EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING, Oliver completely missed the inauguration of his criminal career.
Mattie told him where to turn, where not to park, and had to remind him twice to lock the car. It took Oliver a full minute to realize exactly where they were—outside the rusted gate in the far corner of the expansive backyard of Shady Grove. Mattie wasted no time kneeling beside it and slipping two metal tools into the bulky padlock.
“Don’t watch me,” she said.
“That’s much harder than it sounds.”
He tried to look casual as he absorbed their surroundings. The sidewalk was buckled with weeds sprouting up through the cracks. A disco band played somewhere in the distance. A lonely traffic light cycled impotently through reds and ambers and greens at the nearest intersection. An occasional breeze filled the air with ripe Dumpster smells.
Oliver turned when he heard the metallic clink of a lock giving way; Mattie was already putting her tools away. He had to lean his full weight on the chain link gate to raise the forked gate hatch. Even after all that, it wouldn’t budge.
He was saying something about too much undergrowth when Mattie produced a sizable knife and began slicing through thatched vines and weeds.
“Just keep pushing,” she said. “We only need a crack.”
The gritty rusted metal was making Oliver’s palms burn. But then it started to give way. Mattie yanked with one hand and sliced with the other as the gate inched farther and farther.
“I think that’s enough,” Oliver said. “We can crawl through there.”
“Probably so, but we may need more wiggle room on the way out.”
“Why? Won’t we be about the same size when we leave?”
“Yep. But it won’t feel that way if we’re being chased.”
Oliver checked to see if Mattie was serious, but she’d been nothing but serious since they left the restaurant. When they were on the other side, she pulled a shiny new padlock from her purse and locked the gate, making sure the key was secured around her wrist with a coiled wristband. Then she hid the old lock in the undergrowth with its key still inside.
“You’re locking us back in?”
“We don’t want to be responsible for someone else breaking out, do we?”
“So why are you changing the lock?”
“I have a key for this one,” Mattie said, as if Oliver were the silliest boy in the world.
He didn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified at Mattie’s criminal aptitude. So he settled on awe and followed her along the darkened perimeter to a large metal door. As she studied the lock with a tiny flashlight, Oliver walked along the back of the building. Mattie whispered something about staying put and out of the light. She was on her knees now, flashlight between her teeth, and manipulating her tiny instruments. Moments later she opened the door and said, “Oops.”
“What is it?”
“Boiler room.”
Because he didn’t have anything better to do with all the nervous energy roiling inside him, Oliver walked to the only other metal door on the backside of the building, twisted the handle, and pulled. The weather-stripping scraped as the door swung open.
“What’s in there?” Mattie said as she relocked and closed the first door.
Oliver realized at once how absurd—and completely unearned—his pride was. That he’d simply turned the knob and gotten lucky. Absurd or not, however, he wallowed in his meager contribution.
They tiptoed through the kitchen to the rattle and hum of compressors, navigating a stainless steel maze of ovens and steamers and tabletops, then through the carpeted cafeteria. Mattie peeked out into the main hallway, then motioned for Oliver to follow to the stairwell at the end of the hall. After a brisk three-flight climb, Oliver was winded and prickled with sweat. Mattie looked unfazed as they made their way to his mother’s room.
Delores was sitting up in bed reading her autographed copy of The Cider House Rules.
Her one-word response to the two after-hours visitors simultaneously thrilled and broke Oliver’s heart. After looking directly into his eyes, his mother shifted her gaze and said, “Mattie!”
Delores Miles patted the bed in invitation. As Mattie closed the distance between them, Oliver watched his mother’s face light up, igniting a heartrending memory that he couldn’t quite place. She spread her arms wide, as if she were about to take flight, then wrapped Mattie into a taut, lingering embrace. They hugged for a long time, rocking gently, whispering things Oliver wanted to hear. He realized there was no default mode available to diffuse his conflicting emotions. So he just watched.
“Here,” Mattie said as she rummaged through her purse. “I brought you another shawl.”
Delores held it up and inspected it. “It’s lovely, dear.”
“Thanks,” Mattie said, clearly struggling not to look too proud as she retreated to the lone guest chair, leaving nothing but space between Oliver and his mother.
By the time Oliver assumed the now dimpled spot on the bed next to his mother, her nostalgic expression had depreciated into polite confusion. Oliver followed her gaze into her lap where her hands aimlessly twisted the edge of her new shawl. That’s when Oliver realized he was crying again. And just like on stage, he couldn’t quite figure out why. Or how to stop.
Delores finally looked up at Oliver but spoke to Mattie. “So, he knows?”
Mattie nodded, then looked again at Oliver with her signature stare—penetrating, unblinking, tinged with some secret, shared message that Oliver was trying not to miss. But there was something else in her expression, something new —Mattie was nervous, as if she were risking something terribly important. Her wide, unwavering eyes seemed to be pleading with him to just play along and see what happened, to trust her on this one. Although he felt slightly ambushed, he was in no condition to defy her silent instruction.
As it turned out, there was no choice to make really. His mother cleared her throat and said, “So how did you know my boy?”
