Chapter 2
The process of dying seemed to last an eternity, but here at the end, it had begun to pick up speed.
Malcolm wanted his mother to have the peace he knew awaited her, and yet he longed for more time.
She’d inflicted a lot of emotional damage over the years, but somehow he still wanted her to see him marry and become a father someday.
Wanted her to be a grandmother, if any of her children were ever blessed with kids of their own.
Her breath rattled in her throat, a damp wheeze that sounded slower than it had just minutes ago.
“Goddamn it, Maggie,” he whispered.
How could one woman care so fiercely for her children, worry constantly about keeping them fed and sheltered, and yet make them so uneasy in her company?
As the baby of the family, he’d managed to avoid the wooden spoon that Jennie and Elias had often endured.
Young Malcolm had often thought the spoon would have been preferable to Maggie’s less physical punishments.
The sting and bruising from the spoon faded quickly enough, but the queasy guilt induced by Maggie’s disapproval lingered.
The weight of her presence—nearly as heavy as the weight of her expectations—had usually been enough to keep them in line.
She loved them, but wanted them tough. One of her favorite refrains had always been “Question the world’s rules, but not Maggie’s. ”
He knew his mother loved him, but she’d often made it hard to love her back. Yet here they were—her dying, and him wishing for just a little more time.
A gentle knock came at the bedroom door, and it creaked open.
Violet slipped into the room, sleepless, her rose-patterned robe cinched around her waist.
Malcolm exhaled. “You should be sleeping.”
She looked to the window. “That man’s outside again.”
Irritation rippled through him. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s closer to tomorrow than yesterday, but I guess nobody told our Peeping Tom.”
They’d spotted the man earlier in the evening, after the small dinner Violet prepared had gone mostly uneaten.
She had been the first to see him, through the window in Maggie’s room.
He’d been across the street, standing beneath a willow tree, watching their house.
At first, Malcolm assumed there had to be another explanation, but after nearly an hour, the man hadn’t moved, and his focus remained clear. This house. This room.
Malcolm had gone outside, strode down the front walk, but by the time he’d gotten to the road, the dark figure under the willow had vanished.
Retreated, he reminded himself now. For here he was, back again.
Malcolm had initially assumed the watcher was some kind of pervert looking for a good view.
That hadn’t explained why he’d spent so long staring at this house, but once the man was gone, the why hadn’t seemed very important.
“He’s in the same spot? Under the willow?”
Violet hugged herself. “He gives me the creeps.”
Despite the sadness that lay so heavily in the room, Malcolm smiled. He reached for her, and Violet approached him, her footfalls soft as whispers.
Maggie’s labored breathing provided the only other sound in the room.
Violet put one hand on Malcolm’s arm, ran her touch down to his fingers.
He wanted to object, but when she leaned toward him, he did the same, until their foreheads were touching and they were breathing the same air.
Anyone else would have kissed her then, but Malcolm wouldn’t do that.
Not with his brother’s wife.
In the bed, his mother began to cough. Malcolm pulled away from his sister-in-law and went to Maggie’s bedside. The urge to help her felt overwhelming, but first his mother and then her doctor had assured him there was truly nothing to be done. Helplessness curdled in his gut.
A gust rattled the windows. They were closed, but the house was old enough that a cold breeze slid through, stirring the curtain.
He stared at its frayed edges. Stepped toward it.
Violet reached for his hand, but he waved her away and drew the curtain open.
A cloud had blotted out the moonlight, so he narrowed his eyes to peer into the dark.
A figure lurked beneath that willow tree, partly veiled by drooping branches.
The orange tip of a cigarette burned in the darkness.
Malcolm and Violet had been sharing this vigil, waiting with Maggie as the lights in her soul flickered out, one after another, and now it seemed the watcher had joined their vigil.
It wouldn’t be long.
Malcolm watched the wraith-thin figure beneath the tree. Though he stood behind the drooping willow branches, he didn’t seem to have any interest in being inconspicuous. He simply stood and smoked and watched the house.
Waiting, Malcolm thought.
The clock on the wall announced the time with three gentle chimes. The man’s cigarette flared in the dark, faintly illuminating a narrow, gray face with a sharp nose and a stark-white goatee.
“I feel like we’re in a film,” Violet said. “One of those with the icy blond girl and the hard-nosed detective.”
