He arrived at the beach house at sunset and told the cab driver to wait. The professor walked up the drive to the front door and found it locked as he thought he would. He went to the back of the house to try the window off the patio. That lock never worked right, he knew, and if he pushed the window down first and then pulled out and up . . .
The window slid open. He crawled inside.
Marlowe turned on the light in the bedroom. All the familiar furniture was still there, his pillow and bedsheets still in disarray on the bed just the way they were when he and Dorning had moved out in a hurry. Without the jumble of books and papers everywhere, the room looked bigger than he remembered it; the professor noticed Dorning had even taken the Nobel Prize medal out of its case on the wall, leaving the glass door open.
He closed the small door and moved on.
In the kitchen, the dirty dishes from his last meal in the house were still in the sink, as was the red stain on the kitchen tablecloth from Natalie’s spilled glass of sherry.
He turned on the hallway light and looked into Natalie’s room, not surprised to see she had secretly returned to retrieved all her belongings. The room seemed odd without her dozens of family pictures on the walls or her vases filled with bright silk flowers.
The guest bedroom where Dorning stayed briefly held less interest. He moved past it back to his old bedroom, walking through it again to the patio to look out at the setting sun. Wispy, bright orange-red clouds dipped down to the horizon, and in the east, the sky was already a spreading inky blue. He had spent years on that patio, first by choice as a young man and later because he had nowhere else to be.
Marlowe went down to the beach and walked along the shore up to the water’s edge. He gazed far out to where the water and sky met, hoping to see a ship or maybe even a shimmering mirage as he had seen so many times before. There was nothing.
As the sky drew darker and the shadows longer, Marlowe pulled the swimming medal out of his pocket. He looked at it carefully, turning it over and over. Then he reared back and flung it with all his might at the ocean, watched it sail towards a cresting wave. The medal hit the top of the wave, skipped once and was swallowed up behind it. He stood there briefly, then slowly walked back to the waiting cab.
He got in as if nothing had happened. “I want to go into the city now.
I’ll give you the address.”
The cab pulled out of the long driveway, and the beach house disappeared from view.
As the cab hummed along on the highway, the sky now black, he took the one envelope he hadn’t mailed at the post office and made sure it contained all he intended. He closed the flap and forced the envelope back into his shirt pocket. The stiff edge wasn’t far under his chin.
The cab driver looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Funny way to carry a letter. You could get hurt that way.”
“It’s a gift for . . . a friend,” he explained. “I don’t want to forget it.”
The professor looked out the window up at the moon, then peered beyond it to the distant stars. He thought of the manuscript he had mailed that afternoon.
I know a few more of your stubborn secrets now, he thought with considerable satisfaction. And soon everyone will. We did it, Miguel, we did it. We were very, very smart, just like you wanted to be.
In the city, the cab pulled up to the rehab center. Marlowe paid the driver.
“You don’t want me to wait?”
The professor sadly shook his head. “No. With any luck, this is the end of the line.”
He watched the cab pull away, then went into the well-worn building.
A nun he hadn’t seen before scowled at him from the front desk. “I’m sorry, young man but visiting hours just ended. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
Then the nun the professor recognized came down the steps and motioned him forward. “It’s all right, Sister. His mother’s still awake.” She guided him up the steps. “My, my. Two visits in one day, right when we opened and just as we close. Aren’t you the dutiful son now instead of disappearing for weeks on end?”
He went alone into the room and saw Miguel’s mother sitting up in bed, watching another TV show in Spanish.
The volume was turned so far down, with the soft click of the door latch behind him she turned her head and raised her hands in surprise. “Miguel! You should be asleep somewhere where it’s safe, not walking these streets at night. Shame on you. Come here.” Marlowe obeyed, moving stiffly.
She hugged and kissed him. He barely responded.
The woman held him at arm’s length and looked him over, worry now etched on her face. “Is something wrong? You don’t feel like you did this morning. Are you getting sick?” She put a hand to his forehead.
“No, Mother.”
She laughed faintly. “Why do you call me Mother when you’ve always called me Mama? I hope you don’t think you’re all grown up now because you’re not. Don’t try to grow up too fast, Miguel. That’s no good. You’ll grow up soon enough, much too soon.” She brushed back his hair with her fingers, finally noticed the envelope in his shirt pocket and nodded towards it. “What’s that you have?”
“Ask me about that later, Mama. It’s a surprise for you and Miguel.”
She laughed again. “You are Miguel, silly boy. Listen to you.”
He licked his lips, his shoulders hunched, all his hopes pinned on what he was about to ask. “Mama, you were about to show me something the other day before my fath—before Papa came in and grabbed my ear. What was that? It looked a little bit familiar.”
Her face brightened. “Oh yes, you remembered that, didn’t you? Here it is.” She reached over to the tray on the side of her bed and rummaged through her meager belongings. She pulled out the thin wooden box and handed it to him.
He saw it was some kind of latched picture frame and had a vague memory of it that made his jaw go slack.
“I know this somehow,” he said softly as he examined it. “Tell me about it, Mama.”
“Open it up,” she said. “You know how.”
Much to his surprise he did. And when it opened, he saw two pictures inside—one of Miguel as a baby, the other a family photo with a slightly older Miguel, his mother, and clean-shaven father all smiling.
There was a small, folded key on the back behind Miguel’s baby picture. He lifted it upright and wound it. Music began to play, a child’s lullaby.
“Remember now, Miguel? You used to carry it with you everywhere you went when we first gave it to you. We laughed how you even slept with it. You played that song over and over and over again, but then one day I guess you felt you were too old for such a thing and you put it aside. I’m glad I kept it for you. I knew someday you might like to have it back.” She patted his cheek. “It meant so much to you.”
The song started over and she sang the words. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word . . .”
He stared deliberately at the pictures and listened to the song. The lightheaded feeling returned.
He raised a trembling hand to his forehead. “Yes, Mama, yes. That’s it. That’s it exactly. Sing. Sing!”
She sang, and he joined in, still focused on the pictures until his eyelids began to flutter, and he started to garble the words.
He lowered his head to the woman’s shoulder. She cradled him and rocked him, still singing softly by herself.
“Goodbye, Miguel.” He could barely mouth the words. “Thanks for everything.”
And Percival was gone.
Miguel straightened up with a start and looked around the room in a daze. “Mama!” he said when he finally saw her. “It’s you.”
She finished the song and smiled. The music stopped.
“Now, what’s the surprise you have for us?” she stared at the envelope.
“Surprise?” He looked down; the edge of the envelope hit him in the nose. “I don’t know.” He yanked the envelope out of his pocket, opened it and pulled out five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and a folded letter.
His mother’s hands flew to her cheeks, and she squealed with delight. “Miguel! Where did you get all that money?”
He gave the bills to her. “I’m not sure.” He unfolded the letter, read it to himself then stuffed the letter back in the envelope. “It’s all right, Mama. A nice man wanted us to have that money to help us be a family again. Everything’s going to be okay from now on. I’m not going away ever again. Never again.” He picked up the picture frame, held it close.
“Now that sounds more like my Miguel,” she said, and held her arms out wide.
She cradled him again and he sighed along with her, glad to be with her once more.