The Vanishing Expert
Page 53
Robert Michael Parks was born on August 4, 1962. Like James Perkins— the real James Perkins whose identity Edward Moody had so easily assumed— he’d died suddenly and violently surrounded by frightened screams, twisted metal, and then silence. In Robert’s case, the car in which he was riding with his parents careened off Interstate 95 and struck a bridge abutment in Hampden, Maine, instantly killing everyone in the car. That Robert— who was three weeks shy of his third birthday at the time of the accident— had no other siblings when he was killed lessened the likelihood that his sudden reappearance thirty years later would arouse suspicions with any remaining family members. That he’d died so young, along with his parents, meant that it was unlikely that anyone at all would remember him three decades later, a thought that struck James as profoundly sad. Robert Michael Parks had spent less than three years on this earth, most likely as a cheerful and loving little boy, and in all likelihood no one had given his brief existence even a passing thought for decades— not until James Perkins stumbled across his name in an obituary in a Bangor library in June of 1992.
James wished he could leave the boy to rest in peace. He wished he could turn off the microfiche reader in the carrel where he sat at the Bangor Public Library and just walk away. Or perhaps he could leave it on, displaying the sad story of Robert Parks for the next person who sat down to find it, just so someone else would think about the boy— someone other than Joe Tibbits. Instead, James printed the obituary and folded the paper neatly into thirds, and inserted it into an envelope addressed to Joe Tibbits in Rockland, Maine. He included no note. Joe would know exactly what to do with the information; it was all in the list James had given to him a week earlier. He sealed the envelope which contained no return address, and he dropped it into a mailbox on the sidewalk as he left the library. He drew a deep breath and sighed. As long as no one discovered what Joe was up to when he applied for the social security card— or the bank account, or the driver’s license, or any of the other steps where the plan could potentially fail— he hoped he would be free of Joe Tibbits for good. Someday, James might have to help Joe Tibbits with the dying, as Joe had put it. As James walked away from the mailbox to return to his life, he could only hope that day would never come.
Even in those early days and weeks after William came into their lives, it was clear to Jean that her new husband and her new son would be inseparable. Despite long and exhausting days at work, James always arrived home smiling, eager to spend time with his new family— not just William, but all of them.
Max always greeted him first, and James made certain to acknowledge him, sometimes getting down on his hands and knees to give the dog his full attention so he wouldn’t feel neglected. Since James almost always arrived home before Jean, who would be at the gallery until eight o’clock, it was usually Christina whom he greeted next.
Almost a year had passed since their first encounter aboard the Chris Craft— the event that had produced William— and they’d both managed to put that part of their lives behind them with greater ease than either of them would have imagined— or at least that’s how it appeared. At times they worried privately that their relationship could go the other way, that in their efforts to conceal their closeness, an unexpected and unwanted distance could develop between them. For that reason, they both went out of their way at times to demonstrate that there was still a bond between them, even if their passion was gone. The gestures were small, often unnoticeable to anyone but the two of them; sometimes James would casually place a hand on her shoulder as he passed behind her while she sat at the dining room table, or Christina would lean against him on the sofa or hook her arm in his when the three of them walked through town with the baby. Nothing was meant by these gestures and they awakened no emotions that they shouldn’t. They never flirted and they never tried to conceal their mutual affection from Jean. It wasn’t necessary since Jean had commented on more than one occasion how much it meant to her to see that the two of them were so close. When Christina was younger, Jean always worried that bringing a man into their lives would be awkward for her daughter. So, seeing how close Christina and James had become was a great relief to her.
After greeting Max and Christina— and Ruth if she happened to be there when he arrived home— James did nothing else until he spent time with William. Sometimes the baby was with Christina in the dining room or the living room; other times he was sleeping in the nursery or nearby. James never woke him if he was sleeping. At those times he would simply pull up a chair and sit with him, often placing his palm lightly upon William’s chest or touching his tiny hand.
He was always thrilled when he arrived home and found the boy awake. He’d pick him up and cradle him in his arms and walk about the room, speaking quietly to him, his son’s brown eyes locked onto his.
If he’d thought to look at Christina at these moments, he would have found her smiling, enjoying the scene and gratified by her role in bringing it about. Where she’d worried early on— during the weekend that James’s visitor had unexpectedly come to town— that James appeared distracted and hadn’t spent time with the baby, she realized that had all changed once the man had left. Now James was as attentive a father as she’d expected he would be, and she took great delight in watching him gush over his son. She sometimes wondered if her own father, who would later abandon them, had once been as over-the-moon in love with her as James appeared to be with William. And if so, what was it that caused that to change? Certainly a twenty-three year old paralegal couldn’t have pulled a father away from a child he loved if he didn’t allow it to happen, if he wasn’t already drifting away on his own. When, exactly had her father fallen out of love with her? she often wondered. It was a thought that had always troubled her, and now as she watched James with his son, she wondered how she might protect William from experiencing that same heartbreaking loss— how she might protect them both.
