Her Dear and Loving Husband (30 page)

“No peeking,” she said.

“What is it with witches and black velvet? Isn’t that something of a cliché?”

“I like black velvet, that’s all. Aren’t you supposed to burn to ash in the sun?”

“You need to be careful about getting your information from nineteenth century novels.”

“But it could be true.”

“I was just standing near the light and it didn’t bother me.”

Olivia interrupted them. “Would you like me to warm some of that drink you brought with you, dear? I can put it in the microwave. You need all your strength today.”

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

Jennifer wrinkled her nose and shook her head as she walked into the kitchen. She grabbed a bowl from the microwave, a spoon from a drawer, and sat at the dining room table. “That’s disgusting,” she said.

James looked in the bowl of oatmeal she was eating. “You have the nerve to call what I drink disgusting? That looks like samp, the corn mush we ate in the seventeenth century.”

“It’s better than what you drink.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Olivia put the warmed coffee cup in front of him.      

“Now, James, you know what to do,” Jennifer said. “We’ll drop you off as close to the library as we can. Sarah will keep Hempel talking inside so he won’t be standing by the door watching for you. He’ll be by the librarians’s desk, and he’ll be able to see you walk in from there.”

“What if Sarah can’t keep him from waiting in front of the library?” Olivia asked. “What if he sees James get out of our car?”

“I don’t know,” Jennifer said. “We’ll have to figure out how to explain that if we need to.” She looked at James. “So all you have to do is make it a few feet in the sunlight.”

“I can do that,” he said.

Jennifer seemed surprised when she saw the time on the clock on the oven. “It’s 11:30,” she said. “We should get going.” James followed her to the garage door. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned to him. If he didn’t know her better he would have thought she was about to cry. “It’s not too late to change your mind,” she said.

“I’m not afraid.”

There were no windows in the garage, so he was in no danger there. Jennifer opened the car door, and she checked the fastenings of the black velvet curtains while James sat in the backseat. 

“It looks like a coffin back here,” he said. 

“At least you’re used to it,” said Jennifer.

“Why would I be used to it?”

“You sleep in a coffin, don’t you?”

“Of course I don’t sleep in a coffin. I sleep in a bed like everyone else. Why would I sleep in a coffin?”

“Because you’re dead.”

“I’m not that dead.”

“Never mind you two.” Olivia pulled the black velvet curtain aside so she could see James. “Do you think we should put some sunblock on him?”

“Sure, Mom. You have any SPF 400 laying around?”

“I don’t think the sunscreen will be necessary,” James said. “I don’t have far to walk.”

Jennifer and Olivia climbed into the front seat. “Are you ready, James?” Jennifer asked.

He pulled the black velvet curtain into place.

“Let’s go,” he said.

He leaned against the car seat, and as he looked at the black lining he couldn’t shake the gloomy concerns brought on by the makeshift coffin. Hopefully they won’t be bringing back a corpse today, he thought. But he wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on that. He thought about Sarah instead. He would see her soon in the library. She was already there paving the way for him. 

“Okay,” said Jennifer. She opened the garage door and turned the key in the ignition, but she didn’t pull the car out. “The garage door is open. Are you still okay back there?”

“It’s still dark. Start driving.”

Jennifer made her way down the tree-lined streets to the Central Campus at Salem State College the same way she had for over five years. James pictured the route in his mind, down Lafayette Street, past Pickering Wharf and the Dodge Street Bar and Grill, past Harbor Street and the Pioneer Village. He pictured the overhanging leafy trees, the spring-fresh flowers, the quaint shops, the historical landmarks. He felt the hum of the car as Jennifer drove as quickly as the ebb of Salem car traffic would allow. The town had been settled so long ago that the small-town streets didn’t seem suited for modern vehicles. As Jennifer pulled onto the college campus she described the students with their backpacks swinging from their shoulders, laughing and carefree as they sat on the lawn or walked to their classes. She spoke as if James had never seen such things. 

“Do you think they can tell Professor Wentworth is in the backseat separated from the day by a width of black velvet?” she asked. “Can they guess why he needs to be kept away from the light?” James heard the strain in her voice. “You can still change your mind.”

