Joshua’s truck strained as it climbed the precipitous hill to the gray cottage where he had loved and lost his mother. Above it, the sky was black and heavy, a tremendous contrast to the gray mist that had hung over the rest of the island all day. When Joshua stepped out of his truck, he heard the wind whispering secret, urgent messages that he could not decipher.
The house seemed sharper, as if the shapes and colors had only now come into focus. A far-sighted child looking through glasses for the first time. The parched weeds were taking over the sides of the house, growing tall and leaning against it for support, giving the illusion that without them, it would collapse. The wide porch swing hung lower on one side making it look like the place was abandoned. The entire house smelled of neglect.
Joshua walked up the familiar sand path to the three-step porch to the screened over front door. He turned the knob, feeling oddly like a stranger in his childhood home. Once inside, he heard the soft chattering of a television set deep inside the house toward Edgar and Edith’s bedroom.
He went straight to the deck, the place where his mother had lost her chance for happiness and stood where he imagined she had that day. He listened closely for the hushed whisperings of the sea in hopes that it would release the story, to help him understand why Edith had acted so viciously, but all he heard were the sad moans of the waves, the complaining creaks of the old deck against his weight.
He looked out at the mottled gray of the water and inhaled the bitter air. He imagined his mother’s young, vulnerable face twist in pain as she fought with the cruel ideas Edith had so callously planted in her mind. Then more emotions mingled with the mist rising from the water and entered Joshua, those of pity and contempt. They traveled down to his foot and caused him to kick an old wicker chair and send it flying off the deck and onto the hard, packed sand beneath.
“Joshua, what are you doing?”
Edith. She flipped on the porch light and stood there in her green and yellow housecoat and bare feet looking at him in bewilderment. Was that where she had stood so many years ago when she tried to trick his mother into giving up her life, their lives, so she would stay and cook in her kitchen?
“Why?”
Edith crossed her arms and looked at him warily, the way one looks at the mentally ill. “That’s what I’m asking you. Why did you kick my chair off the deck? And do you intend to pick it up?”
Joshua looked at the woman who had given him a home, food and clothes, but never love, only a sick all-consuming need to be loved, and he felt ill. Suddenly, he wanted to run from the deck, the house, the memories, her, and go back in time. Do anything to stop his mother from leaving him and the possibilities life was offering them.
“Leo,” he said, letting the wind carry the forgotten name to Edith’s ears. “And Grace. Why couldn’t you have just left them alone?”
Edith’s eyes widened at the mention of the unmentionable and her mouth opened and closed like a mousetrap, baiting and snapping. Finally, “What do you know of it?”
“I know what she told me.”
“Told you?” She looked around as if a ghost stood just outside of her vision. “When? How?”
He shrugged angrily and moved toward her. “I know how you twisted the truth, tried to ruin things between my mother and Leo. How could you have done it? Why would you be so selfish?”
“I did no such thing. Don’t you see? She wanted to take you away from me, to rip us apart and take you to another country, for goodness sakes. I was only trying to protect you, Alan.”
“Protect me?” Joshua was pacing now and the rage of his childhood, of growing up with a dead brother and a crazy mother, of Grace leaving, and now Isabelle, it all threatened to surge up and flood out of him, washing him, Edith and the house out to sea. “Look at me,” he said, his voice rising. “I’m not Alan. I’m Joshua, Grace’s son. Explain to me why you would need to protect a son from his own mother?”
“No… no, that’s not right,” Edith stammered. Confused, she brought her hand up to her mouth.
Edgar came outside and when he saw the scene before him—Edith confused and trembling and Joshua filled with pent up rage—he stepped out, alarm and disbelief spreading across his face. “Son, what are you doing?”
“And you,” Joshua said, turning his attention to Edgar. “How could you have stood by and let it happen?”
Edgar looked from Joshua to Edith and then back at Joshua. “What are you talking about, son?”
Joshua shook his head, a primal laugh escaping this throat. “I’m taking about her,” he said, pointing to Edith. “And the lie she’s been living all these years.” He continued to pace the short width of the deck. “Maybe you can explain how she justifies what she did to my mother. And why you backed her up in it?”
“I think we’d better sit down and talk.” Edgar held up a finger to indicate he would be right back. Then he went to Edith, who was shivering in the heat, and helped her inside.
“Why is he acting this way?” she asked as Edgar led her inside. “Why is Alan angry so with me?”
Joshua watched them walk away and some of his anger dissipated. He’d always known Edith dangled over the edge of sanity, and he wondered now if she was even aware of how much her actions had affected his mother. But still, it didn’t change the fact that they likely drove her to leave.
Edgar came back outside a few minutes later and sat down in a chair. He pointed to another one and motioned for Joshua to sit. “Now, maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on.”
“I’ve just learned about the games Edith played with my mother and Leo. How she tried to break them up, and I can’t help but wonder if those games escalated into something that would drive my mother to leave.” He looked at him sharply. “I know she didn’t commit suicide, Edgar. Maybe you can tell me what really happened.”
Edgar sat silent for a moment, then, “Where are you getting this information, son?”
Joshua shook his head. “That’s not important. What is important is that I’ve been lied to my entire life. How could you and Edith play the loving parents to me, all the while doing things to hurt my real mother? And me?”
Edgar opened his mouth to speak, closed it and then started again. “Son, you know Edith hasn’t been right since Alan died.” He shook his head in frustration. “Can’t you see that she did those things because she loves you so much? Was so afraid Grace was going to take you away from her?”
