The Shape of Mercy

by Susan Meissner

“Thank you for coming.” Tom’s voice was but a breath surrounded by transparent words.

  I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, letting my lips linger. I wanted him to think, just for a moment, that it was Abigail’s lips that caressed his ancient skin, thanking him for the book and for releasing her from her pain.

  Tom fell into an exhausted sleep. I slipped the book into my purse, and we left him.

  Ken waited for us in the living room, concern covering his face. He asked us politely if we wanted any tea. Raul declined for us, thanking Ken for allowing us to come, and we slipped our shoes back on. I had no words to say good-bye.

  Ken stared at us as we left, wondering I’m sure why my face was wet with tears.

  “I’ll drive,” Raul said as he walked to the car. I wordlessly handed him the keys.

  We got into the car and I took the journal out of my purse.

  I turned to page twenty-six and read what the gardener’s son had written there.

  Abigail Rose

  You, in your nightgown among the lilies

  Eyes on the glittering night sky

  Pacing the flat stones beneath your feet

  Milky white in the moonlight

  You, mourning the simple

  Shaking your head

  Raising your fist against heaven

  Against earth

  You will not choose me

  In anger you will not choose me

  Fear holds you close and I am jealous of it

  But I will learn to let you go

  You, alone in the garden

  In the middle of the night, after hard words

  Before the sun, before I learned I would survive

  And so would you

  You think you were alone in that stillness

  But you were not

  I saw—and still see—

  You.

  Forty

  I had six phone messages waiting for me when I finally turned on my cell phone after Raul and I returned to Palo Alto. It was after six in the evening, and though I had managed to sleep some in the Cessna, I was bone tired. Two of the messages were from my mother, two from Esperanza, one from Alex Helming. I didn’t feel like listening to any of them.

  “You should stay another night,” Raul said, as he took me back to my car.

  “I can’t. I have to get back.”

  “But you’re exhausted.”

  “We can get some coffee. I’ll load up on caffeine. I’ll be fine.”

  Raul wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t argue with me. I wouldn’t have minded if he had. I was starting to enjoy his concern for me.

  We stopped by a Starbucks and I ordered a venti latte with three shots of espresso. When we got to the hotel parking lot, Raul walked with me to my car. I unlocked the driver’s side door and then we just stood there. I didn’t know how to say good-bye and apparently neither did he.

  “Thanks for doing this for me,” I finally said, though I had already said it half a dozen times that day.

  “I’m really glad you asked me. I think some good may come out of all of this. It’s kind of cool, actually.”

  He stood so close to me, and I still felt such shame for the things I had believed about him. “This isn’t the first time you’ve stepped in for me,” I whispered.

  Raul tipped his head, unsure what I meant.

  I looked down at my feet, unable to look him in the eye. “Cole said you came to the hospital the other day for me.” I lifted my head, summoned some inner strength, and met his gaze. “You came for me.”

  “Yes.” His eyes never left mine.

  A sliver of silence passed between us as we just looked at each other.

  “I’m sorry, Raul. I’m sorry for every—”

  But I could say nothing else. He leaned in and kissed me, silencing my unwanted apology with his lips. For a moment I was back in the clouds, far away from the cursed ground and the messy world. I never wanted to come back down.

  When he slowly broke away, Raul lifted his hand to my cheek. I had started to cry again and he brushed away the tears.

  “You’re not the person you think you are, Lauren,” he said.

  Speechless, I stood, unable to move, as what he’d said echoed in my mind. I wanted to hear it over and over and over.

  “Can I call you later to make sure you made it home okay?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He opened my door for me, but I turned to him and wrapped my arms around him. Some of my coffee spurted out of the cup I held and dropped to the asphalt. His arms were at once tight around my waist.

  I wanted to thank him again, but I couldn’t, and I knew he didn’t need to hear it.

  He kissed me again and stepped away. “You need to go so you can get home.”

  I was amazed how much I didn’t want to get into my car and leave.

  Raul walked toward his car. “Call me when you get home. Call me if you get sleepy!”

  “I will.”

  He got into his car and I got into mine, and for a few minutes we shared the same road, our cars just yards apart. Then he honked a farewell and I headed toward the highway and home.

  Once on the open road, I relived those last moments with Raul, replaying them in my mind again and again. I felt what Mercy tried to describe in her diary when John Peter kissed her. I knew now exactly what she meant. I couldn’t keep myself from smiling as I drove.

  How had Abigail ever turned her back on this? This feeling that swept you breathless into the sky?

  I was nearly an hour into my commute before I pulled myself away from what happened in the parking lot to listen to my phone messages.

  My mother first called with a progress report on my dad—he was doing well, the chest tubes had been removed—and then called to see how I was. Esperanza called twice to ask the same question—when was I getting back? And Alex Helming called to say Graham had arrived in Santa Barbara and wanted to speak with him. Alex had told Graham it might have to wait until next week. “But I can’t put him off much longer than that, Miss Durough. It would be much easier if Abigail were here. I trust she will contact you before then.”

  But I really didn’t think Abigail had any plans to do that. Why would she? She had plenty of money. She could stay wherever she was as long as she wanted.

