“You going to sit out here all day or are you coming in?” It was Edgar, now gray and crooked, leaning into the car window.
Joshua turned off the ignition and swallowed the ghost of his mother to make room for the people who had given him a home for so many years.
Once inside the house, he smelled the familiar scent of pine cleaner, saw that the sofa pillows were forced into their usual stiffness and noticed that the fireplace was scrubbed clean. Joshua left his shoes at the door, as was the rule, and entered the orderly house. Edith greeted him with a tight, frantic hug that lasted longer than was comfortable.
“I hope you’re hungry,” she said, letting go abruptly and turning to walk away. “I cooked enough for five, but I see there will only be four of us.” She shook her pin curls and disappeared into the kitchen, which smelled faintly of boxed mashed potatoes and canned peas.
“Don’t pay her no mind,” Edgar said, winking conspiratorially. “You’ll bring Isabelle around in your own time.”
Joshua felt the bitter lump of the night before rise in his throat. “Soon, I promise.”
“It would mean a lot to her,” Edgar said, tilting his head toward the kitchen.
The door swung open and Edith walked out of the kitchen nervously balancing two white Pyrex bowls with blue flowers, one on each hand. She set them on the table, fussed with the arrangement and then disappeared once again into the kitchen. Although Joshua didn’t particularly enjoy these Saturday brunches with the old stifled emotions lingering around the house, he knew Edith lived for them and would be devastated if he didn’t come. So he did, but on this day, just like every Saturday, as soon as he arrived he began to count the minutes until he could leave.
Joshua moved toward the table and stopped when he saw the place setting in front of the old forbidden chair. Alan would be joining them for dinner. Quickly, Joshua tried to process what that meant, tried to remember all the rules that came into effect when a dead son comes for dinner.
He glanced nervously at Edgar who whispered, “We’ll talk later.”
Joshua touched the back of the chair, the one that would stay empty, hadn’t been sat in for over twenty years. It was forbidden, and he’d watched Edith fall apart many times over the years when an unwitting guest sat in the seemingly ordinary straight-backed chair.
But the place setting—Joshua hadn’t seen that in years.
When Edgar and Edith’s infant son, Alan had died so many years ago, Edith had gone on as if it didn’t happen. Joshua watched Edgar struggle with Edith’s fantasies over the years, and being the practical man that he was, Edgar had tried to reason with her. But Edith wouldn’t listen.
And it was almost ten years after Alan’s death that Grace, Joshua’s mother, had arrived at their house swollen with the promise of a new son. Joshua had odd memories of his childhood, of Edith calling him Alan while looking at him with eyes that didn’t see. Of a plate of food at the table that was never touched, and of Edith’s constant conversations with someone only she could see. At times it appeared to get better, and during those days, when Edith wasn’t blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, Edgar lost the look of tension that had become so much a part of him, and slowly, tentatively began to relax.
But inevitably, one night when Edgar came home from work he’d find an extra plate on the table. It became harder and harder for him to deal with Edith’s delusions so Joshua wasn’t surprised the night he exploded and forbad her to ever set a place for Alan again.
Who knows what finally caused him to break? Was it a buildup of evenings with his wife talking to an empty chair, or did he somehow imagine he could force her into sanity? Whatever it was, the extra plate stopped appearing at the dinner table. But Edith, immersed in her fantasy, couldn’t let her son starve.
So she began to sneak plates of food outside and feed Alan on the table on the back deck. Joshua didn’t know if Edgar didn’t see the outside dinners or if he simply chose to ignore them, knowing he couldn’t win the battle. But either way, Edith son’s had grown up in the house alongside Joshua, and sometimes the lines became blurred about who was who.
“Joshua.” Edith’s sharp voice pieced through his memories and he looked up to find her staring at his hand which rested on the back of the empty chair.
“Will you please move aside so your brother can sit down?”
He uneasily moved away from the chair and glanced at Edgar, whose face was a mask of dread and determination, and Joshua feared that determination would be aimed at him. He began making plans to escape as soon as they finished dinner.
“So, what do we have here?” Edgar asked in a painfully cheerful voice.
Joshua looked at his parents, one constantly on the verge of falling forever into the imaginary world where her son lived, and the other struggling to hold onto the rope that would prevent her from falling fully over that ledge. He realized as he watched Edith pass the bowl of mashed potatoes to Edgar, that he felt no connection with either of them, no sense of belonging when he was in their house. He only felt an odd mix of gratefulness and repulsion. He was grateful they had taken him in as their own and given him a home, but his upbringing, the unnatural way he was forced to live as a young boy, repulsed him. Made him long for what could have been had his mother not abandoned him so long ago.
After an uncomfortable dinner that reminded Joshua of the childhood that almost destroyed him, he started to make his escape, but Edgar, who was determined not to let him leave, took him by his arm and led him into the living room. Joshua remained standing, but Edgar eased himself into the old green and gold plaid chair.
“Do you see what’s happening?” Edgar asked, tilting his head toward the kitchen. “She’s doing it again.” He nervously ran his hand over his gray, balding head and turned more fully toward Joshua.