“Loves me? Is that your definition of love?”
Edgar thought for a moment and then nodded. “She does love you, son. In her own way, she does.”
Joshua shook his head roughly. “Can’t you see how sick this is? That Edith could be so manipulative to try and keep me here instead of letting me go with my own mother?” He stood, went to the railing and pounded it with his fist. “Why?” he asked loudly. “Why couldn’t she have left us alone?” He spun toward Edgar. “And why did my mother leave me? Did Edith do something else I don’t know about?”
“Don’t be silly, son.”
But Joshua wanted to confront Edith with that question and he started for the house. Edgar rose quickly and stepped in front of him.
“Don’t do this. She can’t handle it.”
“She can’t handle it? So I’m supposed to just accept the fact that Edith may have done something so horrible it drove my mother to abandon me? Well you know what? I can’t handle that.” He pushed past Edgar and entered the house. “Edith, where are you?” he shouted.
“Alan, honey? I’m in here. In your room.”
Joshua bounded down the hallway, past the forced family portraits and toward the woman who had intentionally tried to ruin his mother’s life. But when he entered the room, his old room, the anger, the rage, evaporated and was replaced by pity and guilt.
Edith sat on the bed that Joshua had slept in as a boy, neatly smoothing down the child’s comforter and indicating that he should sit. Not one thing in the room had changed since he’d moved out of the house almost ten ye
ars ago.
“I know you’re upset with me,” she said in a shaky, high-pitched voice. “Why don’t we sit and talk about it?”
Joshua looked into her eyes, the eyes of a woman who couldn’t see the truths of her own life, and although a part of him wanted to lash out, he understood how close she was to falling off the edge of insanity. And as much as he hated her at that moment, he couldn’t be the one to push her over.
“I have to go,” he said suddenly, turning to leave. He didn’t answer her when she called after him.
“See you Sunday? I’m cooking your favorite.”
Edgar stopped him on his way out. “Thank you, son. I know this is hard for you.”
Joshua opened the door.
“About this information,” Edgar said. “Where is it coming from?”
“From a reliable source.”
“I see.” Edgar crossed his arms and lowered his head.
“And there will be more,” Joshua said as he moved out the door.
“Then I’m sure you’ll be back.” Edgar mumbled, fear and concern smothering the words.
As Joshua drove away from the cottage and down the impossibly steep hill, he watched the dark clouds press down on the house. It looked as if before long, they would crush it and erase it forever from the otherwise peaceful seascape.
He drove his old truck through the dark night and past the center of town where he took a left on a sandy, unmarked road. As he neared the old forgotten cemetery, he thought back to the hundreds of times when, as a boy, he’d ridden his bicycle out here and sat and talked to his mother. And how as a man he’d come looking for closure, trying to feel the thin, fragile connection. But he’d always left disappointed, let down by a mother who couldn’t talk back. But now she had and Joshua needed to know how.
He parked his truck and strolled across the scorched earth to the piece of land that had been sacrificed to bear her name. As he stood next to her grave, his mother’s grave, he thought about how his life had spun out of control and he didn’t know how it would end. He sank to his knees, ran his hands over the thick grass that covered his mother and began to speak.
“What’s happening?” he asked the silent headstone. “What do these letters mean and how am I receiving them?” He stared at her name carved in the headstone and wondered about so much. If she really hadn’t died that day when he was a child, why did she walk away? Did she die of something other than suicide or was it possible she was still alive? And if so, how could he explain her grave?
He fixed his eyes on the headstone as if he were waiting for a reply, some miracle that would answer all the questions surrounding his life. But they didn’t come, and as the moments passed Joshua began to feel the familiar hopelessness settle in. And then he sensed her. In his mind, she pulled up a comfortable old chair next to his soul and waited, the look of expectation in her eyes.
So he began to talk. He told her how he had let Isabelle go, and even though he knew about Leo and their missed opportunity for love, he still couldn’t give himself to her. He was too afraid of the risk even though he wanted it so much. He told her about Edith and how he’d gone to her full of rage and left her sitting there in his old room knowing all she needed was for him to tell her he wouldn’t leave. But he was just so angry inside he hadn’t been able to do it. And about how Edgar protected Edith and expected him to do the same. And how he wouldn’t.
And then he told her of his childhood, about all the times he thought he’d seen her and ran to a strange woman yelling Mama, only to be crushed when she turned around and it wasn’t her. He told her how he never made friends because he was too afraid they would move away or die. Then he told her about Mrs. Henderson, and how she walked him home every day after he jumped off the school porch into nothingness.
“I always thought you’d be there,” he said, exhausted from talking out his life. “And now you are.” He hesitated. “I don’t know how I’m receiving these letters, whether or not you’re still alive, but what I do know is that they represent the love I’ve craved my entire life. I just want to understand, need to know how to open myself up to the possibilities you say are there.”
Joshua sank his head between his knees, his body racked with the pain of abandonment that had become so much a part of him, and he pleaded with his mother to speak to him. The humid night air wet his hair, his clothes, and he felt a chill run through his body. His eyes become heavy with fatigue, his body drained of energy. He felt the earth pull him down, wrap its arms around him, blow a cool breeze on his face. He lay there for a while, on top of his mother’s grave, and let the earth nurture him, dry his tears, and he listened to the wind as it sung him to sleep with a lullaby.
Chapter 7