Fatherless: A Novel (34 page)

Julia scruntched
up her face at the almost-but-not-quite-final paragraph. Jeremy Santos deserved better. Her mind ran through one last scan
of the interviews recorded and journals read since the day she’d sat across the table his mother and brother had once shared.
She found and typed what was missing.

Julia felt her own approving nod grant permission to move to the kitchen. She noticed her nephew slouching on the living room
sofa, staring at the television screen in his usual after-school-before-Mom-gets-home routine.

“Hi, Jared. Care to join me in a celebratory glass of”—she paused to eye the options on the refrigerator shelf—“grapefruit
juice?”

“What are we celebrating?” he asked, approaching the kitchen counter.

“We’re celebrating my success. I just finished a very important story ahead of schedule.”

He flashed a puzzled glance.

“But I thought you were unemployed.”

Julia winced. “I’m not unemployed. I’m an independent journalist.”

“Right.”

“RAP isn’t the only media company in the world. People always need freelance writers.”

“What’s it about?”

She took a drink while considering the shortest answer. “A wrongful death lawsuit.”

Jared stared vacantly.

“That’s when someone claims one person did something wrong to cause another person’s death.”

“What other kind is there?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you caused a person’s death you must have done something wrong. Right?”

Julia smiled at the profoundly naïve statement.

“It’s not quite that simple.”
Or is it
?

Jared shrugged while taking a sip of juice.

“When will it run?” he asked politely.

“I need to find an editor willing to buy the story first.” She tilted her glass toward his. “But that’s tomorrow’s challenge.
Today, we celebrate my completion.”

“Congratulations, Aunt Julia,” Jared offered, the ding of touching glasses making the party official.

He stood a moment gazing awkwardly at Julia.

“Go back to your television show.” She released him with a slim laugh. “Thanks for sharing my big moment.”

She sat at the table to check messages, hoping to have heard back from at least one of the editors she had contacted. Everyone
said freelance work could be feast or famine. Nearly a week since walking out of Paul Daugherty’s office, she was still hungry
for her first meal.

She opened the only message on her digital screen.

Moments later, Julia found herself searching airline ticket prices while trying to construct a plausible reason she was needed
in Washington, DC.

June 2, 2042

“You look lovely today.” Chuck mirrored Janet’s smile at his thoughtful reassurance.

She had been looking forward to seeing Charles Kohl again. She only regretted wearing such an unflattering dress.

“I told you, Mom,” Matthew said before turning back toward Mr. Kohl, who was taking a seat across from his timid guest. “We
spent much of the morning trying to find her favorite necklace.”

“Hush, Matthew,” she ordered with a blush.

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Chuck said. “It’s delightful to see an attractive woman looking her best.”

She beamed in grateful embarrassment.

Matthew kissed his mother’s cheek to formalize the handoff. “Enjoy your conversation,” he said supportively.

“I’m sure we will,” Chuck said, gently patting Matthew’s arm to alert the third wheel he needed to disappear.

“Bye, Son,” Janet said carelessly.

“Goodbye, Mom,” he replied after a heavy pause.

Janet’s fingers fidgeted tensely with her necklace as she raised her eyes to the attentive gentleman’s face.

“So, tell me how you’re feeling about all of this,” he asked.

Her lips pursed and eyebrows rose slightly as her head tilted to the side, a shy girl unsure of how to respond.

“Are you nervous?”

She nodded.

“I understand. It’s normal to feel uneasy.”

He looked away from Janet momentarily to glance at the clock.

“We have plenty of time together,” he assured her. “Why don’t we talk about you?”

She appeared momentarily confused, a vacant expression overtaking her forced smile. Then a change, as if willing herself to
hold the present, pleasant moment.

“What would you like to know about me?” she asked.

“Anything you’d like to tell me.”

Releasing the edge of her necklace, Janet lowered her hand to retrieve an object Matthew had placed on the table. The feel
in her palm seemed to gird a lapsing composure.

“Do you have grandchildren, Mr. Kohl?” she asked.

“Please, Janet, call me Chuck,” he insisted. “One grandson. He’s about to graduate from high school. But I thought we were
talking about you.”

“I wanted grandchildren,” she continued.

“Is that so?” Chuck asked without surprise.

“I had these pictures in my mind. You know, like pots and pans strewn all over my kitchen floor while my grandchild bangs
a rackety concert using my favorite stirring spoon.”

Chuck smiled like a man recalling his own grandchild’s performance.

“I saw my granddaughter playing peewee soccer, me cheering on the sidelines when she made her first goal.”

“Granddaughter?”

“I imagined her as a girl,” she mused. “Of course, I would have been just as excited about a grandson’s first goal!”

The realization forced Janet to smile.

“I had so many pictures. First communion. A middle school choir performance. Father Tomberlin giving a confirmation blessing.”
She paused. “So many pictures.”

