The Boy from the Woods(5)

There was nothing for you in towns like Westville when you got older—and there was nothing wrong with that.

So Hester and Ira did indeed move on. They found an apartment on Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan facing the Hudson River. They loved it. For almost thirty years they had commuted on that same train Matthew had taken today, changing in Hoboken back in those days, and now, in their advancing years, to be able to wake up and walk or quickly subway to work was heaven.

Hester and Ira relished living in New York City.

As for the old mountain home on Downing Lane, they ended up selling it to their son David and his wonderful wife, Laila, who’d just had their first child—Matthew. Hester thought that it might be odd for David, living in the same house he’d grown up in, but he claimed that it would be the perfect place to start and raise a family of his own. He and Laila did an entire renovation, putting their own stamp on the house, making the interior almost unrecognizable to Hester and Ira during their visits out here.

Matthew was still staring down at his phone. She touched his knee. He looked up.

“Did you do something?” she asked.

“What?”

“With Naomi.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything. That’s the problem.”

Tim pulled to a stop in her old driveway at her old house. The memories didn’t bother swarming anymore—they just full-on assaulted. Tim put the car in park and turned to look at her. Tim had been with her for nearly two decades, since he’d first immigrated from the Balkans. So he knew. He met her eye. She gave him the slightest of nods to let him know that she’d be okay.

Matthew had already thanked Tim and gotten out. Hester reached for the door handle, but Tim stopped her with a throat clear. Hester rolled her eyes and waited while Tim, a big slab of a man, rolled his way out of his seat into a standing position and opened the door for her. It was a completely unnecessary gesture, but Tim felt insulted when Hester opened the door on her own, and really, she fought enough battles every day, thank you very much.

“Not sure how long we’ll be,” she said to Tim.

His accent remained thick. “I’ll be here.”

Matthew had opened the front door of the house and left it ajar. Hester shared one more look with Tim before walking up the cobblestone path—the same one she and Ira installed themselves over a weekend thirty-three years ago—and heading inside the home. She closed the door behind her.

“Matthew?”

“In the kitchen.”

She moved to the back of the house. The door of the huge Sub-Zero refrigerator—that hadn’t been there in her day—was open, and again she flashed back to Matthew’s father at that age, to all her boys during their high school years: Jeffrey, Eric, and David, always with their heads in the refrigerator. There were never enough groceries in the house. They ate like trash compactors with feet. If she bought food, it was gone the next day.

“You hungry, Nana?”

“No, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Tell me what’s going on, Matthew.”

His head came into view. “Do you mind if I just make a little snack first?”

“I’ll take you out to dinner, if you want.”

“I got too much homework.”

“Suit yourself.”

Hester wandered into the den with the TV. She smelled burnt wood. Someone had recently used the fireplace. That was strange. Or maybe it wasn’t. She checked out the coffee table.

It was neat. Too neat, she thought.

Magazines stacked. Coasters stacked. Everything in its proper place.

Hester frowned.

With Matthew busy eating his sandwich, she tiptoed up to the second level. This was none of her business, of course. David had been dead for ten years. Laila deserved to be happy. Hester meant no harm, but she also couldn’t help herself.

She entered the master bedroom.

David, she knew, had slept on the far side of the bed, Laila by the door. The king-sized bed was made. Immaculately.

Too neat, she thought again.

A lump formed in her throat. She crossed the room and checked the bathroom. Immaculate too. Still not able to stop herself, she checked the pillow on David’s side.

David’s side? Your son has been gone for ten years, Hester. Leave it be.

It took a few seconds, but eventually she located a light-brown hair on the pillow.

A long light-brown hair.

Leave it be, Hester.

The bedroom window looked onto the backyard and the mountain beyond. The lawn blurred into the slope and then faded away into a few trees, then more trees, then a full-blown thick forest. Her boys had played there, of course. Ira had helped them build a tree house and forts and Lord knew what. They made sticks into guns and knives. They played hide-and-seek.

One day, when David was six years old and supposedly alone, Hester had overheard him talking to someone in those woods. When she asked him about it, little David tensed up and said, “I was just playing with me.”

“But I heard you talking to someone.”

“Oh,” her young son had said, “that was my invisible friend.”

It had been, as far as Hester knew, the only lie David had ever told her.

From downstairs, Hester heard the front door open.

Matthew’s voice: “Hey, Mom.”