Coming Home (19 page)

“They took her away and you never saw her again,” Andy said.

Jessie squeezed her key ring tightly.

“And you never visited her in the … hospital?”

“No. I don’t think so.” A faint image flashed in her mind. She tried to follow it, but the memory flicked away like a slippery fish.

“You don’t remember?”

Jessie shrugged. “I think I just … tried to bury it.”
Good choice of words,
she thought.

“I think your therapist was right,” he submitted. “Your dreams are telling you something.”

“Okay, Dr. McCormick. What is your prescription?” Jessie grinned, hoping to lighten the conversation. Poor Andy looked as if he were being led to the gallows. The thought struck her again that their entire conversation had been a kind of setup. “Is this what you
really
wanted to talk about, Andy?”

“Why do you ask?”

She was tempted to throw it back in his face, the comment he’d made at the fair about honesty. But she didn’t. “Maybe this is why I came back,” she said, letting him off the hook.

“Why?”

“To finish the story somehow.”

He gave a subtle shake of the head, seemingly not convinced. But by now their conversation had piqued her curiosity. Never before had she been this open about her mother’s death.

“Do you remember what happened after my mother died?” she asked, looking straight ahead.

“Our friendship basically ended.”

She frowned. “I don’t remember that… .”

“You stayed in your room. You didn’t come back to school. I knocked on your door and your father would answer, and he could barely speak. He looked like living death itself.”

“That’s because he was practically dead. Did you come to his funeral?”

“I stood right next to you.”

“I threw a big fit before the funeral,” Jessie remembered. “The coffin was closed and I demanded they open it.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t
convinced
.”

Andy whistled. “Did they open it?”

“Yep.”

“Did you have nightmares?”

“Not one,” she whispered. “Seeing him dead was closure for me. I was convinced he was gone.” It struck her what she’d just said, and her entire body broke out in shivers.
But I never saw my mother dead… .

She turned to Andy. “How do you prove someone is dead?” He looked at her incredulously. “What?”

“What would I do?” she whispered. “How would I start?”

He thought for a moment, and then, sighing, he pulled a piece of paper from the glove compartment, removed a pen, and began scribbling. “I’ve worked for my dad before,” he explained. “I’m not sure this is
proof,
but as far as legal details, this is where you start… .”

Jessie leaned over to watch him write. Once finished, he handed her the paper.

“A death certificate can be prepared by any number of people,” Andy said. “Coroner, attending physician, hospital authority, or funeral director. Then it’s supposed to be filed at both the county and state vital records office. You can order a copy of the death certificate, but it takes a while.”

She studied his list of three Web sites.

“These should be up to date,” Andy said. “I haven’t checked in a while.”

“Isn’t there a social security death index I can access?” she asked.

“The Social Security Administration doesn’t provide it directly,” he replied. “Various commercial interests assemble an index from the death master file and offer the information for a fee, but depending on your source, it’s notoriously incomplete.”

She read through the Web sites again. “What’s the last one for?”

“My mother is into genealogical research. She uses that site for researching our ancestry—it’ll give you access to any public records: birth, marriage, death, census, you name it. That’s her user name and password.”

“Maybe I should just start there.”

Andy shrugged. “Don’t forget the cemetery and the funeral home. They have records, too.”

She met his gaze, and he smiled back.

“Why don’t you just ask your
grandmother
for the death certificate?”

Jessie smiled sheepishly. “I suppose that would make the most sense, wouldn’t it?”

Andy gave her a friendly wink. “Are you free for dinner tomorrow?”

“That would be great,” she said, staring at his list again. Her mind was elsewhere. She was formulating a few ideas of her own.

Chapter Twenty-One

THE FRONT RANGE was a silhouette against the darkening horizon. Andy’s thoughts were accompanied by the hum of the highway and the rush of the wind against his windows. He hadn’t even turned on the radio, preferring to drive in the clear blaze of his own anguish, the silence like a black hole, siphoning out the poison of despair.

He was discouraged with their argument over religion, chagrined with his own need to be right, and yet saddened at Jessie’s position. What a difference a few years made. When they were kids, it was
she
who had lived on the edge of faith.

At least once a week, like a ritual, they had ridden their bikes to the top of the hill in Palmer Lake. They exerted a lot of energy to make the journey, but the view was worth it, giving them the illusion of worldly dominance. Looking back down toward the southeast, they embraced a view of the Front Range, just as they had tonight.