“I’m immortal and I’m strong.” 

“James is immortal and he’s strong,” she repeated, the mantra over and over, “James is strong, James is strong, James is strong is strong is strong…”

“Oh no…” James heard Olivia rattle through her handbag, shuffling her keys and her wallet. He heard the panic in her voice. “I didn’t bring the sunglasses. I set them on the dining room table and I forgot to put them in my pocketbook.”

He heard Jennifer sigh. “Do you want to turn back, James?”

“No,” he said. “I can’t be late.”

“Are you sure? Your eyes…”

“There’s no time. Keep going.”

They arrived at the library fifteen minutes before noon. Jennifer drove through the parking lot looking for Kenneth Hempel’s car, a green Buick. She read the license plate of the first green Buick she saw.

“Yes,” James said from behind the black velvet curtain, “that’s his car.”

“That’s good,” Olivia said, “he’s already here.”

Jennifer pulled the car along the curb as close to the library as she could where Loring Avenue crossed the bike path.

“Good luck, dear,” said Olivia. “It’s not that far.”

I’m coming, Sarah, he thought. He slid on his wire-framed eyeglasses, silently cursing the absent sunglasses that might have helped him that day. After he opened the car door and stepped into the light of the noontime sun, Jennifer sped away, leaving no evidence of how he arrived. 

Immediately, he felt blinded by the light, like someone was pricking pins into his eyes. But he was determined to make it to the library where Sarah was waiting. The closer he stepped the more he could hear her voice, the worry that he should have been there by now. She was patiently refuting Hempel’s bizarre claims. Yes, she saw James drink water and soda and wine. He doesn’t like beer. Yes, she saw him eat. She cooked for him almost every day. What did he like to eat? He liked whatever she cooked. Yes, he’ll be back any moment. He went to the dining hall to get something to eat. No, you don’t need to look for him.    

Using his stubborn will as a crutch, despite the sharpness behind his unseeing eyes, he walked down the bike path. One foot in front of the other, he kept saying to himself, just one foot in front of the other to the library. His eyes felt liquid in his face, as if they would melt away, but there were just a few more feet to go and he would be inside. Even seeing Kenneth Hempel didn’t matter then. He was going to see Sarah. 

Suddenly, despite himself, for a reason he didn’t understand, he glanced up to see it. The sun. He saw it the way he might see a parent who had abandoned him years before, with longing and awe. Even after he looked away the warmth pulled him in and embraced him. He felt comforted, as if the sun were an illuminated manuscript that held the answer to every question he ever had. He had missed the sun for so long after he was turned, over one hundred years, and for over three hundred years he had seen only the moon and the stars in the darkest sky. Glimpsing the sun again, knowing the brightness, feeling the heat, wanting the light that had been worshipped itself as a god in earlier civilizations, sent him into a dream-like stream of consciousness. He forgot time and place. For a moment he thought he was an ordinary man standing in the bright light of late spring. For centuries he tried to convince himself that the moon and the stars were as good as the sun, beautiful in their own ways, but they always seemed too far removed, unfamiliar and cold, the moon an estranged aunt, the stars distant cousins. The sun was always mother. He had been without his mother so long.

As quickly as the confusion struck was as quickly as it left. When he came back to himself, he felt warm and flushed, and he was reminded what he was. He felt like he had to get inside or he might die. He felt himself falling, his legs weighted down like overflowing bags of blood, but he heard Sarah inside the library, still talking with Hempel, her voice tinged with an anxiety only he could hear.

“Here he comes,” she said.

He put one foot in front of the other, right, left, right, left, he said to himself through the chaos in his muddled mind. He knew Sarah was waiting and he would do this for Sarah. Somehow he made it to the door. He paused, disoriented, but he knew he couldn’t look strained or Hempel would see he wasn’t himself. He would do this for Sarah. 

Right, left, right, left, he thought as he walked across the foyer. Just a few more steps. How many times had he crossed that foyer, hoping to see Sarah, wanting to be with her, smiling when she was there, he had lost track. Now she was there waiting for him the way he had waited for her for over three hundred years. He saw the worry on her face, which she tried to conceal from Hempel, but he knew that face so well. He had dreamed about it for oh so very long.

