The Shape of Mercy

by Susan Meissner

  The footsteps were getting louder. Esperanza was coming down the stairs.

  I quickly copied the transcription from the laptops hard drive to the thumb drive. The footsteps sounded in the tiled entry. I removed the thumb drive, tossing it into my purse as Esperanza stepped into the library.

  “Good morning, Esperanza,” I said, feigning a casual manner.

  She looked surprised to see me. “Are you here to work this morning?”

  “No, actually, I’m not. I finished the diary last night. I, uh, just forgot something. I’m on my way out.”

  “Abigail is back. She’d like to see you.”

  It was only Sunday.

  “When did she get back?” I asked.

  “Not long ago. She got an earlier flight. The taxi just dropped her off. She called me at home.”

  Abigail was back. I was both scared and eager to confront her with her lies, but I thought I’d have another day to decide what I would say to her.

  “She saw your car though the window. She’d like to see you,” Esperanza said again.

  “I’d like to see her too.”

  “She’ll meet you on the patio.” Esperanza stepped back from the doorway so I could walk past her.

  “All right.”

  She watched me as I left.

  I walked into the dining room, through the open french doors, and cautiously peered out onto the patio.

  Abigail wasn’t there yet.

  I sighed and took a chair at the glass-topped table.

  I breathed slowly, telling myself I would not raise my voice or let Abigail know how much she had hurt me. I would state the facts simply and ask for an explanation. Surely I was owed that much.

  Several long minutes passed before I heard movement behind me. I turned. Abigail was framed in the doorway to the patio. She looked like she had aged a year or more in the three days she had been gone. If I hadn’t been so mad at her, I would have asked if she was all right.

  My surprise at her appearance must have been obvious. Her wan smile tugged at me.

  “The early flight out of Boston is hard on a girl.” She stepped onto the patio, walked over to the table, and took the chair across from mine.

  “You’re home early,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  Esperanza appeared with a coffee tray. She set it down and poured a cup for each of us.

  “Thank you, Esperanza. You don’t have to stay. I’m sure you’d rather be home with your family.”

  Esperanza looked from me to Abigail. “What about your lunch, señorita?” she said.

  “I’ll be fine. I ate on the plane. Please, Esperanza. It’s Sunday. Go home to your family.”

  Esperanza hesitated. She caught my gaze and I knew she was trying to communicate something to me, but I didn’t know what it was. She turned to Abigail.

  “All right. But call me if you need me. Arturo and I have no plans today.”

  “I will.”

  Esperanza left, and we were alone. I didn’t know how to begin. Or where.

  Abigail began for me.

  “You’ve finished the diary,” she said simply.

  “I did. Last night.”

  “And I suppose you have questions.”

  “I have a lot of questions.”

  Abigail picked up her coffee cup. “What would you like to know?” She was the picture of calm. Exhausted, but calm. Smug, even. She brought the coffee cup to her lips. My hastily hatched plan to stay unruffled began to fall apart.

  “I’d like to know why you lied to me.”

  She raised her eyes over the rim of her cup and blinked at me, then brought the cup slowly down to its saucer.

  “Why I lied to you?” she said.

  “Yes. I’d like to know why you lied to me.”

  She hesitated for only a moment. “And what makes you think I lied to you?”

  My foot resumed a nervous tap dance under the table and I fought to still it. “You told me Mercy was executed. She wasn’t. She died in prison. That sounds like a lie to me.”

  Disappointment flooded Abigail’s face. Disappointment and hurt. I knew that feeling. I had felt it just hours before, as I sat in Professor Turrell’s office.

  “Where did you come by such information?” she asked, exhaling heavily.

  “What difference does that make? It’s true, isn’t it? You lied to me. I’d like to know why.”

  “Oh, it does matter. I said you would have questions when you finished the diary. I asked you to wait until I returned to find the answers. You told me you would. That sounds like you lied to me.”

  “But I …” I couldn’t finish.

  “You couldn’t wait? You couldn’t wait a day or two? You wouldn’t have needed to wait even that. You finished last night and here I am!”

  “But why did you let me believe she was executed when she wasn’t?” I raised my voice, even though I had promised myself I wouldn’t.

  “I never asked you to believe anything. What you believed about Mercy was what you chose to believe.”

  “But you knew I was under the impression she had been executed. You knew that’s what I thought! You made sure of it.”

  For a moment, she said nothing.

  “Where did you go to find out what you couldn’t wait to find out?” she finally asked.

  I was silent.

  “Where? Where did you learn this?”

  “A professor at the college.”

  “A professor at the college? You’ve been talking to a professor at the college? Does he know about the diary?” Abigail looked stunned.

  “Look, you never said the diary was a secret. And yes, he knows about the diary. So do my parents. So do my roommate and my cousins. You never said I couldn’t tell anyone about it.”

  “Why this professor? Why him?”

  I fidgeted in my chair and the metal made a whining sound. “He asked about it. He’s writing a book about stigma and culture and economics and I don’t know what else, but he’s done research on the Salem witch trials. My roommate told him I was working on your diary. He wanted to talk to me.”

  “He’s writing a book?” Abigail tossed the words out as if they tasted bad.

