The Book of James (7 page)

THE BOOK
of
JAMES

51

“I’m sorry,” I began. “I know it must have been a shock to learn

about the accident from my note, but I didn’t have a number to

cal .” Cora was studying my face, and I couldn’t help but look away.

“It was,” she said final y. “Nick and I had not seen each other

for years. He left here when his father died and never came back.”

She poured a cup of tea and offered it to me. I hesitated for a

second, afraid that my hands would shake. When I reached for it,

I saw that her fingers holding the cup were red, almost maroon in color. Not just her fingers—the skin all the way up to the sleeves of her dress, as far as I could see, was scarred, red, and scabbed in places. Like it had been burned.

“Did he tell you anything about why he left?” she asked.

I grasped the cup firmly and lowered it to the table. “No. Nick

didn’t talk much about growing up.” Her facial features seemed

almost to droop. “He kept it to himself.” I felt her eyes traveling down my simple navy-blue dress to my dark, strappy heels.

“You were married to my son how long?”

“Four years. We met in school. University of Southern Maine.

Graduate school. He was an architect. Did you know that?”

“We weren’t in touch.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. “I’m sorry.” My fingers began to

knead the napkin in my lap. “He said he’d lost both his parents.”

“That’s his truth. Mine is that he never lost me, he chose to

cut me out of his life.” Her voice was soft, but those words stung as if she’d thrown her tea in my face. An awkward silence filled the room like the smoke from a cherry bomb. “So tell me, what was he

like? My son, when you met him?”

“Very good sense of humor. Shy. Kept to himself.” I was

tempted to add:
Very smart in a calculating, manipulative way.

Narcissistic. Selfish.
These latter traits had become more apparent to me since the reading of the wil .

Cora sipped her tea and placed it back onto the saucer before

speaking. “And how did you penetrate his armor?”

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ELLEN J. GREEN

“I real y don’t know.” But I did. We shared an intense, quiet

sadness. A difficult past that was understood without words. I

never asked him about his childhood because I didn’t want him

asking about mine. Terrible plus terrible equals horrific. And our marriage couldn’t handle horrific. It could barely tolerate tempered silence.

Cora’s head tilted slightly. “Where was your family in all this?

Did you leave home at a young age? Cut your family off too?”

My napkin was twisted around my hand so tightly, my finger-

tips were blue. “No. I lived at home until college. My mother died when I was fourteen. Cancer. And my life was upside down after

that. My father and I don’t speak much.”

“So you were two orphans in a storm? Clinging together in

your little house in Maine? Waiting for the worst to pass?”

The snark of her words was mitigated by the look in her eyes.

She was devastated.

I said, “I can’t imagine how terrible this must have been for

you. Not knowing where he was all this time.”

“The last time I saw Nick was at his father’s funeral. It was like my world disappeared that day. Everything I’d known, gone.” She

started picking at the burned skin around her cuticles. “Please tell me about the accident. What happened?”

“I was driving. The light turned green. A truck rammed into

us.” I watched my fingers unwrap the napkin and rewrap it over

and over. Anything not to have to look up into this woman’s face.

“It’s all a blur. The truck came from nowhere. I had the light.” My eyes burned, and I real y didn’t want to cry. I coughed lightly and took a sip of lukewarm tea. “I wanted to write sooner, but I thought it was best to wait until I came to Philadelphia. So we could see each other face-to-face.”

I leaned in. “Mrs. Whitfield, you were very much on your son’s

mind before he died.”

This seemed to startle her. “He wasn’t killed in the accident?”

THE BOOK
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JAMES

53

I shook my head. “No. He lived long enough to get to the hos-

pital, to surgery. And he was conscious in the emergency room.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“Just that I needed to come to Philadelphia. They’d given him

medicine. His thoughts were jumbled. But he insisted that some

part of his life was here.”

“You needed to come to Philadelphia? Why?” Something

flashed in her eyes.

“He didn’t say, but I think it was to come to you. So he could

reconnect with you. Even if it was through me.”

Cora laughed. I took notice of the fact that it was misplaced,

but that her face was oddly bright when she smiled. It didn’t last long. “And where is my son’s body? What did you do with it?” Her

expression flattened.

“He’s buried in Portland. That’s what he said he wanted when

he was in the hospital. I didn’t know he had family then.”

“He belongs here. On this property. There’s a cemetery where

all the Monroes are buried. He needs to come home.” Her voice

was now urgent.

I didn’t want to make any commitments. Nick had specifical y

told me to bury him in Maine. It was one of his last requests of me.

“I’ll give it some thought. I wil .”

“Strongly consider it. It upsets me, the thought of my son up

north, alone.”

I wanted to ask her who James was, but instinct told me he was

connected to whatever horrible event had taken place here. Too

much, too soon would make this woman shut down.

Her eyes were focused on something over my right shoulder.

I looked at every detail of her lined face, at the makeup stuck in some of the creases, the folds of skin over her eyes, the harsh set of her jaw. I tried to pretend for a moment that this woman was a patient at my clinic. It calmed my nerves and made me feel like I was in control.

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ELLEN J. GREEN

“I would like to ask only one thing of you. Just this one thing,”

she said when she spoke again. “Would you consider staying here

with me for a little while? It would give me the chance to get to know my son again.” She stopped and looked down. “I knew him

for the first sixteen years of his life. You knew him for the last five.

Between the two of us, maybe I can get more of a complete picture.

He’s gone now, and all I have left is you. You could tell me so much about what kind of a man he’d become.” She looked so sad at that

moment that I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if she’d burst

into tears.

Her face became suddenly animated, and her arms flew out

from her sides in a wide gesture. “How about for a week? Look

at all this space. It wouldn’t be an imposition at al . In fact, there is a small guest quarters in the back of the house that has its own entrance. You could come and go as you please. What do you

think?”