  I eyed Tom Kimura’s book peeking out of my purse on the passenger seat. I had to get that book to Abigail before she did something stupid. I had to give her Tom’s message.

  I pressed the speed dial for Esperanza.

  “It’s me—Lauren.”

  “Did you see him?” she asked, meaning Tom Kimura.

  “I did. He gave me a book of poems to give her. And he forgave her a long time ago. But he’s dying, Esperanza. He’s not expected to live much longer.”

  Esperanza said something softly in Spanish. It sounded like a prayer.

  “Graham is in town,” she said a moment later. “He left messages on Miss Abigail’s phone. I saw him drive by the house twice.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “No. Arturo dropped me off around the corner, and I went in the back gate. Graham can’t get to the door. He doesn’t know the code for the front gate.”

  “Esperanza, we’ve got to figure out where Abigail went.” An idea came to me. “Listen. She might have wanted to be near where Mercy died. Are you at home? Do you and Arturo have Internet access?”

  “Sí, sí,”

  “Go onto the Web and find as many five-star hotels in the Danvers—that’s what Salem Village is called now—and Boston area as you can, call them up and ask to speak Abigail Boyles. Tell them she’s a guest.”

  “But we don’t know if she’s at any of those places.”

  “If she’s not, they’ll tell you she’s not registered there. Then you try the next one.”

  “Okay. And you will stay at Miss Abigail’s tonight?”

  “I’ll be there in a few hours.”

  “Graham may drive by and see the lights on in the house.”r />
  “We’ll just let him think Abigail has timers on her lights.”

  “He may buzz the gate.”

  “I won’t answer it.”

  “Don’t let him in, Lauren.”

  “I promise I won’t. Call me if you find Abigail at one of those hotels.”

  “Bueno.”

  I got back to Santa Barbara after eleven o’clock.

  I spent the last hour on my cell phone with Raul, talking about everything and nothing. I was prepared to put him on hold if Esperanza called, but she didn’t. He told me more about his dad, his childhood in Guadalajara, what it was like to move to America when he was eight, what it was like the first time he flew a plane. He told me when he knew he wanted to be a heart surgeon—the day his father died of a massive heart attack—and when he knew he was falling for me—the day I found him in the little library looking at all the old books.

  I told him what my favorite foods were, what kind of music I liked, what I liked to do when I had nothing to do. I also told him something I hadn’t told anyone before—what it was like to grow up wondering what happened to the son your parents were supposed to have.

  “You don’t still wonder that, do you?” he’d asked.

  It felt good to tell him I was finally learning not to.

  We hung up when I arrived at Abigail’s. The street was dark and quiet. There were no cars parked curbside, and Graham was nowhere to be seen. I opened the gate, drove through, and watched in my rearview mirror as it closed behind me.

  Inside, the house was deathly still. When I had stayed at Abigail’s before, the diary had been there. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. Without it, the house felt like a crypt. I didn’t want to climb the stairs to the guest room. Not with Raul’s kisses still lingering on my lips, reminding me of what Abigail had turned her back on. I grabbed an afghan from the library sofa and went into the sitting room. I knew the morning light would flood the room with warmth, even if the room itself did not look warm.

  I curled up on the sofa with one of Abigail’s perfectly plumped pillows and pulled the afghan around me.

  On the long table across from me, Abigail’s framed photos stood like sentinels guarding the past. Moonlight danced on the image of Abigail and Dorothea sitting on a sun-drenched porch railing with their matching parasols.

  Abigail looked truly happy.

  I fell asleep thinking of her that way. Laughing. Smiling. Holding Dorothea’s hand. Spinning her parasol.

  Life before loss.

  Hours later, when dawn spread a blanket of golden light around me, I awoke with the same image in my head. Abigail and her parasol.

  I sat up and looked at the photo across from me.

  I knew where Abigail was.

  Forty-One

  Esperanza didn’t know where Dorothea’s parents’ property on Pismo Beach had been. Alex Helming knew Abigail had bought property in Pismo Beach a few years prior, but he hadn’t been involved in the transaction. After several calls to the San Luis Obispo County Historical Society, I was finally given the number of a retired staff member who remembered that the Sand Dollar Bed and Breakfast off Ocean Boulevard had once been the summer beach house for Theodore Boyles and his family.

  Theodore Boyles. Dorothea’s father.

  “But that B and B’s not open anymore,” the woman told me. “Someone bought it a while back. I don’t know what they’re doing with it, but it’s not a hotel anymore.”

  I thanked her and hung up. I knew who bought it.

  It was less than a hundred miles to Pismo Beach. I wanted to call Raul and tell him where I was headed, but he was in class—where I should have been. I sent him a text message and called Esperanza instead. I told her where I was going and asked her to look up an address for me on the Internet, wishing the whole time I had a top-of-the-line phone like my dad’s and could look it up myself.

  A moment later, Esperanza rattled off the address for the former Sand Dollar Bed and Breakfast.

  “Bring Miss Abigail home,” she said.

  “I plan to.”

