The wine was good, Saul had not steered him wrong. Abigail wasn’t up to more than a glass, and Sam hardly had a sip. Which left Will and Muriel to kill most of two bottles, but somehow they managed. Will made a variation on his mother’s Bolognese sauce. More onion, less meat, a healthy splash of wine. They all seemed to enjoy it. Even Muriel, who never liked anyone’s cooking but her own.
“Of course she liked it,” Sam whispered, as the two of them carried empty plates to the kitchen. “Her little boy made it.”
The tone might have annoyed him another time, but Will was in too good a mood to be thrown. Muriel and Sam did not like each other, and there was nothing to do about it. Except not invite them to the same dinner, but tonight he wanted things his way. Wanted his favorite people around him. He only poked Samantha’s arm, then kissed the top of her head. It was an odd thing to do, but he was buzzed and there it stood at chin level, her hair warm and summery. She did not move away. He squeezed her arm and she tipped her forehead against his collarbone. They stood that way for several moments.
Abby’s raucous laugh startled them, and Sam stepped back. Will could not see the dining room from where they stood, but he could hear Muriel’s voice. Talking low and fast, the way she did when telling a comical tale. Abby laughed again. He had not heard that sound in a couple of years, and it filled his chest with good feeling. The tension between the old friends seemed to have vanished, which was the main thing Will had hoped to accomplish this night. He was pleased. Something had gone right.
“Sorry,” said Sam. It wasn’t clear what for. Her comment? Being startled? Letting him touch her?
“Sounds like we’re missing a funny story,” Will said.
“Probably about me.” It surprised him how much Muriel got under her skin.
“I’ll do the dishes later. Let’s go back in.”
“Do I have to?”
“No,” he said, disappointed. “I’ll walk you home, if you like.”
“Come with me,” she said eagerly.
“I’ve got to play host.”
“Come over later, then.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice as her words became more urgent. “We have to look at that book.”
He had left Evelyn Price’s demonology with Sam. Knowing he would need the Latin dictionary, but also because he did not want it in his mother’s house. He had not forgotten the book for a moment, but resented having to think about it just now.
“I’m curious too, but—”
“It’s not about curiosity,” she pressed him. “It’s important.”
“So is spending time with my mother. Which I haven’t done nearly enough of.”
“Yeah, well.” Sam tipped her head toward the other room, the laughing voices. “Good luck with her here.”
“She’ll clear out soon,” Will said. For all Sam’s talk of knowing him, there was an awkwardness between them. It was Muriel who knew what he needed at any given moment, without his having to say. Did Sam see that? Was it the reason she resented the woman?
He took her by the hand and walked back into the dining room.
“Shhh,” said Abby, noticing them. She leaned into Muriel’s shoulder, both of them giggling. Maybe they were talking about Sam. Or him. Or telling dirty jokes the children shouldn’t hear. The flickering candlelight made them look conspiratorial. He watched both women’s eyes focus on the space between Sam and himself. Saw a cool appraisal on Muriel’s face, and a warm smile from his mother. He looked down and saw that he was still holding Samantha’s hand. At that moment, Sam tightened her grip, as if he might try to shake her loose. Her fingers dug into his knuckles, and she glared defiantly at Muriel.
“I need a cigarette,” Muriel said.
“Me too,” Sam replied.
“Yeah?” Muriel looked both suspicious and amused. “Well, come on, then.”
“Outside,” Abigail commanded.
“Yeah, yeah, we know.”
Sam’s hand was suddenly gone. Then the front door shut behind the two women, and just like that he was alone with his mother. He sat down next to her, the chair still warm from Muriel’s fidgeting ass.
“You look happy,” Will said.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” Abby put her hand over his, so recently abandoned. “You were sweet to do this—it was fun.”
“It’s been a while since you had friends over. I mean, when I’ve been around.”
“It’s been forever,” she said wistfully. The buzz cut had grown out a little, beginning to hide the scar. She was still too thin, but her skin was pink and glowing. And the lack of hair and flesh brought out her cheekbones and dark eyes. Candlelight danced in those eyes; her smile was playful. She looked good, if not quite like herself.
“You used to have people here all the time.”
“I know that’s how you remember it,” said Abby. “But after Johnny died, there wasn’t much of that.”
“No?”
“My friends still stopped by. The real friends, the ones who stuck with me. The rest of them moved on to the next thing. It was about having a good time in those days, and this house was bummersville.”
“Maybe they were scared,” Will suggested. Her eyes met his for a moment, darted away.
“Maybe,” she said. “Death does scare people.”