By the time Jean arrived home from the gallery each evening, William was almost always asleep, but like James, she couldn’t resist looking in on him. She sometimes lingered over him so long and watched him so intently it was as if she was hoping to will him to wake so she could hold him. Just as often, she gave into her longing and gently plucked him out of his crib and held him to her breast while he slept. After being separated from him all day, she simply couldn’t resist feeling the weight of him in her arms.
Throughout that summer, Christina stayed with William during the day. Ruth often visited Christina with the intention of sitting with the baby so Christina could get out of the house for a while, but more often than not, the two women would sit together in the living room for hours. During the quiet hours, when William was napping, Ruth taught Christina to knit. Christina took to it quickly, despite the fact that it was a skill she hadn’t even the slightest interest in learning. But she found she enjoyed those afternoons on the sofa with Ruth, and Ruth found the conversation flowed more freely when their hands were busy.
“What’s your plan, dear?” Ruth asked her one afternoon. It was the end of June and Ruth was becoming increasingly concerned that Christina’s attachment to the baby was growing too strong. She thought of her great grandmother, Magda, and the conflicting emotions she must have wrestled with her entire life. She didn’t wish such a life for Christina.
“My plan?” Christina asked, still concentrating on her knitting, trying not to lose count.
“Are you planning to go back to school?” Ruth asked her.
There was a slight pause, not because she was hesitant to answer the question, but because she wanted to finish the row before she lost her place. “I’m going back in September,” she said. “I thought I’d help out around here for the summer— maybe find something part time in the evenings so I’m not under foot.”
“I worry about you,” Ruth confessed.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Christina assured her. She smiled, privately pleased that Ruth cared enough to be concerned about her.
Christina counted to herself. “Everything will work out.”
The lines in Ruth’s forehead grew even deeper. “It’s a hard thing to give up a baby.”
“I know,” Christina said.
Ruth shook her head. “No, you don’t, dear,” she said. “Not yet.” Both Christina’s and her own hands fell suddenly still. “You came home with the baby, and you spend all day with him. You’re getting more and more attached. I worry about how hard it’s going to be when it comes time for you to finally walk away and let him go.”
There was a long silence. Christina wasn’t counting this time; she was considering Ruth’s words, and imagining that day when she would leave to start her life again. “Me, too,” she finally confessed, without looking at Ruth. Several moments passed before her hands starting moving again.
When the weather cooperated, Ruth and Christina took William for afternoon walks through the neighborhood. Ruth usually pushed the stroller while Christina held Max’s leash. When they returned to the house, Christina put the baby down for his nap, and they made supper together.
Ruth taught Christina to make some of her favorite dishes, and Christina quickly realized that Ruth took great pleasure in having a family to cook for once again, even if they all ate at odd hours. Ruth always dined with Christina. If the baby was sleeping when James arrived home, he joined them; if the baby was awake, he sat with them at the table, holding William and feeding him his bottle. On those nights, he waited to have his supper with Jean.
On the weekends, James delighted in having an entire day to spend with his son. His work on Ben Jordan’s boat, which usually consumed his weekends, was temporarily set aside. Ben accepted that James needed to spend time with his new son. The boat could wait, Ben knew, but he soon realized how much he’d come to look forward to those hours he spent in the dusty garage with James.
On the last Saturday in June, Ben Jordan invited James to his home in Northeast Harbor. At Ben’s urging, he brought William along. It was the first time he’d been invited to Ben’s home; he usually only saw Ben when he visited the garage.
He had trouble finding Ben’s home; he drove in circles for twenty minutes before he finally spotted the private drive concealed amid high hedges. He’d driven past it at least three times before, and had he not been looking for it, he would never have noticed the entrance to the drive or the small sign that read Jordan and another just below it that read Private Drive, both partially obscured by the same hedge.
The gravel driveway curved around a stand of pines which further concealed Ben’s home from the road, and it wasn’t until he navigated around them that he first glimpsed Ben Jordan’s house.
The foundation and most of the first floor was built of stone, all of it having come from the area so that from the harbor it blended perfectly with the rocky shoreline. The weathered wooden shingles on the two upper floors— along with the deep wraparound porch and the large detached garage— were all stained dark to blend with the tall trees that surrounded it. Like most of the houses on the harbor, it was set back from the shore, separated from it by a wide swath of scrub, mostly juniper and pitch pine that were hardy against the winds that came in off the water.
Though it was built in the early 1920s at roughly the same time the Philadelphia Deacons were building their grand estate on what had once been Earl Langston’s dairy farm, Ben’s home was designed to almost completely disappear among its natural surroundings. By contrast, the Deacon estate, though an impressive structure by all accounts, never blended with the landscape, at least not until it was reduced to ash in October of 1947.
Like all of the homes in Northeast Harbor, the home where Ben Jordan now lived was spared in the great fire of 1947. Though the fire consumed much of Bar Harbor and Hull’s Cove, the flames never got any closer to Northeast Harbor than Otter Point to the east and Jordan Pond to the north. Ben’s home had remained undisturbed for so long, and Ben Jordan had lived such a private and unassuming existence there, that, over time, even the locals had more or less forgotten it was there.
