Women Who Stay, 32

Chapter 1 ... Chapter 31

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"I was in the car with Mommy, driving somewhere, and she was angry. She kept calling someone on her car phone and yelling. Finally, we parked. I was scared, crying. I wanted a... I don't know, a snack, maybe? But she left me in the car. It felt like she was gone forever. When she came back, we started driving again. Like nothing happened. Finally, when we were back in Somerset, she took me to the diner. Let me get a milkshake. And then she told me:

"'Gordon, you need to be a very brave boy. Life isn't all about ice cream.'

I think I remember it so well because she said that -- life wasn't about ice cream, which, after her, was my favorite thing. And then she said something about how my father had done a very bad thing. People were searching his house, and bad things were going to happen because of it, but I'd never have to see him again."

"That sounds very specific, Gordon. Why did you say it's a fuzzy memory?"

"Because I remember seeing Antonio's face, through glass. At some point."

"And why is that odd?"

"Well, because we didn't see him that day. The day they searched the Farm. I --" he cut off, looking a little sheepish. "Well, I grew up thinking I'd seen his ghost. Because it wasn't long after that Mom brought me to his funeral. That, I remember better, because people were yelling at us out front. Reporters. And after that, the memories all got mixed up, so I felt certain he'd visited me to say goodbye."

"Did you ever talk with Janie about the whole situation, as an adult? You said she talked about Antonio a lot."

"Not so obliquely. He just came up a lot, like she'd look at a rug and say he bought it for her. Or she'd tell me that he loved calamari, that kind of thing."

He shared some stories, and I asked him some questions, but my mind was on the memory he had just shared. Was he really remembering the day Janie gave her interview to the police? Something was compelling about their diner conversation, untrustworthy as Gordon's memory was. In fact, I mused, there was a lot that seemed untrustworthy about Gordon's perception of Janie.

Almost no one had a kind word to say about the woman, even in death. Gordon's siblings despised her, and the attitudes of Janie's acquaintances wobbled between pity and distaste. I had yet to find a single person who considered her a friend. But Gordon's devotion was unquestionable, constant. Any leading question I asked -- "Was she ever cruel to you or your siblings?" or "Was she a cold mother?" -- was met with fanatical refusal. He never dodged the questions, rather insisted she was merely misunderstood. At most, he confessed he would agree that she was rigid in her ethical standards.

"But she just liked things to be orderly," he hedged. "It wasn't out of a meanness of spirit."

"Gordon," I reproached, "We've both seen her condo."

"Ok, then not things. But life. People. She liked people who said what they did and did what they said. And can you blame her for it? Look what happened with Antonio!"

Despite the singularity of his adoration, I couldn't help but accept it as honest. The Janie he described was the Janie he knew, just another facet of her. Even his siblings would agree, after a fashion: no one but Gordon could see Janie in this glowing light, because no one but him was raised to.

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Read on to Chapter 33