The Door to December

dawn, on this extraordinary night, a ringing phone and an uncommunicative caller had sinister implications.
     She double-checked the locks on the doors. That seemed to be an inadequate response, but she could think of nothing more to do.
     Still uneasy, she tried to shrug off the call, and at last she went into the empty room that had once been the nursery. Two years ago, she had disposed of Melanie's baby furniture when she had finally admitted to herself that her missing daughter would have by that time outgrown everything. Laura had not refurnished, ostensibly because when Melanie returned, the girl would be old enough to have a say in the choice of decor. Actually, Laura had left the room empty because — though she couldn't face her own fears — deep in her heart she'd felt that Melanie would never be coming back, that the child had vanished forever.
     She had saved a few of her daughter's toys, however. Now she took the box of old playthings out of the closet and rummaged through it. Three-year-olds and nine-year-olds didn't have much in common, but Laura found two items that might still be appealing to Melanie: a big Raggedy Ann doll, slightly soiled, and a smaller teddy bear with floppy ears.
     She took the bear and the doll into the guest bedroom and set them on the pillows, with their backs against the headboard. Melanie would see them the moment she came into the room.
     Pepper jumped onto the bed, approached the doll and the bear with curiosity and trepidation. She sniffed the doll, nuzzled the bear, then curled up beside them, apparently having decided that they were friendly.
     The first beams of daylight were streaming through the French windows. By the manner in which the early light fluctuated from gray to gold to gray again, Laura could tell, without looking at the sky, that the rain had stopped and that the clouds were breaking up.
     Although she'd had only three hours of sleep the previous night, and though her daughter wouldn't be leaving the hospital for six or eight hours, Laura didn't feel like returning to bed. She was awake, energetic. From the stoop outside the front door, she retrieved the plastic-wrapped morning newspaper. In the kitchen, she squeezed two large oranges to make a glass of fresh juice, put a pan of water on the stove to boil, took a box of raisin oatmeal from a cupboard, and popped two slices of bread in the toaster. She was actually humming a tune — Elton John's 'Daniel' — when she sat at the table.
     Her daughter was coming home.
     The front-page stories in the paper — the turmoil in the Middle East, the fighting in Central America, the scheming of politicians, the muggings and robberies and senseless killings — did not discourage or concern her as they usually did. The murders of Dylan, Hoffritz, and the unknown man were not reported: That story had broken too late to make the early edition. If she had seen that slaughter recounted in the Times, maybe she wouldn't have felt so lighthearted. But she saw not a word about those murders, and Melanie would be released from the hospital this afternoon, and all things considered, she had known worse mornings.
     Her daughter was coming home.
     When she finished her breakfast, she pushed aside the newspaper and sat looking out the window at the damp rose garden. The sodden blooms seemed impossibly bright in the slanting sun, as unnaturally colorful as flowers in a vivid dream.
     She lost track of time, might have been sitting there two minutes or ten, when she was snapped out of her reverie by a thump and clatter somewhere in the house. She sat straight up, rigid, tense, scared, her mind filled with images of blood-spattered walls and cold dead forms in opaque plastic bags.
     Then Pepper broke the ominous spell by dashing out of the dining room, into the kitchen, claws clicking on the tile. She scampered into a corner, stood there, the hair raised along her back, ears flattened, staring at the doorway through which she had come. Then with a sudden self-consciousness that was comical, the cat pretended nonchalance, curled up in a furry puddle on the floor, yawned, and turned sleepy eyes on Laura, as if to say, 'Who, me? Lose my feline dignity? Even for a moment? Never! Scared? Ridiculous!'
     'What'd you do, puss? Knock something over, spook yourself?'
     The calico yawned again.
     'It better not