“I didn’t realize. That they abandoned you.”
“That’s a heavy word. Abandoned. I’m sure they didn’t see it like that.”
“Is that how it felt?”
“I guess,” she admitted. “But you know, I wasn’t keen on seeing them either. Made me have to think about that night. We lived through quite an ugly thing there, you and me. We needed that time together. That was our special time.”
Will nodded, betraying nothing. He wasn’t even angry, which had to count as progress. It was just strange how two people could remember the same thing so differently. She had filed it away as special time. He remembered her as a ghost. Huddled in a blanket on the sofa. Crying every time she saw him, until he hid from her gaze. Or simply comatose on sedatives, her friends coming over to cook for them. Who was right? The heavily medicated adult or the traumatized five-year-old? Both. Neither.
“Muriel was one of the true friends.”
“Muriel,” she said, almost scornfully. “The queen of your youth.”
“She was good to us.”
“God knows,” Abby conceded. “There were times I never would have made it without Mure.” Murr. “But that happened later.”
“She wasn’t part of the spirit circle?”
“No, she was what? Eighteen, nineteen? A kid. I guess she sat in once or twice. Even then, even that young, you could sense how contemptuous she was of it.”
That fit the woman he knew, but Will was still taken aback. Muriel was always around, as far back as he could remember. He had assumed she was part of the gang.
“Also,” Abigail said, reclaiming her hand to rub her tired eyes. It seemed like she might not complete the thought, though the words finally came. “She had a thing for Johnny.”
“Muriel did?”
“Yeah. Needless to say, she wasn’t coming by right after that went down.”
“A thing for him, or...”
“More than that. They were a couple, I suppose. Although Mure was so young.”
She shook her head at some memory. Will’s fingers drummed the table until he made himself stop. He upended the dregs of a wine bottle into someone’s glass. His own or Muriel’s, though he did not drink the murky stuff. So many revelations, so many things he had not cared about until now. So hard to fit each piece into its place.
“When did you two become pals?” he asked.
“It happened slowly. We bonded when we were taking those art classes together. She was always looking over my shoulder, trying to copy my style.”
“I was ten or eleven by then.”
“That’s right.”
“I remember her being around before. Taking me shopping. Going to the Topsfield Fair. Showing up at my Little League games.”
Abby eyed him watchfully.
“She might have done all that. I wasn’t the most attentive mother. Grew up with an idea that the whole community raised the children. It was that way then. You were in and out of people’s houses, I didn’t know where you were half the time. Sleeping over at the Halls. Kids would sleep over here, kids I hardly knew. Everybody took care of everybody else’s—it was just like that.”
“And the thing with Johnny didn’t come between you?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“He and I were done before they started. Then later, I don’t know, maybe it was part of what drew us closer. Not that we talked about it much.”
“Johnny stayed in the spirit circle, after you and he split.”
She rubbed her eyes with both hands, then looked at him hard.
“Is this what you want to talk about?” Abby asked calmly. “On this lovely evening?”
“It was you who wanted to talk. In the hospital, a week ago.”
“Right,” she sighed. “I was having those dreams.”
“About what?”
“You. The night Johnny died. Awful stuff. You should have let me tell you then. I don’t remember it so well anymore.”
He picked up the wineglass and swirled the purple dregs. She was right. She had gotten healthy enough to reconstruct her defenses. To take all those memories from the fields where they had been grazing and lock them up behind the castle gates once again.
“The spirit circle was your thing,” he said. Groping blindly for a way in. “Right? Kind of like your invention?”
“No, no. Groups like that have been around for generations. I used to sit in on Jane Hall’s circle when I was a kid.”
“Tom’s wife?”
“Yeah. Sweet woman. Very calm and wise. Knew everything about everything.”
Sam’s grandma. Who was still giving herbology lessons from beyond the grave.
“Was it like yours?” he asked, smirking despite himself. “Swilling wine and holding hands and chanting?”
“There was some of that,” Abby answered, taking no offense. “Minus the wine. And it was mostly Jane doing the chanting. In Welsh. Everyone else kind of closed their eyes and listened to her.”
“Welsh?”
“Gaelic? Some language I didn’t understand. But there was a power to it.”
“You could feel it?” he asked quietly. Watching her dark eyes turn inward, her mind drift back to that time and place.
“I was outside the circle. In the corner, keeping quiet. Not touching them. That was an order, don’t touch. But sometimes I could see the energy go through those women, like an electric current. Straightening their backs, shaking their arms.”
“No kidding?”
“That was only some evenings. Other times, they would just knit and gossip. Talk about any old thing. Oh, and the healings. I nearly forgot those.”
