The house seemed even bigger in the daylight than it had that fateful night over a week ago. The windows of the jeep were rolled up tight. The shoddy air conditioning rattled away, taking the worst of the heat from the air but my skin still glistened with sweat. The temperatures didn’t ever seem to drop below ninety in this stinking city. Every few seconds I glanced at my watch, marking the minutes as they passed
I took a few deep breaths and took myself back to Nick’s side when he was dying. His words. It’s a stone house. Set back from the road. There are a lot of trees. Paths in the woods that take you all over the property if you know where you’re going. I can’t go back again. You have to do it for me.
“Okay, Nick. I’m here,” I whispered. “So guide me through this, please?” My watch said it was ten after four and I’d stalled as long as I could. I pressed the gas and headed for the front gate.
Even in the glaring sunlight the house was intimidating, consumed by the foliage of the trees. What little stone peaked out of hiding was covered in ivy. I leaned over to roll down the window but I had to wrestle with it. It had gotten off track and never rolled up or down properly. I pressed the button on the gate and held my breath. A crackled voice came out from the speaker asking my name.
“Mackenzie.” I hesitated. What was my last name? “Carlisle,” I said feeling as if I’d asked for a number four value meal.
There was no response. Then the large iron wall slid open. The grinding of metal sliding closed behind me reminded me of prison. Two summers ago I’d supplemented my income by doing parole evaluations on inmates in the state prison system. Every time those doors banged shut behind me I got this same feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was trapped.
The stone road led through at least a half mile of trees and dense shrubbery. Remains of flowers and flowering bushes dotted the side road. Someone was an avid gardener. A small pond nestled in amongst the bushes near the front of the house.
In the darkness it had been impossible to see the beautiful display of greenery that covered the grounds. The house was edged with flowering bushes that, even in this late season, made the otherwise cold stone structure appear livable. A statue of a little boy graced the middle of an elaborate fountain in the center of a circular drive. Water trickled from a jug held sideways in his hands. The harmony of that moment was shattered when I saw the solitary figure standing on the front steps.
Cora. She had been watching me but showed no sign of greeting. We stood perhaps a hundred yards apart, staring at one another for minutes. A solid woman, her presence was formidable even from that distance. I got out of the jeep and began to walk towards her. Her simple, pale blue dress was cut full and fell in folds about her heavy knees. The legs beneath were muscled and well formed; her arms remained folded in front of her as if she were protecting a fortress. The face was square and crisscrossed with the lines of a full life, the features harsh and sharp. I looked into the small deep-set eyes and smiled. Those eyes were all that I saw that belonged to Nick. It wasn’t the shape; Nick’s eyes were large and round. Hers were hidden beneath folds of wrinkled skin and appeared inscrutable. It was the color that made my heart jump. They shared the same dark green shade. A green that could be clear and pleasant one moment, and clouded over with anger the next, but always intense. But there was more, something behind the eyes was familiar. It startled me for a second and I felt a quick, sharp intake of air going into my lungs.
“Miss Carlisle?” Her voice was deep and raspy.
“Mackenzie,” I answered.
Cora turned and opened the double doors that led into the house. “Please, come in.”
The doors were thick and heavy; going through them reminded me of passing through a bank vault. They blocked any light or air that might have passed through them and the windows, by the nature of their structure, afforded little view of the outside world. The thick, velvet curtains that covered them sealed the rooms in darkness. I stood in the foyer almost afraid to breathe. The entryway was done in marble and tile. A large curved stairway on the right led to the second floor. I spotted a sketch on the wall and moved in to get a better look.
“This way. I’ve set out some tea for us,” Cora said.
“Is this an original sketch from Degas’s The Morning Bath?” I couldn’t hide my expression of awe.
“Yes, it is. My husband was an avid art collector. Do you know anything about art?” She didn’t wait for me to answer but continued down a hallway.
“A little,” I muttered. At that moment I felt so out of place. Like a peasant dragged from the hills to meet the queen. I glanced down at my navy silk dress and heels. They were a hasty purchase in preparation for this visit, though now I felt slightly self-conscious.
Cora opened a door and ushered me into a large sitting room. An antique Queen Anne table held a sterling tea setting. The walls of this space were lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves and I had to resist the urge to go over and inspect the titles, to see what books appealed to her. Instead, I sat on the sofa and tried to cross my ankles delicately. The seat was stiff and I felt as if I were sitting on a board covered in Styrofoam. I shifted my weight slightly to get comfortable.
“I’m sorry. I know it must have been a shock to hear about the accident in my note, but I didn’t have a number to call.” Cora was studying my face and I couldn’t help but look away.
“It was,” she said, finally. “Nick and I had not seen each other for years. He left here when his father died and never came back.”
