Through an open window, p.21
Through an Open Window, page 21
“And, if I may,” said Culpepper, holding up a finger, and looking at Mouse, who was about to say something else that might not have been helpful. “Let’s not let our imaginations run away with us, Mrs. Moretti. Remember, Mr. Dilbeck didn’t go looking for your mother. She came looking for him.”
“Yes, because she thinks a ghost told her to,” muttered Mouse. “Everyone in this room is aware of that. I’d just like some more proof, if you have it.”
“Well, we’ve got a little bit more to go on than a couple of pale apparitions. Though, you’re right, there isn’t exactly a paper trail as such,” said Culpepper. “From talking to John, I gather his parents—your parents, too, if I’m right, Mrs. Elliot—were just some of those unfortunate people who fell through the cracks back then. Nobody knows where they came from when they showed up in Bentonia, and from what John told me, his father—Sheriff Dilbeck, that is—told him that there’d been some serious alcohol problems long before the tragedy happened that day. Apparently, he’d visited the house a good many times before then, though he had no idea there were any kids living there. Seems he never went inside the place till that day. All Dilbeck knew about them was what the hospital found written on your birth certificate, nothing more than their names and that old address of your aunt’s, that house out on Boundary Road. They were able to trace her with that. But they never found a birth certificate for John. Frankly, the Dilbecks wanted kids of their own so bad, I don’t think they looked very hard. They wanted to keep him, so that’s what they did. But you can ask him all about that when he gets here.” Culpepper looked at his watch. “Which should be about now.”
The silence was thick in the room. From somewhere outside, a dog barked. Emlynn crossed and uncrossed her legs. “It feels like we’re waiting for Max von Sydow,” she said, nervously. Culpepper was the only one who laughed.
Just then they heard a door open and close on the street. A pause. Footfalls on the steep stairs, and then quiet.
“Down here on the right, John,” Culpepper called out, and the Elliot family stood up as one, all of them nervous, save Margaret. She’d been waiting for this moment, certain of a positive outcome. The footsteps started again.
He was tall and his hair was still dark. The glasses that perched on his nose accentuated the shape of his face, which was a bit angular, like hers. His smile was hesitant; it managed to be both sincere and slightly anxious, but his gaze was totally focused on her. As she knew it would be, the recognition was instant, and although he resembled her sons, it had nothing to do with appearance. Margaret felt that old familiar quickening from somewhere in the center of her chest, the same blood-to-blood current she’d always felt in that moment just before seeing one of her children, the same feeling she’d had when she’d been sixteen and seen that tall dark-haired young man from her window. She gripped the back of her chair with one hand and reached out toward John Dilbeck with the other. When he took it, they both smiled an identical smile.
His face was a canvas on which time had painted a story and Margaret knew without asking that he remembered her, too. Her hand remained warm when he released it. She started to speak, but John Dilbeck stopped her, holding up his right palm, his crooked little finger clearly visible in the light of the lamp on Nathan Culpepper’s desk.
“Mouse, Lawrie, and Tom,” said John Dilbeck, turning to face them, his eyes stopping a moment to rest on each face. “Emlynn and Nick. I’ve known you all for such a long time.”
“Here, you need someplace to sit,” said Culpepper, reaching through the gap in the old tapestry that divided the room and pulling out a ladder-back chair. He sat it beside Margaret and motioned for John to sit down.
Nobody seemed to be able to think of anything to say that didn’t sound trivial or slightly ridiculous. Finally, it was Emlynn who spoke.
“So, Mr. Dilbeck, did you have a nice drive down?” Lawrie looked at Emlynn, and Margaret could feel how much he wanted to roll his eyes at such a perfunctory question.
“Well, Mr. Culpepper here drove me,” said John Dilbeck, smiling over at Emlynn. “But please do call me John. I always feel like I’m in some kind of trouble when ‘Mister’ takes the place of my first name.”