He remembered one afternoon in particular, when Jessie had been lost in her own thoughts, lost in a grief that would soon swallow her whole. He’d asked her why she was so preoccupied, and she’d turned on him with fire in her eyes.

… “Aren’t you keeping up with current events?”

“I’m sorry.”

Tears had sprung to her eyes. “Nobody believes me. Everyone thinks my mother is going to die.” He wanted to embrace the same conviction she had, but it was difficult. “Andy, do
you
believe me?”

Of course he didn’t, but if he told her that he did, she would either call him on it or her eyes would flicker with disappointment. You didn’t lie to Jessie and get away with it; she had uncanny instincts. Even at the tender age of twelve, Andy had discovered that life rarely delivers what we want.

She was still waiting for him to answer when he decided to fib anyway and let the chips fall where they may. He would say what seemed right—the proper thing, as his mother had always taught him. Just when he was about to open his mouth, it occurred to him that he
did
believe her. He didn’t have to lie after all.

“You do?” she asked, her eyes searching his. He nodded with full confidence into the look of marvel in her eyes, and he’d never felt prouder to be her friend. At that moment, they were just two kids believing God for a miracle, both of them utterly convinced it would happen….

Thinking on it now, twelve years later, he was still struck by the feeling of transparency that had always been a part of their every discussion.

Had he really believed? Wasn’t it simply the aura of Jessie’s relentless faith that had momentarily gripped him? Considering the ultimate result, it didn’t matter anymore. No wonder she’d ditched her faith.

In recent years he’d heard his share of testimonies in church regarding answered prayer, and they’d always seemed a little forced, circumstantial, or too simplistic:
“God helped me find my keys”
and that kind of thing. Even people who didn’t espouse a particular religious persuasion would speak of miraculously answered prayer, not to mention the New Agers, who had virtually coined the term
creating your own reality
.

He recalled a certain seminary student who had given a testimony about God’s answer for financial assistance, only as the story went, God apparently missed the deadline. The young man was forced to quit school because “God didn’t come through.” He returned home, abandoning his training to become a minister, terribly embittered. One day, about six months later, he discovered some insurance documents in his possessions. They turned out to be more than just routine papers, indicating a cash value policy that could easily be withdrawn to the tune of several thousand dollars—more than enough to cover his expenses. The punch line to his story was he’d received the mysterious documents a few weeks
before
he needed the tuition money, proving God had answered after all but had kept the answer hidden in order to test his faith or perhaps redirect his course of life. Needless to say, his broken faith was restored.

Thinking now of Jessie’s fondness for country music, he wondered what she thought of Garth Brooks’s song about unanswered prayer. The song told of a chance meeting between a man and the woman he’d once begged God to allow him to marry, only to realize that if his prayer
had
been answered, he would have missed out on his present wife, who was the true answer to his petition.

Tonight he’d seen the same glint in Jessie’s eyes, the old determination, the old faith—at least some form of it—and it had broken his heart. In spite of what she might say, she was still thinking, still believing on some level, that her mother wouldn’t—or didn’t—die. He wondered, in fact, if she might
never
believe it.

But none of that really mattered now. In fact, their discussion regarding the details of her mother’s death would soon be insignificant. In spite of everything that had transpired today, in spite of everything they had discussed, he was haunted most by the look in Jessie’s eyes when she’d encountered the woman at the fair.

He sighed, wondering how he could possibly tell her the truth. He’d almost told her tonight, but she’d seemed too vulnerable, and besides, he hadn’t been completely sure yet.

His cell phone rang. It was already in the cradle, ready for hands-free operation.

It was his dad. “Are you alone now?”

“I’m five miles away from home.”

“Oh … are you …”

“I mean Castle Rock,” Andy finished, realizing his father’s confusion. As far as his father was concerned, and as long as his son remained unmarried, home would always be his parents’ house.

“Did you tell her?”

“How could I?”

“Well … do you think she knows already?”

“I don’t know.” Andy sighed. “I don’t think so.” But it seemed like the kind of thing she
would
know. He wondered if Jessie had simply refused to acknowledge it. Could he blame her?

“Maybe she does,” Andy continued, wishing the whole thing would just go away.

