first time in all her life, she had a clear picture of what she must do. She reached up and pressed the papers to her lips and said in a firm, declarative, determined voice, "I'm coming to get you, James. Wait for me. I'm about to give you the home and future your mom had anticipated for you."
She wasted no time to ring up with Matthew to tell him everything that she had discovered. She told him of her plans to go to The School of Homeless Boys and adopt James under Emily's name. She told him how she planned to raise the
boy like her own.
Matthew agreed immediately. He knew that if Amber did this, she would crawl out from her shell of depression. James was the answer to everything, to the universe, to beyond.
"I'm going right now," Amber told him.
"Let me come with you," Matthew said.
"No," Amber said gently. "This is something that I must do alone."
"But, would you be alright?"
Amber smiled a genuine smile for the first time in days. "Yes, I think I will. You know something that’s strange? I have never felt so determined, so full of energy, all my life. I have a feeling that I will succeed."
"What if James is no longer in America?" Matthew asked.
"No, he is still here," Amber said confidently. "I can feel it crawling up my spine."
"Alright, then. I wish you luck," Matthew said.
"Bring back Emily's child for me, please."
"I will."
They hung up. Amber looked out the window and into the sky. "I'm coming," she whispered. "I'm coming for you both, Emily, James."
She threw on her coat and ran outside to her car. She drove as fast as she could to the college. All the while she could feel excitement and worry bubbling in her chest.
This was it. Everything was going to come down to this.
She pulled up to The School of Homeless Boys in no time and hopped out of her car. She jogged up to the front of the school, not even a little bit out of breath.
She was old before, but now she was young and full of life again. She stood straight with her chin up towards the sky. She knocked on the rusty door and waited.
Slowly, the door swung open a crack and a brown eye appeared. It swirled around for a moment and finally settled on her. It narrowed. "Who are you? What is it that you want?" a voice behind the door hissed.
"Hello, my name is Amber Helsing," Amber said and hugged my coat closer to her body. The winter dry wind was prickling her skin. "May I speak to a woman named Mrs. Mackle?"
The eye widened at Amber's name and then darted back and forth fearfully, as if it was afraid someone was listening to their conversation, and then it disappeared and someone swung open the door wide enough for Amber to walk through. So she did.
The halls were exactly as Emily had described. Amber looked around at all the oil paintings in fascination.
"You have quite a collection here," she remarked.
The woman who had opened the door for her was not impressed with Amber’s attempt at making a small conversation and did not answer.
She had hair that was down by her shoulder and was an ashen gray, but Amber could tell that it was once a brownish color. Her face was hollow and empty of happiness. Her emerald eyes were dull, and she had a hunched back as if trying to bury a dark secret from the past. She wore a worn brown dress with patches of blue and red to cover the holes that had appeared over time. She eyed Amber warily and remained a long distance away from her.
Amber took a daring step forwards and said warmly, "Hello, Mrs. Mackle."
Mrs. Mackled jumped as if she had not expected Amber to know her name. She wrangled her hands and visibly swallowed and said quickly, with no breath in between, "I'm so sorry about what happened to your daughter. You must be here to blame it all on me, and I can't say that you are wrong. I never asked her about anything, not her age, not what she does. She looked very young as well! When I first met her, I thought that she was perhaps a freshman in college. It was odd to see her with a four-year-old boy. I didn’t mean to be so cruel to her. I was just-“
Amber held up a hand to silence her rambling. "I know," she said. "But that's not what I'm here for."
Mrs. Mackle looked down at her feet and shuffled
back and forth. "Then what brings you here? Is it money that you want? How much? I'll give you anything."
Amber shook her head. “No," she said again. "That is not what I came for, as well. I want to speak with you about the matters of James."
At the mention of the name "James" Mrs. Mackle seemed to grow a hundred years older in a second. Her eyes shrunken into their socks even more, if that were even possible. "I think..." her throat closed up and she coughed into her hands and started over again, "I think that you should follow me into my office. I think it’s time I tell you something."
