gloved fingers. “I didn’t know him that well. I don’t know his—practices.”
“But, Mrs. Erskine, have you looked for your husband outside? He may simply have stepped outside.”
“Outside.” Mrs. Erskine shook her head slowly as if the concept of such vastness overwhelmed her. “I wouldn’t know where to look. I wouldn’t know where to begin. The car is his. There’s all the world.”
“Maybe he’s just outside on the veranda, waiting for you? Let’s go look.” The concierge spoke heartily. Hopefully. He would have led Mrs. Erskine through the revolving door except she shrank back with a look of fear, warding him off with her arm.
“I—I’m not sure that he would want that, you see. If he was outside. On the veranda.”
“But why not?”
“Because he has left me.”
“But, Mrs. Erskine, why do you think your husband has left you, if he left no word? When he might be just outside? Isn’t it an extreme conclusion to come to? Maybe he just went sightseeing. Over to the Gorge.”
“Oh, no.” Mrs. Erskine spoke quickly. “Gilbert wouldn’t go sightseeing without me, on our honeymoon. He’d marked off things for us to see. He’s scrupulous about things like that. Very well organized.
He’s a collector, or was. Fossils! And he wouldn’t do things by half. If he’s gone, he’s gone.”
46 W Joyce Carol Oates
Honeymoon. This fact struck the concierge as ominous.
“But Reverend Erskine left no note, you say? He left without a word?”
“Without a word.”
With what stoic resignation the red-haired woman uttered this.
“Not in your room, you’ve looked carefully? Not at the front desk?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“You did check at the front desk, Mrs. Erskine?”
“No.”
“No?”
“He wouldn’t have left a note for me there. Not in an open mail box. That wasn’t Gilbert’s way. If he had something private to tell me.”
The concierge excused himself and went to the registration desk to check. No message for room 419? He asked the staff on duty if they’d spoken with or seen this “Reverend Erskine” but they told him no. He asked to see the ledger, and there it was: Reverend Gilbert Erskine, Mrs. Ariah Erskine, Troy, New York. There was a registration for a 1949 Packard also. The couple was booked into the Rainbow Grand for five nights in the Rosebud Honeymoon Suite.
Honeymoon. This was not just ominous, it was pathetic.
“Call Mr. Colborne, will you? Just leave a note with him. No emergency, exactly. A disturbed woman with a missing husband, she thinks.”
“ ‘Missing’? There was a guy over the Horseshoe, this morning.”
“Over the Horseshoe.” The concierge would afterward recall hearing this offhand remark from one of the desk clerks as he was turning away, and discounting it in the same moment. Or maybe he hadn’t clearly heard. Or hadn’t wanted to hear.
You don’t think of clergymen committing suicide at The Falls.
Especially not on their honeymoons. You just don’t.
The red-haired woman seemed unsurprised that there was no message for her at the desk. But she allowed the concierge to escort her outside. In the pale, sunlit air of early afternoon the young woman’s eyelids fluttered as if she were blinded. Her freckled face The Falls X 47
shone as if she’d scrubbed it, hard. She looked strangely young, yet worn, exhausted. Her eyes were a peculiar glassy green, rather small, shrinking. She was no beauty, with eyebrows and lashes so pale a red as to be nearly colorless, and a translucent skin showing a tracery of small blue veins at her temples. Yet there was something fierce and implacable in her. A stubbornness, almost a radiance. “Like she’d been wounded, real deep. Humiliated. But she was going to see it through, every drop of it.”
And so she seemed reluctant to glance up at the exuberant guests crowded onto the veranda, a handsome structure that wrapped around three-quarters of the hotel. The concierge took her arm when
“But, Mrs. Erskine, have you looked for your husband outside? He may simply have stepped outside.”
“Outside.” Mrs. Erskine shook her head slowly as if the concept of such vastness overwhelmed her. “I wouldn’t know where to look. I wouldn’t know where to begin. The car is his. There’s all the world.”
“Maybe he’s just outside on the veranda, waiting for you? Let’s go look.” The concierge spoke heartily. Hopefully. He would have led Mrs. Erskine through the revolving door except she shrank back with a look of fear, warding him off with her arm.
“I—I’m not sure that he would want that, you see. If he was outside. On the veranda.”
“But why not?”
“Because he has left me.”
“But, Mrs. Erskine, why do you think your husband has left you, if he left no word? When he might be just outside? Isn’t it an extreme conclusion to come to? Maybe he just went sightseeing. Over to the Gorge.”
“Oh, no.” Mrs. Erskine spoke quickly. “Gilbert wouldn’t go sightseeing without me, on our honeymoon. He’d marked off things for us to see. He’s scrupulous about things like that. Very well organized.
He’s a collector, or was. Fossils! And he wouldn’t do things by half. If he’s gone, he’s gone.”
46 W Joyce Carol Oates
Honeymoon. This fact struck the concierge as ominous.
“But Reverend Erskine left no note, you say? He left without a word?”
“Without a word.”
With what stoic resignation the red-haired woman uttered this.
“Not in your room, you’ve looked carefully? Not at the front desk?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“You did check at the front desk, Mrs. Erskine?”
“No.”
“No?”
“He wouldn’t have left a note for me there. Not in an open mail box. That wasn’t Gilbert’s way. If he had something private to tell me.”
The concierge excused himself and went to the registration desk to check. No message for room 419? He asked the staff on duty if they’d spoken with or seen this “Reverend Erskine” but they told him no. He asked to see the ledger, and there it was: Reverend Gilbert Erskine, Mrs. Ariah Erskine, Troy, New York. There was a registration for a 1949 Packard also. The couple was booked into the Rainbow Grand for five nights in the Rosebud Honeymoon Suite.
Honeymoon. This was not just ominous, it was pathetic.
“Call Mr. Colborne, will you? Just leave a note with him. No emergency, exactly. A disturbed woman with a missing husband, she thinks.”
“ ‘Missing’? There was a guy over the Horseshoe, this morning.”
“Over the Horseshoe.” The concierge would afterward recall hearing this offhand remark from one of the desk clerks as he was turning away, and discounting it in the same moment. Or maybe he hadn’t clearly heard. Or hadn’t wanted to hear.
You don’t think of clergymen committing suicide at The Falls.
Especially not on their honeymoons. You just don’t.
The red-haired woman seemed unsurprised that there was no message for her at the desk. But she allowed the concierge to escort her outside. In the pale, sunlit air of early afternoon the young woman’s eyelids fluttered as if she were blinded. Her freckled face The Falls X 47
shone as if she’d scrubbed it, hard. She looked strangely young, yet worn, exhausted. Her eyes were a peculiar glassy green, rather small, shrinking. She was no beauty, with eyebrows and lashes so pale a red as to be nearly colorless, and a translucent skin showing a tracery of small blue veins at her temples. Yet there was something fierce and implacable in her. A stubbornness, almost a radiance. “Like she’d been wounded, real deep. Humiliated. But she was going to see it through, every drop of it.”
And so she seemed reluctant to glance up at the exuberant guests crowded onto the veranda, a handsome structure that wrapped around three-quarters of the hotel. The concierge took her arm when
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