My Mrs. Brown (28 page)

The Marine was carrying a perforated vinyl case, and inside was a cat. It was Santo, that cat that Robbie had found and adopted in Iraq. Hadn't Robbie written to Mrs. Brown about Santo? Indeed, he had. Did Mrs. Brown want the cat? If she didn't, he'd keep him, although his mother, in New London, where he would be staying for a while, was allergic.

“But I just thought, you know . . . I am so sorry, Mrs. Brown,” he said, tears in his eyes. He had been Robbie's best friend, he said again.

The moment the soldier opened the case, Santo jumped into Mrs. Brown's lap as if he'd always been here.

Sunday mornings, even in the deepest snow or heaviest rain, and from the first Sunday after the funeral, Mrs. Brown walked to Robbie's grave and prayed. When she was finished praying, she would tell Robbie about her week.

Yes, she still believed in God. As she always had, she believed that the purpose of a human's life was to prove that God exists, and how you did that was by practicing courtesy and kindness in all your affairs, always, no matter your circumstances, hurt, or pain, and through any crisis of faith.

That first year after Robbie was killed, it took all the strength and energy that she could muster, or fake, to get to the cemetery and then back home again. She was always so tired. What is the matter with me, she'd ask herself over and over. Mrs. Fox, who watched closely over her friend and neighbor, thought it was a miracle that Mrs. Brown managed to go to work, never missing a single day.

Then came the afternoon at Mrs. Groton's when Mrs. Brown saw the dress and jacket that took her breath away, and the idea was born in her. This is what she felt she needed: a dress as strong as armor.

She believed the dress would carry her with dignity and grace specifically on Sundays, when she visited Robbie's grave.
This is what I must wear.

Sometimes she doubted her right to have such a dress. Who did she think she was? The First Lady? Mrs. Groton? The Queen of England? No. She was Robert Christopher Brown's mother.

Robbie would be comforted, not to mention so very proud, to see his mother here today looking this well.

She liked a Jewish tradition she had heard Bonnie talking about. When you go to a grave, place a stone on it so the departed one will know that you have visited. Before she had entered the graveyard, outside the gate, Mrs. Brown had found a nearly heart-shaped stone she rested now in just the right place.

She faced Robbie's headstone and looked at it deeply, as if it had eyes. She smoothed the folds of the new black dress. As if he were here now, resting on the sofa at home chatting away after his favorite Sunday breakfast (pancakes, three eggs sunny-side up, and bacon), Mrs. Brown told Robbie the full story of her day, and night, in New York. She laughed and gushed and did not edit a word.

Always on Sundays, memory's scissors cut sharp at her heart. Always on Sundays came the time to let the tears drop. And they did.

Except now the perfect black dress helped her to remember who she was. Who Robbie was, and the family they were. Like her rod and her staff, the dress gave her the courage to confront the shadows of death. She felt love, and she felt peace, both in shadow and in light, filling her heart.

“If I could have changed the world,” Mrs. Brown said quietly, facing the memory of her son, “I would have stopped all time so you could stay.”

The sun had done all it could do for her today. Mrs. Brown felt a chill. She wrapped her arms around herself and straightened her shoulders for the journey home.

And, yes, she looked divine.

© DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN

WILLIAM NORWICH
is a writer and editor and video and television reporter. As a journalist, he has written for
Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The New York Observer,
and many other publications. He is currently the commissioning editor for fashion and interior design at Phaidon Press. He received an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and is the author of the novel
Learning to Drive.
He lives in New York City.

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ALSO BY WILLIAM NORWICH

Molly and the Magic Dress

Learning to Drive

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition April 2016

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Interior designed by Ruth Lee-Mui

Jacket illustrations by Kazuko Nomoto

Jacket art direction by Alison Forner

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Norwich, William D.

My Mrs. Brown : a novel / William Norwich.—First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

pages; cm

I. Title.

PS3564.O778M9 2016

813'.54—dc23

2015021899

ISBN 978-1-4423-8607-5

ISBN 978-1-5011-0862-4 (ebook)