Nathaniel (38 page)

“Nathaniel …” Findley said softly.

Anna’s head came up angrily. “Nathaniel!” she echoed, her voice suddenly regaining its strength. “Don’t be a fool, Ben. There is no Nathaniel. There was never a Nathaniel. All my life, since I married Amos Hall, I’ve heard of nothing except Nathaniel. He doesn’t exist, Ben. He was never anything but a fantasy of Amos’s.”

“No, Anna—”

“Yes! He killed my children, Ben. He killed my children, and somehow, in his twisted mind, he managed to blame it on his holy Nathaniel. But it was a lie, Ben! Amos was insane, and a murderer. I could never prove it, but I knew. I always knew.”

“How?” Ben Findley suddenly demanded. He rose to his feet, towering over Anna, his blue eyes blazing. “How did you know, Anna?”

Anna cowered in her chair, her burst of strength suddenly deserting her. “I knew,” she whispered. “That’s all. I just knew.”

“And is that why you stayed with him?” Findley asked. “Is that why you stayed with him all those years, Anna? Because you knew he’d killed your children? It doesn’t make sense. If you truly knew, you’d have left him, left him and gone away. If you truly thought he’d killed your children, you never would have stayed with him.”

Anna shook her head helplessly as her eyes flooded with tears. “No,” she protested. “You don’t understand. I—I couldn’t walk, Ben. I couldn’t walk, and I couldn’t prove what he’d done.” Suddenly she looked up at him imploringly. “Don’t you understand, Ben? Don’t you understand at all?”

Findley ignored her question. “And what about our child, Anna?” he asked softly. “Did Amos kill our child, too?”

Anna recoiled from his words. “No …” she whimpered. “No, don’t talk about that. Please …”

“Tell me, Anna,” Findley pressed, his voice relentless. “Tell me what you think you know about our son.”

“Dead,” Anna whispered. “He was born dead. That’s what Amos always told me. But I never believed him, Ben. I never believed him. Amos killed our baby that night, just like the other two. He killed him, and they buried him in Potter’s Field.”

“No, Anna,” Findley told her. The anger drained out of his voice, and Anna responded to his sudden gentleness, gazing at him with frightened eyes. “He didn’t die, Anna. He wasn’t born dead, and he didn’t die. Potter brought him to me that night. He brought him to me, and I’ve had him ever since.” He paused, then, “I named him Nathaniel, Anna. That’s who you saw tonight. You saw Nathaniel, and he’s our son.”

A terrible silence fell over the house as Anna tried to comprehend Ben Findley’s words. The room seemed to turn around her, and her mind reeled as twenty years of her life shattered into meaningless pieces.

And then, gathering her strength, Anna Hall grasped the arms of her wheelchair. “No,” she breathed. “No. None of it’s true!” Her voice pitched to a scream, as slowly, supporting herself on trembling arms, she began to rise from the chair. “Why are you lying to me?” she wailed. “Why? Why?” She took a halting step toward him, and suddenly her fists came up. “Lies,” she screamed. “It’s all lies! I know the truth, Ben. I know it!” She began pummeling at his chest, her legs wobbling, but still somehow supporting her.

Ben Findley’s arms went around Anna, and he held her tight. “No, Anna, I’ve told you the truth. It’s all over now. Amos is dead, and he can’t hurt you anymore. It’s all over. Amos is dead, and our son is alive, and it’s over.”

But Anna shook herself loose. “It’s not over,” she hissed. “I wasn’t wrong, Ben. I wasn’t! You’re lying to me, but I’ll find the truth! So help me, I’ll find the truth!” Then she turned, and with an effort of sheer willpower, she walked slowly across the room and disappeared into the tiny room that had been her private retreat for the last twenty years.

A moment later, when Ben Findley tried to follow her, he found the door locked. When he called to her, Anna Hall refused to answer him.

The next morning, Anna began to hear the rumors. People called—nearly everyone in town—to express their sympathies, and Anna listened to them, and made all the proper responses. But some of them didn’t stop with condolences about Amos’s death. Some of them made oblique references to Michael:

“Such a terrible thing for a boy his age—”

“Of course, losing his father must have been a terrible trauma for him, but to blame his grandfather—”

“Of course, he couldn’t have seen a ghost, but he must have seen
something—”

“Of course, I can’t believe it’s true. Why would a little boy want to do a thing like that—”

Anna listened to it all, and slowly pieced it all together. Finally she turned to Laura, who had arrived during the night, after Ben Findley had left. She hadn’t seen Laura last night, but she’d told her through her closed door that she was all right and that she needed to be alone for a while. Laura had accepted it, as Laura always accepted everything. Only this morning, when Anna had slowly and shakily walked out of the tiny room, had Laura tried to confront her.

