Jodi Compton - Sympathy Between Humans

Then Jacob looked around and saw Lis. She looked a bit like her sister, Gitte, more beautiful of course, but he saw the resemblance. He went over to her and said, “Why are you crying?” and got up in the chair with her, and she let him. Then Marli saw that her mother wasn’t afraid of the new Aidan, so she went over and climbed up with them. There they all were, all three of them. Looking at them, I thought, Things are going to be okay. I would have liked to have been part of their embrace, but that rocking chair was filled to capacity. I stood apart from them and thought, You’re the odd man out now, Hugh. I can live with that. I probably deserve it. As long as Lis is happy.

But of course, things didn’t work out that way. Marli and the kid became fast friends, and in six months I’d swear they didn’t remember that Jacob Candeleur ever existed. But I couldn’t forget, of course. I drank too much and got an ulcer and waited for something to go wrong. Lis loved that boy like he was her own, but she also took to spending time at Aidan’s grave, and I realized what a lousy idea it was to bury him where she’d always be reminded of how he died. I wanted to move, but I was too afraid. What if the new owners tore up the new carpeting in the study and found the huge bloodstain in the floorboards? What if they dug under the magnolia tree and found Aidan’s bones? What about the goddamned BMW? We were stuck here, with reminders of it at every turn.

But we couldn’t grieve openly for Aidan, and I think that’s what killed Lis in the end. Then she was gone, and I came home from the funeral and realized that my wife, who I’d loved more than anyone, was gone, and instead I had her sister’s illegitimate kid in my house. He was crying under that goddamn magnolia, right on Aidan’s grave, and I went out and hit him for the first time. It wasn’t the last time, but who cared anymore? I was the monster, I’d known that years ago.

I started fantasizing that I could erase his memory of being Aidan Hennessy as easily as I’d once erased his memory of being Jacob Candeleur. It took me way too long to realize that I could do the next best thing: send him back to Brigitte. When I called to suggest that, she was all for it. And I liked having him gone so much that when Brigitte died, I found an old friend who’d take him.

Marlinchen didn’t understand, and I hated to hurt her. Once, I nearly told her the whole story. I took her down to Aidan’s gravesite, but when I was there I lost my nerve, and I only told her about missing her mother and how we’d once pledged our undying love there.

I wanted to tell her. She’s so much like her mother, and for so long I’ve wanted to tell somebody about this and have them say, “I understand.” That’s all. “I understand.”

Now I know that’ll never happen. I’ve paid and paid and paid for my mistake, and I don’t know that it’ll ever end. I succeeded in erasing Marlinchen’s memory and I succeeded in erasing Jacob’s. I can’t erase the one memory I most want to: mine.

The first headlinesabout Hugh Hennessy were restrained and respectful: NOTED WRITER PERISHES IN HOUSE FIRE. The media was respectful in their coverage of the funeral, where in the front row of the cathedral, Hugh’s four children all wept, their arms around each other, even Colm unashamed of his tears.

But after the burial, questions began to swirl, about why Hugh’s stroke wasn’t reported, about the identity of the young man who’d died earlier the same day and who’d been identified as Aidan Hennessy on his death certificate. Reporters began to probe, and in time the whole story came out. The media was banned from the Hennessy property on the day that Hennepin County technicians dug under the magnolia tree, but reporters congregated at the end of the long peninsula driveway, and their lenses captured the images as the techs brought up the bones of a very small child with ten fingers and a shattered sternum.

The Hennessy children refused all comment, with Campion acting as a family spokesman, however terse. I called Marlinchen several times in those stressful first weeks. She assured me everything was under control, and I believed her, mostly because although she sounded sober and occasionally tired, her voice lacked that sharp, tense note that I remembered from the worst of times. The continued presence of J. D. Campion might have something to do with that, I thought. He apparently had no plans to leave the Cities, and I was glad. He wasn’t the guardian that Family Services would have chosen for the Hennessys, but he was perhaps uniquely suited to this brainy, idiosyncratic little family.

In August, my work took me to the University of Minnesota campus to conduct a short interview. It was a hot day, humid but not unpleasant, and considering that it was only summer session, there were quite a few young people out on the great quadrangle overlooked by Northrop Auditorium. I was crossing along a path ground down in the grass when a male voice called after me. “Detective Pribek!”

It took me a moment to recognize the student who had called my name. Of course, Liam Hennessy hadn’t changed that much in the eight or so weeks since I’d last seen him, but somehow he looked older, much like a college student- ironically, largely because he was dressed so casually, in a pale-red T-shirt and cargo shorts and sandals. His hair, never short, had continued to grow out, and exposure to the sun was bringing out its lighter tones at the tips. At Liam’s neck hung a familiar leather cord strung with three tigereyes. Only the wire-rim glasses were exactly the same.

“Hey,” I said, quite pleased to see him. “Did you skip your senior year of high school?” I moved closer, into the shade of an overhanging tree.

“No,” Liam said, quickly shaking his head. “I’m just here for a seminar on the Greek and Roman tragedies.”

“A little light reading,” I said.

“Yeah.”

We were silent a moment. Then I said, “I like the necklace. It suits you, like it did him.” It was oddly true, despite how different Liam Hennessy and his cousin had seemed on the surface.

“Thanks,” Liam said. He paused. “We debated whether it was right to bury him and Aidan next to Dad, but we thought they should be with Mother,” he told me. “Jacob really loved her.”

“I know,” I said. “How is Donal?”

A shadow crossed Liam’s narrow face. “He’s getting help,” he said. “The fire was an accident. Donal knows that, but it’s going to take time for him to come to grips with what happened.”

“I wish more than anything it could have worked out another way,” I said.

It was an inadequate way of phrasing it. The deaths of earlier this year were terrible, but the pain that Jacob and Hugh had felt had quickly been over. It’s the living who hurt, and dealing with the open-ended question What if I’d done things differently? hurts most of all.

“J. D.’s still in town; you knew that, right?” Liam changed the subject. “He’s helping us sell the property. The house is going to be razed, but the land’s still going to bring a decent sum. And we’re selling the cabin in Tait Lake, too.”

“So you shouldn’t have financial worries for a while,” I said.

“No,” Liam said. “J. D. and I are trying to convince Marlinchen to apply to colleges. She’s been saying she has too many responsibilities right now, but we’re telling her she can go someplace local, and we’ll all still be together. I think we’ll wear her down.”

“I hope so,” I said.

“Hey, Liam.” The girl who interrupted us was about Marlinchen’s age, with long blond hair and long legs exposed by a pair of cutoff shorts. She was standing closer to Liam than to me, and her expression indicated that she was politely hoping that our conversation was wrapping itself up. I took the hint.