by Neil Olson
“She’s seeing her mother,” Will replied, the woman’s name suddenly coming to him. “I’m thirty-three years old, Mrs. Price.”
“I know, I know,” she replied, flashing yellow teeth. “And a college professor. We’re all very proud of you.”
“Assistant Professor. But thank you.”
“Call me Margaret. I mean, how long have we known each other?”
Too long, he was tempted to say, but her smile seemed so genuine that he felt mean. Was it so bad having people keep tabs on you, worry about you? Even if they were mostly about satisfying their busybody natures.
“Is your father coming?”
The question threw him, as did any discussion of his father.
“No. I mean, he’s aware. He would come if I needed him.”
“It is a long way from Seattle,” she said, not very convincingly.
“Yes.”
“You know that strange Hall girl has moved back in next door.”
“Samantha? Yes, I did.”
“Of course, you’re probably friends.” Her tone was less apology for the previous remark than indulgence in his bad taste.
“She’s been very helpful.”
“Muriel Brown and Samantha Hall,” she sighed, shaking her head. “God help you.”
“I’m really fine, Mrs. Price. Margaret. How is, uh, how’s everything with you?”
“Me?” She seemed perplexed by the question. “No worries about me, dear. I worry about other people—that’s how that goes.” Her smile was warm again, but with a hint of mischief as she put the car into gear. “I am always exactly the same.”
* * *
For God’s sake, Ma, why did you move back to this creepy town? They’re all crazy.
Will glanced at the open door, unsure whether he had spoken aloud. Did it matter? Couldn’t all these witches read his mind? He’d pulled up the chair beside the bed again, his mother’s cold hand in his own.
We couldn’t stay with Dad, I get that. But why come back here? Because it’s where you grew up? There was a whole world out there, any number of places we could have started over. You could have finished your degree. Moved to New York like you always wanted to do, taken a shot at being an artist. We could be friends now.
He leaned over and put her hand to his forehead, as he had done yesterday.
I guess that’s a lot to ask. For you to have had the courage to do that alone. No money. That would have been hard as hell, and scary. Even scarier than coming back here, where at least they knew you. Distant relations, but they took you in. Old Mr. Hall. Renting you the house, then selling it to you for almost nothing. Well, who would have bought it after a man was killed by lightning on the second floor landing?
Will lifted his forehead from her skin. Looked at her face—the pinched, pained expression. Definitely thoughts going on in there, and not happy ones. The doctor said she should wake today, it was time. If she didn’t, it could indicate something seriously wrong. Well, it was late afternoon and she was still under. Will knew he had to bring her out, but these angry thoughts were not the way. He tried to focus his mind on happier memories and put his forehead back against her hand.
His mother in the kitchen. She was a decent cook, though her penchant for hummus and brown rice put Will off health food for years. But she was a wizard at baking. Chocolate chip cookies, Toll House she called them. Bread, pies, apple cake with cream cheese frosting on his birthday. The sweet and spicy flavor filled his mouth, made his stomach churn, even though he had not tasted it in years. He could see her standing over him as he ate. It made her happy to make him happy, but mostly she had no idea how to go about it.
Baking? Is that the best you can do? Will squeezed his eyes shut harder, tried to block out the angry, cynical voice.
And do you remember what happened next, after the cake? You were supposed to go to the Topsfield Fair. Except she was too drunk to drive, right?
That was one time.
No, three or four. Out there in the driveway, hammering on the horn, insisting you climb into that death trap just to prove she could do it. And Muriel on the sofa, waiting out your tears.
Willie, look at me. You can’t get in that car with her.
I know.
I’ll take you over there tomorrow. You’re a good kid. You’re strong—you’ll be all right. God bless Muriel.
He sat up suddenly, dropping the cold hand. His own hand was shaking and sweat glazed his forehead where it had touched her flesh. Why was this so difficult? Why was it so hard for him to forgive a wounded, lonely woman? Who had been barely more than a child herself when he was born. Who had lost the love and support of her husband at that very moment. Who had been given none of the tools necessary for being a good mother, but had done her best anyway. What was this devil inside him that could not forgive?
Movement in the corner of his eye. Did she flex her hand? He grabbed it.
“Ma, it’s me. Can you hear?” That same pained expression, but it seemed more focused now, more intentional. “Squeeze my hand. Can you feel? Squeeze.”
Nothing. Had he imagined the motion because he was so desperate to see it? Or was it another spasm? The nurse told him yesterday she had been doing that. It meant nothing. It was the same with her expression, a random tightening of muscles, no more. And if he read intention there, why assume it was toward waking? Why not just the opposite? Maybe she was hurt worse than they knew. Maybe she’d had enough. Will slumped and put his face against the bed. He had been on emotional guard for too many hours, and he did not care who saw his distress. He was tired. Sleep seemed not to replenish him, except with nightmare fragments to pick through during waking hours. When this was done, he would sleep for real, and for a long time. His nose itched. The sheets were rough and smelled vaguely of bleach.
