You Let Me In - Camilla Bruce Page 0,72

last thoughts were. Wondered if he ever realized who she was, that strange and beautiful girl who went out of her way to provoke him out there on the lawn. If he ever saw my face in her face, the family resemblance. And then, when he fell, and the world turned to pain—what did he think of then? Did he have time to think at all? Did he realize his life had come to an end, and did he understand why? Did he understand that his son had betrayed him?

We will never know the answers to those questions, of course, but I do like to think that he knew; that he understood, in those final few minutes of his life, that his time was up and the past came back for him—came for his heart with a spear full of words.

“Truth,” according to Mara.

“Lies,” according to some.

Outside the church, we all stood in a circle, watching the casket go down in the ground. Words were said, dirt was thrown. This hole would be filled to the brim. Just beside the open grave, there was a naked patch of dirt in the grass. That’s where Ferdinand’s ashes were. They would rest side by side, then, united in death. Neither of them would have been thrilled to know that.

When it was all over and time to go home, Mother lifted her veil. Her eyes looked straight at me, blue as the autumn sky. I made to turn and walk away, but she called after me: “Wait!”

I paused, watched as she battled herself free from well-meaning uncles and your mother, who tried to hold her back from me. She strode right toward me through the green grass, her blue gaze like cut glass.

“What did you do, Cassie?”

I smiled, not to be mean, but because I didn’t know what else to do.

“It is lovely to see you, Mother—”

“Oh, don’t you ‘Mother’ me. I know what you are—I know you’re insane, but not even I expected this…”

“Well, Mother, as you well know, it was Ferdinand and not I who—”

“Bullshit and you know it.” My mother was no longer watching her language. “You made him believe in it, didn’t you? Made him believe in that mad doctor’s lies?”

“I never made anyone do anything.” People were moving all around us, mourners walking to their cars. I am sure they stared as they passed us by, sure they walked close to hear what we were saying, but I didn’t pay attention to any of them. Her eyes like glass before me, it was impossible to look away.

“Of course you have,” said Mother. “I know my children well. You are persuasive and he was weak—but I also know it wasn’t your fault, Cassie. It was him all along, filling your head with those dreadful stories, molding everything to fit his dirty little mind.”

“Who? Father?”

“No! Dr. Martin! Writing it all in that awful book. And now he has killed my son.” Suddenly her face cracked open, splintered and fell apart like a china doll ruthlessly smashed to the floor. Her mascara ran in black rivulets, leaving fat trails on her white-powdered skin. “And now he has killed my husband,” she choked. “And ruined you, Cassie, he ruined you, too. That awful man, he ruined you, too…” Her hand clutched at the air, trying to reach me, and I stepped back; I didn’t want those coral nails on me; the wrinkled old fingers; the scent of gardenias …

I could see the uncles coming up behind her. Olivia stayed put, clutching her purse, looking at us with wide doe eyes. When the first uncle arrived and gently took Mother by the shoulders, I used the opportunity to take another step back, away from her and the confusing affection I suddenly saw in her eyes.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she breathed, as they pulled her with them, away from me.

As reconciliations go, I guess it could have been worse, but it was not what I expected.

Not at all.

* * *

Do you remember any of this? That scene at the end of the funeral? What did Mother do after you left the grave? Did she cry, or freshen up in the car to see the day through, head held high?

Did she speak of me again—ever?

I walked by the old house a few years later and saw that there was another family living there. There were swings in the garden, a cat on the porch. Ferdinand’s house too had new inhabitants, someone with a strong stomach,