“Did you have to spend the rest of your life with him?”
“That was my choice,” she said. “For sixteen years I stood between you and him. Then you ran away and left me alone with him. I had nobody else left in my life excepting him. Do you understand what it’s like to have nobody at all, son?”
He tried to speak, to rise to the word, but the gorgon past held him frozen.
“All I ever wanted in my life,” she said, “was a husband and a family and a place I could call my own.”
Sheila made an impulsive movement toward her. “You have us.”
“Aw, no. You don’t want me in your life. We might as well be honest about it. The less you see of me, the better you’ll like it. Too much water flowed under the bridge. I don’t blame my son for hating me.”
“I don’t hate you,” John said. “I’m sorry for you, Mother. And I’m sorry for what I said.”
“You and who else is sorry?” she said roughly. “You and who else?”
He put his arm around her, awkwardly, trying to comfort her. But she was past comforting, perhaps beyond sorrow, too. Whatever she felt was masked by unfeeling layers of flesh. The stiff black silk she was wearing curved over her breast like armor.
“Don’t bother about me. Just take good care of your girl.”
Somewhere outside, a single bird raised its voice for a few notes, then fell into abashed silence. I went to the window. The river was white. The trees and buildings on its banks were resuming their colors and shapes. A light went on in one of the other houses. As if at this human signal, the bird raised its voice again.
Sheila said: “Listen.”
John turned his head to listen. Even the dead man seemed to be listening.
The End