Chapter 7

Jean Lundeen’s house hadn’t changed at all in the three weeks since Martin had moved out and probably hadn’t changed much in the last 25 years since he was born. The tidy little one-story bungalow sat about 10 feet from Maple Street and 2 blocks from Main Street and what the residents of Siren considered “downtown”. The house was painted light yellow with green shutters, and the front featured three little window boxes under old fashioned double paned windows. The window boxes still had the dirt in them from last summer, and a few bare geranium stalks where Jean hadn’t pulled out all the dead flowers from last fall. “We’ll just take care of that in the spring,” was her favorite sentence when doing end of the season chores each year.
The front door had a faded straw hat with purple plastic flowers hanging on it – Jean’s attempt at celebrating the impending spring. She’d change the decoration on the door with the seasons – the straw hat would go out about Ash Wednesday and stay up through the summer, a goofy looking witch with dancing legs around Labor Day and a plastic Christmas wreath on November 1st. Thank God for Michael’s Craft Store in Superior, or Jean wouldn’t know what time it was.
Martin parked his 1997 Mazda in the short driveway and sat in the car for a moment, wondering what he was doing. How was his mother going to help him with this? She probably didn’t even know what was going on back then, and if she did, she’d say Sharla, being an Indian and all, probably asked for it.
Way in the back of his mind, a little voice was asking him the question, “What kind of home did you grow up in that, when your only real friend in the whole world just stopped going to school one day, you never asked yourself why.” And he was a little afraid to answer. So going to see Jean seemed like exactly what he should be doing when confronted with a situation that called into question the integrity of everyone who knew Sharla, including himself.
When Martin got to the front door of the house, he wasn’t sure if he should knock or not. He didn’t live there anymore, but he wasn’t a stranger. Just as he decided to just open the door and call to his mother, it jerked open and Jean was standing there, with a pained look on her face. “Martin, what’s wrong?” she asked. “Is everything okay at the apartment? Do you want to move back home? Your room is exactly the way you left it…”
Martin tilted his head back and looked up at the sky for a moment, and sighed as he brought his eyes back to look at his mother. “Everything is fine, Mom. I just thought I’d stop by to see how you are doing. It’s Palm Sunday. I thought I’d take you to church.”
Jean smiled, but looked at him sideways, a little skeptical. “Martin, it’s almost 11:30. Church ended an hour ago. I just got home, and I'm just frazzled. I just can’t stand all those naughty little children running around, waving those palm branches. Some year, someone’s going to lose an eye…” She opened the screen door and let Martin in. When she closed the door tightly behind him, she stopped, looked him up and down and gave him a quick, little hug. “Well, this is just a lovely surprise. Why don’t I make you some lunch?”
After days of Don’s poached eggs and toast in the morning and hamburgers and Grain Belts at night, some tuna salad or a grilled cheese sandwich sounded good to Martin. “Mom, that sounds great. What’s on the menu?”
“I made a big batch of macaroni casserole last night, so how does that sound?” Jean replied. Before Martin could reply, she continued, “And I have some leftover jello salad – it’s lime with those little marshmallows you like – and Parker House rolls.”
“Mother, it sounds like gourmet cuisine,” he said, and truly meant it. For as happy as he was to be away from the tedium and restrictions of life with his mother, Martin missed these few familiar things that defined his childhood. “I’ll set the table,” he offered and went into the tiny little kitchen in the back of the house.

Jean’s decorating skills were honed in the 60’s under her mother’s loving teaching, and came into their own in the 80’s, but hadn’t developed much past then. But Jean loved the country blues and mauves of her own home and it pleased her very much to show off her home décor to the few people that came to visit. She thought of herself as having flare, but a lot of people would say her taste was a little tacky. Something out of the Trailer Home Shopping Network. Lots of collectible dolls and figurines. Brightly colored, over-stuffed furniture that was slightly too big for the livingroom, but nice and comfortable for Jean’s ample backside. Tiffany lamps and crocheted doilies purchased at Michael’s finished the picture.
Jean bustled around her kitchen, happy to have Martin underfoot. “I am so happy to see you, Honey. What is new? How is your apartment? How is your job going?” Martin smiled a little, happy to have the familiar barrage of questions from his mother. In small doses, he found her to be almost delightful.
“Well, my job is good, and the apartment is fine,” he responded. “Sharla Whitefeather came over yesterday and helped me clean and paint it. It looks pretty good.”
Martin could feel his mother’s frown as he carefully set the table with his back to her. He didn’t know why he jumped into the subject of Sharla so quickly, but felt the opening was there. He waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. “Did you hear me, Mom? Sharla Whitefeather came over…”
“I heard you, Martin,” Jean interrupted sharply, then softened. “I’m just surprised that you spend time with her, that’s all. I can’t imagine what you’d have in common with a girl like her.”
“What do you mean, “a girl like her”?” Martin asked indignantly.
“Well, she’s a high school drop out and a…and a…native American,” replied Jean. “You’re a man with an education, some culture…” she trailed off.
The joy of predictability was overshadowed by annoyance. “Mom, let me tell you something about Sharla,” he said carefully. “She’s very smart and a lot of fun, and the only reason she dropped out of school was because some asshole teacher sexually assaulted her after school one day and made her life so miserable…”
Jean’s face turned white, and she cut him off. “Was it Frank Talbot?” she whispered. Martin looked at her hard and asked in a low growl, “You knew?”

