The Last September: A Novel

“What I need right now,” I said, tears finally threatening at the thought of my mother, buried, “is Charlie.”


Daniel let go of my hands and stood. “Of course,” he said. “We’ll find him for you.” As if he had a security team at his disposal, waiting for just such a task. Which for all I knew, he did.

As we walked down the hall from his office, back to the living room, Ladd came in through the front door. He looked happy. A pretty girl edged in beside him, with wonderful copper curls and a sweet, open face.

“Brett,” Ladd said. “What are you doing here?” And then, “What’s wrong?”

“My mother died.” This time I sounded more like myself, definite, and with the pronouncement the tears erupted. Ladd stepped forward and hugged me. I wept into his chest.

“She really loved you,” I told him.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his hand rubbing my back in broad, concentric circles, while Daniel and the girl stood back, politely, forgiving the intimacy of this, a moment of grief. When he let go of me, I felt calm enough to gain the smallest presence of mind. Drumcliffe was several hours from Cork but so much closer than Randall, Vermont. My mother was far too pragmatic to think such a thing could ever have happened for a reason. But she couldn’t always have been, because look who she’d chosen to study.

“Don’t bring her body back here,” I said to Daniel, partially over my shoulder. Ladd still had one hand at my hip, his girlfriend the most patient woman in the world. “Yeats,” I said. “He’s buried in Drumcliffe cemetery. That’s where she’d want to be.”

Daniel nodded. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

IF THE NUTS AND bolts of an emergency were Daniel Williams’s specialty, Charlie excelled at navigating the emotional fallout. He drove me up to Randall for the university’s memorial service and even wore a coat and tie. I watched him shake hands, that smile of his, held back slightly because of the somber circumstances, but still warm enough to comfort. Everyone who shook Charlie’s hand remembered that life hadn’t ended yet, not for the rest of us. I can’t explain how he managed this. For the past year in Amherst, he’d been volunteering for a suicide hotline and had so much success they suggested he train as a 911 operator. But he didn’t want to turn this gift into a stressful career; he only wanted to offer it for free. Charlie knew how to talk people off ledges. He also knew how to nurture a person suffering through grief. With tea and toast in the early stages. Meals and drinks of increasing richness. He always knew what to feed me.

It was Daniel who advised me not to let my mother’s tenants renew their lease and to put her house on the market as soon as they moved. The timing was good, at the height of the housing market even in sleepy Randall, Vermont, and my mother had very nearly paid off her mortgage. The rest of her estate was modest — she had cashed in her life insurance policy to pay her share of my wedding—but thanks to the sale of the house, I had a healthy chunk of money for the first time in my life. It seemed like a cruel substitute. I would much rather have had the house waiting for me, the scent of vinegar Mom always cleaned with, her books cramming the built-in shelves. And most of all her, sitting at the kitchen, ready to brew a pot of coffee whenever I showed up. I wanted her, and the house. Not the money. Maybe that explains why I was so willing to throw it all away.