“Mr. Culpepper told us you were a shrimp fisher?” asked Lawrie.
John laughed. “We call them shrimpers back home. But yes, that’s what I always wanted to be. I think my folks hoped college would change that, but it didn’t. Loved being out on the water. Still do. And shrimping was one way I could make money doing it.”
“Margaret said you’re retired now. Is that right?” Nick asked.
“Yes. Retired at sixty, a few years ago. Glad I did, too. Gave Carrie and me, that was my wife, Carrie, well, it gave us some time to travel before she died. I’ve been a bit at loose ends since she passed. Even thought about selling up and moving over to the mainland earlier this year, but only for a half second. Listed my house on one of those For Sale by Owner sites on the internet one night last June, then took it down the very next day. I couldn’t live anywhere else.”
Mouse sat up a bit straighter, crossing her arms over her chest. “You said you knew us all? How is that possible?” There was an edge in her voice that everyone noticed, including John.
“Well, Mouse,” he began, smiling at her. “Or would you rather I call you Agatha? I know you only let a select few call you Mouse.”
Mouse looked at Nathan Culpepper accusatorially, and he shook his head. “I didn’t tell him that,” he said. “I didn’t even know that.”
“No, your father told me,” John said, picking up a glass of sweet tea and looking Mouse in the eye. “You see, I’ve known Lawrence Elliot since I was eighteen years old. I knew when you graduated from that culinary school up in New York. Knew when you married Nick here. Knew when Carly and Ben were born.”
“And, Tom,” he said, turning from Mouse, “I heard about what happened up in Atlanta last month. How you saved that piece of beautiful land. Caused quite a stir, I believe. News made the Charleston Post; bet you didn’t know that. A lot of investors were pretty mad over there, I can tell you. I imagine you’ve taken a good bit of heat for what you did. That took guts, especially in your line of work. But I can tell you this for certain, your dad would’ve been so proud of you for taking a stand like that. Not even thinking about what it would cost you. That’s a rare thing these days.”
Everyone looked over at Tom, who was staring at John, openmouthed.
“See, I’ve been keeping up with all three of you over the years,” said John, smiling again.
“What’s he talking about?” said Lawrie, looking at Tom.
“Oh,” said Tom, shifting in his seat. “Nothing.”
“You mean y’all don’t know?” asked John. “Why, some guys were going to buy up these woods that run behind a bunch of old houses in the middle of the city, and they came to Tom to handle the development plans. Would’ve been a big project, am I right?” Tom nodded, his cheeks flushing pink. “But instead of helping them do it, Tom here got in touch with a lot of conservation groups and blew the thing right out of the water. Now the Public Land Trust has stepped up to buy it. They’re turning it into a nature preserve.”
“Tom,” said Margaret. “Why didn’t you tell us this?”
Tom remained silent, his face now a glorious red.
Everyone looked at everyone else, then back to John Dilbeck. “Well, if all that’s true, and you know so much about us, then why haven’t you ever let Mother even know you existed?” said Mouse. “If you expect us to believe you’re her brother, then why are you just telling us now? Why did you never, in all these many years, get in touch with her? Why did she have to find out about you by…by some sort of accident?”
The tapestry moved as though a breath had gone through the room. Margaret turned in her seat toward John. “I would have preferred to wait for this a bit,” she said, sighing. “At least till we’d gotten through some general pleasantries. But maybe you should tell us the whole story. I can’t imagine what we’ll talk about now if you don’t.”
John pushed back his chair and crossed his long legs. He remained still and quiet for a full minute, as though feeling the weight of the words he was getting ready to say.
“You know, Agatha,” he began, looking over at Mouse, “I’ve heard it said that none of us really remembers anything before the age of three, maybe four. Like there’s a fog in our heads up until then. That’s probably true about facts, but I don’t think it’s true about feelings. Those seep through your skin early on.” He took off his glasses, pulled a folded white handkerchief from his shirt pocket. “Growing up on the island when I was a kid,” he said, slowly polishing his lenses, “I’d hear a snippet of song from a car bouncing down a dirt road, and all of a sudden, I’d get scared. My mother would drop a plate in the kitchen, or a limb might fall outside my window during a storm, and the sound would just slap terrify me. And I had no idea why. Other people didn’t react like that. Why did I?
