The Stones of Serin - Chapter 3

Stepping into the small windowless room has the eerie feeling of walking into a secret. The walls on either side are lined with grand bookcases—the one on the right is filled with printed books and the one on the left with photographs and various mementos. Katie gazes at the books and begins pulling some from the shelf in a strangely uninterested and yet determined manner.

Then she sits at Jack’s desk and combs through its contents and then thumbs through file drawers and fiddles with the art on the wall. Her mission to find a place to be seems to have transformed into a quest to find something.

Katie then turns her attention to the large reprint of van Gogh’s Undergrowth with Two Figures hanging on the back wall. Two exquisite wingback chairs upholstered in rich gilded velveteen and silk striped fabric sit under it accompanied by a matching ottoman and a highly polished cherrywood end table. Having exhausted her options to find something of interest, she sits in one of the chairs and sips her water as she fumbles with a scrapbook.

She then notices the collage of framed photographs on the facing wall—the pictures that Jack and Clare took each year on their anniversary. Her eyes are drawn to the empty frame in the upper right corner—a white heart with “22” engraved in silver on the lower right edge. They had already placed it in anticipation of their upcoming 22nd anniversary.

Katie slumps back into the chair and cries until she is overtaken by an odd sleepiness. She has never felt this dormant before—and certainly not this early in the day.

After a while, Katie stirs, pulls the blanket around her a little tighter, and puts her feet up on the ottoman. Wait. There wasn’t a blanket here before. She nervously sits up.

“It’s comfortable in here, isn’t it?”

Katie pales at the voice that sounds like Jack. Then she notices a form that looks like Jack sitting in the other chair.

“My dad did a nice job decorating his study, right?” Tommy inquires as he stands and steps toward the desk.

Katie’s pulse quickens when she realizes that it’s Tommy.

She wraps the blanket around her shoulders and joins him in the middle of the room.

“He enjoyed the outdoors, but this room…I think it’s a reflection of his heart. It’s kind of fitting that it’s in the heart of the house. He’s got that whole wall of pictures of him and my mom. My mom put together all my and Sara’s school pictures and our artwork from school,” he continued pointing to at the collection of photographs and scrapbooks. “He changed this big painting out a few times but kept coming back to this one. I think those two figures made him think of him and my mom. I know that they make me think of him and my mom.”

“It’s unusually comfortable for a room with no windows. And it’s so old-fashioned. Other than that docking station on his desk, this room could be Victorian. I half expect that you have to start some kind of steam-powered generator to power the docking station or this lamp for that matter,” Katie says gesturing to the lamp on the end table.

“You think it’s old-fashioned, too?” Tommy laughed. “Sara and I were always intrigued by this room. As young kids, we would tell stories about it—you know like the ghost stories you tell around a campfire. Then when we were old enough that Mom and Dad would go out without getting a sitter, we would sneak in here and explore. We loved our Saturday night escapades. We know that Dad designed the room, not just decorated it. Mom said he spent hours with the architect every night making sure that every detail of this house was just so. Since he made it so old-fashioned, we expected it to have cool throwback features, like a hidden passageway or something. We were always moving the lampstand or pulling books off the shelves to try to open it.”

“I can just picture you and Sara in here pulling down books. There’s no way your dad didn’t know. You two got into so much trouble together,” Katie recalls. “You must be devastated that she’s gone,” she solemnly adds.

“Yeah, I pray every night, and some nights I cry. Mom doesn’t buy the accident story, and I kind of agree with her. Things just don’t line up. If she’s right, I’d love to be the one who catches whoever did it,” says Tommy. “I want to…” He stops short when he notices that Katie has become pale and petrified. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say things like that. It’s just that I miss her, and I can’t stand to see the pain in my mom’s eyes. And now with my dad gone…”

“It’s okay, Tommy. I don’t have any siblings, but your mom is kind of like a sister to me. I can imagine how I would feel if something happened to her. I was completely heartbroken when they told me about Sara’s…passing—not just over my own loss; I also grieve for your mom. And your dad.”