Anna smiled grimly at the memory.

Laura had stared at her, speechless, then finally opened her mouth to protest. “Mother—you can’t—”

Anna had silenced her. “Obviously I can,” she’d said. “Since I am.”

“But—but—how?”

“I don’t know,” Anna admitted. “Something happened to me last night. I’m not sure what it was, and I won’t talk about it. But after I found out your father had died, something inside me changed.” She’d smiled sadly at Laura. “Maybe I’ve stopped punishing myself. Or maybe I could have done it long ago,” she said. “Maybe my chair was nothing more than my own way of running away from things. I’ve been thinking about it all night, Laura, and that’s the only thing that makes sense. Charles told me that years ago, you know. From the very beginning, he told me there was nothing wrong with my legs, that I’d just decided I didn’t want to walk.” A tear welled in her eye, then ran slowly down her cheek. “And it worked, you know,” she whispered. “Your father used to beat me, years ago—”

“Mother!”

“He did, Laura. But then he stopped. When I couldn’t walk anymore, he stopped.”

Then, with a strength she hadn’t felt for years, Anna had begun taking charge of her own life, a task she’d ceded to Amos on the day she’d married him.

“I want to go to Janet’s,” she said now.

“But mother, Janet’s in bed. The doctor’s ordered her to stay in bed for at least a week.”

“Then she’ll need help,” Anna replied. “I can at least take care of the cooking. I won’t have my grandson rummaging around eating God only knows what.”

“Mother, no one expects you to do anything right now. Ione Simpson’s looking after her, and Michael can spend the nights with us, if it’s too much trouble for the Simpsons.”

Anna’s face set. “Laura, I know you’re trying to do what’s best for me, and I appreciate it. But I’m not senile, and if I have to sit here listening to idle gossip about my grandson—”

Suddenly Laura’s expression turned wary. “Gossip? What gossip?”

“It seems,” Anna replied, “there are some people in town who think Michael might have had something to do with Amos’s death.”

Laura paled. “I know what they’re talking about, but it isn’t true, mother. It isn’t possible—”

“I’ll decide for myself what’s possible and what isn’t,” Anna snapped. “Now, will you take me over there, or do I have to learn to drive again the same day I have to learn to walk?”

“Mother, you really should stay home—what will people think? And Father—think of Father.”

Anna made no reply. Instead, she simply began making her slow way to the front door, then out onto the porch. She was starting down the steps when Laura finally decided that she was not bluffing. “All right, Mother,” she said, and followed the older woman out to her car.

Ione Simpson looked up in shocked surprise, then got quickly to her feet as Anna Hall, leaning heavily on Laura’s arm, walked slowly into Janet Hall’s small living room. “Anna! What are you—” She paused, floundering, then recovered herself. “I’m—I’m so sorry about Amos.”

Anna nodded an acknowledgment, and quickly scanned the room. “Is Michael upstairs?”

Ione hesitated, then shook her head. “He’s in the kitchen, I think.”

Wordlessly, Anna turned toward the kitchen. Laura moved quickly to help her, but Anna brushed her aside. “I want to talk to him alone.” Slowly, but with remarkable steadiness, Anna walked out of the living room.

She found Michael at the kitchen table, staring sightlessly at a bowl of cold cereal. As if coming out of a trance, his eyes suddenly focused, and he looked at her. “Aren’t you going to give your grandmother a kiss?” she asked.

With obvious reluctance, Michael got up from the table and approached her. “I—I’m sorry, Grandma,” he whispered. Anna put her arms around him.

“It’s all right, Michael. I know it’s hard, but he was an old man, and whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.” Then she held him at arm’s length and looked directly into his eyes. “It wasn’t your fault, was it?”

Michael trembled slightly, then nodded his head.

“I see,” Anna breathed. She let her hands drop from Michael’s shoulders and moved to the table, where she carefully lowered herself into a chair. “Sit down, Michael,” she said softly. “Sit down and tell me what happened. Can you do that? Can you tell me all of it?”

