Realm of Darkness

by C F Dunn

  Matthew looked apprehensive. “Emma, it’s going to take me time.”

  “Yes.”

  “After so many years of being with someone – even if separated by Ellen’s age and infirmity – we had a bond that was more than a marriage contract.”

  I glimpsed the pale tidemark left by his wedding ring. “I know you did.”

  “When you live as long as I have you carry so many memories, and with Henry living next door as a constant reminder of what Ellen and I shared, I can’t just move on.”

  “I know you can’t, I understand. I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  “It’s going to take me longer than I thought,” he said again, looking dejected.

  I smoothed the hair from his forehead and kissed the little lines of self-doubt between his eyes. “You have time, Matthew. You have as long as it takes.”

  He buried his face in my hair and for an age we sat like that until a light knock at the door broke through the insulated happiness which encased us. We sat slowly apart. The knock came again and this time Pat’s cheerful face appeared around the door.

  “I didn’t know if you’d be awake. There now,” she said as she came in, bearing a tray with something steaming and probably nutritious on it, “it’s time you had something to eat.”

  I still felt full from my last force-feeding. “But Pat, I’ve only just had breakfast!”

  “That was hours ago. You can’t hope to get better on an empty stomach.” She sounded like my mother, all bossy and jolly.

  Matthew rose from beside me. “I’ll take a walk; I won’t be long.” His smile meant to reassure, but he carried with him waves of grey-blue doubt and grief.

  “That’s OK,” I said. “Take as long as you like. I’ll still be here.”

  He took to walking by himself, only leaving me when Pat or Henry was within earshot and I could be relied upon to not develop some cardiac complication for the hour or so he spent crossing the frozen land. On his return, I would monitor his mood, intervening when I thought he might want to talk, and leaving him alone when he did not.

  One afternoon, a week or so after the end of the trial, I watched Matthew cross the courtyard and disappear through the covered entrance, imagining him leaving light footprints on the compacted snow like his thoughts. Pat set a tray of tea and toast on the table beside the chair and, instead of decamping to let me eat alone as she usually did, sat down on the chair opposite. From a bag suspended from her arm, she drew her latest sewing project.

  “You know, I was just so glad when Henry said you would be staying after all. It’s been years since I’ve had anyone to look after. The children were never ill, and Jeannie hardly ever catches anything and when she does, Dan wants to care for her. I sometimes feel like making something up just to be able to nurse one of them. At least they eat now, so I can feed them.”

  “They didn’t eat?” I queried, welcoming the interruption and rising to hunt for a sock under the bed before joining her again. The very thought of the gargantuan amounts of food the siblings consumed at Christmas made me pale.

  She snipped at a cotton thread with a pair of dainty gold scissors. “They don’t need that much; they eat because they want to, not because they have to as often as they do, or anywhere near as much. It’s a sociable thing, like drinking in company. It’s what’s expected, isn’t it? Matthew’s always been very particular about the family appearing normal as much for their sakes as anything. I think he feels how different he is more than he likes to say.” Snip. She cut a new length of thread, knotted it, and narrowed her eyes as she passed the end through a fine needle. “Henry was fine. Ellen got him used to eating plenty when he was young, so by the time I met him, she had him well trained, but the children were quite another case. Maggie was a nightmare to begin with, you can imagine. Being a step-mom isn’t something I would have chosen. I never knew when she would eat from one day to the next, and she wouldn’t talk to me at all – just cried for her sister and mommy. And when I had Dan, and then he had his children…” She wagged her head slowly. “It’s quite a thing to get your mind around, this Lynes family, and it took me a while, I can tell you. I’m used to them now, of course, and I wouldn’t want them any other way, but now that I have you to look after, well, you can catch cold as often as you like and I won’t complain.”

  I pulled on the sock and eyed the mountain of toast she expected me to plough through.

  “Pat, I’m sure you have better things to do with your time than nurse me. I wasn’t planning on being around to be looked after that much.”

  She ceased stitching and gave me a keen, enquiring look. “You’re not thinking of going back to England, are you?”

  Partway through spreading homemade conserve, I replied steadily, “No, I’m not planning on leaving.”

  Her face brightened again and she picked up her patchwork and started on the next square. “Well, that’s a good thing, because one thing I don’t think any amount of my mothering could do is mend Matthew’s heart if it were broken. I met him in the early years after the crash which crippled Ellen, when I started dating Henry. He never said anything, of course, but it was like a weight around his heart all the time. That’s gone now. Even with Ellen’s dying that load isn’t there any more.” She hesitated, and I could sense her weighing something before she spoke. “I expect you know what it’s like to have your heart broken, don’t you?”

  For a moment I thought that she meant when I had fled back to England hurt and bewildered – before I unravelled Matthew’s past, before he brought me back to the States, before he told me about Ellen. Then, I had breathed through only one day at a time. As I didn’t answer immediately, Pat said, “I don’t want you to think I’m prying, Emma, but it sounded to me as if you had a bad time with that man in Cambridge when you were a girl.”