  “He asked to see the diary, Abigail, and I told him it wasn’t mine to show. I told him he’d have to talk to you and that you’d be gone until maybe Tuesday. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  She sat back in her chair. “You told me you would wait for me.”

  I sat back in mine. “You told me Mercy was hanged.”

  We stared at each other, both of us angry and disillusioned, for several long, silent moments.

  “I just want to know why you lied to me,” I finally said, removing any anger from voice but letting the hurt come through.

  Abigail slowly stood. “I’d like to be alone now.”

  I stood too. “I think after all the work I’ve done, I deserve an answer. I think I deserve to know how Mercy died.”

  “You?” She stared at me. “You deserve an answer?” She turned and began to walk away.

  “Yes!” I shouted. “I cared about her, Abigail. I even dreamed about her. I think I deserve to know!”

  Abigail turned to face me. “I didn’t lie to you. I swear to God, I didn’t.”

  She stepped into the dining room and disappeared down the hall.

  I stood there, unable to let myself out of the house, unable to accept the fact that Abigail must be crazy. She had to be.

  Surely Abigail had seen the same list I had.

  If Abigail truly believed she hadn’t lied to me, then she must also believe Mercy Hayworth was the twentieth person hanged as a witch in Salem in 1692.

  But there were only nineteen names on the list.

  What Abigail believed was impossible.

  I made my way back into the house. Abigail was nowhere to be seen. I went into the library, hovered over the diary for a moment, then carefully placed it back inside its protective covering. I eased it into its foam-padded box and closed th
e top. It was almost like putting Mercy in a casket, closing the lid, and saying good-bye.

  I didn’t know what to expect from Abigail. Were we finished? Did she want me to come back and proof the transcript? Print it out for her? But how could we even consider publishing it without including how Mercy died? And how could I convince Abigail that Mercy never saw the hangman’s noose?

  Hopefully Professor Turrell would be able to dig up the truth. In the meantime, I wanted to keep the lines of communication with Abigail open. I grabbed a piece of paper off the writing desk and wrote a quick note:

  Abigail:

  I’m very sorry I didn’t wait for you. I hope you can forgive me. I want to finish this project for you and talk with you about what you can do with it now that the transcription is done. Call me when you’re ready.

  Lauren

  I turned off the computer, closed it, and placed the note on top.

  I drove back to campus, but Professor Turrell had left. Maybe just for lunch?

  I decided to go to a church and pray for my dad’s surgery since I had missed church that morning. Then I’d come back to North Hall and see if Professor Turrell had returned or if I had misjudged his interest in the diary. I reached into my purse to touch the thumb drive, the only part of the diary left to me.

  I couldn’t find it. I dug around inside my purse, dumped the contents onto the passenger seat, and prodded every inch of fabric. But it wasn’t there.

  The thumb drive was gone.

  Thirty-Three

  At first I didn’t know what to do. After several frustrating moments in my car, I decided I should at least leave a message for Professor Turrell.

  I wrote a quick note telling him I had been unable to get the copy of the transcription that day but I would try again and let him know as soon as I had it. I tacked it to his office door.

  Then I pondered whether or not I should buy a new thumb drive, go back to Abigail’s, tell her I wanted to fix a few things in the transcription, and copy it again. But if she had already seen my note, she knew I’d left the next move up to her. And if she took the thumb drive, there was no way I could go back there and pretend she hadn’t.

  But I didn’t think Abigail had taken it. I was pretty sure it was Esperanza.

  She came into the library as I tossed the thumb drive into my purse. Esperanza had seen me put it in there, had told me Abigail wanted to meet with me, and then stood at the door to the library instead of showing me out to the patio. As soon as I was in the dining room, she must have walked over to my purse and taken the thumb drive.

  But why?

  Esperanza had never read the diary. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like what it stood for.

  And yet she had taken the thumb drive.

  I couldn’t go back to Abigail’s, but I could try to find Esperanza.

  It wasn’t hard to locate Esperanzas address. I remembered her last name, and she had given me her husbands name on the patio: Arturo. There was only one Arturo De Salvo in the Santa Barbara phone book.

  Her condo was easy to find too. Perched on a hill within a couple blocks of the ocean, Esperanza and Arturo lived in a rather stylish town-house. Small, but nicely landscaped and well cared for.

  I rang her doorbell and prayed silently for wisdom. I didn’t want to say anything I would regret.

  When the door opened and Esperanza saw me through the screen door, her eyes grew wide and she said something in Spanish.

  “Hello, Esperanza.”

  “Why are you here? Something happen to Miss Abigail?”

  “No. Nothing’s happened to Abigail.”

  The look of panic fell away but her eyes were still wide. “Then why are you here?”

  “I think you may have something that belongs to me,” I said as nicely as I could.

  Esperanza just looked at me through the screen.

  “Please, Esperanza. I need it for school. It has assignments on it.” That was partly true. I did need it for school, but I didn’t have any current assignments saved on it.

  “I don’t have it,” she said simply.

  “I think you do.”

  “No, I don’t. I gave it to Abigail. Before she came out to you on the patio.”

