All right then, Sam,” Matthew said pleasantly.

Truman tapped the third envelope of sugar-in-the-raw into his mug of coffee in a vain attempt to render it drinkable. No doubt it was some variety harvested exclusively by the last virgins of an indigenous people living high on some obscure mountaintop in South America. After vigorous stirring, the coffee still tasted like roasted dirt.

Matthew spread documents across the tabletop and described to Sam and Neva what each one established, and what he felt was the best plan for opening up a discussion with Harriet Saul.

“Will you be there?” Sam asked after he was finished.

“Yes, if it’s all right with you, Sam. I think that might be best.”

Sam slumped in relief. “Yes, sir, that would be just fine. I’m not much good at talking about things sometimes. I lose my way, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, this is complicated stuff.” Matthew smiled disarmingly, and Truman felt a rush of affection for this man who had taught him to value integrity and humanity above everything. Matthew continued, “Lavinia and I thought it might be best for me to open up the meeting with an overview of the changed situation in which we suddenly find ourselves. Let me take the fallout from Ms. Saul. Mostly we need to establish that you, as Hannah’s legal guardian, have the privilege, right, and responsibility to ensure that Hannah’s care and surroundings are of the highest quality. Is this all right with you so far?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said gravely.

“After that, you may say whatever you feel needs to be said—
for instance, that you and your wife will continue to provide company for Hannah in the evenings as often as you see fit.”

“She doesn’t do well being alone, sir,” Sam said. “I hate to be stirring things up, but shug just doesn’t do well when she’s alone too much.”

“You don’t need to justify yourself to me, Sam. Truman has described the situation, and I believe you are every bit within your moral as well as your legal rights to act as you have done and no doubt will continue to do.” Matthew pressed Sam’s forearm reassuringly.

“Any reason why we’ve got to tell her today, instead of waiting until after Thanksgiving?” Sam asked. Thanksgiving was only two days away. “Seeing as how it’s going to spoil her holiday and all.”

Lavinia touched the cameo at the throat of her cashmere twin set and smiled. “It’s very thoughtful of you to worry about the holiday,” she said, “but we’re going to need a governmental permit in order to legally move Hannah, and that will require the zoo’s cooperation. The process will take weeks, at best. We’ll follow your lead, of course, Sam, but we’d recommend that in this case we get our first hand of cards out on the table right away.”

Sam looked alarmed. “You going to tell her about us taking the girl to the sanctuary?”

Lavinia said, “For now we think it would be best not to talk about moving Hannah. We have a little more legal work to do before we’re comfortable scaling that wall.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sam said, visibly relieved.

“This is new and somewhat confusing ground for us all, Sam,” Lavinia said gently. “I hope you’ll ask us questions any time you have them. We’re pretty good at finding answers.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Truman drove back to the zoo alone, while Sam, Lavinia, and Matthew stayed behind to go over their talking points before they met with Harriet at nine o’clock.

When he arrived at the zoo
Sam checked in at the elephant barn, but then turned right around again to leave. Neva looked at her watch. “You’ve still got almost half an hour,” she said.

“I’ll only upset sugar if I stay here, nervous as I am,” Sam said. “Naw, there’s something else I’ve got to do. I believe it’s time to meet this Maxine Biedelman.”

He reached the front porch of Havenside just in time to hear Harriet Saul calling, “Welcome to my home!”

Sam’s father had had an old tom peacock that had mooched around the farm dragging its raggedy tail feathers in the dust. That bird was as ugly an animal as Sam ever saw, but you would have thought he was king of the world, for all the preening and strutting he did. Sam hadn’t thought about that old peacock for forty years or more, but Harriet Saul brought back the memory like it was yesterday, she was so desperate for everyone to look, to pay attention, to say nice things. If Miss Biedelman could see the woman she’d laugh out loud. The small crowd around him was clapping, so the talk must be over. Sam saw by his watch that it was time to go to his meeting, and his heart hopped right up into his throat and stayed there.

Matthew and Lavinia were already in the reception area when Sam arrived. They shook hands all around, and then Lavinia told Sam, “I forgot earlier that I have something for you, Sam. In going through the city’s files, I stumbled across this. Apparently Ms. Biedelman had left it for you.” She handed Sam
a yellowed envelope of rich, heavy paper stock. “I don’t know why you never received it. I’m sorry.”

Sam recognized Max Biedelman’s personal stationery. He put it in his pocket for later. The receptionist got a call, listened, then hung up.

“She’d like you to meet in the conference room. It’s across the hall.”

“All right,” said Matthew, with the faintest twinkle in his eye. “Come, then, my dear.” He put his hand under Lavinia’s elbow and nodded to Sam once, firmly, to strengthen his resolve.

“You don’t expect me
to take your word for any of this, do you?” Harriet Saul said after Matthew and Lavinia had finished their presentation. Sam hunched in his seat at the conference table.

