The Book of James (37 page)

Dylan were spotted anywhere near the place. No, this was some-

thing I had to do on my own.

Sometime during the night, when Dylan and I were in bed

together and we’d both rolled to our sides to recuperate, I’d looked over at him and realized how easy it would be to fall in love with him. He was attractive, smart, funny, generous. He was educated,

ambitious. Maybe he wasn’t what you would call down-to-earth,

but he wasn’t pretentious either.

I’d thought he was a little bland at first, because he wasn’t

shrouded in mystery like my husband. But the thought of Dylan

being boring had slowly faded and was nothing but a distant

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memory when he was licking icy beer off my body with his tongue,

only a little while ago. Everything was sticky. My hair, my body, and the bedding. We’d taken a shower together and changed the

sheets. I pulled one of his big T-shirts over my head and slid back into bed next to him.

I was tempted to fall back asleep, but he started talking, and

the conversation drifted to his family. He told me how much pres-

sure and responsibility his father had put on him. How William

had expected him to always be perfect and upstanding, while

his brother could do whatever he wanted. I listened while Dylan

pulled strands of my wet hair through his fingertips. And then the conversation turned to my family, and though I had no intention

of talking about it, I ended up telling him about my mother’s death, my estrangement from my father. Things that felt even rawer to

talk about since I’d learned how they’d been manipulated by Nick.

When I was finished, he’d leaned over to kiss me. That simple

kiss turned into something more. And when we’d made love that

last time, I knew I was in trouble. It might not have involved any wild contortions or food groups—in fact, I don’t even think his

face left mine—but it was sweet and touching and maybe a little

more emotional than I’d ever intended it to be. I lay there look-

ing at him as he fell asleep, and I knew I had to get the hell out.

Regroup. I’d been a fool to think that I could continue to sleep with him and still keep my emotions in check.

And so I ran away. Now I was biding my time at Cora’s house,

staring out into the backyard toward the woods. I didn’t intend to keep the midnight curfew we’d agreed upon. I just wanted to be

away, in a space of my own, without all the emotion and confu-

sion. I needed to be alone—not only to search for the truth about my husband, but also to screw my head back on before it fell off

completely.

The sun would go down in a few hours, and that would make it

easier for me to go back to the cemetery without anyone noticing. I THE BOOK
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wanted to look around. I also wanted to go upstairs and try to find James’s bedroom, though I didn’t know if that would be possible.

And that was the end of the line. There was nothing else I could do.

I’d finished everything on my list, and I couldn’t think of anything I’d missed. I’d have to face the reality that the rest of my questions were going to remain unanswered.

I was deep in thought when I saw movement in the direction

of the woods. I stared into the dusk for a few minutes until I recognized the frail form slowly making its way out of the trees. I

jumped up, ran out the door, and intercepted Ginny before she had made it all the way to the clearing, pulling her back into the cover of the foliage.

“What are you doing, Ginny? How did you get out?” She wore

a wool coat over her thin dress. Little white socks and sneakers

covered her feet.

“I was looking for you. I can see the light in your room from

my window, but your lights haven’t been on until tonight.” She was whispering. “I waited for El a to go to the basement, and then I left through the back door.” Her cheeks were slightly red. “I haven’t

been taking these for four days now.”

She held out her hand, showing me dozens of pink capsules. I

picked one up and looked at it. Benadryl.

“What’s wrong, Ginny?”

“I had to talk to you.” She pulled me a little farther into the

woods. “I lied to you the last time you came to see me. But I knew you’d learn the truth, so I decided to come and find you.” This was as lucid as I’d ever seen her.

“Lied to me about what?” I stuffed my hands in my pockets.

“Nick never disappeared when he was little.”

“I know.”

She looked warily back toward her house, as if someone might

come and snatch her up. “How do you know?”

“We need to go somewhere and talk.” And I knew where.

She followed me, and we trekked through the woods to where I

thought the cemetery wal s were, but at some point she figured out where we were going and took the lead. She’d grown up here and

knew the shortest route. She seemed to be in remarkable shape

for a woman her age. It was hard for me to keep up in places. We

reached the stone wal , and then she looked at me expectantly.

“The keys?”

I pulled them from my pocket. “You knew?”

“Not right away, but when I saw they were gone, I assumed

you took them. I’ve had that set my whole life. There’s a key on it to almost every lock in the house.” I opened the gate and let her in and then put them back in my pocket. It seemed relatively safe in there. The sun was going down; we wouldn’t be visible to anyone unless they specifical y came back there. “Cora showed this to you?” Ginny asked.

“Yes. The other day. She wants to have Nick’s body interred

here. Ginny, how long have they been giving you those pink pil s?”

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She shrugged. “Harrison’s been giving them to me for years.

He added another kind of pill recently. But I want to tell you why I was looking for you.”

“Go on.” I had stopped walking and stood against one stone

wall.“Nick didn’t disappear. Nick had a brother, two years younger.

His name was James. He disappeared when he was four and was

never seen again. I wanted to tell you because I knew you’d find

out for yourself.” She gazed into the distance. “Let me tell you the whole story while I have the chance.”

“Is this a long story?” I asked.

Ginny nodded. “Pretty long.” She sat on a stone bench that was

placed against the iron bars. “I was born across the way. I had a brother, Fred, who was ten years older.” She looked up at me. “He’s the one who was killed in Anzio during World War Two. Harrison

was born when I was seven. As far back as I can remember, Cora

was always there. She’s younger than I am, but we were always

together. I remember Cora’s mother, though I was only eleven

when she died. She was quiet and very thin. She used to take walks around the grounds by herself a lot. Anyway, Cora’s father didn’t like that the Cooper house was so close. Back then, ours was the

only property anywhere near his.” Ginny stopped talking, seeming

to be choosing her next words. “He kept Cora isolated. And he

worked on her mind . . .” She rubbed her hands together.

