The Book of James (19 page)

near a small creek that ran through the woods. But I needed some

peace. I left the house with a few books under my arm. With any

luck, I’d miss Bible class.

The bench was long and made of weathered teak topped by a

cushion—ideal for stretching out on. I leaned back and listened to the sound of the water going by. I didn’t have the energy to pick up my books, so I just lay on my back and looked up. The sun dap-pled the trees with light. The water, the breeze, the smell of pine, THE BOOK
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crimson and orange leaves. I was at peace for that moment. I was

just starting to let my mind and body relax a little. Just a bit—and then I saw it.

The white papers looked as if they’d been stuffed under a rock;

the edges fluttered in the air. There was writing on the top page that I recognized even in a state of half meditation. My writing. The little loop that I made on my
L
when I was writing fast. The slant to the right that I could never learn to compensate for. Writing with the left hand in a right-handed world had been hard enough. The

papers were ripped and dirty. I dropped to the ground and read

the words I’d written months ago.

My marriage is going to fall apart unless I do something

now. But what and how? Nick and I were meant to be

together in so many ways. But it’s also those things that are
pul ing us apart. He’s emotional y barren. Unable to offer

anything resembling honesty or vulnerability. I don’t want to
have children with this man, not like he is. And I don’t want
a divorce. Caught in the middle, plodding along. Afraid to

leave. Unhappy to stay.

Pages from my journal. The entry was from last year. Cora—or

someone—had been sitting on the bench, ripping up these pages,

and had stuffed them here. Had she been interrupted?

Nick got something in the mail today . . .
Reading those words made me stop. The envelope. He’d gotten a piece of mail the day of the accident. A white letter-sized envelope. He was so upset. Even later, when we were leaving, he was moody, angry, withdrawn.

Yelling over every little thing. He was screaming at me when the

truck was heading toward us.

Don’t know what. Whatever it was, he was so upset that

he ran upstairs and practical y destroyed his office, not that
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ELLEN J. GREEN

there’s much you could do to make that room worse. I asked

what it was but he wouldn’t answer. He was shaking. Real y

shaking. I’m hoping it’s nothing because this may just ruin

our trip to Boston.

I crumpled the papers in my fist. I had no idea what got him

upset that day. And I hadn’t real y given that envelope consider-

ation until now. I took a breath. I had to see what else Cora had been reading. I straightened out the last page.

Blood is all over me. It is stuck in my pores. It’s under my

fingernails. I kil ed my husband yesterday. He fought for his
life, but not long or hard enough. You don’t know what it

feels like to kill someone until it happens. I dream about

him. He wakes me up at night, cal ing my name. He doesn’t

seem angry, but I know he is seeking revenge because I was

driving the car. He is trying to break through, capture my

mind. A careful y detailed plan was laid out for me. What

I have to do now. I have no choice but to go through with

it. She is a force to be reckoned with. A nice glass of wine

and a clean soft bed, and things will . . . be the same in the
morning.

And my final words:
Will dream tonight about blood on my

hands and James.

My first thought was that I wanted to kill Cora for taking my

journal, for invading my privacy. I remembered that day, writing

that passage after Nick’s death. I’d been crying nonstop, my eyes nearly swollen shut. I’d had plenty of wine and was beside myself.

Samantha had laid out a plan to help me get from moment to

moment because I couldn’t think for myself. That was the “she” I

had been referring to. She was a force to be reckoned with. It was a disjointed mishmash of thoughts in a drunken, grief-stricken

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moment. Now Cora had rubbed her big fat dirty fingerprints

over the entire ordeal, inserting herself into something that was intensely private.

My mind flashed back to Nick in the emergency room. His

broken body on the stretcher.
You can’t trust them. No matter what.

Stay there. Find James.
Is this what he was warning me about? That she would stalk me? Steal my personal property? Covet his body?

What else?

I was so angry, I knew I needed to leave that house for a little

bit to give myself a chance to calm down.

Dylan’s car was in the driveway. I knocked on his door without

hesitation. He opened it, coffee cup in one hand, sports page in the other, and backed up to let me in.

“Sorry to barge in on a Sunday afternoon.”

“Are you alone, or should I duck and cover?” Dylan walked

into the kitchen and put his cup on the counter.

“Is your head okay?” I asked.

He rubbed it in the spot where he’d been hit. “I’ll live. So what can I do for you?”

I heard the TV going in the living room, and I could tell from

the sound that he was watching a baseball game. “Phillies?”

He nodded. “Play-offs. If they win this one, they . . . what’s

wrong?” He must have seen a look on my face that I wasn’t even

aware I was making.

I walked to the living room and dropped onto the corner of

the couch. “I never want to see another baseball game as long as I live.”“Oh? It’s not your game?”

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I gave him a look. “Baseball is bad luck. We were on our way to

Boston to see a game when the truck hit us.”

“That was your first mistake. The Red Sox stink.” I cringed—

but not as much as Dylan did. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a

real y stupid thing to say.”

“This whole thing has gotten out of control,” I said.

“I said I was sorry.”

I waved at him. “Not that. Though that was stupid.”

“What’s out of control, then? The fact that I was bludgeoned

with a garden implement? Or is there more?” He had followed

behind me to the living room and lowered the volume on the

television.

“More?” I told him about my experience in the closet and

Cora’s room. “And then I’m walking in the woods and I find this.” I waved the pages of the journal at him. “She took my fucking journal and ripped it apart. I want to kill her.”