“Son, I know we’ve talked about this before, but surely now you can see how circumstances have changed. I’m asking you,” He stopped and expelled harshly. “No, I’m begging you to reconsider taking over my shipping company. Can’t you understand, son? I’ve got to get her out of this house before it’s too late. Before she retreats so far into this… this… whatever it is, that she can’t come back.”
Joshua leaned into the wall, knocking aside a photograph of him as a young boy. It was pressed into an ornate gold frame that smelled faintly of polish. “I’ve explained to you why I can’t do that,” he said quietly. “I do want to help. I’ll do anything except that.”
How could he make Edgar understand he had plans of his own? That he’d worked for years to save for the charter company he planned to start? And he was so close. It was just months away from becoming a reality. “I’m sorry, Edgar, but I’m not the man to follow in your footsteps.”
“But listen to what I’m saying.” Edgar pushed himself out of the chair and moved closer to Joshua. “I’m losing her, son. Every morning when I wake up, I discover another piece of her is missing. I can’t expect you to understand everything, but I know if she stays in this house much longer, she’ll begin to remember things…” He turned away from Joshua and lowered his voice. “Things that would destroy us all.”
“What are you talking about?”
Edgar shook his head and rubbed his temples. “Things in the past. Things she doesn’t need to remember.” He looked directly into Joshua’s eyes. “I know if I can just get her to someplace new, she’ll come back to herself. I’ll have my Edith back once and for all. And you can help. You know I can’t trust my company to a complete stranger. Not when I’ve spent my entire life building it.”
Joshua slid his hand into his pocket and touched his truck keys. When Edgar heard the slight jingle, he became even more desperate.
“I’ll pay you well, that goes without saying. Then maybe you can finally afford a house and marry that girl of yours.” He looked away in frustration, toward the widow that faced the sea, and lowered his voice. “I need you to do this for me. For her.”
Joshua pressed deeper into the dingy white wall a
nd longed to be on the other side of it. He thought of his boat where he was free from the pressures of man. It was only there that he was at ease in his own skin. When he rode the waters out on the sea, he felt he could make sense of each drop of water, each creature that dove deep into the blue, even the gulls that skimmed the surface, fearful of the depths but depending on them to survive. It was there that he found peace, and only there.
While it was true that Edgar and Edith had provided him a place to sleep and hot meals on his many cold and lonely nights, they had never come close to matching the security and warmth he once had with his mother. After Grace’s death, Edith had immediately tried to take over the role of his mother, singing the same songs and even demanding he call her mother. Joshua had been repulsed by her efforts and avoided her at every opportunity. He’d grown up too fast and quickly became an out-of-control kid. He realized, now that he was older, that he’d made it hard on them, punishing them for this mother’s death, but Edith had never given up. To this day, she tried to mother him.
In contrast, Edgar had always made it clear that he was lucky to have them, otherwise Joshua may have ended up in an orphanage. He was reminded of this when he didn’t want to get out of bed for school, when he didn’t want to cut his hair in the short military style Edgar demanded, and every other time he even hinted at not wanting to do exactly what Edgar required. Joshua, the young, free spirited boy of five-and-a-half, quickly became a brooding, guilt ridden boy of six.
He didn’t blame Edgar and Edith, just chalked it up to their lack of parenting skills, but he’d always longed for the absolute warmth of his mother, to be loved for who he was, and not the fantasy driven hyper-love that Edith offered, or Edgar’s conditional love.
“I’m sorry,” Joshua said, knowing it would rip out the old man’s heart. “I just can’t do it.”
Edgar, realizing he couldn’t sway Joshua by appealing to him, changed his tactics. His voice became steady and demanding, and he narrowed his small eyes until they were merely two more lines on his old, cracked face. “Is that how you plan to repay us for everything we’ve done for you? I ask you, son, where would you be if we hadn’t taken in your poor pathetic mother so many years ago?”
Joshua understood that Edgar’s response stemmed from panic and not necessarily anger, but still, he wanted to get out of the house before the disagreement escalated into something they would both would regret. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, brushing past Edgar. He headed toward the kitchen to say goodbye to Edith, but as soon as he entered he realized he’d interrupted a conversation she was having with Alan about how great it was to have him back at the dinner table. Joshua backed out of the room without saying a word.
On the way out the front door, he glanced behind him and saw Edgar slumped in his chair, heard Edith cheerfully chattering away in the kitchen, and a sudden inexplicable sadness bore down on him that he hadn’t fully felt since he was five-and-a-half and the world opened up and swallowed him whole.
Once out the door, Joshua leaned against the splintered wood and tried to regain his composure. It was then that he wondered about the forgotten memories Edgar had spoken of, the ones he said would destroy them. He wouldn’t understand the meaning until days later when he uncovered the mystery of his life. That tentative hope he’d so long ago stuffed into the back pocket of his five-and-a-half year old jeans would resurface in the form of a letter, and only then would he begin to understand Edgar’s secrets.
Chapter 3