  I took the coastal road, letting the beauty of the Pacific Coast Highway calm and invigorate me. I prayed Abigail wouldn’t be angry that I found and saw Tom Kimura. I prayed she’d be able to accept that he was dying—I didn’t see how I’d be able to avoid telling her. I prayed that the book of poems, especially the one on page twenty-six, would soothe her tortured mind, not wound it.

  It wasn’t hard to find the former hotel. The Boyleses’ old beach house sat on a quiet street that ended in a cul-de-sac. I saw the gabled windows and steeply pitched roof first when I turned onto the street, then the commanding view of the sea, then the wooden porch. I parked my car on the street and walked slowly up the front path. I could see the invisible frame the photographer had chosen on that long ago day when two girls sat on the porch railing and held matching parasols. The railing was still there, painted a glistening white. Above the railing on the second floor, a lacy curtain fluttered at an open window. I walked up to the door and hesitated, then rang the doorbell.

  I rehearsed in my mind what I would say when Abigail opened the door.

  But the door didn’t open.

  I rang the bell again and waited.

  No answer.

  As I stood there, wondering what to do, wondering if Abigail was even here, my eyes fell on a flower bed below the porch railing. Rows of primroses in magenta, saffron, and coral peeked at me.

  She was here.

  I rang the bell. Again, no answer.

  Did she know it was me? Was she hiding from me?

  I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. She had to be here. I stepped off the porch and made my way to the back of the house. Perhaps a back door was open. I had to find a way to get in.

  I rounded a corner and saw her.

  Abigail sat at the far end of the yard at a patio table that overlooked the sea. In front of her lay the diary, open to the sea air. She sat very still.

  I walked toward her, doing nothing to mask my footsteps. When she didn’t turn, I said her name. When she still didn’t turn, I quickened my pace until I stood at her side.

  She seemed not to see me, and I reached out to touch her on the shoulder.

  “Abigail,” I said gently.

  She flinched and snapped her head around. Fear and dread shone in her watery eyes, like she was looking at a ghost. She seemed not to recognize me.

  “Abigail, it’s Lauren.”

  She stared at me for a moment, and the dread fell away. It was replaced by utter disappointment.

  I had found her. And she hadn’t wanted to be found.

  Abigail turned her head back to the sea. “What took you so long?” she murmured in a voice I almost recognized.

  I slid into a chair next to her. “You picked a great hiding place.”

  Abigail looked at me and then away again. “I’m not hiding,” she said.

  “You left without telling anyone where you were going.”

  “What I do is my own business.”

  She was her same cynical self, but the bitter edge to her voice alarmed me.

  I reached for the book in my purse.

  “You shouldn’t have come, Lauren.”

  “I have something for you.” I ignored her remark and placed Tom’s book on the table.

  She kept her eyes on the ocean. “I don’t want it.”

  “It’s a book of poems.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “It’s a special book of poems. The author signed the book to you. He even wrote one of the poems to you.”

  She glanced at the book and then raised her head, narrowing her eyes at me. “You’re lying.”

  I matched her tone. “You and I are done with lies, Abigail. Take the book. The poem is on page twenty-six.” I picked up Toms book and held it out to her.

  She hesitated and then took it.

  Abigail opened the cover, and I watched as her eyes traveled across the words Tom Kimura had written. Her chest r
ose and fell rapidly and I reached out to steady her heaving body.

  “Where did you get this?” she rasped.

  “He gave it to me.”

  Abigail slowly turned to face me. In her eyes I saw the ache and agony of countless days of regret. “You saw him?”

  “Yes.”

  The next question hovered on her lips, unspoken. Maybe she couldn’t decide which to ask first.

  “Esperanzas mother remembered his name, and Clarissa and I found him using the Internet,” I continued. “I wanted to give you a reason to come home. I think I have.”

  “Where did you find him?” Abigail whispered, her gaze returning to the open book. Her fingers trailed over the words All is remembered.

  “He’s in Portland, Oregon.”

  “Is … Does he have a family?” Her fingers traced All is forgiven.

  “He has at least one son. I think his wife has passed away.”

  Tears formed in Abigail’s steel blue eyes. “Why did he give you this?”

  “Because he wanted you to have it. He wanted you to know he never forgot you.”

  Abigail ran her index finger over Toms name. “Why did he give you this?” she asked again, this time to no one.

  I laid my hand over hers and moved it so her finger rested on the word Live.

  “Because he is dying and you are not.”

  Abigail raised her other hand to her eyes and covered them as she wept.

  I stayed with her until her sobs subsided. When she had taken a tissue from her sleeve and dried her tears, I stood. “His poem for you is on page twenty-six.”

  I reached across the table to Mercy’s diary and gently folded its pages shut. I lifted it into my arms and walked toward the house, leaving her alone with her memories of Tomoharu Kimura.

  The back door opened to a kitchen. I put the diary on the table and busied myself with finding what I needed to make tea. I kept an eye on Abigail from the window. Half an hour later, when she closed the journal and cast her gaze over the ocean, I went out to her with a tea tray.

  She said nothing when I set the tray down. I handed her a cup and she took it silently. I sat next to her with my own cup.