The Edge of Mercy

by Heidi Chiavaroli

  “The grandfather clock broke,” I said instead. I said it because I didn’t want him to leave. I said it because I wasn’t thinking. “I need to find someone to fix it.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s not a problem. I know how much you like that clock. I know a great guy who’ll do it for a good price.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I shouldn’t have said anything. Certainly, I was capable of finding someone to fix the clock. I should have already done so. I missed its cheery company, its steady presence.

  “Thanks for being such a good sport about this—with Kyle, I mean.”

  “You don’t know what I said about you when you weren’t here.” I laughed lightly to indicate I was joking.

  Matt didn’t smile. “Well, call if anything urgent comes up. I’ve changed most of the bills to paperless, so you won’t need to worry about that.”

  As if I ever worried about the bills.

  I nodded and followed him to the side door. “Enjoy him.”

  “I will.” He looked at me one more time, the chocolate of his eyes sincere. “Thanks, Sarah.”

  I waited for a hug, a good-bye kiss, something to suggest that all this would be all right in the end.

  Nothing.

  He walked down the steps, leaving me alone in my beautifully landscaped house with not a single bill to pay and everything I could need. Everything except my family.

  “What a stupid thing to do.” Essie placed her hands on her hips and stared up the fifty feet to the impossible-to-scale face of Abram’s Rock.

  I knelt in the dry leaves and bent my head so I was eye level with the ground. “Yeah, I know. But I didn’t ask you to come here to confirm my stupidity. I need your help.”

  She looked down at the ground before crouching alongside me and sweeping her perfectly manicured fingernails over the leaves. “I hope you know I’m risking getting infected with Lyme disease and West Nile right now. If that doesn’t show how much I love my sister, I don’t know what does.”

  I laughed as I crawled into the small cave below the face of the rock. Spider webs brushed my face, and I pushed aside the thought of snakes burrowing in the cool crevice. I switched my phone to flashlight mode and shone it in the sheltered spot. Not a glimpse of diamond or platinum shone back at me. A mosquito buzzed in my ear and I slapped it away.

  “You looked for how long the other day?”

  “A couple hours.” With no luck. I thought another set of eyes might do the trick. If Essie and I didn’t find the rings today, I’d have to break the news to Matt sometime soon. He was going to be livid.

  I crawled out of the cave and searched the tight crevice of another smaller rock. “What are you up to tonight?”

  “Date.”

  “With who?”

  “A guy I met at work. He’s a chef in the kitchen—makes a stellar lobster ravioli. Plus, he’s not too bad to look at.”

  It amazed me that Essie could manage an entire hotel while I couldn’t keep a single house in order. Or a family intact.

  “What time’s the wake tomorrow?”

  “Four. You know, I haven’t told anyone this yet, but Barb left me with just about everything.”

  Essie straightened from where she’d crouched upon the ground. “Everything? You mean . . .”

  I nodded. “House, safe deposit box, life savings. Everything.”

  “Whoa.”

  “And something else.” I told her about my neighbor’s unusual request.

  “That’s some bad karma right there, sis. How’d you get in the middle of all that?”

  We stood and walked slowly around the base of the rock, our eyes on the ground. Essie poked the toe of her sneaker in the brush.

  “I—I really don’t know.”

  “So do you think she gave you all the money to ensure you’d carry out her wishes?”

  “No—no, she wasn’t like that. I mean, I want to do this for her. It’s really not that much trouble. I guess I only wish I’d known how much I meant to her when she was here, you know?”

  The words hung in the tree-laden woods, heavy. It seemed everything I’d considered precious was being swept from beneath my feet. And now that they were slipping away, I realized just how much they’d all meant to me.

  I caught a glimpse of something shiny beneath a leaf. My stomach dropped and I brushed aside the leaf.

  A crushed Sprite can.

  “Sarah?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Just be careful, okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you have a lot going on right now. Becoming third party to your dead neighbor’s past regrets, trying to make things right . . . well, I think it was wrong of her to put all that on you. They weren’t your mistakes. You had nothing to do with it.”