“Of course not,” Matthew soothed. “You’d be wise to talk with the City’s legal counsel. In the meantime, however, I trust we’ve been clear that Mr. Brown will be on the premises whenever he feels it’s necessary, day or night, but that he does not intend to request compensation beyond his usual and customary wages. And if you consult the zoo’s insurance carrier, I’m sure the liability issues will be easy to resolve.”

Harriet stared at him hostilely. Matthew continued, “Let me remind you that Mr. Brown’s wages are not paid by the zoo itself, but by the trust, which is held and administered by the City of Bladenham. Technically, Mr. Brown wouldn’t require your authorization for overtime compensation. But never mind—we’re acting in good faith, and we’re confident that you’ll proceed in the same spirit.”

Harriet turned and stalked out of the room without a word, slamming the door behind her.

“Well,” Lavinia said brightly. “I think that went well, don’t you?”

Sam caught just the hint of mischief way deep down in her eyes.

“What happens now, ma’am?”

“A rebuttal from the zoo, I would imagine. Challenging the validity of the trust, challenging your appointment as trustee. Don’t you think so, dear?”

“Yes indeed.” Matthew winked at Sam. “My wife’s an excellent predictor of these things. Now, Sam, we’ll be off, but you know how to get hold of us. I want you to call if you have any concerns or questions, or if Ms. Saul takes any action that you’re uncomfortable with.”

“Like what?” Sam said.

“Oh, there are a number of things she can do to make things difficult for you,” Matthew said. “Taking away your keys to the facility, or changing the locks on the gates or doors. Firing Ms. Wilson. Attempting to fire you. Denying you access to the zoo property. Harassing you in any way, such as directing the security staff to maintain a watch over you and Hannah around the clock. Demanding that you sign in and out, so there’s a record of your presence at the zoo. I’m sure you get the idea.”

Alarmed, Sam said, “You think she’s going to do any of those things?”

“Ah—that I don’t know,” Matthew said. “But I’d say she’s certainly capable of it. Wouldn’t you say so, dear?”

“Oh, certainly,” Lavinia said serenely, standing and straightening her pearls. “Absolutely.”

As Sam walked out he noticed that although the room was
badly overheated, neither Lavinia nor Matthew had so much as broken a sweat.

On the way back to the elephant barn,
Sam opened the thick, creamy envelope Lavinia had given him. It looked like it had been opened before—a wax seal he had seen Max Biedelman use on other correspondence was broken. Nevertheless, he handled the envelope with great care, wanting it to remain, as nearly as possible, the way it had left Max Biedelman’s hand so many years ago. Unfolding the paper, he read:

The note was dated just two weeks before her death. Miss Effie had died five months before, and Max’s decline had been precipitous. She still accompanied Sam on walks from time
to time, but she had had her gardener remove the campaign tent that, except for its periodic replacement, had stood on the grounds for fifty-eight years. Increasingly unsteady on her feet, she often held Sam’s arm when they walked.

“I promised you a story of my family, Mr. Brown,” she said one warm afternoon as they moved slowly across the lawn with Hannah ahead of them. “And I always make good on my word. I shall tell you about my mother’s cousin. His name was Ernest, though he himself was not. In fact, Ernest was a shyster, a born con artist. But my mother was fond of him, and supported him off and on for years.

“Once, Ernest claimed that he had come up with a patent medication that cured pustular tonsillitis. Of course there was no such treatment available back then, but he placed advertisements in all the major newspapers in the country, all the way east to New York and Boston. Well, the advertisements proved to be persuasive, and soon Ernest was flooded with orders he couldn’t fill, not having put by an ample supply of bottles. He became quite frantic, as you can imagine, and solicited my mother’s help. She showed him a little bottle of medicinal opium my father had obtained for her in Morocco, beautifully made out of cobalt glass, and told him that my father knew of a Turk here in the United States who might produce similar glass bottles for Ernest’s tonic. They could be filled with anything—tincture of violet or laudanum. It could hardly matter, since the product was a sham to begin with. Ernest, however, had forgotten that, and insisted on filling the bottles with some foul-smelling, execrable concoction he made himself, the secret of which he swore he would never reveal to anyone.

“Soon the little bottles were speeding across the country, to households large and small. Do you know, Mr. Brown, that
women began to write to him that whatever was in those little blue bottles
cured
them and their children? This came as quite a surprise, as you can imagine. It turns out that Ernest, whose only goal in life was to make easy money off the misfortunes of others, had accidentally brewed up a natural antibiotic, using tincture of Echinacea in addition to toadstools and swamp water, or whatever other god-awful ingredients he’d chosen. He died a wealthy man.”

Max Biedelman laughed heartily. “So you see, Mr. Brown, it is possible that even the most despicable people can sometimes do good.”