Malcolm forced a smile. Violet loved going to the movies. He didn’t point out that maybe she loved those movies with slinky blonds with lots of diamonds and bad luck with dangerous men because she’d escaped a life not much different from that.
“In Elkhart, and with our family’s luck, it’s much more likely he’s a bill collector.”
Malcolm had been working in construction, but when his mother’s health had taken a turn, he’d begun to miss the occasional day, and his employer hadn’t liked that unpredictability. He’d been fired, and now the bills were piling up.
“It’s three o’clock in the morning,” Violet reminded him.
So, he’s not a bill collector.
“You really have no idea who it could be?” she asked, peering over his shoulder and out the window.
“This time of night, I don’t much care. The son of a bitch is fraying my nerves.”
He started for the bedroom door.
“Maggie asked you to stay with her,” Violet said.
Malcolm glanced at his mother. Her breathing remained shallow and ragged.
If she died in the few minutes he’d be out of the room, perhaps he would carry some guilt over it, but he was helpless at her bedside and had nowhere to vent his grief and frustration.
He had a feeling the man under the willow tree might provide him an opportunity.
He strode down the little hall to the front door. As he turned the knob, it blew inward, banging into his chest and knee, but his forward momentum could not be slowed.
The door swung open behind him as he stormed along the flagstone path. Crisp autumn leaves danced and swirled on the grass. By the time he reached the pavement, he regretted not putting on a coat. November had teeth, and it could bite.
He marched across the road, hands flexing the way they always had in Korea when they didn’t have a weapon in them. The war had been over for more than three years, but it still echoed in his bones.
This time, the watcher didn’t vanish.
“Mister,” Malcolm said as he reached the willow tree. “You’d better explain yourself.”
A gust of wind shook the willow branches, giving him a better look at the man.
Malcolm blinked in surprise as he realized what he stared at was no human face, but a mask, apparently donned in the minutes since he’d looked out the window.
The mask was elaborate, the head of a raven, made of feathers and plaster.
The black beak protruded, but Malcolm realized it was only the top of the beak.
An illusion, like every decent mask. The man remained still, so silent that in his blurry three AM brain, Malcolm wondered if this might be some kind of scarecrow and not a man at all.
The man lifted the cigarette up beneath his beak and took a puff.
“Go back inside,” the raven said, his voice low and even, eminently reasonable. The words slithered out from his lips wreathed in cigarette smoke that the wind stole away.
Malcolm stared. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
The raven made a rasping noise that might have been laughter.
“It’s almost over, Malcolm. After all this time, the end is coming.
It might relieve you to know they don’t hold their pain against you.
In fact, if I were you, I’d go inside, say one last farewell, and just walk away.
You don’t have to be here for what comes next. ”
Malcolm used both hands to part the willow’s veil and stepped closer to the man. Inches from that black beak.
“I’m gonna give you one last chance to explain why you’re spending the night spying on my house. If we owe you money, come back in a couple of days, goddamn it. My mother’s not well.”
The raven took another puff. When he blew out the smoke, his breath smelled so rancid that Malcolm took a step back, turning his head away.
“You can wait till she’s dead if that makes you feel better,” said the raven. “But then you’ve gotta get out of the way.”
Malcolm reached out both hands and wrapped his fists in the gray wool of the raven’s coat, stepped in closer.
He didn’t see the raven move his hands, but suddenly, the tip of that cigarette glowed just an inch away from Malcolm’s left eye.
“Don’t,” the man rasped, with that rotting-meat stink on his breath.
The wind gusted, carrying a voice to them. Malcolm stiffened, realized whose voice it had been.
Violet, calling for him.
Malcolm stared at the raven mask one last moment.
Through the eyeholes, he saw a glint of blue that told him nothing.
Whoever this son of a bitch might be, dealing with him would have to wait.
His mother was dying, and Malcolm needed to be with her.
Tonight, Maggie Wise had nobody but him and Violet to rely on. It had been that way for so long.
“I’m coming!” he called. Then to the shape beneath the willow tree: “I’d better not see you again.”
“What will you do, call the police?” the man asked, almost as if he knew the answer.
“I solve my own problems. Don’t make yourself one of them.”
Malcolm raced back up the flagstones to the open front door, where Violet beckoned urgently, tears in her eyes. If the raven replied to his warning, only the night and the willow tree heard him.