“What did her father do to her?”

“Never let her leave this house, this property. He treated his

wife like that too. Like a piece of farm equipment. He controlled Cora’s movements. Controlled her thoughts. He threatened to

throw her out into the world without a dime. That was her worst

fear. She would have been better off, if you ask me. He forced her to marry Bradford . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Not that Bradford was a bad man, but the marriage was a duty to him. No more, no less.”

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I wanted to talk, but this was the best I had ever seen Ginny. I

was afraid to interrupt. So I kept silent.

“So anyway,” she continued, “Cora went ahead and married

Bradford. She wasn’t happy. Final y she gave in. She was twenty-

nine, and that was fairly old to be unmarried at the time. Her

father put the cutoff time at thirty. He wanted to make sure that she would be able to have children and whatnot.” She hesitated.

“Go on,” I said.

“But it took so long for her to get pregnant—it created a good

deal of stress, I can tell you. Her father thought it wasn’t going to happen at al . But, of course, it did. When she was thirty-six.

We all sighed with relief, and she was so happy.” Ginny smiled.

“It was the happiest I’d ever seen her. And her father was happy

too. I think that was the best year I’d ever seen in this house. Her father opened up his purse strings a little, and she decorated the room next to hers as a nursery. Everything was wonderful.” She

held her hands almost as if in prayer. “Cora had an easy pregnancy and gave birth to Nick that spring. Her father was thrilled that

she’d had a boy. She was a good mother.” When I rolled my eyes,

Ginny reached out and touched my arm. “She was. She took that

baby with her everywhere. He was her life, almost. But something

happened when Nick was about a year and a half old.”

“What?”

“Things changed. She crumbled. Wouldn’t let the baby out of

her sight. Ever. She wouldn’t let anyone hold him, not even me.

Sometimes she slept in his room with him. People tried to tell

her father that something was wrong, but he refused to listen. He wasn’t going to have the community talking about his daughter, so he tried to deal with it himself. Which meant he did nothing. He

was an old man by then, at least eighty, and still as mean as ever. I tried to help, but there was only so much I could do. But then she got pregnant again.” She wrung her hands. “I thought it would be

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a good thing for her to have another baby, that it would break this spell she was under, but it only made things worse.”

“Worse how?”

“She didn’t want the baby. She began talking to herself, lived in her own world . . . Oh, it was horrible. She tried to abort the baby by drinking turpentine.”

“Turpentine? Why?”

Ginny shrugged. “She said the baby she was carrying was evil

and that she wanted it gone. The turpentine made her sick, but her father wouldn’t let her go to the hospital. He paid a doctor to come and treat her here at the house. I don’t think she actual y drank that much, and both she and the baby survived. She gave birth to James that summer.”

I was transfixed. “And what happened?”

“She wouldn’t look at him or touch him. Her father had to hire

a woman to take care of the baby. And it got worse.”

“But I don’t get it. Why did she treat James so differently?”

“I don’t know. His room was way on the other side of the

house. She didn’t want to even hear him cry. And she did things,

awful things. Like one time when he was just an infant, he had

a terrible cold, she ran into his room during a winter storm and

opened all his windows at night. She said she was waiting for a

sign.” She sighed. “A sign from who or about what, I don’t know.

The nanny was asleep in the adjoining room and didn’t know until

he started crying. And if Cora ever saw the baby, I mean acciden-

tal y, she’d get so upset. It was like she didn’t want him to exist. But her father intervened and made it clear that if anything happened to that baby she’d be disinherited.”

“And he never got her help?”

“No.”

“And what about Bradford? Why didn’t he just take his

children?”

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“As long as Cora’s father was still alive, his hands were tied.

He talked to Edward, but there wasn’t much he could do. Edward

Monroe would never have stood to have his grandchildren

removed from the property.”

“And then Edward died?”

“Yes. Edward died. Cora started acting hateful toward James.

She didn’t ignore him anymore; it was like she looked for reasons to hurt him. Bradford, I think, wanted a divorce, but it was difficult. They had so many joint finances. He was working in Europe,

Germany. It was easier to just move without divorcing. But he

wanted custody. Full custody. In those days that wasn’t done so

easily. To take children from their mother and go overseas? I think Bradford had attorneys working with him and was trying to get

evidence together to get full custody of both his children when

James disappeared.”

My pulse raced. “What happened to James?”

She had tears in her eyes. “I don’t know. They thought he was

kidnapped and were waiting for a ransom note, but it never came.”

She shook her head. “Bradford had been living in Europe, had a

heart attack, a pretty bad one, and had come back here. He wasn’t even ful y recovered. Almost within the week of his return, this

happened. Cora fell apart. Bradford was too il , so Harrison tried to take control of the whole thing. It was just awful. They searched the property. The area. Nothing. James had just vanished. After a while it died down. Cora forbade everyone from even mentioning

the boy’s name.”

Her voice was soft. “His whole existence was wiped out. His

room was made over into a library. Every picture of him was

destroyed, and Nick was never, ever allowed to say anything about him.”“Or what?”

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“That was the only thing that Nick could do that would make

Cora raise a hand against him—if he mentioned his brother’s

name.”

“And if he did, she’d get mad and throw him in a room with his

Bible, maybe?” I ventured.

Ginny nodded slowly. “Sometimes, yes.”

“But why didn’t Bradford just take his son at that point? He