Something touched his head and his body tensed. Had someone come into the room? There again, the lightest touch. Fingers stroking his hair. A blunt nail jabbing his ear. He turned his head very slowly, as if afraid of startling her. His mother’s long white arm was moving of its own volition. Patting his head. Her eyes were open but unfocused.
“Sokay,” she breathed.
“Ma?” he whispered. Then more loudly, “Ma, can you hear me?”
“Sokay, honey. Jus...jus gib me minute.”
He did not move. He wanted nothing to upset the moment. If it was just a dream, he was in no hurry to wake. Then a body intruded between them. A nurse, gently pushing him back.
“Mr. Conner? If you could move aside, please?”
Will wanted to resist but fell back in the chair, his vision swimming. A second nurse darted into the room for a moment, then was sent by the first to get the doctor. He heard his mother’s voice weakly answering questions.
“She’s awake,” he said to no one, his voice trembling. He turned to the doorway and saw a familiar figure. “Sam. She’s awake.”
Samantha stayed where she was, smiling at him.
CHAPTER
FIVE
He took the scenic route home. Following the winding coast road past clapboard houses of white, yellow, red. Every second house an antique shop. How did they all stay in business? Clam shacks, seafood restaurants with waiting lines out to the street, the marina with a dozen blue tarpaulins pulled tightly over pleasure yachts. The white steeple of the Unitarian Church. The occasional view out over the marshes to a strip of blue evening ocean, and the dark hump of Hog Island. This was the part of town everyone came to see. The part he actively avoided for the touristy feel, and for certain unpleasant memories. It was beautiful, actually. He should drive this way more often.
At a roadside farm stand he pulled over, not ready to be home. They had put away their produce for the day, and there was a sign that announced No More Corn. But there was a big pile of early pumpkins. Many striped with green. It made Will unaccountably happy to see t
hem. He dug Muriel’s number out of his wallet and tapped it into his phone.
“She’s awake. She knew who I was and seemed to understand what had happened.”
“That’s great, Will. Could she remember anything?”
“Wasn’t clear,” he replied. “She didn’t seem agitated. I sent your regards, told her how worried you were.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. But she smiled.”
“Well,” Muriel said. “Okay, I’ll take a smile. How are you holding up?”
“Fine.”
“You eating?”
“Oh yeah.” In fact, he’d had nothing but hospital sandwiches for two days. And bad coffee. He could use some real food. “How’s your mom?”
“Truthfully, not so good,” Muriel said. “I need to stick around.”
They talked a little longer and disconnected. Now came the hard part. But it would not get easier, and somehow sitting here staring at pumpkins and the little duck pond in the green dell below made him calm. He dialed his father’s number from memory. Hoping for interference or an answering machine. Instead he got the old man.
“Don’t beat around the bush,” Joe Conner said.
Will did not, reciting the facts as efficiently as possible. Keeping his voice neutral. Sounding more like a doctor than the doctor had. His father said nothing while he spoke, and for a while afterward. Will pictured him. Short and muscled, in the Jimmy Duffy mold. Standing in the gleaming kitchen of his big house, squeezing the receiver hard enough to crack it. Always one step away from blowing up. The guy went through phones.
“Good,” Joe finally said. “That sounds good. No sign of brain damage? I mean, more than usual.”
It wasn’t funny, but it was the kind of thing his father said. Even his mother was always claiming her brain was addled from “all those drugs I took” whenever she couldn’t remember something.
“She can move her feet and hands,” Will replied. “Answer simple questions. She knew who everybody was. More than that will have to wait for tomorrow.”
“They’ll keep her a few more days?”
“Yeah.”
Then a pause and a deep breath.
“You need me to come out?”
“No,” Will replied immediately. “I got it covered.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay then,” Joe said. “Just as well, ’cause it’s busy as heck here, and Patty would kill me if I had to run off and deal with this.”
That was Will’s cue to ask how Patty was, but he really didn’t give a damn. Any more than she did about Joe’s first family.
“I wish you had brothers or sisters to help you,” the old man mumbled, sounding like someone else. Will didn’t know how to answer.
“That seems unlikely at this late date. But I’ll talk to Ma about it.”
“I don’t mean that Joey and Tricia aren’t your family,” his father said quickly.
“I didn’t take it like—”
“They talk about you a lot.”
“Dad, they met me once.”
“But they remember. They get the books you send. And the, ah, the CDs and stuff. They always ask how you are, when you’re going to visit again.”
The words were rushed and eager, and Will felt a sudden tenderness for his father he could not have imagined even moments before. They were not close. They spoke twice a year. The kids would be teenagers now, wrapped up in their all-consuming teenage lives. Not thinking about some half brother they didn’t know.
“You should come out for Christmas,” Joe said.
“Yeah? And what about Ma?”
“Right. I guess that wouldn’t work.”
You know damn well it wouldn’t. That’s why you offered.
“Look, I have to go. I’ll call when there’s more news.”
“Call in a few days, news or not. And Will, you be... You know, you’re always...”
“Okay, Dad.”