Kenneth Hempel stood in front of the librarians’s desk, watching James with wide eyes which he quickly reigned in, as if he were trying to hide how surprised he was to see it: James Wentworth, the man he had been hunting, walking into the library in the spring sunlight at noon. It was as if he couldn’t believe that James hadn’t exploded into a puff of smoke or withered into a mound of dust.   

Right, left, right, left, James thought as he walked to Sarah.

“Hi, honey,” he said. 

He leaned over the librarians’s desk and kissed her cheek. From her wide eyes to her open mouth, the concern everywhere in her face, he thought she must feel how warm he was. But he wouldn’t be swayed. He had come to beat Kenneth Hempel at his own game, to be the hunter instead of the hunted. The persistent reporter wouldn’t bother his new life with Sarah any more. James wouldn’t let on about how weak he felt, like his flesh would slip off his bones and melt away. Hempel wouldn’t suspect a thing. 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hempel,” James said. “How are you today?” 

“Just fine, Professor. I see you’re well.”

“Never better.”

For the first time since their acquaintance began, Kenneth Hempel was lost for words. Good, James thought. This is working even better than I hoped.

“Would you like to join me in my office where we can speak more privately?” he asked.

“That would be fine.”

Right, left, right, left. James pushed his legs front and back mechanically, like a wind-up doll. He held himself upright and Hempel didn’t seem to notice if he looked stilted as he moved. They took the elevator to the third floor, and James kept his eyes on the buttons to keep himself focused. He was afraid that if he looked too closely at Hempel, his eyes, which still felt like fireballs in his skull, would give something away. When they reached the third floor he unlocked his office door and stepped aside so Hempel could go in. He gestured to the chair where his students sat when they visited him during office hours.   

“If you’ll excuse me a moment,” James said. “I need to use the restroom. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like to watch.”

Hempel shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll wait for you here.”

“As you wish.”  

James closed the office door behind him and walked down the hall to the faculty men’s room. He went to the sink and turned the water on as cold as it would go, splashing his face, trying to feel heatless again the way he had for three hundred and nineteen years. The warmth made him oh so very tired and he wanted to lie on the cool linoleum floor and sleep. Suddenly the room slid as if the earth had tilted off its axis and everything tipped diagonally, over the hills and far away. He gripped the sink with such force he nearly tore it from the wall, but he steadied himself. He looked in the mirror, the first time he studied himself that closely in years. Who needed to see when he always looked the same? He sighed when he saw the flushed red spots on his cheeks and neck. He pressed his glasses against his nose and stared deeply, willing himself to stay strong. Just a few more minutes, he thought, just a bit more time with Hempel and it will all be over. He could endure this and a hundred times more for Sarah. This is all for Sarah. 

He limped back to his office, right, left, right, left. Hempel was flipping through a thin volume of Transcendentalist poetry when he walked in.   

“Interesting collection of books you have,” Hempel said. He took a sip from a can of diet soda. “I hope you don’t mind, but I helped myself while you were gone.”  

“Excuse me?”

“I took this can of soda from your refrigerator. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” James looked at the icebox beneath his desk.  

“And it’s such a lovely day I opened the blinds to let the sunshine in. I love these later days of spring when the weather gets warmer before the humidity hits.”

James saw streams of sun land in a circle of light on his chair, but he wouldn’t stop now. He was nearly done. He could hear it in the resignation in Hempel’s voice. He sat down, the light of the sun illuminating the dust in the air, and he swiveled around to face his hunter. He sat up straight, his shoulders back. He wouldn’t give into the tumultuous tipping of the world he felt before. He would win this round with a full deck in his hand, his Queen of Hearts intact, his king stronger than ever. 

“So what were we talking about the other day?” he asked.

He was surprised at how steady his voice sounded. Maybe everything else was a hallucination and he was fine now, the worst of it behind him. He had every reason to feel victorious. After all, Kenneth Hempel would no longer be a problem. He could feel it.