The door opened. Both Janet and Chuck looked toward a young man flashing an apologetic grin.

“I’m sorry for the intrusion,” he whispered while tiptoeing toward Janet’s chair. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just be a second.”

“No worries,” Chuck reassured him. “Go on, Janet.”

She looked back toward her courteous host. “I know it’s a silly thing to talk about here, with you. But it came to mind.”

“Not at all,” he said. “There’s nothing silly about telling a friend about your hopes and dreams. Who knows, what we’re doing
today could make the possibility of grandkids more than faint pictures in your imagination.”

“I hope so,” she said flatly. “Did you know my son plans to become a professor?”

“He’ll make a fine teacher.”

“Yes, he will.” She nodded. “Maybe after he finishes his education he’ll find the right girl and…”

She couldn’t finish the statement, because it either caused her pain or slipped her mind.

“Janet?” Chuck prodded. “Are you feeling OK? Are you comfortable?”

She looked toward the young man attending to the medical equipment beside her, then back to Chuck. She squeezed the object
in her palm tightly before responding.

“I’m fine. Thank you. What was I saying?”

“You were telling me about your son. How he’s going to become a professor.”

“Oh yes.”

They were her last coherent words. She gazed at Chuck for several minutes, her eyes seeming less and less able to focus until
they disappeared beneath the falling curtains of eyelids eager to close.

On cue, the young transition specialist received the weight of her slumping form. He gently cradled her head to rest it on
the back of her chair, then pressed a button that began its gradual recline into the horizontal position required for the
organ donation procedure.

Janet’s knees sprawled indecently in reaction to a final twitch of her reluctantly ebbing life. The young man bundled her
legs to restore ladylike grace and shifted them sideways to place her cadaver in the prescribed position.

“She’s gone,” Chuck said while looking through the two-way mirror toward Matthew’s tear-filled eyes.

Matthew heard the door open beside him as the protective blackness dissipated into unwelcome light. A middle-aged woman invited
him to slip back into the transition room to say any final farewells before they begin what she called “the next stage” of
the process. In a matter of minutes they would begin extracting useful parts from his mother’s still-warm body.

He approached the spot where Janet Adams had entrusted her dreams to a near-stranger, to a man Matthew had convinced to provide
the required secondary confirmation. His duties completed, Charles Kohl moved hastily toward the door, apparently eager to
make a next appointment. He placed his hand momentarily on Matthew’s shoulder. It was hard to tell whether he intended condolences
over Matthew’s loss or congratulations on his accomplishment.

“The receptionist will have your copies of the necessary documents,” Chuck explained before slipping out of the room.

Matthew moved closer to his mother’s lifeless figure to apprehend a moment he had imagined for months. He would touch her
hand, the first his infant fingers had ever held. He would caress her cheek, the first his newborn lips had ever felt. Most
of all, he would receive her silent thanks for freeing her trapped soul from a decaying prison. She had been resistant, even
scared. But he had given her the resolve she needed to discard material form for a superior, purely spiritual existence.

He halted his approach two feet from the table. His limbs froze in what felt like fear.

You’ve damned her immortal soul!

“No. I set her free,” he whispered back.

“Excuse me?” the transition specialist asked, turning away from his preparations.

“Nothing,” Matthew replied. “I’m sorry. Carry on.”

The young man returned to his duties, easing the corpse’s wrinkled arm onto the bed that would soon become a butchering table.
He noticed a sound that drew both sets of eyes downward, then knelt to retrieve an object that had apparently escaped the
body’s clenched fist.

“Would you like to keep this?” he asked. “Or should I put it with the rest of her things?”

Matthew reached toward the man’s extended hand to accept an item he had so often placed in his mother’s palm.

“Her rosary beads,” Matthew explained. “They always brought her comfort when I had to leave her.”

The man returned to his work without another word.

Rubbing the row of beads in his fingers, Matthew felt the form of a tiny attached cross. It was a symbol that had reminded
his mother of another death, one she believed had taken place to pay for humanity’s sin. His sin.

His body stiffened.

“Here you go,” he said, handing the rosary back to the transition specialist. “Put it with the rest of her things. I don’t
want it.”

The man accepted the object with a shrug as Matthew felt a surge of anger overtake his rising grief.

He left the room without touching his mother’s hand or caressing her cheek.

He left slighted at the ingratitude she had shown.

Thirty minutes later Matthew approached his front door, his mind vacillating between thoughts of the life suddenly possible
and thoughts of the death that had made it so.

While tapping his security code into the lock pad Matthew noticed a piece of paper wedged between the handle and the doorjamb.
He unfolded it, recognizing the scribbled writing style from dozens of previous notes.

Matthew folded the note and shoved it into his pocket.

Then he sat down on the porch, placed his head in his hands, and wept like an orphan.