  “There’s no way I’m walking away from—”

  Essie held her hands up. “I’m not saying you should. I just don’t want to see you get hurt or feel like you’re disappointing someone who’s cold in their grave.”

  “You make it sound like doing something for others is a bad thing. I feel like all my life I’ve been looking out for me, for my family. And look where it’s gotten us. This”—I gestured to the rock before us, the woods around us—“I’m here because of Barb. I’ve always felt a connection to this place. Maybe this is just the distraction I need right now.”

  “Okay, okay. I get it. Once again, my mouth goes before me. Sorry.” Essie waited for a mosquito to land on her pants leg before squashing it. She took a leaf and wiped the guts off her palm, then looked at me. “You got this, and you got whatever else life throws at you.”

  I smiled. “Thank you. That’s just what I needed to hear.”

  My sister stood. “Good, because I’m about to tell you something you won’t want to hear—those rings aren’t here. We’ve searched every inch of this place. Someone might have found them the day you dropped them. Maybe check with the police to see if they were turned in. Hopefully no one pocketed it for themselves.”

  I groaned. “I should have looked longer that first day. “I’ll check with the police after I drop you off.”

  “I can come with you if we make it quick. I gotta get ready for my date.”

  We turned west, out of the woods.

  “I’m thinking about going to church tomorrow. Want to come?” I asked.

  Essie scrunched up her face. “No thanks. Besides, if my date goes well, I’ll be too tired to get up for nine-thirty service.”

  Since I had no plans, I wouldn’t have a problem waking up bright-eyed and bushytailed. Maybe I’d find some answers at church, or at least find peace. Peace about the quest I was about to embark upon. Peace about my marriage. Peace about my future. Maybe for once, God would help me.

  Chapter 8

  God didn’t show up at church the next morning as I’d hoped. At least, if He had I missed Him. All I felt was Dad’s intense gaze from the pulpit, set three steps higher than all the pews, as if he were about three steps farther on the road to eternal life than the rest of us. I sat in the front row with Mom, listening to Dad speak of the Good Samaritan, how we should all strive to be more like this man—a true neighbor, a true friend.

  I wondered if I’d ever be good enough for God. I wondered if I’d ever do enough, or pray enough, or say enough. At the same time I couldn’t help but wonder—if Jesus was supposed to save me, why did I feel like I constantly had to save myself?

  My parents invited me for lunch after service, but I told them I had something I needed to do before the wake that night. To disprove myself a liar, I drove to the trailer park where Matt’s mother, Lorna, lived. I stepped up to the white screen door and knocked. Red geraniums grew in a lopsided window box, wilting from lack of water.

  Poor Lorna. She tried. I had called her often during Kyle’s growing up years, filling her in, even taking him for visits to the trailer park. Matt never offered to come. We invited Lorna for Kyle’s b
irthday celebrations and graduations from kindergarten and middle school. We invited her to a handful of Kyle’s track meets. She showed up as often as she didn’t. Matt didn’t act bothered when his mother forgot a celebration or even his own birthday. In fact, he pretended she didn’t exist at all. I tried to fix them too many times. After one particularly heated conversation, he let loose in a rare show of anger.

  “Will you just leave it, Sarah? Some things are just too broken to fix. My mother and I are one of those things.”

  Did he view our marriage as one of those “too broken” things as well?

  I knocked on the door again. It rattled in its frame. The scent of fried chicken from next door wafted to my nostrils.

  “Comin’, comin’! Hold your horses, will ya?” A shadowy figure emerged from inside the double-wide.

  “Hi Lorna. It’s me.”

  “Oh, hey, doll. I wasn’t expectin’ you.”

  Doll. I don’t think Matt’s mother ever called me by my given name.

  She opened the door and I stepped onto a rough green mat sitting atop a fuzzy brown carpet the shade of dried pine needles. I hugged Lorna, adorned in a flower-print house robe and fluorescent pink slippers. Her stiffly sprayed hair, the color of faded tree bark, rubbed against my neck and cheek.

