The Book of James (15 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” she answered promptly, smoothing the

bedcovers.

Cora’s foot was inches from the box. My mind was doing cir-

cles. Whatever fragile relationship I had with Nick’s mother would be over if she saw it. I’d be out in my Jeep in minutes looking for a hotel vacancy.

I was still figuring out what to say to distract her when she

spun around. “Mackenzie, can I speak with you?” She ushered me

to the sitting room, and I could feel air fill my lungs again.

I sat on the love seat, waiting for her to start.

“I’d like to spend some time with you. Maybe tomorrow night?

I feel we have things to discuss.”

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Nick’s body. She wasn’t going to let this go; I’d been hoping to

avoid the issue altogether. The last time we’d shared a meal, she threw my plate of food in the trash and was a less-than-stel ar con-versationalist. But she seemed to have forgiven me for Dylan’s visit to the house. At least temporarily. Because she wanted something

from me. My husband’s corpse. And I wanted information. Maybe

we could trade?

“That would be fine. Just let me know when,” I mustered.

“Good.” She rose from the seat and went to the door of the

bedroom, where the maid was still occupied. “Pick up your pace.

I want this entire room spotless.” She started to turn and then

changed her mind. “Especial y under the bed.” I couldn’t see her

face as she left the room.

I waited for the maid to busy herself in the bathroom, then I

grabbed the box from under the bed. I had to hide it somewhere.

But where? This room was out of the question. The tunnels were

also a no go. In the end, the box found a temporary home behind

the back of the sofa. I sat on the love seat guarding it, waiting for the maid to leave.

The gardeners were busy in the distance. I felt a twinge of nos-

talgia. I missed my life. I had taken a leave of absence from work after Nick died. Before coming here, I thought I’d be back to work in a month or so once the worst of the mourning was over and I

could go a few hours at a time without crying. Now I wasn’t sure

if I’d ever go back. Inheriting the money meant I didn’t need to.

The truth was, though, that working gave my life a structure,

a place to be, a place I belonged. Craziness could reign all around me, but Monday through Friday I would be at the clinic and I knew exactly what I’d be doing.

But for now, Sam’s visit here would at least give me company

and a connection to the old life I was sorely missing.

The maid finished. I was restless. I showered and changed and

headed toward town. The front gate was open, probably because

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ELLEN J. GREEN

the hired help were coming and going. I couldn’t help wondering,

as I made my way down the graveled road, what Nick was thinking

when he walked down this path for the last time, fourteen years

ago. And if for some reason he was scared.

I stopped at a large bookstore near the train station and bought a street map of Philadelphia. The commuter train took me right into Center City, and I walked to the historic section of town. I had to at least say I saw the Liberty Bel , in case I never got back here again.

And I desperately wanted to take my mind off that desolate old

mansion. I wandered the streets, stopped to see the sights, asked directions when I lost my way, grabbed a hot dog when I felt hungry. My legs began to ache and felt like two lead pipes. Each step caused a dull throb in my hip joints, and my ankle was still a bit tender. When the sun started going down, I knew I had to return.

The Chestnut Hill train stop was conveniently located near

Highland Avenue and Dylan’s house. I was hoping, as I passed,

that he would be coming home from work or out front, taking out

the trash, sweeping his walk. I didn’t want to ring the bel . It would have been nice to pretend it was all just coincidence. No such luck: everything looked dark. I was reaching into my purse for a pen

and paper to leave a note when his car pulled up behind me. He got out, dressed in his suit and tie, with a bag of groceries in one arm and his briefcase in the other.

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ELLEN J. GREEN

“Dylan, hi,” I said. I felt awkward. “I was just going to leave

you a note.”

“Come in,” he said, motioning with his arm. I followed along,

shutting the door behind us. He dropped the bag on the counter

and put his briefcase on a chair.

“You’re still here, I see.” He gestured for me to sit, then disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a beer in his hand.

“Do you want one?”

I shook my head and stood up. “No, I don’t want to keep you. I

just wanted to say hello. I don’t real y know anyone else in the area, so if I get to be pesky, just tell me.”

His blue eyes watched me as he sipped his beer. “I’m having

a few people over tonight, if you want to come. You might have a

good time, get you out of that house for a few hours.” He tilted his head. “How’s it going, anyway? Any luck in finding James?”

I followed him into the living room and sat down on the sofa

across from him. “Not yet, but I’m ever hopeful.”

Dylan scratched his cheek. “Keep at it.” He leaned back and

crossed one ankle over the other knee.

“The hired help were in today in droves, cleaning the place. I

got the feeling she doesn’t real y want any help around. She wants them in and out as quickly as possible.”

“This old man, Ralph, used to do all the gardening for that

house. He had this big old red truck, and we’d see him pull up in front.”

“Real y?” I said, surprised that he would have that information.

“I remember as a kid that we knew to be there when he pulled

up if we wanted to make a few bucks. He took care of the grounds, but he used to pay neighborhood kids to cut the lawn. He did most of the landscaping himself.”

“So what happened to him?”

Dylan shook his head. “I don’t know. He was there when I left

to go to college.”

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I stood up to leave. “Oh, by the way, would you mind if I used

your address to get a package? Just once?”

He thought for a second and then shook his head. “I shudder

to think what you ordered. Will it come in a plain brown wrapper?”

I laughed. “Funny. No, my friend Samantha is going to be send-

ing me some stuff. I could get a post-office box if it’s a problem.”

He gave me his address, and I entered his contact information

in my phone.

“So why don’t you come over tonight?” he said. “About eight.”

His eyes traveled over my clothing. “What you’re wearing is fine.”

I smiled. “We’ll see. I may even shower for the occasion.”