“If it’d been up to my mother, I’d never have known what happened that day to my parents. Well, to our parents, I guess.” He nodded at Margaret and smiled. “But it had always weighed on my daddy. That day he found me there at that house. I don’t think he ever got those images out of his head. He said he’d seen worse things in the war, but those were in context, you know? Expected, somehow, maybe easier to just put away.” John bent his head and replaced his glasses. “Dad told me I’d had these dreams that first year. Said I’d wake up screaming my head off in the middle of an ordinary night. ’Course I didn’t remember any of that. Still don’t. Like I said, I was too little to remember the facts, but it sure seemed like I remembered the feelings.
“I know now that my parents—the Dilbecks, I mean—weren’t even sure how old I actually was. They’d found out from the midwife that you’d been born the year before, Margaret, so they figured I had to be around two and a half, and since Mother’s Day fell on May twelfth the next year, that was the birthday they gave me. I turned three that day. Since finding that out, I’ve woken up every morning, wondering if this might be the real day I was born.”
“That’s awful,” whispered Emlynn, who immediately blushed after saying it.
“Depends on how you look at it,” said John, smiling. “It’s not such a bad thing to think every day might be your birthday. Carrie used to accuse me of using that as an excuse to eat cake every night.”
“So how did you find out what happened?” asked Lawrie.
“Dad finally told me when I was eighteen. The night before I left for college. Made me promise never to tell Mama he had. He said he felt I deserved to know the whole truth. That I was old enough now. Said it might help answer some questions I didn’t even know I had. And I guess it did.
“I remember he handed me a newspaper article. And this old picture he’d found clutched in my hand that day he found me. He’d kept them both in his billfold for years. He told me to never forget how lucky I was. Lucky I’d wandered out into the woods that day. Lucky he’d found me when he did. But luck was always a hard one for me. Too easy for it to turn bad, I suppose.” John smiled over at Margaret again. “Besides, from where I sat, I knew you were the lucky one. You’d been too little to remember anything at all. You weren’t ever bothered by those shadows that used to come for me in the night, were you?” He looked at Margaret expectantly, and she shook her head. No.
“Of course,” he said, “it didn’t take two months before I wanted to see you. That’s only natural, I guess. All Dad had was that old address of your aunt’s, but I figured it was worth a try. So, one fall weekend, I slipped off from school and drove down here to Wesleyan. Stood in the weeds on the other side of the road from that big white house, just staring up at it all. I swear, that place looked like a palace to me. I went around out back, and I could hear women laughing through the kitchen window. I saw all these trees, hundreds of them, it looked like a big green church. A bunch of men were spreading white blankets underneath them, like some ceremony or something.” He paused and looked over at Margaret again. “I guess that old place is gone now.”
“No, it’s still there,” she said. “Just barely. I’ve heard it’s for sale. Tommy and I can take you out there tomorrow.”
“I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.” John Dilbeck folded his hands in his lap, his crooked little finger sticking out like a quotation mark. “Well, that afternoon, I just stood there in front of all those trees, and that’s when I saw you. Just felt you behind me. It was the strangest thing. I turned around, looked up, and there you were, sitting in an upstairs window. I couldn’t tell whether you could see me or not, but I knew it was you right away. Just knew it down deep in my bones, felt it like some kind of electrical shock. I went out under those trees to hide, hoping you’d come outside so I could get a better look at you, and maybe work up the nerve to introduce myself.
