Chapter II
THE brONZE BELLS of St. Andrew’s Church clanged out once, then twice. The reverberations pricked Mae's ears. She needed to get home, needed to see Simon. Mae hurried back through the reception area and out the front door of the office, locking the door as she left.
As she hurried back toward the El, she fretted about what Henry’s note had said.
Keep Simon close. Hopping into the first streetcar that came, her forefinger’s jagged nail found her front teeth again.
Her leg bounced up and down as she stared blankly out of the car, as the buildings went by.
She thought about losing Simon, about having to live without Henry.
It would be like living without air in their house.
The streetcar grinded to a halt as she heard the conductor yell, “Track obstruction!” Mae tried to look through the throng of people on the car to see what the obstruction was, but she could only see the backs of the various passenger’s heads.
Her muscles tensed. No one seemed to move fast enough to clear the track.
She wanted to shout to anyone to hurry the removal process.
Her chewed nail snagged on her bag as her grip tightened.
Ting! Mae snapped her head up. Her eyes immediately went to the mantel clock. Half past? Already? Where was Simon? She walked to the front of the room and looked out the window, but she didn’t see Simon. A deep pit began forming in her stomach. He was never late.
The cold air bit through her clothes. Even with her overcoat on, Mae shivered as she stood at the top of the stoop to peer up and down West 80th Street.
She could see the other schoolchildren who had already dropped their knapsacks in their respective houses and come back out to play ball in one of the alleys.
The ragged edge of her nail ripped into her top lip, making her instantly pull her finger from her mouth.
She sucked in her lip, trying to staunch the blood while her eyes continued to dart around the street, the landings, the alleys.
Where was he? She looked at the mantel clock through her window.
3:43. She dashed out into the frigid, dimming afternoon.
As she headed toward Amsterdam Street, visions of Henry's head lolling over on his chair floated in front of her. With every step, his head dissolved and became replaced with the tiny features of her son. Simon, her beautiful boy. She needed to see him. Needed to hold him. Approaching Columbus Avenue, Mae shifted her attention to the milling people along the sidewalks. Young girls were still out jump-roping despite the cold. Women pushed their prams side by side, their heads bent in friendly conversation. Mae scanned the other side of the street just in case. No Simon. The muted sound of St. Andrew’s bells dinging one, two, three, four times rang in her ears as she rounded the corner of West 82nd Street.
The cold air burned her throat and lungs as her legs moved at an ever-increasing speed. She focused ahead on the yellowing grammar school building in the distance.
“Mama?” She felt a tug at her arm that nearly threw her off balance.
She skidded to a stop and whipped around.
Standing there with a confused look on his face was her sweet, sweet boy.
She threw herself at him and wrapped him in her arms in the middle of the walkway.
He froze momentarily, then wrenched his head back to look at her. “Mama,” he whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“I was just… worried, is all,” she faltered as she downplayed her fears.
“I had to clap out erasers today. Remember?” He wriggled to distance himself from her embrace as he peered around. His cheeks took on a deeper pink as his eyes landed on a group of boys about his age who had been looking over from the corner. “I told you the other day…”
“Oh, yes! I guess it slipped my mind,” she struggled to keep her tone level. “Well, I was just worried when you didn’t get home sooner.”
Simon rolled his eyes. “You always forget.” He kicked a stone from the sidewalk into the gutter as his shoulders slumped.
“I just had a few things on my mind and forgot, is all.” Her lips twisted into an upward arc as the knot in her stomach coiled tighter.
“Seems like you always have too much on your mind,” he mumbled as he started to walk toward home.
Mae quickened her pace to match his as he tried to walk ahead of her.
Stealing furtive glances, it struck her just how much his profile resembled that of her husband.
Her late husband. Dear Lord! What would she say to him?
As their building came into view, she reached out and took hold of his hand.
Her eyes locked on their joined hands, and she took a moment to revel in the comfort she felt. It was short-lived, though.
Upon reaching the front door, Simon pulled his hand away, dropped his knapsack in the entryway, tore off his shoes, and began hurtling himself up the stairs.
Mae’s eyes trailed after his stockinged feet.
She should go upstairs and break the news.
Tea. She needed a cup of tea first. And so did Simon.
She wandered instead into the kitchen, mechanically putting on the kettle and taking the cups down.
She sat down on the chair and leaned over the table, holding her head in her hands.
The kettle’s whistle started its soft decree from the stove.
As the sound became louder, Mae’s limbs felt like jelly and she couldn’t move.
Her head swam with images of Henry. Henry smiling.
Henry with Simon. Henry limp in his chair.
The images came one after another, stealing the wind from her lungs.
After several minutes of the kettle’s squealing, Simon stomped into the kitchen.
“Mama, are you going to get the kettle?” Simon’s voice was distant, and Mae had to shake her head to bring herself back into the moment.
The screeching of the kettle softened and came to a stop as she heard it being brought to the counter.
As she brought her head up, she saw Simon watching her, his eyebrows turning his young forehead into a ripple of waves.
“C’mon over here a minute and sit with me.” Mae gestured to the table. Simon settled onto the chair across from her.
“Is everything okay?” His voice sounded small.
Mae reached her hand out for a split second before she realized that she couldn’t reach him from that distance.
Instead, she folded her hands in her lap.
She drew a breath, and it lodged in her throat.
His hair was the exact same shade as Henry's had been the moment they met.
She thought of the way his forelock fell into his eyes while he read case after case, not unlike the way Simon's hair fell now.
“Mama…” Simon prompted nervously. Her eyes were fixed on his.
