A Certain Slant of Light (41 page)

  
"My parents think I'm having an affair with Mr. Brown," I
told him.

  
"What?" His whole frame jumped.

  
"I've made a mess of everything."

  
"Tell them it's me," said James.

  
I considered telling him that I was only fifteen but instead hid
my face in his neck and breathed in the scent of him—sweet
salt, laundry soap, something indescribable that was just James.

  
We managed to get on the bus without being caught, and
James read the map on the wall above the seats, almost as if searching for the secret instructions on how to lure Billy Blake
back into his flesh.

Fifteen

This TIME WHEN James signed in at the hospital, I signed in after
him, forgetting to write Jenny's name until I had already written
the word
Helen.
After it, I found that I had written the word
Lamb.
My father's name or my husband's, from a life I could not
recall. I dropped the pen and followed James.

  
The halls smelled like strong soap and coffee. When we came into her room, Billy's mother sat in a wheelchair. Verna held the
silent woman's bare foot in her lap, carefully painting her toenails
pale pink. We stood in the doorway, and Verna smiled.

  
"I guess the cat's out of the bag," she said.

  
James came closer, watching Billy's mother. She wore a yellow
bathrobe with tiny roses on it.

  
"If I didn't pretend to need you boys to bring me," said Verna,
"how would we ever get Mitch to come visit?"

  
James wasn't listening.

  
"Who's your friend?" Verna asked him.

  
"I'm Jenny," I said.

  
"Verna, you know how drugs can affect your brain?" James
asked.

  
The woman stared at him, open as a sunflower. "Sure, hon."

  
He was in a rush, but he stopped and took a breath, smiling at Verna. "Are you my mother's best friend?"

  
"Since we were eighteen."

  
"Would you tell me what happened to my mom?" he asked. "I
don't remember."

  
She thought about this for only a heartbeat. "Your father was
drinking, Mitch was at work, you and your mother were home.
He used a bookend instead of his hand, and he didn't stop."

  
"Why didn't I stop him?"

  
"Honey," she said, almost as if scolding him. "You were
twelve. And he threw you through a window."

  
"And I think Mitch blames me," said James. "Right?"

  
The question threw her off for a moment, but she capped the
nail polish and looked at him sternly. "Billy, Mitch thinks if he'd
been there, he could've saved you both."

  
"What's her first name?" James asked. We had both heard it
before, but I couldn't recall it either.

  
Now Verna looked a little unnerved. "Sarah." She lowered
Sarah's freshly painted left foot and backed out of the way when
James knelt in front of the wheelchair.

  
"Sarah," he whispered to her. "Billy isn't dead. I'm holding
his place. But I don't know how to call him back." James took her
right hand and tried to look her in the eyes, but her head was
tilted forward and her mouth hung slack. "Help me," said James.

  
I was praying for James to get some kind of message. Verna
looked very confused.

  
"Please," said James. "What should I do?"

  
Verna looked at me now, but I couldn't answer the question in
her eyes.

  
"Please." James put Sarah's right hand to his face. "Show me
what to do." Her whole body was as still as wax, except for a tiny
twitch that started now in her left hand.

  
"What's going on?" Fear had crept into Verna's voice.

  
The overhead light flashed off the wedding band as the ring
finger on Sarah's hand trembled.

  
"Look," I said. James followed my gaze and saw the twitching now. He touched the ring with one finger and it stopped shaking.

  
"Thank you," he said, and kissed the hand he held.

  
"Where are they holding my father?" he asked Verna.

  
"Glisan." Her eyes filled with tears. "Mitch never took you?"

  
"Where is it?" he asked.

  
"Straight out MLK." Verna reached for her purse. "I'll drive
you."

  
"No." James took my hand. "Please stay here with Sarah."

  
Verna watched anxiously as we hurried out.

  
When we were halfway across the parking lot, I looked back and through the glass doors saw Verna borrow the receptionist's
telephone.

James had to stand beside the bus driver for the first couple of
blocks to get advice about where to transfer. A toddler in a man's
arms three rows back cried a tired stream of tears that made my
bones ache. When I was Light, I hardly heard the weeping of in
fants, but now every sob pulsed in my head.

  
When James came to sit beside me, he held my hand to his
chest. Like a knight before battle, he was gathering strength,
watching the horizon, rubbing my fingers so hard they tingled.
Please, I thought, please don't leave me.

  
I looked to the window across from us and saw what looked
like a double image. There were two of him reflected, but only
one of me. James squeezed my hand tighter.

  
"It's him," he whispered.

  
The double image was gone.

  
"Who?" I asked.

  
"Billy."

  
I felt a sudden joy; something that was happening here had called him back. I scanned every windowpane, wanting to see
Billy Blake's spirit, if I could. But I felt anxious about his pres
ence, too; I was afraid it signaled the end of my time with James.

  
When we transferred to a second bus and sat in the front row,
James finally looked at me and kissed me as if savoring a dip at
the well before crossing a desert. I felt an urgency fill him and his
face warmed with color.

  
"What are you going to say to his father?" I asked.

  
"I don't know."

  
"What's going to happen to us?" I sat with my arms around
him and my legs over his.

  
"I don't know." We were both trembling but not in the same
way. Not like when we were making love. Now I was trembling
with fear, and James was vibrating with excitement—a hunter
tracking a bear; a child stepping out into the night on Halloween.

  
The Glisan County Prison was a slate-colored grid. A huge
lawn stretched out in front of the office that sat outside the enor
mous fences. It reminded me of a mausoleum where they don't
want the corpses to escape. Once inside the lobby, I waited near
the glass doors while James talked with the uniformed man be
hind the front desk. Half a dozen people waited in plastic chairs
surrounding a low table covered with wrinkled magazines: a few
middle-aged black men in bowling shirts, a large woman with a
gigantic purse, a pale girl with a patch over one eye.

  
A guard came and led one of the men down the hall and
around a corner. The man behind the desk was shaking his head
at James, but James didn't give up. I was standing so near the
door that Mitch almost ran into me when he stormed in.

  
He was wearing jeans and boots but only an undershirt, as if
he'd rushed out in such a fury that he didn't notice. He pulled
James around by the arm, but James didn't flinch. I could hear
Mitch's acidic whisper, but I couldn't understand the words until
they moved away from the desk, back closer to the entrance.

  
"Are you fucking nuts?"

  
"I need to see him," said James.

  
Now I could see Mitch's face as he stepped around James, po
sitioning himself between his brother and the hallway. "You
don't talk to me? You just run?" Mitch had his hands on his hips
as if angry, but I saw his wrist shaking, and it wasn't rage.

  
James whispered something I couldn't hear.

  
"If you're looking for goddamn answers, I got one," said
Mitch. "Tell them what those two little fuckers did. I can't be
lieve you're protecting them."

  
Again James spoke too low for me to hear.

  
Mitch put his face in his hands. "Shit!"

  
Now the other visitors were watching the two brothers. Mitch returned to the desk, slapped open his wallet to show his driver's
license to the man behind the counter. He signed the clipboard,
still seething. James moved close to Mitch, seeming to have for
gotten me. I wished I had Jenny's camera with me. I wanted to photograph the back of James's head—the way his hair made
dark arrows on his damp neck.