“Your son?” he said.
He didn’t realize just how badly he wanted to hear her say his name until she didn’t. Instead, she smoothed the wrinkled edge of her blanket across her lap with hands that looked impossibly old and fragile. Finally, she responded with a nod. And somehow it was enough, for now anyway. For the first time in six years, his mother acknowledged she had a son.
“Oliver, right?” he said.
He didn’t mean to say it. It just slipped out. It was a risk he wasn’t really ready to take, but it was too late for that.
“He was a good boy,” she said. “The best. He deserved better.”
“Better than what?”
“Me,” she said simply. “He deserved better than me.”
“That is not true, Mom.” Oliver glanced at Mattie when he realized his mistake, but she was hovering in the doorway, standing vigil. “I’m sorry, I mean Delores.”
“That’s okay. I kind of like the sound of it. And please pardon my poor memory, but aren’t you that friend of his from school?”
Oliver had to scramble to come up with the name. During his one semester at college, he roomed with a kid named Wayne from Missouri who insisted on spending that first Christmas break with Oliver and his mother. He was a theater geek, always ready with impressions from Broadway shows that Oliver didn’t recognize and his mother found hilarious. At some point Wayne started referring to Delores as “Mom.” Oliver never really liked Wayne, but he was more than happy now to borrow his identity to get some semblance of his mother back.
“What have you been up to since college?”
“Oh, um …” Oliver wished Mattie would come back and help. He lacked the emotional wherewithal to reinvent a new persona all by himself. “I work in show business.”
“You were really into musical theater, if I remember right?”
Now Oliver’s jealousy shifted from Mattie and glommed onto a fictitious character that happened to share the first name and a few interests of a former roommate. “That’s right. But I never quite made it to Broadway.”
“Well don’t give up. It’s important to follow your dreams. My Oliv—” A tear sprang from his mother’s left eye. She wiped at it clumsily with her fingers, then again on the other side. Oliver plucked a stiff tissue from the box and handed it to her. “I’m sorry. What I was trying to say is that my boy had a gift for comedy. He could have been a brilliant stand-up.”
“Really?” It was utter disbelief that bottled up Oliver’s throat, but pride that finally pushed the words out. “You really think so?”
“He was born funny,” she said. She stared at her hands without really looking at them. She heaved her way through a long sigh and said, “Such a waste.”
“What’s that?”
“Losing my only son that way, to that … that drunk.”
They sat silent for a while. Then, when Delores Miles finally composed herself, she told him all about the accident. How her son had finally switched his major to pharmacy, mostly to appease his nagging mother. How he was making great grades and loving the college experience. How he was driving home after finals and was killed by a drunk driver. How the woman who murdered her son was a waitress with a drinking problem and a notorious reputation for sleeping around. Oliver was almost convinced.
“And what do you think they did to her for taking my son away from me?”
It was not a rhetorical question, but not one he was supposed to answer either.
“Nothing. Not a single thing. She put on this crazy lady act and they just let her go.”
Mattie cleared her throat from the doorway. “Um, I hate to say this, but there’s a nurse roaming the floor, apparently making rounds.”
Oliver leaned forward, wondering just how long she’d been torturing herself with this filicidal myth. He took one of his mother’s hands in both of his. He said, “You need to forgive her.”
“Who?”
“The lady who killed Oliver.”
“Never,” she said, then again. “Never.”
Mattie put her hand on Oliver’s elbow. “We probably need to get going. Like, now.”
Oliver stood, still holding his mother’s hand. “Well, would you at least think about it?”
“What exactly do you think I do here all day? I consider things. I sit here and consider everything. And nothing I consider ever changes.”
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said. And he was.
“Me too.”
“Look,” he said, “is there anything you need? Anything I can do for you? You do have a birthday coming up.”
She studied him for a long beat, then whispered, “Get me out of here.”
When Mattie tried to hug Delores, she remained stiff and stared blankly at the wall. Mattie hit a few buttons on the remote control until the TV screen filled with angry talking heads. Then she grabbed Oliver by the hand and pulled him to the doorway. They stood, waiting for the nurse to emerge from one room and enter another. Oliver glanced back; his mother still looked small and confused and pitiful. Then Mattie was tugging his arm toward the stairwell.
They retraced their steps, exchanged padlocks, and drove away much faster than necessary. Oliver didn’t catch his breath until he was behind the wheel with the engine running. That’s when he finally turned to Mattie and said simply, “Thank you for, you know … that.”
“She thinks we’re sisters, you know.”
“But that makes no sense. She never even had a sister.”
“Apparently she always wanted one.” Mattie was quiet, apparently letting that sink in. Then she said, “You do realize you need to take your own advice, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“That drunk, distraught mother who killed her son? You need to forgive her too.”
Oliver pondered this, long and hard. Finally, he said, “I already have.”
“Trust me, Oliver. Loving and forgiving are not the same thing.”
They drove in silence until the Nashville skyline filled the windshield.
Oliver finally said, “I do, you know. Trust you.”
“Just be careful with that. I do kind of have a history of disappointing people. Especially the ones I care most about.”