Authors: Susan Lewis
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It was almost ten by the time Justine curled up in the rose-shaded light of a single lamp, a mug of tea on the nightstand beside her, and the bedroom door ajar in case Lula stirred. Propped up as she was against the pillows, she could see across the hall to where Daisy lay snuggled among a halo of soft toys with Lula lying in her usual position, on her side with her small hands cupped around her sweet little face.
Because they looked so cute she’d taken a photo before coming to bed, ready to send to Matt in the morning with an assortment of others.
She wondered what he was doing now.
Was he alone? Awake? Lost in a dream?
Since it was three in the morning with him, she guessed she could reasonably assume it was the last.
It would be easier if she did.
What would never be easy was thinking of Ben and wondering what he was doing now. Lying in his prison cell dreaming of his crimes? Did they haunt him the way they haunted everyone else? Did he think about any of the bereaved families at all? Did he think about her? Did he hate her, miss her, long for her, the way she hated, missed, and longed for him? Did their separation tear jaggedly into his heart? Maybe he was too busy fighting to survive in a place he was never going to escape to spare a thought for anyone else.
Would she ever see him again?
Stricken by the thought that she might not, while knowing she didn’t want it at all, she pulled apart the top of the package where she’d already cut it and shook out the contents. This was the only way she was going to get him out of her mind tonight, to focus it on something else.
There were three envelopes. The smallest, though sealed, clearly contained keys, since it said so on the outside. The second, unsealed, had her name on the front in her mother’s hand. On the back her mother had written:
Read your grandmother’s letter first; I hope this one will help to answer some of the questions you’re likely to have when you’ve finished. Remember, I’m at the end of the phone.
The third, the prize, the jewel of the package, had a raggedly broken seal, her mother’s name, and the address of where they’d first lived in London on the front and part of a return address on the back,
—st Shore Drive, Culver, IN 46511.
Though the date mark was no longer legible, it was evident from the color and texture of the paper that the letter was old.
For a brief moment as Justine peered inside she picked up the scent of roses, or perhaps it was oranges. Something sweet, anyway, and it seemed to be stirring a memory, or a sense of something familiar, though it was too vague, too ephemeral to grasp.
Wondering if her grandmother used to perfume her letters, as many women of her generation once did, she took care pulling the pages from the envelope, half afraid they were going to fall apart in her hand. However, they were sturdy, thick, almost like blotting paper, with elegantly ruffed edges that had become crumpled and slightly torn with the passage of time.
To her surprise, when she unfolded the letter, she found the pages were numbered, not in the same ink her grandmother had used, so presumably her mother had done it later to keep them in order.
Six pages altogether, and both sides of each were full.
Turning to the first and holding it close to the lamp, she felt her breathing quieten as she started to read.
My dearest Camilla,
Thank you for your last letter and the photographs you kindly sent of the children. I do so miss them, and they are growing up very fast, it seems; I feel I hardly know them anymore. Justine twelve already, and Robert almost ten. What joy they must bring to you and dear Tom. It pleases me a lot to hear of how well things are working out for you all in London. It is a city that Daddy and I always enjoyed, though perhaps not as much as Paris. What a thrill to live in Europe, although for me the United States will always be home. I wonder if you think the same, or if, over time, you will become so anglicized you might forget your roots. I’m sure that will happen for the children, which I confess makes me sad.
I’m afraid, my dear girl, that this is going to be a very difficult letter for you to read, and it is no less difficult for me to write. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that it is about your brother Phillip’s problem—Daddy used to call it an affliction, but I prefer to say problem. As you know, it is something poor Phillip has battled for many years and finds very hard to control, though he tries with all his heart. He assures me it is not the way he wants to be, and I believe him, for I have held him many times as he’s wept tears of terrible despair. He tells me he wishes he’d never been born because of the distress and heartache his problem has brought to me and Daddy.
To you too of course, because I know your love and loyalty to Phillip were severely tested at the time Daddy took his own life.
Justine stopped abruptly. Her grandfather had taken his own life? No mention had ever been made of that.
You told Phillip he was responsible, and Phillip agreed. He has never forgiven himself; indeed, it has been very difficult for him to live with the guilt, and I in turn have found it equally hard to forgive. But he is my son and I still love him in spite of everything, for I know that he cannot help himself. I only wish I knew what I had done to make him the way he is. I ask myself all the time where I went wrong, how I could have done things differently; should I have sought medical advice? There are those who claim that people are born the way Phillip is, but Daddy and I never believed that, and even Phillip has always felt sure he would grow out of it eventually, or perhaps someone would find a cure.
Even after all these years I remain deeply troubled by Daddy’s decision to leave us the way he did when it is against everything we believe—and yet I now find myself facing the same end.
Justine flinched, and her eyes flicked back over the last sentence, needing to be sure she’d read it correctly. Her heart thudded with the shock. How terrible it must have been for her mother to run into her own mother’s intentions like that, so unexpected and yet so obviously sincere. How panicked she must have felt, and afraid to read on. Unless she’d had some sort of forewarning, but there was nothing to suggest that she had.
With heightened and unsteady feelings, she now understood what kind of letter she was reading, but made herself continue.
Phillip has confessed to me that being where we are, close to the Academies in Culver, is insufferable for him, but he is afraid to leave and try to make a life on his own. I admit I am fearful of this too, because if people find out the truth about him it will make him very vulnerable and the object of much scorn and abuse, even hatred. The revulsion his problem generates is, alas, widespread and even understandable, as it goes against everything the Bible has taught us. He has talked of moving to a community where there are more people like him. I reminded him that if he does this he will be committing himself to a life of sin, and there will be no hope at all of a recovery or a life everlasting.