“And sure enough, after a minute or two, I heard that back door slam and there you were, running out to meet this young man who was standing there waiting for you. You were laughing. Lord, I can still see you.” The zydeco songs had stopped, leaving an echoing silence in their wake. All eyes were turned toward John. “Well,” he continued, “of course that was Lawrence, and one look at the two of you together? Anybody would’ve known what you meant to each other. And it was like…I don’t know if I can properly explain it…but, suddenly I could see everything, from right there where I stood under those trees. I could see your whole life unfolding before me, like a vision in front of my eyes. The wedding, the kids, all the happy days that were coming.
“And I could tell, in that moment, that you’d never been told what had happened all those years ago to our parents. That big old house you were living in? It seemed to radiate happiness. And looking at you, I could tell it was all you’d ever known. I just knew, right then, that I’d never tell you. Why would I bring that darkness into your life? I knew what it felt like. Like something awful just out of your reach. Real, because it happened—unreal, because you couldn’t remember it all. What good would that serve? Standing there inside that cathedral of trees, I swear it felt like some kind of atonement for me not to tell you. Like I had the power to erase a stain from both of our lives, and from our parents’ lives, too.
“But I wanted to lay the story down somewhere. Lay it down and just walk away. It felt too heavy to carry alone. So, when you went back inside, I walked over to that young man, to Lawrence, and I told him who I was. Gave him the newspaper article and the photograph. Told him never to tell you unless the day came when he felt like you needed to know. I made him promise, just like my daddy made me. And I think Lawrence understood. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt you in any way. Of course, at the time I’m not even completely sure he believed me, but he told me he’d put it someplace safe, someplace you’d never find it. And then, before I walked away, he asked for my address at school, and that’s how it started, I guess. We began writing each other. And we kept it up all these years. Last March, when I saw in the paper he’d died, it felt like I’d lost a best friend. His last letter was sitting in my mailbox the day I came home from his funeral.”
“You were at Lawrence’s funeral?” said Margaret, eyes wide.
“I was.”
Everyone stared at John Dilbeck as a whole minute passed by in silence.
“I’ll…I’ll bet you anything the reason Daddy never told her was because he didn’t believe it was true himself. He wouldn’t have kept something like that a secret,” said Mouse, her words thick with emotion. “Not from me, we told each other everything. And Mother showed us that old picture. Those people could be anybody. We’re just supposed to accept you’re her brother because you say so?”
“I made Lawrence promise not to tell any of you,” said John. “Margaret’s life was about to change that day I met him. Her aunt’s friend, Ida Mae? She was already getting sick, and she died not too long after. And then Edith got sick herself and was gone just a couple years later. Your parents got married two months after that. When would’ve been a good time to tell her? Besides,” he said, shifting a bit in his seat, “I didn’t want her to know, Lawrence knew that. Like you say, Agatha, there wasn’t really any proof. I could’ve easily denied everything if he’d told her. But over the years, I think he became convinced I was right not to tell. Lawrence was always big on cause and effect; how one little ripple can change the whole course of history. Your mother, if I’m not wrong”—he glanced over at Margaret—“has had a real happy life. No ugliness at all in her past. And I don’t know, I liked feeling I had a small part in that.”
“Then why tell her now?” said Mouse. “Why suddenly show up now that Daddy’s gone? Because, I have to tell you, Mother thinks the ghost of her aunt Edith orchestrated all this. Apparently, Aunt Edith’s been visiting her a lot since our father died. Bet you didn’t know that.” Mouse waved her hand in front of her face like she was trying to disperse a bad smell.
“Mouse,” said Lawrie, and Mouse waved him away, too.
Some of the color had drained from John Dilbeck’s face. He turned from Mouse and swiveled toward Margaret, looking her full in the face. “That was Aunt Edith?” he whispered.
“She’s been to see you?” said Margaret.
“Four times since last Easter,” said John, shaking his head.
22
Mouse
She could feel the hot tears in her eyes, but still they refused to fall. Mouse slammed the car door as hard as she could, pulled the seatbelt over her chest with a jerk. Nick got in beside her and quietly closed his own door.
