I sat by his side, and his breathing went real slow and deep. The nurse left to give us privacy in those last moments, and just after she left the room Charles looked up at me and said, Darlin’, he said this all so slow and I remember his every word, he said, Darlin’. Here I am. Just a man on my deathbed and now I must tell you that when I was a boy, such a long time ago, I was dared to hold a little black boy underwater in a creek down near the county line and I did it. Everyone said it was an accident, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t. I’ve thought about it every day of my life since then. He spoke so very slow. He said, I begged forgiveness from the Lord. I wasn’t a very bright child—they even thought there was something really wrong with me—and it took me many years before I could think for myself, so when they dared me, I just went along with it. I went along with lots of things. We all go along with so much—you understand, don’t you? And then he said, I repent, my Lord, and I thought those were his last words—my Lord. I thought he was for certain going to die now. And I was so frightened by his confession, but I was also frightened to see him die, and I cried and prayed, but he didn’t die, and all night he didn’t die and we made it to the morning and he was still alive, just barely alive. The very next night the nurse told me that actually now he was dying this time, she was sure of it. And she did the same thing, left me in the room with him, gave us some privacy, and after some quiet hours Charles leaned toward me and said, Paulina, dear, what I told you last night … and I thought he was going to tell me it was somehow a lie, some kind of death dream, a hallucination of some sort, because how else could a person ever do such a thing? He was not a violent man, not at all, and I felt so sure it couldn’t have been true. But then Charles said—
Mrs. Gladstone stopped again. She was not crying. I don’t know why I thought she would be.
He said to me, What I told you last night wasn’t all of it. I was part of a group that hung those four men—do you remember? We thought one of them had raped someone’s sister or someone’s girl—I don’t recall the details now—and we weren’t sure which one. We hung all four. They were guilty of something, even though we didn’t know what. We were angry, you have to understand. It wasn’t easy, but we did it, about twenty or thirty of us. We had to. Even the sheriff was there. And I did remember. It was four men from the other side of town, black men. There was a lot of disagreement between our side and their side. It was a painful time. A lot of folks moved away over it.
That second night, he didn’t say he repented or that he knew it was wrong … But again, he didn’t die. He somehow lived to the next night, and he confessed to other things he did or secrets he kept for other men, worse things and things that didn’t seem that bad, and I won’t ever know if any of it was true, and there’s a chance, maybe even a good chance, that all of it was some kind of brain problem that happens to people toward the end, you know. He watched a lot of movies, and he liked the violent ones—I don’t know why.
But I still can’t help but wonder if what he’d said had really happened, if he had been one sort of man when he was younger and another sort of man by the time I had met him. The man I knew, he was gentle and kind, kind to everyone, everyone, never had a sour word about anybody. Never even laid a hand on me. But if it was true—well, something of that first man must have remained in the man I knew, only I couldn’t see it. And since then I keep thinking about how you can’t be sure of who someone really is, or really was, before you knew them … or even after, sometimes. I just—
She turned to look straight at me, and only then could I see that one of her eyes was glass, still and empty and shining. A little gold cross hung around her neck.
You know … What Hilda told me about you on the phone don’t really line up with what I’m seeing here. She studied me for a moment, one eye intent on me and the other empty, peaceful. I suppose it don’t matter. It don’t matter to me, not me, not one bit. At least I know a little about what it’s like to stay silent. I don’t know much, but I know at least that one thing.
We sat quietly together for several minutes and listened to a grandfather clock ticking.
Charlie finally passed after about a week of almost getting there, then all the flowers in the house didn’t smell quite so good. The house cleaner asked me if she could throw out the wilted ones but I told her to just leave them be. Some time later I took them out to the backyard myself, let them rot in a pile.
WHEN THE KNOCK CAME, Mrs. Gladstone looked at me then back to the empty television. I went to the door, opened it. Someone was there.
I’m Roger, the person said, offering me an open hand. You must be … You must be who I’m here for. Mrs. Gladstone can get tired easily, so they told me to come get you—Steven and Hilda—they told me to come get you about now. I thought maybe we could take a walk before it gets too hot?
Roger wore a short-sleeved white shirt and a thin black tie. He had a dog with him, pale fur, a dense animal that muscled along, kept his leash taut. We walked along a street shaded with heavy oak trees and large houses set back on wide green yards. Sprinklers spun water across the grass.
You know, it’s odd for us to have a visitor. We don’t get many visitors. People don’t really pass through town so much. We don’t even have an interstate.
I was watching our feet on the sidewalk—our pace had matched exactly, as if we were each walking beside a mirror.
When I was about your age, I guess, I started going to Quaker services. I lived up north at the time, in a big city, and the noise bothered me, the people bothered me, and I wanted to go be quiet, to go be with quiet people. I don’t know if you know this, but the Quakers, in their services they don’t have a preacher or anything because they believe that everyone should just sit in a room together and not say anything at all unless they’re really moved to do so in that exact moment. So, I suppose this particular congregation was moved all the time—someone or another was constantly getting up to speak. Some days it felt like there was barely a minute of silence.
The dog with us began barking at another dog on a porch far behind a fence we passed. The other dog was yellow and lean, ill or asleep, his paws limp and hanging at the top of the porch’s stairs. The yard in front of this house was mostly dead grass and rocks and a tricycle pushed over on its side.
Roscoe! the man said. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s not usually like this.
Roscoe went on barking and growling, but the yellow dog hardly lifted its head. Eventually Roscoe gave up and resumed walking.
He’s not usually like this, Roger said again, shaking his head.
Anyway—the Quaker services. I remember sitting there one day and this young woman got up to speak and she was sitting at just the right angle to me that I could see that there were tears in her eyes and she looked sort of weak, like she was about to faint. And as she began to speak, I sensed the room was really listening to her, which was a little unusual—most people who spoke up did it too often, so no one ever really listened to anyone, but this woman—well, I felt I had never even seen her before, much less heard her speak. She seemed uncomfortable—and she took a while to start. I don’t think I had ever felt as moved by just the sight of a person as I was moved by the sight of her—though I was quite young, maybe your age, I’m not sure. It’s not that she was very beautiful or something—she was quite plain, if I remember correctly, but she had some kind of elegance—it’s hard to explain. It seemed she’d been hurt very badly and was surviving it in a way I was only beginning to be able to recognize. When she finally did begin to speak, she did so very slowly, almost as if she’d practiced—which would have defeated the whole purpose of a Quaker service, if you ask me, you know, practicing at home so you can get it perfect—but anyway, I’m not saying she had rehearsed it or something, but there was something so complete and final in what she said. It was just—well, she was actually—she really had something to say. It was only a few sentences, but I remember how when she was done and had sat down again, I tried to force myself to remember exactly what she’d said. I kept repeating it in my head, because it had seemed so useful and true—so I was trying to hold on to those words, and I was repeating and repeating them, but already they were falling apart … I was already forgetting it.