As he closed the front door, Hector said, “Jimmy can never be close to anyone, Jojo, not in the way we both wish he could be. You thought of him as a brother, but he didn’t think of you as a sister, if he thought of you much at all. Some days I wonder if even I am a stranger to him. He feeds himself, bathes himself when I take him to the tub, dresses himself if the clothes are simple to put on, with no buttons. He exists in this world, but he doesn’t live in it. He lives deep within himself, in another world of his own.”
“You have no one to help you?” Wyatt asked.
Hector smiled. “I have a small pension and social security. Help is expensive. My help, sir, is the memory of his mother, which is enough. We shared in Jimmy’s care when she was with us, and my promise to her was to outlive the boy, so he will never be alone.”
Joanna thought she saw sudden tears standing in Wyatt’s eyes when he said, “He’s lucky to have you.”
Hector’s smile flatlined, and he lowered his gaze to the floor as he said, “Perhaps we were his curse. In our foolish youth, my wife and I spent our evenings listening to music, drinking much too much tequila chased with too many beers, even when she was carrying the boy. We weren’t ignorant. We understood the risks to a pregnant woman, but we thought we were invincible. And we too much loved our bad habit. Maybe Jimmy would have been what he is even if we hadn’t done what we did, but we can never know.” He looked up from the floor. “My selfish hope is that, by taking care of him, we will be . . . redeemed.”
The men locked stares in silence for a moment, and Joanna sensed that each of them intuited some shared understanding that instantly relieved them of being strangers, one to the other.
Hector said, “Jimmy is maybe napping. Give me a moment with him.” He retreated into a short hall, opened a door on the right, and disappeared into the boy’s room.
The combination kitchen and living area occupied no more than four hundred square feet. The walls were painted pale blue and the shiplap ceiling glossy white, to make the space seem bigger. The hall perhaps served two cramped bedrooms and a bath. Humble as the house might be, it nevertheless felt as significant as any other place. It seemed to Joanna that the lives lived here were not as small as the rooms, were much larger than they seemed to be, were in fact momentous lives if the whole truth and purpose of them could be fully understood.
Wyatt said, “You’re really sure Jimmy talked to you?”
“He spoke in the dream, and when I woke, I knew I’d heard that same voice when we were children. He spoke to me often in those days, but never when anyone else was around.”
“Your secret friend.”
“Yes. Weird as it sounds.”
“And he controlled all the animals, the deer and birds, even a grizzly bear.”
“I don’t know. I think so. He must have. The dreams I’ve had were in part memories. And just today . . . the elk.”
“Somehow he sent the elk to welcome you back?”
Hector reappeared in the hallway. “Come now. Jimmy’s awake.”
Joanna surprised herself by taking Wyatt’s hand and squeezing it tightly. “Don’t let the way he looks scare you. He wouldn’t harm anyone. He wouldn’t ever. He couldn’t.”
At the entrance to the hallway, she let go of his hand. She blotted her palms on her jeans.
Hector smiled and nodded and indicated the open door.
Joanna hesitated on the threshold.
The bed was neatly made, with plumped pillows and a chenille spread.
The blind was drawn shut over the only window. A pottery lamp with a pleated shade featured two three-way bulbs set at the lowest intensity, and shadows stood sentinel around the perimeter of the room.
She remembered that on some days—not frequently, but now and then—Jimmy was especially sensitive to light, which gave him a headache. Maybe this was one such day.
She went into the room.
44
In the darkness, the steady scratching of the blade reminded Colson Fielding of stories in which characters were buried alive and had to claw their way out of a coffin, all the while going apeshit crazy from claustrophobia. With an effort, he put such images out of his mind. He needed to stay positive. The scratching was the sound of freedom, of vengeance. For the moment, he was beyond grief, deep into anger, focused on escape and survival.
He and Ophelia agreed that it was a waste of time to try to reach the gap where the sacristy roof met the back wall of the church. The only way to get up there was to drag pews in from the nave and somehow stack them and climb them, which required the strength of the Incredible Hulk and was asking for a broken neck. Even if he could get up there, the roof might not be rotten enough for him to enlarge the hole. They suspected this Optime creep had not patched the roof specifically because he wanted them to be tantalized by the hole, to exhaust themselves yearning for it and struggling to get to it. He wasn’t just a homicidal lunatic, but also a sadist who hoped to see them suffer mentally and emotionally before they were stricken by the physical pain of thirst and hunger.