Slowly, Michael recounted his story of the night before, and when he was done, Anna slumped tiredly in her chair. “You wished him dead,” she whispered. “You and Nathaniel wished him dead.”

She reached out then, reached out to comfort the sobbing boy who sat across from her, his head buried in his arms. At her touch, he looked up.

“I’m sorry, Grandma. I’m sorry!”

“Michael,” Anna said almost fearfully. “There’s something you haven’t told me.”

Slowly, Michael’s sobbing subsided, and at last he looked up at his grandmother, his eyes red, his cheeks splotched with tears.

“Who is Nathaniel?” Anna asked. “You haven’t told me who Nathaniel is.” She hesitated, then asked the question she’d been dreading. “He’s—he’s a ghost, isn’t he?”

Michael’s eyes widened, and for a long moment he stared at his grandmother in silence. At last, he shook his head.

“No, Grandma,” he said softly. “He’s real.”

Ben Findley stared at the tray of food that still sat where he’d left it on the table in the little room beneath the barn.

It was untouched.

He hadn’t really expected anything different, not since he’d come down here late last night to find the room empty. That, too, had not been unexpected, but still he’d gone over the barn carefully, inspecting everything. Everything had been as it should have been. The door to the tack room, as always, was barred from the outside. The planks that formed the siding of the barn were as solid as ever despite their appearance from the outside. Upstairs in the loft, the door was still nailed shut.

Yet despite the fact that the security of the barn did no appear to have been breached, Nathaniel was gone. He was gone, and he had not come back.

Findley picked up the tray and, balancing it expertly or one hand, used the other to steady himself as he climbed the ladder out of the tiny cell. He left the barn, no bothering to lock it, and quickly crossed the yard.

Inside his house, he put the tray on the sink and stared idly at his little kitchen. A puddle of coffee had spread across the kitchen counter, and he automatically moved to wipe it up before the stain could penetrate the butcher block top.

He and Nathaniel had made that top together, and he wasn’t about to let it be ruined.

Impulsively, he decided to inspect the entire house, and he began moving slowly through its few rooms, examining everything, making sure everything was in the perfect condition he had always maintained.

The interior of the little house was in remarkable contrast to its ramshackle exterior. The hardwood floors gleamed under his feet, their mellow oaken planks polished to a soft glow. The walls were lined with leatherbound books, stored in cases he had built himself, all the joints carefully dovetailed so that as the years went by they would remain as true as they had been the day he and Nathaniel had put them together.

The furniture was sparse. Two chairs—one his, the other Nathaniel’s, for the times, much more frequent than Charles Potter had ever suspected, when Findley had felt safe enough to have Nathaniel inside the house.

At times, Ben Findley had wondered if he’d begun taking a perverse pleasure in keeping the interior of the house in such perfect contrast to its exterior, but deep inside he knew he had not. It was just that he liked things to be right, and over the years he had come to want them to be as nice as possible for Nathaniel.

At first, of course, it had not been for Nathaniel at all.

It had been for Anna.

For a long time after that night when Nathaniel was born, Ben Findley had hoped that Anna Hall would finally leave Amos and come to live with him. Him, and Nathaniel.

He had fantasized in those years, picturing the light that would come into Anna’s eyes when he told her that their son was alive. That fantasy had kept him going those first years, after Jenny had left him.

Even twenty years later, he could clearly remember that night. It was the night Nathaniel had been born, and Charles Potter had brought the baby to him, meeting him in the field, while a storm howled around them.

“Amos thinks he’s dead,” Potter had told him that night. “I made him think so, or he might have killed him. He knows the child’s yours.” He’d handed the blanket-wrapped infant to Ben. “Amos thinks I’m burying him. I’ll stay here for a while, in case he’s watching.”

Ben had peeled a corner of the blanket back, and gazed down into the face of the son that Anna Hall had borne him, the son that his own wife had never been able to conceive. “What about Anna?” he’d asked, but Potter had shaken his head.

“I don’t know. It was hard, and she thinks the baby’s dead.” Then he’d met Ben’s eyes. “He’s yours, Ben. Yours and Jenny’s.”

Except that Jenny hadn’t wanted the child, wouldn’t even look at it.

“Anna’s?” she’d demanded. “You expect me to raise a child you had by Anna Hall? Never! Never, Ben!”