Dylan sat next to me. His expression was intense, though I

noticed that he had positioned himself so he could still see the

television. “I went and pulled Nick’s entire file from my father’s office to see if there was anything in it—you know, previous wil s.

To see who the beneficiary was. If a James popped up.”

I glanced at him. “And?”

“He did have a previous wil . Dated over five years ago.

Beneficiaries were a Margaret Whitfield, his aunt on his father’s side. She’s developmental y disabled. Lives in a group home in

Harrisburg. Her cousin has power of attorney over her affairs. And an Ernst Weichmann.”

My eyes widened. “Ernst Weichmann? Where does he live?

How is he connected to Nick?”

Dylan shrugged. “Nick took his last name, so maybe he took

care of Nick after he left this area? He lives in Westbrook, Maine.

Or he did five years ago.”

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I put my head down and rubbed my eyes with my fingertips.

“Westbrook is only fifteen minutes away from our house. This was

under my nose the entire time.”

“But in all the papers, names, beneficiaries, there was not one

person named James mentioned. Or Cora, for that matter.”

We were both quiet, staring at the television. The Phillies

and the Cardinals. I knew instantly by the uniforms. The Phillies were up.

“You know, this journal”—I pointed at the papers in my lap—

“made me remember an envelope Nick got in the mail the day of

the accident. He was so upset. And I have no idea why. When we

left the house, I thought we’d have time to talk about it on the

drive. But of course that never happened. The truck hit us.”

“YES!” Dylan jumped up off the couch and screamed at the

television. Jimmy Rollins had hit the ball through the middle and was headed toward second base. Then Dylan glanced at me. “Sorry,

got caught up for a minute. What kind of envelope? Business?”

“No, letter-size. Handwritten address. That’s all I saw.”

“The letter could have been anything. But someone breaking

into my room and stealing my things would give me the creeps,

Mackenzie. Be careful. Please.”

“I wil . I wonder if Weichmann is still around. It sounds funny,

me saying that. That’s been my last name for the past four years.

Now it belongs to strangers. In all senses of the word.”

“Easy to find out. Internet. You don’t even have to leave your

room.”

I smiled. “I get terrible service in that house. It must be the

thick wal s. I doubt Cora even owns a computer.” I stood up.

“I’ll look it up for you when I get a chance.” He turned his head toward me. “You said your friend is coming to stay with you, right?

You won’t be alone over there? Just tell her to hit the lights before entering a room.” He tapped the bump on his head. “I was feeling

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a bit uneasy, anxious, before. And you’ve made me feel so much

better.” I half laughed.

I opened the door and let myself out. The sounds of the game

followed me all the way to the sidewalk.

My clothes were folded neatly on my bed, in piles, when I got back to my room. They were separated by color—whites together, darks

together, jeans together. It looked as if Cora had ironed everything.

My shirts hung neatly on hangers in the closet. They were crisp

and sharp, as if they’d been dry-cleaned. I was putting things away when she came to get me for Bible study. I dreaded it, but I couldn’t think of a good excuse to get out of it, so I dutiful y followed her to the main house.

She seated me in a parlor off the main hal way on the first

floor. I hadn’t seen this room before; it was probably one of the many she kept locked. The room was small by the standards of this house: about fifteen feet square. Bookshelves lined the wal s. The remnants of a gun rack hung above a fireplace that was outlined

in stained dark brick. Several caramel-colored leather chairs had been pulled close together.

Cora took a seat in one and quickly became engrossed in the

pages of her Bible. She glanced up several seconds later. “I assume you didn’t bring one with you?” I shook my head. “Look on the

shelf.” She pointed to the wal . “There should be some Bibles there.”

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I stood in front of the shelves full of books. They looked worn,

old, and tattered. There were collections of poetry, Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, and volumes about Civil War history, but I didn’t see any Bibles. I waited for some direction.

“Third shelf from the bottom on your left.” She had been

watching me.

I pulled a dark-blue Bible from its place and took a seat in my

assigned chair.

“Let’s see, where to start?” she said, but she didn’t have my

full attention. Every nerve in my body was tingling. This had been Nick’s Bible. He’d written his name on the inside cover in neat

childhood lettering.

“Luke chapter six, verse twenty-five.” She started reading.

I didn’t care about Luke. I was flipping through the pages,

looking at faded pencil marks in the margins. The pages seemed to want to open to one particular chapter. The Epistle of James. I was transfixed. Nick, for some reason, had drawn all over the margins here. Violent doodles and boxes marred the edges of every page.

He had underlined occasional passages so heavily that the mark-

ings almost broke through to the other side.

Cora looked up at me. “Are you listening, Mackenzie?”

“Yes, yes,” I said, turning to the chapter of Luke.

Cora looked back down. “Did Nick read the scriptures?” she

asked.

I never saw Nick anywhere near a church. He’d never men-

tioned Jesus unless he was swearing. And now his handwriting was

all over these pages.

“I never saw him with a Bible. Religion can be a private thing.

Maybe he did it alone?” I offered. She was silent. “If he did read it alone, which book would he have favored? The psalms? Romans?

James?” It was the first time I’d said the name in her presence. Her eyes were as cold and flat as a dol ’s.

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“But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will taste
death and will see the kingdom of God,”
she said.

I flushed. “What?”

“Luke 9:27.”

“Do you mind if I take this back to my room?” I closed the

book and went to the door, afraid to wait for an answer.

“I want to ask you about my son.”

I looked over my shoulder. “We’ll talk about him. I promise.

But right now I need to lie down.”

She was staring into the fireplace. Her voice was soft, as if

directed nowhere. “Oh yes, you will see the kingdom of God.” I