As James climbed out of his jeep and lifted William out of his car seat, Ben emerged from his home, stepping out onto his porch. “I see you found the place okay,” he called out. “Some people have trouble.”
James walked to the wide steps leading up to the porch, and to his host. William was awake and gazing wide-eyed at the sky that flashed through the tall stands of pine and spruce. “I think you like it that way,” James said to his host.
Ben smiled, as if conceding the point. He maneuvered himself so he could get a good look at the baby. “So this is the man of the house,” Ben said.
James chuckled. “Not just yet.”
Ben offered James a quizzical look. “Don’t kid yourself, son,” he told James. “My guess is he’s been ruling the roost ever since he arrived.” He reached out and touched William’s tiny hand. “You know who’s boss, don’t you?” he said to the boy.
James was glowing, always the proud father, and as was the habit of so many people when they met William, Ben’s eyes passed from James’s face to the baby’s and back again. Ben understood William to be adopted— he didn’t know Christina was his birth mother— but he seemed unable to resist the habit of comparing their two faces, searching for similarities. For some reason, his scrutiny didn’t make James uncomfortable as it might had it come from someone like Claire Trumbull or even Jean’s sister, Dee.
When Ben finally abandoned his examination of them, he patted James on the shoulder and turned toward his left. “Come this way,” he said. “You’ll enjoy this.” Rather than guiding James into the house, he led him across the deep covered porch which extended the length of the front of the house and then turned and ran along its side, facing the detached garage. As soon as they turned the corner, James glimpsed the harbor, the water shimmering in the sun and dotted with sailboats. When they reached the end of the porch James realized that it turned again and extended across the back of the house as well.
On the porch facing the water was a row of wicker chairs with deep padded cushions. They looked comfortable and inviting, although James sensed immediately that they had rarely been occupied other than by Ben himself. At the far end of the porch was a large hammock that swayed in the light breeze coming in off the water. At the center of the porch was a screen door, beside which was a small table with four chairs; opposite the door was another wide set of steps, these leading down to a narrow stretch of lawn, not much wider than the porch. A hedge of azalea bushes and wild roses separated the lawn from a long slope that led down to the rocky shore.
James stood for a moment, admiring the view of the harbor that stretched out before them. The sky was clear and silky blue with just the wisps of a few clouds drifting over the water. The harbor was filled with boats, both fishing boats and sailboats tied to their moorings and all pointed into the light breeze that came from the west. To the right, he could see the marina and the cluster of expensive sailboats docked and moored there, as well as the dock where he’d met Ben on the day he first put his Chris Craft in the water. Further to the right of that was the restaurant where he’d dined with Christina after he’d encountered Michael and Susan McKinnon— his former neighbors and not-quite-friends from Rhode Island— at the gallery on that rainy Saturday afternoon a year earlier. Next to that was the narrow strip of sand where he’d walked with Christina after that dinner— where he’d very nearly kissed her, but didn’t. His reluctance at the time seemed foolish now given what passed between them later that summer.
He felt an immediate connection with the place. It must have shown on his face, because when he finally turned to his host, Ben was smiling at him knowingly.
“I knew you, of all people, would enjoy this,” Ben told him.
James scanned the harbor
again, taking it all in. “It’s amazing,” he said. “If I lived here I don’t think I’d ever leave.”
“There are plenty of days I don’t,” Ben confessed. He walked over to one of the wicker chairs nearest the screen door and sat down, motioning for James to sit in the adjacent chair, which he did, resting William in his lap facing the harbor. “I have a reputation of being a bit of a recluse,” Ben said. “It’s not true. I’m not hiding from anything. I just like being here.” He patted the arm of his chair. “Right here, in this chair, and there are plenty of days when there’s just no place I’d rather be.”
James considered the stories he’d heard about his friend. There weren’t many. Most people admitted they hardly knew the man. But James hadn’t talked to anyone who’d said they’d been to his home. “Do you have many guests?” he asked.
Ben extended his hands toward William. “May I?”
James smiled and gently placed his son in Ben’s arms. Considering Ben had held so few babies in his lifetime, and never his own, he seemed to instinctively know how to receive him.
Observing Ben cradling his son, James suddenly found himself thinking about his father, wishing his father been alive to meet his grandson, to hold his namesake. He thought about his father every day, especially since he’d learned he was going to be a father himself, and certainly since William arrived. Usually they were good thoughts, happy memories of his childhood, but occasionally there were moments when the sudden awareness of his father’s absence surprised him, despite the fact that it was always there, and the weight of his loss was just a bit heavier. He thought about his mother, too, particularly when he saw Ruth’s wrinkled hands wrapped around his boy— how she would have delighted in holding him. But on that day, it was seeing his son in Ben’s arms, Ben’s wise old eyes peering down upon William’s tiny open face, that reminded him of his father once again, and the absence of him, which introduced itself, as always, with that familiar weight bearing down upon him.