The only answer I could propose was that we should sell the cottage and move back to Pennsylvania, but he would not hear of me giving up my cherished home. I should have insisted, I realize that now; after all, he had warned me that this place was presenting a devilish temptation for him. It wasn’t that I ignored it, but the only action I could see to take was to pray every day, many times a day, for his deliverance from this sinful obsession. He joined me in the prayers, as did Father Dominic, whom you might remember. He has always been very kind to Phillip in a way one might not expect of a priest, but I can’t help feeling that his kindness was sometimes undermined by the frequency with which he directed us to Leviticus 18:22–23 and 20:13. Was it a threat? It was how it felt.
Though Justine had a fair idea what the Bible passages referred to, she put the letter aside for a moment and climbed the stairs to where she was sure she’d spotted a New American Bible just after they’d moved in. Sure enough, there was one tucked between a copy of
The Freedom of Forgiveness
and Billy Graham’s
Hope for Each Day.
Taking it back to the bedroom, she paged through to Leviticus, and felt instantly appalled by the damning words of Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” Leviticus 20:13 : “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death.”
Having no desire to read the words again, she closed the Bible and pushed it under the bed before returning to the letter.
It isn’t easy for either of us to read these Bible passages, mainly because they leave Phillip with the greatest burden of shame. I believe that is Father Dominic’s intention, as if shame in itself might provide a transformation, even a cure. For my part the guilt of knowing that I have not been able to help my son, that I have maybe in some way made his situation worse by trying so hard to protect him, grows with each day.
As you know, it was the police discovering Phillip with a young man many years ago that drove Daddy to do what he did. Had we been able to keep it a private matter things might have turned out differently, but the act was still illegal then, and no amount of Daddy’s influence could prevent a prosecution. It was, and remains, a miracle that Phillip was not committed to an institution for psychopathic offenders, because that was the punishment back then for men with his problem. Today things have changed and men like him are no longer officially viewed as a criminal or deviant in the eyes of the law, but they are in the eyes of many, and of God. This of course does not in any way change how much I love my son; it simply makes me feel more helpless than ever to guide him.
And now I have no power at all.
I’m sorry to break it to you this way, dear Camilla, but we received confirmation last week that your brother has contracted the deadly HIV virus which has already developed into full-blown AIDS. I ask myself, is this punishment for the sins he’s committed? I fear that it is.
A few days ago I received a visit from the principal of the Academies here in Culver. He was polite, as you would expect, but he didn’t hold back on lecturing me about the dreadful disease that everyone is talking about and how it is threatening to run rampant around the world and so must at all costs be stamped out. I agreed, of course; how could I not? I daresay if Daddy hadn’t been an alumnus of the school and hadn’t made such generous donations in the past, things might have gone differently. As it was, I was told that no charges would be brought provided the boy Phillip had apparently corrupted tested clear of the virus and Phillip moved away from the area.
I’m afraid I didn’t have the courage at the time to admit to Phillip’s diagnosis, but of course I have now, in a letter that I’ve already sent.
I have spent the time since then putting my papers in order and doing what I can to ensure that as few difficulties as possible will remain when I have gone. I have already written to the authorities explaining my actions, and to Father Dominic asking him to pray for my and Phillip’s souls. I realize I am committing yet another sin in the eyes of the Lord, and for this I am likely to suffer in hell, but I find that following Daddy at this time is meaning more to me than my eternal salvation. Wherever he is I shall go too, and in so doing I shall spare my son the suffering of a terrible, drawn-out death.
It is my intention to end our lives in the boathouse, and for the entire structure to be destroyed as soon as possible thereafter. I have left instructions for this in my letter to the authorities, with a further letter to my lawyers to make sure it happens. The cottage and everything else I own will pass to you, my dearest daughter. You must decide whether or not it should stay in the family. I admit it gives me some pleasure in these final troubled hours to think that one day, a long way in the future, Justine and Robert might enjoy it again, perhaps with children of their own. An old lady’s fancy, but perhaps I am allowed one or two at the end.
To make it possible for them to enjoy it you must not tell them anything of what I am about to do. I want to feel your promise connecting us when I am on the other side, so please make it, Camilla, in your heart, deeply and truly so that it reaches me. There is no need for them to know of their uncle’s shame, or my own for having failed him. I would like very much for you to close your own mind to this brief and unfortunate episode, so that all you allow yourself to remember are the many happy times we spent here in Culver, you as a teenager so leggy and willful, like Daddy in many ways, but perhaps a little like me too.
As I sit here at my bureau, with the lake shimmering in the sunlight, I feel I can see you waving from Daddy’s boat, dancing along the jetty, diving in for a swim. Do you remember how we loved to work on the garden together? You were always so knowledgeable about plants; I used to wonder where you got it from. I still have your first spade around here somewhere, the one with the red and blue handle that got broken one year when we replanted the Christmas tree. Daddy repaired it for you, but it was never strong enough to use again.
Funny the things that keep coming to mind, like the boy a few doors along—was his name Derek?—who used to swim past our jetty and pretend he was drowning so we’d have to go and rescue him. He so loved to visit with us, didn’t he? I remember my own mother coming here for the first time and telling us we were decadent to spend so much money on a summer house, but could she come every year? She did, until she died a few years later. You were too young to remember her, and I fear it’s going to be the same for Justine and Robert. It is unlikely they will remember me.