  “Oh…” She meant Guy. I remembered her face when the prosecution revelled in the details of the affair, how she avoided my eyes, and the sniggers of the courtroom making me feel soiled and unclean. I had worried about what the family must think of me, and the memory of it still cut.

  “Pat, I haven’t thanked any of you for being at the trial. I know you were there for Matthew – and for Maggie, of course – but I really appreciated seeing you. It can’t have been pleasant, especially with some of the things that were said about Matthew, and then there were the insinuations the prosecution made about me.”

  I prepared for the censorious pitch to her mouth, but she said, “It must have been very hurtful for you to hear.”

  “Quite honestly, I’ve tried to forget the whole thing that happened at Cambridge. It’s not something I’m proud of, but nor was it what the prosecution counsel made it seem – it wasn’t calculating or trivial at the time.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t. Don’t think anyone is judging you, Emma. We all make mistakes and sometimes mistakes are made for us. Nobody in this family thinks any less of you for it.” She smiled across the small table, full of warmth and affection. “It must have been difficult for your momma at the time.”

  I had a mental image of Mum standing by the telephone in the hall spitting nails as my father took another call from Guy, her normally placid countenance white with fury.

  “It wasn’t easy, no.”

  She nodded. “I know how I would feel if I had a little girl who found herself in the same situation. I’d find it difficult to let her go. I think I would want to wrap her up and protect her forever just in case it ever happened again.”

  “It might take Mum a while to get used to the idea of me being here, but she appreciates that Matthew is nothing like the man I knew at Cambridge, and I’m older and have my own life to lead, so…”

  She patted my arm. “Chickadee, you will always be a little girl to your momma. I know that I still think my Dan’s in Fourth Grade and getting into fights all the time.”

  “Did he?” I asked, surprised. Dan always seemed so mild-mannered I couldn’t picture him fighting.

  She hooted. “Al
l the time. He didn’t tell us that he was being bullied at school, and by the time he arrived home, all his cuts and bruises had healed, so we were none the wiser.”

  I remembered Joel’s lacerated hand healing before my eyes at Christmas. “So how did you find out?”

  “I didn’t until one day he came back with his shirt all raggedy off his back. He begged me not to say anything, so I let it go. But later, when I found his books all torn up and some very unkind things written on his bag, I was beside myself. Henry was off in Europe and Maggie playing me up and I’d just about had enough. Dan hid the things in the storm cellar because he was afraid of what I might do and I would have given those boys a piece of my mind – and the school, too, for not taking them in hand…” She stopped and took a deep breath, her lips resisting the slight tremble that set up in them.

  “What happened?” I prompted.

  “Matthew came back from work – we were living in the south at that time – he heard all the commotion, sat Dan down, and had him tell us everything, all of it. Dan hadn’t told me half of what went on because he didn’t want to upset me. He was always such a kind boy.” She smiled fondly.

  I took a sip of tea. “What did Matthew do?”

  “Well, he stood there very calmly and listened to everything Dan told him. When he finished, Matthew just said, ‘I see,’ in that way he has of saying everything without saying anything much at all. Then he took Dan’s hand, and the next thing I knew my son was trotting off down the dirt track toward town, hand-in-hand with his granddaddy, quite happily like they were going fishing together. When they came back sometime later, Dan had a new bag and books and those boys never touched him again. He seemed much happier at school after that.”

  I conjured an image of the two of them in the rich light of the afternoon, crickets darting from their path, gold hair competing with the sun.

  “Did you ever find out why they targeted him in the first place?”

  “Because of his differences. Dan’s clever and always learned quickly. His granddaddy taught him more than the school ever could and it was a small school, so he stood out more. He was never ill, he liked to study, and didn’t roughhouse with the other boys. And then there’s his looks” – her eyes strayed to my hair – “you can imagine.” I could, all too well. “What he didn’t let on was that he always gave as good as he got, but they outnumbered him and he didn’t know how to fight or to get out of trouble before the fighting began, so Matthew took him in hand and taught him both. He’s had not a peep of trouble since.” I must have seemed very grim because Pat smiled unexpectedly. “It’s been a learning curve for us all and never a dull moment from one year to the next. You can’t get bored in this family.”

  “And Maggie?”

  “It took Maggie a while to accept me – you know how she dislikes change – but she did eventually, although we’ve never been close. Now, she never had one minute’s trouble at school – no one would have dared – but she didn’t have many friends, either.” Pat shook her head. “Her momma has a lot to answer for.” She gathered her sewing into a neat bundle. “I must take an iron to this before I do any more and you look ready for another rest when you’ve eaten that toast. Can I get you some more?”

  Curled up in the big chair in Matthew’s study, I tracked the emotional landscape of the two men in the waves of colour streaming from them. Still new to me, this sensitivity to the emotions of others at times left me speechless and at once both amazed and disquieted. At this point, Henry displayed the colours of concern – no, not as strong as that, more misgivings – as they discussed his daughter Maggie’s mental state. And Matthew? Although I knew it wasn’t possible, he looked a little tired, or grey – yes, grey – and his eyes were the colour of smoke and not as clear as I was used to. He had spent months looking out for me, or looking after me, and we were both ready for a holiday. I raised the subject when we were alone.