“Tell me.” He kept his voice low and even.
“Jane would place her hands on people, wherever they were hurting. That’s old medicine, laying on hands. I guess some still do it. Mostly, like rheumatism or arthritis. Common ailments. But she laid hands on Edgar Branford’s stomach, when he had that terrible cancer. And damned if the man didn’t live another fifteen years. Then later, much later I guess, when Jane was sick herself and her circle was breaking up, Lucy Larcom had that bad pregnancy. I was pregnant with you at the time. Jane got herself up and went over to Lucy’s. Put her hands on that big belly and murmured some words. Three months later, out popped Danny, healthy as a horse.”
“Huh.” The laying on of hands, like so much else he was learning, seemed familiar. Certainly the idea that Jane Hall was a kind of medicine woman was well-known.
“I don’t think the women nowadays have that strength. But it was amazing to watch.”
“So you were there?”
“With Lucy? Yeah, Jane needed help getting around.”
“Tom couldn’t help?” Will asked.
“He drove us. Gosh, he would have done anything for Jane—they were so close. But the healing, the whole business really, it was a woman’s thing. I know that sounds silly, but I don’t remember men in Jane’s group. They came to get healed. The older men did, like it was nothing strange. Like going to the doctor. But they weren’t in the circle.”
“They were in yours.”
“Yeah,” Abby said. A little twitch around her mouth. “I let the boys in.”
“Why?”
“It seemed like the thing to do. The girls liked having them around. They brought enthusiasm, new ideas. Doc and Nancy Chester had been all over the world. They told us about the Mayans and Aztecs. Even the druids, back in England, where we all come from. Johnny brought these Navajo... I think it was Navajo, but prayer beads. And the prayers too, which we tried. We tried everything. We were figuring it out for ourselves. Jane was going to have me in her circle when I was old enough, but she got sick. I learned stuff from her, but I never got the full idea of what it was about. I had to make it up.”
“One of the other women couldn’t have taught you?”
“I don’t know how much they knew, or how much they just went along. Jane, she was the one. We lost a lot when we lost her.”
“What about Evelyn Price?” he asked, surprising himself.
“Evelyn.” Abigail looked surprised too. Less by the name than that her son would know to invoke it. Her reverie was broken, and she studied his face. “Yeah, I could have gone to Evelyn, but I don’t know if she would have helped.”
The front door thumped open, startling them. A moment later Muriel came into the room. Her face was flushed and her pupils dilated.
“That must have been more than one ciggie,” Abigail said.
“Yeah, well, we had quite a talk.”
“You and Sam? Really?”
“Where is she?” Will asked, suddenly spooked by her absence. Muriel gave him a quick glance, then put her arms around Abigail.
“She went home. Which is where I’m going now.”
“So early?” said Abby, though she looked beat. “You don’t want coffee or something?”
“No, I’m good.” She marched over to Will and kissed him loudly on the ear, cigarette smoke enfolding him like perfume. “Thanks for a great dinner, Willie. This was fun. We should do it more often.”
Then she was gone again, and the evening was over. He tried not to make anything of Sam’s leaving without a word. She didn’t stand on ceremony, and the dinner had been no pleasure for her. Just something she had put up with, for him.
“Go over and see her,” Abby suggested. He looked at her tired expression. Not so tired that she couldn’t see clean through him, as easily as Sam did. It would be good to get back to New York, where there were no women reading his mind.
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Well, I’m done in,” Abigail replied, which was no more than Will had already figured. He didn’t know whether to feel badly for pushing her so hard, or frustrated that he had not pushed more. She had more to tell. A lot more, and he wanted it.
“Go crash. I’ll clean up down here.”
“You know, I’m doing a lot better.”
“You are,” he agreed, eyeing her warily. She had started to rise, but sat again.
“If everything goes okay with the checkup tomorrow, maybe you should think of getting out of here. You know, back to school.”
“Hey,” he laughed. “You trying to get rid of me?”
“I don’t want you to go,” she answered sadly. “I just...”
“They’re not going to fire me,” he assured her, though he was far from certain about that. “You’ve been saying for years that I don’t see you enough. And you were right.”
She locked her tired gaze on him again.
“I’m not sure that being here is good for you.”
She knew. She knew about Jimmy, and everything else. Everybody knew everything. There were no secrets. He ground his teeth and looked away. No more outbursts, be a grown-up.
“I’m all right,” he said. “And I’m not going anywhere until I’m certain you’re well. Do you understand?”
“I think I do,” Abby said evenly.
“Good. Now go to bed.”