  “I was just unwinding today before it’s back to work again tomorrow. You’re welcome to join me, sugar. Want a Coke? I didn’t get Diet this time, figured I’d go crazy.”

  I laughed. “Sure, I guess I could stand a little crazy.”

  “That’s the spirit, doll.” She turned off a bull riding competition on the television and walked to the refrigerator, stuck her rather slender top almost all the way in. Her ample backside hung out the other end. “Now, where’d I put those little suckers? Ah, there they are!” She pulled out two Coca-Colas, her rouge-caked face triumphant. She set them down on one of three plastic mats on the semi-circle table. The mats held pictures of a variety of birds, each labeled underneath. Blue-jay. Cardinal. Yellow finch. Chickadee.

  Lorna shuffled through one of the cabinets. “I bought some cookies case company stopped by. Now I’m glad I did.” She pulled out a package of Great Value vanilla wafers. “There. Let’s have a sit-down.”

  We sat at the small table and despite myself, I enjoyed the cozy feeling. I always did when I came to Lorna’s. Matt thought I was insane, but there was something about the community feel of the trailer park, the small, simple space of each residence, that put me at ease. Or maybe it was the lack of pretense from the people who lived in them. Most times, what you saw was what you got. Living so closely, they couldn’t hide much, so most didn’t even bother to do the hiding.

  “You sure dressed nice, doll. You come from church?”

  I nodded.

  “I went to mass last night. Needed my beauty sleep this morning, you know?” She took a swig of her Coke and gave me a long sideways glance. “You know, darling, you can come to Saturday night mass with me anytime. Looks like you could use a little extra sleep yourself.”

  I exhaled. “Yeah . . . your son’s been keeping me up nights.”

  She slapped her hand on the table. “Well, it’s good you kids haven’t lost the passion, you know? Nothing like a hot bed to keep a marriage together. Not that I can claim to know much about marital things.”

  I almost choked on my soda. “No, Lorna.” Then I began to laugh, small giggles at first until I couldn’t stop. Lorna laughed with me. The laughing became near hysterical before it finally gave way to tears. It was as if a floodgate opened, fast and strong and cleansing. The release lifted a knotted burden in my chest.

  Lorna patted my arm and handed me a tissue. Nothing seemed to surprise her. “There, there now, honey. You let it all out. It’s good for the soul, you know.”

  Once I gathered myself, I wiped my eyes and sniffed. “Thanks.”

  “Things aren’t so great in the bedroom then, I take it?”

  “Things aren’t great, period.” I took a wafer from the package and a napkin from the wooden holder on the table. Wafer crumbs flaked onto the white paper. “Matt’s staying in Newport for the summer.”

  “For work?”

  I shrugged. “He is working down there, but the commute’s only a half hour. He didn’t try to hide his reasons. He wants a break, Lorna.”

  “You saying my boy left you?”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Sheesh, child, if I thought I could speak some sense into him I’d call him up and give him a talkin’-to right now.” Her expression softened, the gloss on her lips almost pretty. “But you and I both know that would do more harm than good.”

  “Kyle’s with him.”

  “Aw, darlin’.”

  My eyes burned. I rubbed Lorna’s ring between my two fingers.

  “I didn’t come here for your pity. I just . . . Well, I thought you should know and I wondered if . . . I wondered if you might be able to tell me about Matt’s father and . . .” I couldn’t finish my thought. This was unchartered ground between us.

  “You want to know why he left us, is that right?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Oh, child.” Lorna took a long swig from her can. “Cola might not be enough to get me through that story.”

  “Maybe this isn’t the right time, or maybe I don’t even need to know. It’s just that Matt never—”

  “He never told you? Did you ever ask him?”

  “Sure I did. He just never wanted to talk about his dad or—” I stopped short of saying “you” or “childhood.” I didn’t want to hurt Lorna by stating the obvious. She must know how Matt felt about his past—she’d have to be brain dead not to.