* * *
He was driving somewhere with Christine Jordan. Which was awkward, because she was dead. She kept smiling at him and tossing back her brown hair. He smiled too, but there was a thick sadness within him. He adored Christine, and was amazed to discover that she liked him too. It was good having her near again, and he did not want the ride to end. But it was also wrong. The dead could not come back. At some point he would have to tell her, and he dreaded it. The knowledge took all pleasure from the moment. He felt old. His hands on the steering wheel looked worn and knobby. Was he old now? He couldn’t remember? She was young and lovely and smiling at him. Just seventeen. She would never be any older.
A knocking came and went. He thought at first it was the engine, but couldn’t sustain the illusion. The car was gone, Christine was gone and he was staring at another strange ceiling. The green sofa was to his right, the bluish-black painting of the raven above it. His mother’s work. She had been into ravens for a while. To his left the window was full of night. Will was on his back on the beige carpet of the living room. He had lain down here after coming home. For a minute, to rest. His spine and the darkness told him it had been more like hours. The knocking had stopped, but someone was in the house.
Sam entered the room. Someone else might be alarmed to find him on the floor, but her expression was only mildly curious.
“Do you need help?”
“Standing? I might.”
“Tell me when you’re ready,” she said, crouching beside him. She wore jeans and a yellow cotton sweater, and her eyes looked him up and down, settling on his face.
“I thought I locked the door,” said Will.
“You did.”
“Muriel give you a key?”
“I figured you might need me,” she answered, “that’s all.”
She helped him to sitting position, then stood and headed for the kitchen.
“You still hate going up those stairs, huh? Is there any food in this house?”
“I don’t know,” Will mused, surprised by her strength. How easily she had lifted him. Maybe shifting and hauling old people around at the nursing home did that. “I’m sorry. Are you hungry?”
“No,” She gave him a faintly annoyed look over her shoulder. “You are.”
They determined quickly that his mother’s refrigerator could furnish nothing edible, and Sam invited him over to her place. Will accepted. Not bothering with a jacket, which he soon regretted. It was a chilly night, autumn taking hold. He moved warily, looking around at dark clumps of bushes, the swaying oaks. She didn’t wait for him, but walked ahead, like a scout. Her pale sweater was a beacon in the darkness. There was strength in the deliberate way she moved. He liked watching her. Liked the way her ass swayed in those jeans. Will laughed quietly at himself. He was too tired to feel embarrassed, but it was odd to think about Sam that way. She was not like other women, or like any other creature he knew. Yet she was a woman. Surely, underneath the fear and fascination, he had once harbored a childish crush for the mysterious girl next door. Her porch light guided them through the pines. He had a memory of hiding here as they played flashlight tag with four or five other kids. Sam behind him, breathing on his neck. Waiting to be caught by the light beam, or to race off and find a new hiding place. She waited on him now, holding back a spiky bough so it would not slap him in the face.
“That was fun, huh?” she said in the darkness. “Those nights.”
“You mean playing tag out here?”
“That was the only time I did stuff with the neighborhood kids. And only because you made them include me.”
He did not remember, but she might be right. Memories were flooding in again. Danny Larcom stuck in the apple tree. Brendan Duffy with the flashlight, shouting obscenities to make them laugh and give away their hiding places. Arthur the cat rushing after him, wanting in
on the game. Samantha’s budding chest pressed against his back, her arms around him, her lips at his ear. Telling him things. Apologizing for something. And then someone else was in the pine grove with them. Someone they could sense but not see, and a terror seized them both. The memories became more real than what was around him, and Will stopped, unable to move. Sam took his hand.
“You’re in a bad way, William. Come on.”
The house was as he remembered it. Narrow hallways and large, wood-paneled rooms with high ceilings. Old bookcases stuffed with ancient, dusty volumes were jammed anywhere they would fit. The corridors, living room, study, even the airy dining room. Only the kitchen was free of them.
“I think this is still edible,” Sam said, dragging a frozen grayish-purple slab from the freezer and dropping it in a bowl of warm water.
“Did one of your ancestors kill that?”
“Margaret Price brought it with a bunch of other groceries. I can’t remember when.”
“Does she think you can’t shop for yourself?” Will asked.
“She doesn’t think anyone can do anything for themselves.” Sam bent down to rip open a big paper bag of potatoes. “I’m surprised she hasn’t been after you.”
“She has,” he confessed. “Drove by this morning. She seemed appalled that no one had been assigned to care for me. Wait.”
She had been about to stab the potatoes with long silver nails. He took them from her warm hands and brought them to the sink to wash.
“Do you have a brush?”
“The dirt’s good for you,” she answered, fishing a little brush shaped like a bear out of a drawer and handing it to him.
“The skin is good for you,” Will said, scrubbing gently under cool water. The task was soothing. His hands looked strong, useful. Not old and knobby. “I don’t know about the dirt.”
“Did she warn you to stay away from me?” Samantha asked. “Margaret?”
He waited too long to answer. There was no point in lying to Sam anyway.
“Not exactly.”
“She thinks I’m dangerous.”