He Bought My Father's Debt, So Now He Owns Me novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Guidry and Reese

Cal read the letter standing at the window with the board pulled back and the flat morning on the page.

I stood a pace behind him and did not look over his shoulder.

It was one sheet of lined paper from the day room, written in blue ballpoint in a thin hand that wandered uphill.

He read it twice.

Then he held it out to me without a word.

I took it.

Calloway. I know the day and I know the year this morning.

The nurse says it is a hurricane and it has made me clear.

I want to put it down while I am.

I did it. I did it for four thousand dollars and a barber and the rent.

I have never asked you to forgive me and I do not now.

I only want it written in my hand where no one can tell you it was the sickness talking.

You were fourteen. You had the best laugh in Mobile. I sold it. I am so sorry.

Come when you can. If you cannot, I understand.

I will be in the chair by the window either way.

Your mother, Lenore Reese.

I folded it along its creases.

"She'll be in the chair," Cal said.

"She will," I said.

"I'll go today," he said.

"The roads are..." I said.

"I'll walk if I have to," he said.

"I'll drive," I said. "I've got a truck."

He turned from the window.

His face was tired, and open, and wet.

"Will you come in with me?" he said. "I'd like you to be in the room."

"I'll sit by the door," I said. "It's hers to say, and yours to hear."

"Yes."

"And I'll be there after."

We drove through a county of downed pines and stripped roofs.

White egrets stood in the flooded ditches, and Cal said nothing for twenty miles.

At the care home the generator was still running, and the fountain out front had a live oak limb in it.

His mother sat by the window in the blue cardigan, with her brooch pinned crooked.

I took the chair by the door.

I will not write down what was said between them.

It was an hour, and it was low.

Twice she cried and twice he did.

Once he put his head in her lap the way a boy does, and she laid her hand on the back of his neck.

At the end I heard her say, "I don't deserve you to come."

I heard him say, "No, Mama. You don't. I came."

It was not forgiveness, and it was not its opposite.

He kissed her forehead.

She said, "Is that the Guidry girl?"

I stood up.

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

"The one with the lamp," Lenore said.

"Yes," I said.

"Come here, child," she said.

I went.

She took my hand in both of hers, and her dark eyes, her son's eyes, looked into my face.

"You did what I did not," Lenore said. "A little thing, with a lamp. You did it for a boy you did not know. I'd have given my right hand."

"You gave him a life, Mrs. Reese," I said. "He's standing right there."

"Not on purpose."

"No," I said. "Not on purpose. But he's here."

She smiled, a small wet wry smile.

"You'll look after him," she said.

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