Jessie had obviously lived a sheltered life for many years. And she’d been estranged from her grandmother, the only other person who would have had access to the truth. Considering everything that had happened between them, it was unlikely her grandmother would have told her, but maybe her grandmother still
intended
to tell her.

“Explain it again,” Andy asked, and his father complied, starting from the very beginning.

Eleven-thirty. The lights in the magnificent house were off when Jessie got back. She’d spent the last couple hours in a restaurant drinking coffee, working through the crazy idea that was formulating in her mind.

She let herself in with the key Bill had given her earlier. She couldn’t find the entry light, so she relied on the moonlit shadows to make her way across the entryway to the stairs. Padding up the steps, she heard a squeak and stopped.
You missed one, Bill
.

Another squeak. The sound was coming from below her, from her grandmother’s room downstairs, or maybe from the study next to her room, which had been her grandfather’s office. She had very few memories of the man who’d died and left her grandmother set for life. She’d once asked her mom how he died, and she replied,
“A stroke, honey.” “What’s a stroke?”
she asked, and her mother carefully explained it. Just thinking about it hurt Jessie’s head.

According to her mother, her grandfather was only fifty when he passed, becoming yet another part of her grandmother’s life that she never talked about. It seemed as if Grandmother had forced the entirety of her existence into conformity with her all-important “appearance.”

When Jessie reached the end of the hall, she paused before her mother’s former room. Impulsively, she tried the door again. Locked.

Once in her own room, Jessie tossed her purse on the bed. After a moment’s reflection, she slipped back downstairs again, only this time taking the back way, the set of stairs that led directly to the kitchen. As she went, she formulated an excuse in case her grandmother happened to wander in.
Couldn’t sleep, needed milk, wanted to see the place in the moonlight …

She found the kitchen empty and opened the key cabinet. There were five good candidates. She slipped them into her pocket and climbed the back stairs. Glancing back down the hallway toward Bill’s room, she pulled out the keys and tried them, one by one, her heart in her throat.

No good.

Disappointed, she returned to her room. Opening her purse, she retrieved a credit card. She went back to the door, intending to slide the card into the wood, but a strip of misplaced wood prevented insertion. Jessie wiggled the doorknob, then cringed at the noise she’d made.

Back downstairs, she replaced the keys. Her nerves calm again, she paused in the alcove looking out the windows to the gazebo—magical in the moonlight. The sight reminded her of the gazebo in the park … times she’d slipped outdoors after Mom was asleep and Dad hadn’t come home yet. Back when the impossibilities seemed possible.

She hurried upstairs again and to bed with a renewed sense of purpose. She set her alarm for seven o’clock but awakened at three. She stewed in bed for two hours, watching the shadows dance across the wall.

I’m going to finish the story once and for all,
she thought.

It was time to explore the depths of what she didn’t remember, to look under the bed and face the monsters. It was time to move on with her life, in every aspect. Time to face the truth of her mother’s passing.

While so many things had been repressed, she knew somehow she could remember them again. She thought of last night’s dream and the utter joy she’d felt, and then the corresponding despair upon awakening. Again and again throughout her life, she’d ridden the roller coaster, up … down … up … down. But no more.

I’ll convince myself,
she thought, thinking of her father’s coffin.
Maybe I can’t look into my mother’s coffin, but I can do the next best thing… .

Soon she would leave this hope-forsaken place and never return. Her newfound determination reignited the old anger. No wonder she had stayed away for so many years. Nothing would ever change the fact that her mother had died in the company of mentally ill strangers. Why? Because of her grandmother’s wicked meddling. Nothing would change the fact that her father had killed himself over grief—amplified by her grandmother’s actions. The state would never have stepped in if Grandmother hadn’t initiated a lawsuit to gain control. Not only had she bought the old house, but now she locked her daughter’s room in her own house as if even the memories belonged to her alone.

Andy had volunteered what to do. Jessie couldn’t wait to get started. Go to the library and pull up the death records. After that she planned to visit the cemetery. Somewhere along the line, she intended to get into her mother’s room, even if she had to kick the door down. Hopefully things wouldn’t come to that.

If all else failed, she would go to the institution itself. But thinking about the place of her mother’s death caused flickers of memories to dance at the edge of her mind. Andy had asked her,
“Do you remember visiting your mother?”
And she hadn’t. Yet there was
something
… bits and pieces. It was like pulling up a rope attached to a three-hundred-pound anchor, inch by painful inch.