I showed up at around eight thirty, dressed in jeans and a blue

cotton-knit shirt I’d bought in town that day. After fiddling with my hair for twenty minutes, I’d final y left it down, although it was always my impulse to pull it back in one big curly ponytail.

The front door was open when I arrived. I knocked halfheart-

edly and went in. There were about twenty people milling about,

but I didn’t see Dylan. I moved through the room, smiling at

anyone who happened to catch my eye. Walking into a party full

of strangers was about as much fun as being strip-searched by a

group of biker chicks. But my alternative was to go back to the

house and ask Cora if she wanted to play gin rummy. The prospect

of spending an extended period of time with her tomorrow was

about all I could handle.

I found him in the backyard surrounded by five other peo-

ple. He smiled when he saw me and motioned for me to come

over. He offered me a glass of white wine and disappeared. After

some rounds of mingling, I ended up in the corner with an over-

weight, aggressive, touchy-feely sort of guy who was determined to explain tort reform to me. Every time he made a point, he would

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touch my arm. And his hand kept moving higher. I backed away,

trying to figure out how to extricate myself, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Mike, I just want to borrow her for a second, do you mind?”

Dylan led me to a corner of the yard.

“You’re not having a good time, are you?” he asked.

I had had about four glasses of wine at that point. I turned,

my eyes bleary and just a teeny bit unfocused. “I am, it’s just that everyone here went to law school, and I’m not sure my experiences are entertaining enough,” I said.

“Nothing is more boring than a room full of lawyers,” he

responded, leaning on the fence next to me.

I smiled. “You’re not boring.”

“Then you don’t real y know me,” he laughed.

I turned to him rather bravely in my half-drunken state.

“That’s true, I don’t. I don’t real y know anything about you except that you went to law school and you work for your father. Am I

missing anything, or is that all there is?”

He smiled. “What is it that you want to know?”

“Wel , let’s see, where’d you go to school? Have you ever lived

away from this place?” I motioned around me as I spoke. “And

how come you don’t have a girlfriend? Or do you?”

“Ah, right to the important questions.” He looked directly at

me. “Okay. I went to Vil anova and then applied to law school.

I got into four of them, and believe me, I wanted to go away, but some family stuff came up and I decided to stay here and go to the University of Pennsylvania.”

“What kind of family stuff?”

He walked off into the yard, and I followed right behind.

“I have a younger brother, Pete, who’s got some problems.” He

stopped and looked down at the edge of his garden as if engrossed in the barren azalea bush.

“What kind of problems?”

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ELLEN J. GREEN

“He’s been in trouble since he was a kid. You know, shoplift-

ing, cutting school, smoking pot. I think my parents thought it’d be a phase. They took him to every shrink around, but it wasn’t.

He’s a junkie now—heroin.” Concern creased his forehead. “His

last move was to break into my parents’ house with a couple of his buddies and clean ’em out.”

“I’m sorry.”

He just nodded. “It’s been a nightmare. In and out of rehabs,

jail. Always comes back and says, ‘Oh, I’m better now, why can’t

you give me another chance?’ And my parents buy it, and it starts all over again.” A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “That last time, after he robbed them, I’d just had it. I went over there and he was sitting on the couch. He was so skinny, my God.” He rubbed his face with

his hand. “He had sores all over his arms from the needles. It was awful.”

“What happened?”

“We started arguing, the asshole. I grabbed him, all one hun-

dred and thirty pounds of him, and slammed him into a wal . It’s

hard to explain, but his body was like a shel . He was so light, he flew into the wall and knocked this shelf down. He didn’t fight

back. He just lay there with my mother’s broken Hummels all

around him.”

He turned to face me. “And my father threw
me
out.” He jabbed at his chest. “Can you get that? He stole from them, pawed through their stuff with his scummy friends, took things my great-grandfather left us, and my father threw
me
out.”

The two men had offices right across from one another. So

much tension on an everyday basis in a small space seemed a rec-

ipe for disaster. Or at least misery. “So where’s Pete now?”

“Rehab three hundred and fifty-seven. Who the hell knows?”

“But you still decided to stick around here?” I asked.

He sighed. “I couldn’t just pack up and leave. Things were
real y
bad right around the time I was applying to school; my mother

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127

begged me to stay in the area, so I did. Then my aunt died.” He

looked around. “This was her house. I was renting an apartment

downtown at the time. I think they felt guilty about the whole situation, so they asked me if I wanted to buy it at a very reasonable price.” He turned to me and folded his arms in front of him. “So, here I am.”

I looked up at him. “And you’re happy with the arrangement?”

He shrugged. “I was real y pissed for a while, but things are

working out at the moment. But I will
never
, and I mean never, go back into my father’s house again.”

I didn’t contradict his words, but I knew he would. I’d listened

to my brother say almost the same thing to me about our father a

dozen times, long after I’d given up the concept of family.
I’m never
speaking to him again. I’m not going home. I hate him.
Something would set off an argument, and Shawn would let the old wounds

from years ago dictate his reactions. Threats would be made on

both sides. Holidays would go by with the three of us scattered, but eventual y the two of them would try again. Battle-worn and angry but very present. Not me. I preferred to trudge on alone.

We started walking back toward the house.

“Anything else you wanna know?” He looked at me with a

smile.

“Yes, you conveniently ignored half my question. How come

you don’t have a girlfriend?”

“I was engaged.”

“So what happened?” I asked. “Wait, give me another glass of

wine, I need to hear this one.”

“One more glass.” He laughed, then went in to fetch my drink.

I wandered over to a glider and sat down. The seat was cold on my bottom. I hugged myself to keep warm. Dylan came back with my