Martin and Jean didn’t talk through lunch. They sat at the little maple dropleaf table in Jean’s kitchen and ate their macaroni hotdish and green jello salad in silence. When Martin lived at home and ate with his mother, he remained silent and Jean just chattered away, lobbing questions, opinions and petty observations his way. Today, the tension was so thick, neither Martin nor Jean dared speak, and Jean’s silence was mixed with total confusion as to why Martin was so upset and wondering what she had done wrong. The silence continued while they cleared the table and washed the dishes.
Martin plopped down on the china blue and mauve sofa, leaned back on a throw pillow and closed his eyes. “Can we talk, Martin, before you take your afternoon nap?” Jean asked quietly. Had he not been so upset, Martin probably would have fallen asleep, but today, he had a million questions for his mother and was afraid of the answers.
“Sure, Mom, let’s talk,” he answered testily.
“Martin, I know you’re upset with me, but I need you to tell me why,” Jean said. “Is it because I said what I said about Sharla? Is it something about that awful Talbot man?”
Martin sat up and stared at her for a moment. “Mom, tell me what you know about Frank Talbot.”
Jean put her hands together and sat forward on her chair. “Martin, I don’t really know that much. Just some things I heard at the beauty parlor,” she answered him quickly.
“What did you hear?” he demanded.
“Well, you know that I see Sally once a week at the Lady by Lovely Salon,” Jean started. “A few weeks ago, my friend Donna was sitting in the chair next to me. Sally’s daughter’s chair. You remember Cassie, don’t you? She was a year ahead of you in school,” Jean went on and would have continued in this vein if Martin hadn’t interrupted her. “Mom, get to Frank Talbot,” he barked at her.
Jean winced as if he hit her. “Martin, I’m trying to set this up so you understand,” she explained. “Anyway, Donna was reading the Sentinel and was reading out loud about what was happening at the high school, who was retiring…you know,” she continued. “Anyway, when Donna said Frank Talbot was retiring after 35 years, Cassie said, ‘What a perv!” Jean sat back and smiled, satisfied with her story.
Martin waited, then said, “And?” Jean looked back at him, confused. “What else?” Martin demanded.
“Well, nothing, really,” she replied. “We tried to find out what she meant, but all she’d say was the old fart liked to…hmmm…’cop a feel” I think she said. She didn’t elaborate.”
“Mom…let me elaborate for you,” Martin said, and proceeded to fill Jean in on the details.

When Martin finished his story about Frank, Sharla and what he thought was probably a cover-up, Jean’s eyes were almost as big as her faux Delft blue plates hanging on the wall behind her. She didn’t say a word for almost a full minute, and then said, “Martin, I’m so sorry.”
Martin frowned and asked, “Mom, what are you sorry about?”
“I don’t really know,” Jean replied, and shook her head. “It’s just so sad. Why didn’t anyone do anything about it? Why didn’t anyone help Sharla?”
Martin slumped back and looked up at the ceiling, studying the spider web in the corner of the crown molding. “That’s what I can’t figure out, Mom,” he sighed. “It sounds as if people knew what was going on, but just didn’t know what to do about it. And if it had been a white girl who was actually molested…or raped…” Martin trailed off and closed his eyes.
“Do you really think he raped those Indian girls, Martin?” Jean asked, her voice trembling.
“I think so, Mom, and the only reason Sharla escaped was because she dropped out,” Martin said sadly. “Mom, can you tell me anything about that time? Did I even mention Sharla dropping out or anything about weird stuff happening at school?”
Jean thought a minute and didn’t meet his eyes when she answered. “I don’t think so, Martin. You maybe acted a little moody, but you certainly never mentioned Sharla not coming to school anymore. You never talked about her at all.”
Martin’s struggled to sit upright on the sofa and waited for his mother to face him and look him in the eye. “I was as bad as everyone else. I was ashamed to call Sharla my friend, and didn’t want to care that she just disappeared one day,” he said, almost to himself. “Well, I’m never going to do that to my friend Sharla again.”