She led Amber through the hall to a little room at the end. It stood shaded by the shadows and Amber almost didn't see it. A lopsided faded brown sign hung over the door read Headmistress: Jeanne Mackle. Mrs. Mackle pushed open the door and allowed Amber inside.
The room was small and was mostly taken up by the large desk placed in the middle. Amber sat down on one of the couches that was not piled up with books and toys and looked around. Different posters of part of the world were posted on the walls. An ancient looking lantern sat in the corner of the room, lit by a small wavering flame.
There were school pictures taped around as well. There were approximately twenty five boys in each. Amber noticed that at least one different boy each photo. She immediately identified Mrs.
Mackle as a blurry figure that stood off to the sides in every picture. It seemed as if she didn't want to be in the pictures but had no choice.
Mrs. Mackle walked to behind the desk and sat down. There was a deafening silence in the room until she finally said, slowly, "Do you want to know why I work here?"
Amber was taken aback. She was not prepared for that question. She blinked. "Why, yes, but only if that's comfortable with you," she said.
"Do you see that picture over there?" Mrs. Mackle pointed to a small picture frame sitting on the corner of her desk. It featured herself young and beautiful with flushed cheeks and perfect hair, and of two other people, a man and a boy no older than 5. The little boy was a hat that covered his hair and was smiling into the camera. In his hands he held a baseball and a baseball bat.
"Is that your family?" Amber questioned. Mrs. Mackle nodded.
"Yes, it was, until the accident," she said and gingerly grabbed the photo and stared longingly at it. "My husband and my son both died in a plane accident. The two of them had gone on a vacation to Germany. I stayed behind to take care of the house. Even now, I wish I could go back in time and be in that crash with them.
"My son was only 7 when it happened. He was so young! He had an entire future ahead of him. And, as for my husband, I loved him dearly. The two of us were high school sweethearts. Where I
go is where he goes. I could never ask for a better family." A single tear escaped her eyes, but she did not make a sound. She continued her story, but
now her lips were quivering.
"I guess when the news arrived to me early one morning, saying that I might not see them again, something broke inside of me. I don't really know what it was. It was just something. I tried to live through it, telling myself that everything was going to be okay, but reality hit me square in the face. My husband and my only son has gone to a place too far for me to reach.
"At first, I tried to follow them. But I came to my senses and knew that that was not the answer to all my problems and sadness. So I came here to work with kids. I had believed that if I surrounded myself with children's happiness I would become happy as well.
"But that didn't happen. I didn't know that I was sent to a place of eternal sadness instead of joy.
All of the children here cried day and night. I couldn't stand it so I began to lock them in their rooms. I knew it was wrong, but I had to do it." Another tear slide down her cheek, but she composed her posture.
"I didn't understand what was making them so sat. They had friends, I did not. They had someone to take care of them, I did not. They had each other to look out for each other, I did not. So why? Why were they crying? Shouldn't I be the one shredding more tears?"
Mrs. Mackle had to stop because a lot of tears had accumulated in her eyes. She wiped it over
with her sleeve and sniffed. "I-I didn't understand that it was m-m-me who was making the children s-sad at the time. I didn't understand how p-painful it was to lose your mother and father. I only understood my own pain. But now I understand."
When Mrs. Mackle spoke no more, Amber got up from her seat and walked over to her. She gave the woman a hug, surprising herself and Mrs. Mackle.
"It's okay," Amber said in a soothing voice. "It's okay. You're okay now. I understand. I forgive you. So don't cry anymore, alone."
Jeanne Mackle's tears were like rivers. She let her bottle of waves that she had kept to herself ever since she lost her husband and son pour out all at once. But they weren't tears of sadness. No, they were tears of joy, joy that someone finally listened to her story, her words, and understood her feelings of loneliness all those years. Her heart was finally mended of its hole.
When Mrs. Mackle calmed down enough to speak, her first words were,
Emily Was Page 5