Holly nodded and continued her story. “Look, I had a baby growing inside of me, I was so sure it was a girl, and I dreamed of seeing her, holding her, dressing her the way I used to with my baby dolls when I was little.
“Just as my belly was getting big enough to make it seem real, my anxieties took over. Something wrong with the baby. I dreamt it was a fish thrashing around inside, pulled by the tides. So many premonitions and omens. Just hormones and unbridled intuition. But who could I tell those to? Not Tim, surely, because he was just elated, and this baby was the missing piece that would make us happy.”
To calm her nerves, Holly took a sip of coffee. “There was Nell, but she had her own pregnancy to think about, so our problems simmered just below the surface. I just spent the last weeks afraid that the baby would not be what I thought it should be. When Jack was born, he was such a beautiful boy, it went out of mind. Until, of course, I saw the infants together over time. Nell’s son, Nicholas, was so different. Where Jack was quiet, almost eerily calm, Nicholas was fussy but animated and curious. And even though they say it’s best not to compare, what mother can resist to some degree? Especially when it begins to sink in that there’s something missing, something odd about your child.”
She stopped herself. Her eyes began to water, and she knew she would cry if she went on talking, and she did not want to cry, told herself that she should not. The room went quiet except for the murmur of snow falling against the windows. Father Bolden leaned back in his chair, looking older than his years. “God often gives us burdens as a reminder of the call to sacrifice.”
“Please,” Holly said. “I would trade that sacrifice to have a normal life for my son. There’s no sanctity in the suffering of a child.”
“I only meant—”
Miss Tiramaku interrupted him. “He did not mean to diminish what you’ve been through.”
“My apologies,” she said. “It’s just that people sometimes want to ennoble his condition and struggles, and I would give anything, trade anything, do anything for him to be … ordinary.”
“I meant no harm,” the priest said.
“Tell us how he developed his phobia of the outdoors,” Miss Tiramaku said. “What happened that day on the beach?”
“When he was seven, Jack nearly drowned. It was the end of summer, a last day on the beach. Jack and Nick were sitting in the wet sand, just on the edge. The incoming waves were lapping along the shore and wetting their legs and swimming trunks. What could go wrong? It was a bright blue August, a few clouds in the sky. I was reading a novel, an old favorite du Maurier, and looked up from the book and saw that they weren’t there anymore. And then I saw Tim racing, kicking up sand, and behind him Nell. Fred was just standing there, dazed in the sunshine, and I knew at once that the boys were under the water. We weren’t keeping watch like we should, and I thought the boys were gone. I was paralyzed and couldn’t move to save them.”
“You were afraid,” Father Bolden said.
“No. I wanted to help, that was my first reaction, my instinct, but almost immediately I was, I don’t know, relieved that they were gone. Like an act of God was taking them. It was a horrible sensation. It lasted just an instant, but I blame myself for having wished him away.”
She stopped suddenly and caught her breath. “I’ve never confessed before, but I’m sorry, so sorry. I raced across the beach, guilty, guilty, and they had reached them and were pulling them up from the bottom. Jack was alive, sputtering and coughing, but we couldn’t find Nick until my husband pulled him from the sea. We all thought Nick was dead, pale and blue and had swallowed the ocean. Jack stared at him, intently, blankly, like he sometimes does, lost in his mind. And then when Tim pressed on Nick’s chest, out shot a stream of water. He gasped and came back to us. But they were never the same.”
For a second time, she stopped herself on the verge of tears, and she pushed away from the table, turning from the gaze of the priest and the housekeeper. Through the window, she could see the snow shaken from the sky in steady waves. “Look at it coming down. I should have taken the Jeep. I should go before I get stuck.”
“I could run you home,” the priest said.
“Oh, no, Father. My husband can pick me up, if you don’t mind me leaving my car in your parking lot. He can bring me back to retrieve it when the roads are clear.” She began rummaging in her purse for her phone.
“Of course not,” he said. “But it would be no bother.”
“No, no. Just point me to the phone. I seem to have lost my cell again.”
On the tenth ring, someone answered the call, and she knew at once that it must be Jack by the resounding silence on the other end. She kept explaining where she was, and he kept dropping the phone to the floor. Each time, she turned to her companions with a look of bemused exasperation. She couldn’t imagine why Tim had left him all alone in the house.