The soft brown iris flecked through with shades of green held for a second and then flitted away.
The color of his eyes was a perfect mix of hers and her husband’s.
Her thumb started thrumming over the palm of her other hand.
The friction causing the only feeling she could handle at this moment.
“Simon—” her voice caught. His eyes paused and shot back to hers when he heard the hitch in her voice. She tried again, “Simon, there’s… There’s something I need to tell you.” His eyes widened slightly at the gravity in her voice.
“When I got to the office today…” she started, then twisted her braided gold wedding band.
On the third rotation, she looked back up.
“When I got to the office…” Her eyes began to well, and suddenly Simon's blurry hand reached across the table. “Your father…” she tried again, but the words wouldn’t come out.
“Mama—Is Dad okay—Did he get hurt?” The words came tumbling out of his mouth in a progressively higher pitch.
A tear slipped down her cheek as her heart slowly crumbled. She shook her head and blinked hard. “He’s—He’s gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean? Gone?” Simon stood up and hovered over her. The horrified look in his eyes broke the last piece of her heart in two.
“He’s passed o—”
“What?” Simon screamed in her face. “What happened?” Mae opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
She reached up to him, but he turned and pounded up the stairs and into his room.
She could hear the slam of the door and the loud groan of the bed as she pictured him launching himself onto it, as he had done just days ago.
But this time it wasn’t over a fight at school.
Mae knew she had to go to him, but she was rooted to the chair.
Her body felt too heavy, her mind too hampered.
The sounds of sobbing penetrated the thick wooden door and surrounded her in a cacophony of despair.
Her eyes found the kettle, its warm embrace unreachable from her position.
It took every ounce of strength to heave herself up.
She lumbered up the stairs and rested her hand on the doorknob.
She didn’t want to go in. Didn’t want to see her broken little boy.
She didn’t have any words to salve his hurt.
Unconsciously, she turned the knob. The soft click and squeak of the door released the waves of sorrow it held back, and they crashed over her like a tidal wave.
As she eased onto his bed, she saw the trains he had forgotten to put away this morning.
She reached over to rub his back while he sobbed into his pillow.
Back and forth. Back and forth. The mechanical rhythm was the only thing her numbed mind could force her body to do.
Eventually, the sobs turned into heaving breaths, then hiccups.
Her hand left his back to rest on the fabric covering her erratically beating heart.
Simon raised his tear-stained face. His bottom lip was still quivering as he breathed, “How?”
Mae shrugged as she forced out, “We’re not sure yet. Maybe he had a heart attack?”
“You weren’t there?” His tiny voice cracked, and his accusation pierced through her.
“No, I was out filing a motion in our case…”
The silence was palpable. The judgement from her son smacked her in the face.
She knew what he was thinking without any need for him to voice it.
She’d never been the typical housewife, the typical mother.
While other women fawned over their husbands and children while waiting on them, Mae felt her duty lay in ensuring the law was upheld.
She had always been too busy researching case law or helping Henry draft motions to bake cookies or gossip with the neighborhood mothers. She knew she should have been there.
“But...” Simon quibbled, his eyes reaching out to her. “But Dad didn’t have any problems with his heart…” Simon's eyes began to fill again, and he rubbed at them with a curled-up fist.
“I know, but they need to examine him to find out the real reason.” She paused, and her hands came forward to take his.
“We will figure it out, Simon.” She squeezed gently and pulled him to her.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath in through her nose, and the smell of her son calmed her fraying nerves.
He pulled back and rolled over. She felt bereft all over again as the cool night air invaded the space his body had occupied.
“I’ll get yesterday’s biscuits out and we can have them with jam for dinner,” she said, forcing herself to stand up. “I think I still have your favorite in the cupboard.” He didn’t respond. “I’ll have them out if you’re hungry.”
She crossed to the door and gazed at his growing figure curled up on the bed one last time before she closed the door.
As she entered the kitchen, she bumped into Henry’s usual chair at the kitchen table. It was pulled out further than she remembered. She knew that neither Simon nor she had entered the kitchen yet today—and she didn’t remember leaving it that way this morning when they had all left.
A pounding at the front door made her jump.
She glanced at the mantel clock. Just after six.
Henry should be home. She hugged her body as she opened the door, trying to retain any body heat she could against the draft.
A young man in a pressed police officer’s uniform stood in the dim streetlight of the doorway.
“Mae Turner?” He asked in a most official tone.
“Yes,” Mae responded as she wrapped her arms tighter around her. The official verification of her name dragging a chill up her spine.
“This is for you, ma’am,” he stated as he shoved a folded slip of paper at her. “You’re requested at the precinct to review the coroner’s findings at your earliest convenience. Please bring this notice when you come.”
The thin sheet of paper bent over in the small gust of wind.
Mae stared at the officer’s gloved hand holding the fate of Henry's death.
The officer shifted his weight and hitched his hand up a little higher, silently requesting Mae to take the paper.
Her fingers came up to pinch the paper. The young man turned on his heel and was down the steps before she could close the door.
She leaned against the door, steeling herself to unfold the notice.
Mrs. Mae Turner,
You are requested to present yourself at Precinct 4 at your earliest convenience regarding the findings in the matter of your husband’s death.
Please bring this notice with you.
Signed,
Captain Cormac
Mae finished reading the summons, but before she refolded it along its folded creases, a small inked notation caught her eye—11:50 in the forenoon—as if copied from a ledger rather than written for her.
That was only hours after she had found Henry...
before the detective had come for her statement.
Her eyes widened and her breath caught as she searched up and down the street. But the officer was gone.