She poured a cup of tea and offered it to me. I hesitated for a second afraid that my hands would shake. When I reached for it, I saw that the fingers that held the cup were red, almost maroon in color. Not just her fingers but the skin all the way up to the sleeves of her dress as far as I could see was scarred, red and scabbed in places. Like it had been burned.
“Did he tell you anything about that?” she asked.
I grasped the cup firmly and lowered it to the table. “No,” I looked down. “He didn’t talk much about his past. I mean,” I suddenly felt vulnerable. I couldn’t let her know the extent of Nick’s omissions. “Ummm, He did tell me a bit…” Cora studied me intently. “…about growing up.” I felt her eyes traveling down my simple navy blue dress, to my dark strappy heels.
“So you came here to tell me that my son was dead? Or is there more?”
I shook my head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Car accident.” Her voice was soft but those two words stung me as if she’d thrown her tea in my face. An awkward silence filled the room like the smoke from a cherry bomb.
“Yes.” My fingers kneaded the napkin in my lap.
“Tell me about it.”
This was such an emotional topic that I was struck by the monotonous tone of her voice. We might have been talking about algebra or toilet bowl cleanser for all the expression she was showing.
“It was awful. I don’t remember much.”
“Nick was driving? His fault, the other drivers fault?” There was a few moments hesitation, “….your fault?” She leaned in and spat those last two words at me. She had gone from apathy to quietly controlled rage in twenty seconds flat.
My napkin was twisted around my hand so tightly, my fingertips were blue. “I was driving. I’m so sorry, it wasn’t my fault. The truck ran the light.” I watched my fingers unwrap the napkin and rewrap it over and over. Anything not to have to look up into this woman’s face. “It’s all a blur. It came from nowhere. My light had turned. I had the green light.” I glanced up. “I had the green light.” My eyes burned and I really didn’t want to cry. I coughed lightly and took a sip of lukewarm tea. “I wanted to write sooner, but I thought it was best to wait until I came to Philadelphia. So we could see each other face to face. Nick would have wanted that.”
“You think my son wanted us to meet?” The words were staccato-like, angry.
“I think he did, yes,” I murmured quickly. “I think it was very much on his mind before he died.”
Cora flinched. “After the accident.”
I nodded. “He wanted me to come here, find you and let you know that he had died. He begged me, in fact.” The woman’s expression was flat and controlled. I considered asking her who James was, but instinct told me he was connected to whatever horrible event had taken place here. Too much too soon would make this woman shut down.
Her eyes were focused on something over my right shoulder but rested on nothing. I looked at every detail of her lined face, at the makeup stuck in some of the creases, the folds of skin over her eyes, the harsh set of her jaw. I tried to pretend for a moment that this woman was a patient. It calmed my nerves, and made me feel like I was in control.
“I would like to ask only one thing of you. Just this one thing,” she said when she spoke again. “Would you consider staying here with me for a little while? It would give me the chance to get to know you.” She stopped and looked down. “I knew him for the first sixteen years of his life. You knew him for the last…” She waited for me to fill in the blank.
“Five years. We met five years ago. We were married for four of those,” I added.
“You knew him for the last five years. Between the two of us maybe I can get more of a complete picture.” I was shaking my head before she had finished her sentence. “He’s gone now and all I have left is you,” she continued, “You could tell me so much about what kind of a man he’d become.” She looked so sad at that moment that I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if she’d burst into tears.
She had just put me through a modern version of the Spanish Inquisition, questioning me, blaming me, staring me down. Her moods were more difficult to track than a spy plane, and yet after all that, she was expecting me to stay with her.
Her face became suddenly animated and her arms flew out from her sides in a wide gesture. “How about for a week? Look at all this space. It wouldn’t be an imposition at all. In fact there is a small guest quarters in the back of the house that has its own entrance. You could come and go as you please… What do you think?”
I merely nodded because the expression on Cora’s face had rendered me speechless. If I had to put a word to it, I would say she was excited. Excited in a very contained way. She reminded me of a Russian refugee child a friend of mine had adopted a few years ago. This child had learned at way too young an age of the most horrible disappointments in life and so he had a hard time expressing joy or glee. Everything was approached with contained emotion. His first Christmas here in this country, he sat before the lit Christmas tree, the floor piled high in front of him with gifts, and the expression on his face was exactly the same as the one on Cora’s face now. Somewhere deep in her gut she was ecstatic that I was going to be staying with her, but she had no idea how to force the feeling through her body so that it landed on her face. Instead, it died somewhere in her midsection and she was left looking like she had indigestion.
I got into the car afterwards and just sat there. Stunned. I put the key into the ignition and glanced at the house again. The curtain in the upstairs corner window moved. She’d been watching me. Those tiny green eyes had done nothing but watch me for the past few hours.
“Damn you to hell for all of this, Nick” I whispered.