The Long Fall

“My grandfather?”

I nodded again.

“I’m telling you this because you offered me that painting, and also because it’s true. I may have left out a detail or two but you have the gist of why I’m here.”

Hannah brought her fingers to her temples and traced little circles there.

“Are you going to kill my grandfather?”

“People like me don’t kill people like him,” I said. “I just want to get to the truth. I want to know what happened and I want it to stop.”

“Grandfather Roman used to pinch me and Fritzie when we wouldn’t do what he told us to,” she said. “It got so bad that Dad wouldn’t let him see us until we were teenagers.

“They say he murdered this race car driver a long time ago and then he married the driver’s widow. They didn’t stay together long, though.”

“I’ve heard the stories.”

“He’s upstairs,” she said.

“Right now?”

It was her turn to nod.

“Can I go see him?”

“I will take you,” she said solemnly, as if the words were a vow.

WE MADE OUR way back through the kitchen. The domestics were gone.

I glanced at the painting I coveted as we passed through the hall of masterpieces. The yellow parrot screeched somewhere when we came into the grand entrance hall but I didn’t see it.

“He’s on the third floor,” Hannah told me as we mounted the stairs.

Upon reaching the second floor we had to walk around the outer hall to get to the next stairway up. There were doors and other entrances along the hallway leading into rooms and down corridors. At the door closest to the next set of stairs a woman wandered out.

“Wandered” is the right word. She stepped from the doorway, moving at an odd angle with her head turned as if she were looking behind. It seemed as though she had gotten lost in her own home.

“Mother,” Hannah said.

Startled, the woman turned to regard us. She was a creature of exceptional beauty. From the form of her face to the deep blue in her eyes this woman, who was my age, would always be plagued by the petty desires and jealousies of others. Her form was slender and graceful. The pastel violet of her diaphanous robe struggled to match such beauty. Her hair was blond, becoming ethereally light with the white that had begun its encroachment there. When she gazed into my eyes I felt the need to swallow.

“This is Mr. McGill,” Hannah was saying. “He’s here to see Granddad.”

Hannah’s mother rested three fingers on the back of my left hand.

“Are you a friend of Roman’s?”

“No, ma’am. A guy I know said he wanted to talk to me. A guy named Timothy Moore. Do you know him?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied.

Hers was the only smile I’d ever seen that I would call resplendent.

“I hear you once had a servant named Sanderson,” I said, looking for answers haphazardly like a child searching for seashells by the shore.

“Yes. Lita was her name.”

“Did she have a son named Willie?”

“She had children,” Mrs. Hull said. “I never met them, though. Bryant didn’t like it when the staff used our house for day care.”

“But didn’t your husband help Lita’s son get into the Sunset Sanatorium?”

All those words seemed to confuse the lady. She sniffed at the air but didn’t answer.

“I met Mr. McGill up at the house in Albany, Mom,” Hannah said to break the silence.

“Oh?” She had“€€ban a mild interest. “Did you also meet my son, Mr. Mac? Mick?”

“McGill,” I said, wondering when she would remove her fingers. “And yes, I did meet him.”

“What did you think?”

“Nice young man. Serious.”

“He’s sullen and ungrateful,” she said, her lightness suddenly shot through with storm. “But blood is blood.”

“I have a son like that,” I said. “He doesn’t know how to talk to people even though he’s twenty-one. I figure it’s just because his feelings are so deep down inside him.”

My words seemed to have an impact on her. Her face organized itself so that she almost saw me.

“Deep inside,” she echoed. “Yes, yes. You’re right about that. Bryant says that there are debts to be paid, but all debt comes down to blood, don’t you think?”

I didn’t know the answer to her question.

“Blood debt,” she continued, “is the curse of mankind.”

“We have to go, Mother,” Hannah said.

Mrs. Bryant’s fingers were still on the back of my hand.

“Yes,” she said, looking deeply into me. “It was so nice meeting you.”

I moved my hand and took a step back.

“Come on,” Hannah said.

Halfway up the stairs I looked back and saw that Hannah’s mother was watching us as if in a terrible rapture.

Ê€„

50

We made our way to the third floor without any more interruptions or a word spoken between us. Hannah’s natural élan seemed dampened by her mother’s beauty and peculiar ways.

We came to a black door with a small wreath of dried yellow sweetheart roses hung from it. Hannah gave me a sickly smile.

“My grandfather’s room,” she said. “He told Fritzie that a black door and yellow roses will keep any curses away.”

I nodded and we both looked at the door.

“Your mother seems distracted.”

“This is one of her good days.”

I smiled.

“You think it’–€em"s funny,” she said with no emotion that I could discern.