  “Why did you do that?” I didn’t try to hide my frustration.

  “Because the diary is hers. You can’t take a copy for you. And I know that’s what you did with that little silver thing. You can’t do that.”

  “That little silver thing is mine!”

  “But the diary is Miss Abigail’s. You can’t take it. Abigail has been very good to me and my family for many years. She bought for me and Arturo this lovely house. She helped send our children to college. She pays for Arturo’s insulin. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I take care of her like she takes care of me. That is why I took it.”

  I sighed. “I wasn’t going to do anything with it.”

  “Then you can ask her for it yourself. Ask her for copy. Don’t just take it.”

  Esperanza was right. I should have asked. Abigail might have said yes. Not now of course, but before the argument on the patio, she might have.

  “Is that why you were trying to get my attention this morning, when Abigail told you to go home?” I asked.

  “No. I didn’t think she should be left alone. I didn’t know how long you’d be staying.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Esperanza hesitated a moment and then swung open the screen door. “You want to come in?”

  I stepped inside.

  Esperanza’s living room was decorated in bright oranges and greens, and tiled in soft beige. Lingering aromas of cumin and garlic wafted around the room. “Please, sit down,” she said.

  I took a seat on an ivory-hued sofa. Esperanza sat next to me.

  “I’m worried about Abigail,” she said. “She came home early from Maine, she looks very tired, and I think she had to give Graham more money. I think maybe he’s in over his head. I don’t know. But she’s not herself these days.”

  “Do you know why she came home early?”

  “No. She didn’t tell me. But I think she left because they argued. They don’t get along, those two. They never have.”

  Guilt crept across me. I had seen how sad Abigail looked when she walked out onto the patio. I’d been too mad to consider showing her any compassion, too sure she had purposely misled me. And then I had accused her of lying to me while she probably had my thumb drive in her pocket, a stolen copy of her diary tucked in its memory.

  “Should I go back over there?” I asked Esperanza.

  “I think maybe I should.”

  “I want to come with you. I … I owe Abigail an apology.”

  She shrugged. “I guess you can come with me. I’ll tell Arturo where I’m going.”

  Esperanza was only gone a moment or two.

  “Let me drive,” I said. “I don’t mind bringing you back here later.”

  Esperanza nodded, and we started for the front door.

  “Why does Abigail feel like she has such an obligation to take care of Graham financially?” I asked. “Is he ill?”

  Esperanza held the door open for me. “Graham is not ill. Graham is addicted. To money and gambling.”

  “And Abigail feels obligated to bail him out? Every time?”

  “If he were my son, I would not do for him what she has done. She gives him too much. He takes advantage of her.”

  We walked across carefully laid paving stones to my car.

  “Did Abigail promise Dorothea she’d take care of him or something?” I asked.

  Esperanza stopped and looked at me. “Dorothea?”

  Her surprised look startled me. “Isn’t Graham her cousin Dorothea’s son?

  Esperanza tossed her head back. “Ay yi yi. I thought you knew. Graham is hers. Graham is her son.”

  “Her son?” I gasped.

  Esperanza looked off toward the ocean, probably wondering how much she should say. Then she turned to me. “She married
a man long after the gardener’s son moved away. His name was Edward Swift and he had a boy named Graham. Mama told me Abigail was quite a bit older than Edward. His wife had died in childbirth. Abigail adopted Graham and they lived in the Santa Barbara house with Mr. Boyles. Edward and her father argued about everything. My mother told me Abigail tried to make the marriage work but she didn’t really love Edward. Edward loved the money, but I don’t think he loved Abigail. He had some money of his own when they married, but he lost it. I don’t know how. A bad investment of some kind. Graham was un mocoso—a brat. I remember him. He was older than me and I was afraid of him. And Edward had other women. Many, I hear. The marriage did not last. Mr. Boyles had made Edward sign an agreement—what is it called?”

  “A prenuptial agreement?”

  “Sí. So Edward, he got none of Abigail’s money. But Abigail had adopted that little boy, and you don’t divorce a child. Edward found a new rich lady to take him in, but Abigail, she’s been paying for Graham ever since.”

  We resumed walking to my car. “That’s such a sad story.”

  “This is why she tells me, she tells you, she wishes she had married the gardener’s son. Even if it would have been hard, even if she had to move, even if she lost her rich friends. At least she would have love. And love you can’t put price on, no? No price for it.”

  “Would she really have lost all her rich friends? Would she really have had to move?” I asked. Were people in her circle of friends that shallow?

  “Maybe. I don’t know. My mama said it would have been very hard. But my mama could see he loved her. And Abigail seemed fond of him. But I guess she didn’t love him enough.”

  “Why would it have been so hard? Just because Abigail had money?”

  Esperanza frowned at me and huffed. “I told you this wasn’t about money!”

  “Well, what was it about?” I felt like I had been sent to the corner.

  “The gardener’s son was Japanese. They fell in love during World War II, comprende? But after Pearl Harbor the gardener and his son were sent to an internment camp, even though they had had both been born in California, in San Francisco. No one trusted Japanese Americans then. My mama told me Miss Abigail decided she could not bear, the stig … What is word? Stig …”