  Matt would be angry knowing I even brought up this line of questioning to Lorna. But Matt wasn’t going to find out. Didn’t I have a right to know? He should have told me everything long ago.

  “I want to help me and Matt, Lorna. I want to save our marriage. If there’s anything from Matt’s past that you think I should know, would you tell me?”

  I looked into her cocoa-colored eyes. She didn’t avoid my probing gaze. “Doll, Matt’s father had an affair. Only it wasn’t with another woman. It was with money. He left us to chase gold. Gold! Can you believe that? A regular old forty-niner.” Lorna shook her head. “He always had some hare-brained idea of getting rich. But he never left us until some guys at the bar convinced him he could strike it rich a few states over. The gold was his ultimate downfall.”

  Matt had hinted as much. I figured it was why he prided himself in providing for me and Kyle so well all these years.

  “Anything else?”

  Lorna studied me. “Maybe the fault isn’t all with Matt, doll, have you ever thought of that? Going back in the past isn’t going to help Matt’s future. And it sure isn’t going to help your marriage. You can’t move forward if you keep looking backwards.”

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to say that you couldn’t move forward if you had nothing to stand on, and a healed past was the only firm foundation. I wanted to tell Lorna that I wasn’t the problem. I wasn’t the one who left. I was willing to work at our marriage, to see a counselor, to do what it took to restore us.

  But I didn’t say any of those things. Instead, I finished my wafer cookies and soda in silence as we chatted about Kyle and bingo night in the trailer park and other safe topics.

  All the while, I wondered if Matt knew how alike he and his mother actually were.

  Matt did come to the funeral. He and Kyle sat one on each side of me, dressed in their best. The pastor of Barb’s church spoke of the hope and treasure waiting for her in heaven.

  Other than my parents, Matt, and Kyle, I didn’t recognize any of the other attendees, but strangely, many seemed to know who I was. One middle-aged woman said she knew Barb from their church quilting club, and that she had spoke often of me.

  I tried to be gracious, but when Matt and Kyle said quiet good-byes before the collation in the church hall, I felt aba
ndoned again. I watched Matt nod in the direction of my parents and slip out the back door, Kyle lingering a few extra moments to hug his grandparents.

  As I cut slices of banana cream pie for the guests who were all but strangers, I found myself dwelling on a verse that Barb’s pastor had quoted. I didn’t remember the entire thing, and I couldn’t think of how it related to what he’d said about Barb’s life, but nevertheless, I clung to it.

  He’d called the keeper of Barb’s soul the “God of Hope.” Right now, with my husband and son driving away yet again, I clung to the seemingly impossible offering those three words stirred forth in my soul.

  God, give me something. Give me hope.

  Chapter 9

  The day after Barb’s funeral, I ignored the very real need to use my second personal day to clean the house, or begin organizing Barb’s, and instead drove to Plymouth. I’d made an appointment to view Elizabeth Baker’s journal the day before, not without some trouble. Only after I had shared Barb’s letter with Jill, the curator, had she relented, telling me that such privileges were highly irregular and that I would have to watch a video on the handling of historical manuscripts before being allowed to do so.

  I agreed to it all.

  Now, I rolled down the windows and turned up the music, allowing Scotty McCreery’s words about wanting five more minutes to swell up within my heart. Outside, the sun splashed on the roadways and forty minutes later I parked alongside Plymouth Harbor. Across the way, the replica of the Mayflower bobbed in the clear water, its naked mast pointing to the sky.

  I’d come here once as a girl with my grandmother, mother, and Essie. I could still remember leaning over the rail to view Plymouth Rock at sea level, the expectation of seeing the rock great in our minds.

  I remembered Essie’s small voice, huffing in disbelief. “That’s Plymouth Rock?”

  True, I’d been surprised by how small it was too. I’d expected something big and grand, something like Abram’s Rock. But I also remember feeling how I often felt in the woods of my hometown—like I was witnessing something incredibly special just by being in the same spot where such a significant event occurred.