Katie begins to cry again.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tommy says trying to console her.

“I just couldn’t bear to see Jack so…”

That painful memory combined with the agony of losing Jack is too much for Katie. She sobs uncontrollably. Her tears and the anguish on her face declare a secret she has kept for the last 25 years.

Tommy guides Katie back to her chair and hands her a tissue as he sits next to her. She looks at him; her eyes pleading with him not to divulge her secret.

“Oh, I see,” Tommy utters. “So, you and my dad …”

“No,” Katie shakes her head and explains. “He never knew I had any kind of feeling for him. And even if he did, he never would have gone there. Your dad was a good man. He loved your mom. And I mean he loved her. True love.”

Tommy gives her an assuring touch on the shoulder. “About my parents. I never really understood their story. Dad told me he waited and waited and wooed Mom. But some of the stories they tell sound like they were together throughout college. So, what’s the deal?”

“Well, pretty much both scenarios are true.”

“How?”

“She said something about…” Katie begins to explain. Tommy fidgets in his seat and knocks over her glass of water.

“I am SO sorry,” Tommy says as he jumps up and rushes out of the room.

He returns with a hand towel. Katie’s eyes fix on a small bleach stain that flutters about as Tommy cleans up the spill.

“I feel so clumsy,” Tommy says.

“No worries, Tommy. It’s a difficult time for all of us. We’re all going to be a little off.”

“I get that. I just don’t want my mom to see it. I need to be strong for her. If she sees me falter in the least, she’s going to be all over trying to take care of me. Do you know she tried to make me breakfast this morning right after getting the news about my dad?”

“Yeah, I know. And I saw how well THAT went.”

“Ever since Sara died, I’ve been trying to focus on remembering the good times. Sara and I had a lot of good times. You know how I was saying we used to explore in here? Well, one time we moved a book…this one,” Tommy said as he walked over and pulled a blue leather-bound book from the shelf. “And we thought we heard something unlock. We never found what it could have been, and we were never able to replicate it. We spent probably a year trying. We got really strategic about it, too. One day after school we listed all the possible combinations of things we could have done or touched—and then, instead of generally exploring the room when Mom and Dad went out, we would come in here and systematically go down our list. In hindsight, I think we probably just watched too many movies or read too many adventure stories.”

“I guess, as they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Your dad was a strategic thinker, too. Actually, your mom is too. I mean think about everything she does for work—all that systematic research and then the way she presents herself at the negotiating table.”

They both chuckle.

“Tommy, is it alright if I continue to rest in here a while?”

Tommy nods. He grabs Katie’s empty water glass and leaves the room.

Katie wakes with a throbbing headache and a sour stomach. She has never felt this bad before—not even after the ill-advised drinking binge she went on when her mom passed away.

Katie reaches down to pull the blanket up and realizes there is no blanket there; and then she looks at the side table and sees a nearly full glass of water. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe she hadn’t revealed her deepest secret. But what about the memories that Tommy shared? Where would they have come from?

She sighs and drinks the water. Then she makes her way to the bookshelf and finds that blue leather-bound book.

“William Shakespeare. The Complete Works,” Katie murmurs as she reads the cover.

She caresses the cover feeling the bumpy texture of the leather binding; then Katie closes her eyes as she opens the book and glides her fingers over the satiny paper. She turns a few pages and resumes caressing the paper. When she feels a ridge, she opens her eyes and sees an impression of an old skeleton key that seems to perfectly underline one title, “As You Like It.” Katie quickly looks around for paper and a pencil to copy the impression. Finding none, she takes a picture with her phone.

Now satisfied, Katie goes to the bathroom to freshen up. Clare has recently redecorated. The once nautical-themed guest bathroom now had cream striped walls and burgundy linens. Katie splashes cold water on her face and then grabs the hand towel to dry off. It’s wet, so she reaches for the nearest bath towel. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches a small bleach stain on the wet hand towel and exits the bathroom shaking her head.

Author’s note: This is the second chapter of an in-progress novel. Stay tuned for future chapters.

Read chapters one and two