  “Where would you like to go?” he asked.

  “I’ve always wanted to see New Zealand. I suppose you’ve already been there, haven’t you?”

  “Not since 1876. I expect it’s changed a bit since then.”

  “I expect it has,” I replied dryly.

  “I have too many work commitments and not enough holiday leave to make it worthwhile until later in the year.”

  “It’s a long time.”

  “It is,” he agreed, “so I thought we could do with a stopgap, more of a break than a holiday. I have some business in New York…”

  “I’ve never been,” I bounced. “Can we go to the Metropolitan Museum? It has a superb collection of medieval artifacts and I’ve always wanted to see the Egyptian section; it looks wonderful in the photos I’ve seen.”

  “… and I was going to ask whether you would like to go too, but you seem to have already answered that question.” He smiled at my exuberance. “One step at a time. First I want to make sure you’re strong enough. How about a short walk this afternoon?”

  The river flowed deep and silent next to us and we walked along the riverbank where the snow lay thinnest and red-stemmed dogwoods sprouted like whiskers, glowing in the sun.

  I tucked my arm through his. “How are you, Matthew? Really?” We negotiated the safest path and I sensed he searched for the words to voice his deepest thoughts.

  “It sometimes feels as if I’ve been grieving for forty-six years. Ellen’s death has been a shock, but somehow it seems right; it was time. If I’m honest with myself,” he smiled thinly, “and that’s harder than you might think, she’d been ready for many years; I just didn’t want to see it. I’d persuaded myself that she wanted to live, and it was only during those last weeks when she knew I couldn’t save her and that I wouldn’t try, that I understood how I’d imposed life on her. She wasn’t afraid to die; she had a better place to go and I’d been keeping her from it.” He rubbed his forehead with the knuckle of his thumb. “I told you once how selfish I can be.”

  My foot slithered on the uneven ground and I gripped his arm. “I remember, but there’s no point in castigating yourself for it. Isn’t it part of being human that we cling to life and to all with which we’re familiar? Ellen brought you love and a sense of normality; you were just hanging on to it for as long as you could.”

  “Mmm, that’s as maybe, but I think of all the relatives I’ve had to tell over the years, waiting for them to accept that the life of the person they love is over and there’s no going back. You would have thought that I’d be used to it by now – I’ve had enough practice – but it never gets any easier. Their grief is so tangible, so understandable – they mourn for what they’ve lost.” He ducked under red-ribbed branches, holding them back until I passed safely beneath. “It’s rarely the dying who voice their fears once the initial shock passes. They find peace more readily than the living. In the years after I realized I wasn’t aging, I used to think that people used faith to comfort themselves as they faced death. But as society changed and fewer people looked to religion for answers, I came to believe that it wasn’t so much they who sought comfort in faith, but that they were being comforted; they just didn’t necessarily know it.”

  We watched the water tumble between rocks, free and easy and without restraint. The snow had gone from the steep face of the bank, revealing gnarled roots, and the first shoots of spring bulbs nestled in south-facing crevices.

  I picked up a stray twig broken by a late frost. “I like the thought that, despite our frailties, we are still loved.” I released the stick into the water and watched the current pick it up and toss it downstream. I noticed Matthew hadn’t said anything. The stick vanished.

  Eventually he said, “That is why I can finally let Ellen go not just physically, but emotionally as well, because I couldn’t offer her what she wanted and needed most. I couldn’t give her the peace she can find in God. There was nothing left to stay for.”

  Under the shelter of a tree, a small, unfamiliar flower had thrust its way through the lace-edged snow. I bent down t
o look at it more closely, fingering the veined petals. “It’s a big step, leaving behind all that we are comfortable and familiar with and stepping into the unknown.”

  “Are you speaking emotionally or spiritually?”

  “Both.” I straightened and smiled when I saw his puzzled frown. “It’s a big step for both of us.” We had come to a kink in the river where a log had become jammed between two rocks. I rather thought that it was precisely how Matthew must feel at times – caught between Heaven and Earth and not going anywhere while life – and death – continued to flow around him regardless.

  We stopped at a low-slung footbridge barely a plank wide, skimming the turbulent waters. He launched a twig at the river and I took a tentative step onto the bridge, teetered momentarily, then steadied and made my way to the centre. The plank had cracked and worn and the single handrail offered more in the way of hope than safety. He followed with a careless ease that made my caution seem clumsy. He looked fixedly through the shot-silk surface of the water. “Look.” He pointed to where the overhanging bank sheltered a deeper pool. A shaft of sun lit the pebbly bed.

  “I see it.” A darker streak held its own against the current. It might have been a length of weed but for its speckled back as it swayed back and forth in the clear water. I wanted to reach out and touch it. I wanted to feel its slime-slick body move in my hands, and I recalled Matthew telling me how he had taught his great-grandchildren to catch fish. He must have been remembering too, because he calculated the distance between the overhang and the water.

  “Was that one that got away?”

  He grinned. “It must be; it’d better watch its step. I haven’t forgotten I promised to teach you to tickle trout. Do you think you have the patience?”