I was conflicted. I felt that I still needed to try and untangle

the web Nick wove for me during his last moments of conscious-

ness. And I wasn’t overly eager to move into this mausoleum. But

my finances were teetering toward zero. I hadn’t gotten any money from Nick’s will yet, so it seemed my choices were limited if I was going to stay in the city. I felt my head nodding before I’d completely convinced myself it was the right decision.

I got into the car afterward and just sat there. Stunned. I put

the key into the ignition and glanced at the house again. The curtain in the upstairs corner window moved. Cora had been watch-

ing me. Those tiny green eyes had done nothing but watch me

since I’d gotten out of my car.

“Damn you to hell for this, Nick,” I whispered.

From the second-floor sitting-room window, she watched her son’s

bride leave the property. Darkness was creeping into the edges of her mind; she tried to fight it. Wash the cups, that’s what she’d do.

That would make things right. She descended the narrow steps to

the kitchen and set the kettle on the stove to boil.

The sanctuary of her home had been violated by a visitor,

and although it was necessary, it was unsettling. She’d never liked strangers around her and avoided them at all costs.

This stranger was different. This one held keys to the past and

the future.

Nick had spent all those early years of his life learning not to

let people get too close. He’d learned that lesson harder when his father died. Then this woman shows up, with horrible hair and a

cheap dress. For the first time Cora feared that the lesson Nick had real y learned was to wait for the perfect opportunity to pay her back for sins long forgotten.

She studied the steam beginning to pour from the spout.

Water. Steam. Hot. Wet. The words raced through her mind, one

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ELLEN J. GREEN

after the other, creating images in her mind. The words were associated with so much in her life.

“Nick.” This word was spoken, soft.

Water, filling the bathtub. Very hot. As hot as Nick could

stand. He was twelve. Thin, bony, all angles, his body just beginning to stretch, to fill out his skin. He sat on the toilet seat in his underwear. Cora leaned over and felt the temperature with her fingers. Steam had filled the space so that he was almost an apparition across the room.

“Come. Get in.”

Nick moved closer. “Mom, don’t make it so hot this time.

Please put a little cold in it.” He felt the water and then pulled his hand back. “Ow. That’s too hot.”

“It’ll cool as you sit in it. Take your clothes off.”

Nick hesitated only a bit. This had been their routine as long as he could remember. He pulled his undershirt over his head, freez-ing when he felt her fingers on him, near his armpits.

“You’re getting older, Nick. I never understood how these

things happen so suddenly.” Her fingers brushed the fuzz develop-

ing under his arms. “Hair on my little boy.” Nick kept his arms up for a moment and then dropped them abruptly to his sides.

He stripped off the white briefs in a second and climbed too

quickly into the scalding water. He yelped in surprise and grabbed for the cold-water spigot. Cora grabbed his hand before he reached the knob.

“You don’t need to be ashamed with me, Nick. I’m your

mother.” She released his hand. “Leave the water be. It’ll cool in a minute.” She snatched a washcloth from the linen closet and

kneeled beside the tub. “You came from me. You’re part of me.” She dipped the cloth and washed his arm. “I’m always going to know

everything about you. About your life. About your body.” Nick

slumped down into the water, curling up into a bal , wetting his

hair. Cora watched him splashing about, saying nothing for a few

THE BOOK
of
JAMES

57

minutes. When he surfaced, she began to run the washcloth over

his body again. He sat very stil , his eyes closed, until her hands stopped moving.

“You can get out now,” she said. “Open your eyes.” He rose

from the tub, his skin deep crimson from the blistering water. He wrapped himself in the white towel she held in front of him. “Go

to your room now. Your pajamas are ready.”

When she entered his bedroom he was already in his pajamas

in bed, rolled up in his blanket like a burrito. He lay on his side, staring at the blank wal .

She entered the room and smiled. “Unroll yourself, Nick. You

can’t sleep that way.” He did without saying a word. He chose to

stay on his side, his face to the wal .

Cora kicked off her shoes, lifted the blanket, and slid in next

to him. She pressed herself against his back and wrapped her arms around him. “No one will ever love you the way I love you. No one.

Don’t ever forget that, okay? No matter what happens. No matter

where you go.” There was silence. She shook him gently. “Nick?”

Cora felt a hole, a desperation inside her. This boy was all she had.

“Yes, Mother, I know.” His voice was robotic. An automatic

response.

“Tell me again,” she said. “Like you always do.”

“I love you, Mother, and I’ll never leave you.”

“You’d better not. I’d have to track you down, bring you back

here to me if you did. You know that, right?” She kissed the back of his head. “Bring you back dead or alive.”

Now Cora opened her eyes and ran her hand over her mouth,

remembering how she had kissed his head all those years ago.

Mackenzie had taken her place in his life, that much she knew. But had he given his body and his soul to her? Had he told her everything and then sworn her to secrecy?

She breathed deeply, recognizing the shrill sound in the

background as the whistling of the teakettle. She pushed it from

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ELLEN J. GREEN

the burner; the noise slowed and then stopped, steam billowing

angrily from the spout.

She filled the sink with hot water and soap. Then she slowly

poured in water from the kettle, testing the temperature with her fingers until it was hot enough. She sunk both arms into the scalding water, the heat radiating up her skin, burning it. She scrubbed the cups hard, trying to get rid of the darkness in her mind that made it hard to think.

Her skin felt a sharp slice as the china, so resilient and yet so fragile, broke beneath her fingers. Red inkiness spread through the soapy water. She stared at its pattern, not moving her hands.

“Damn you, Nick.” The words sputtered from her lips. She

smashed the cup against the side of the sink again and again, the pieces falling back into the water or embedding themselves into