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A Novel
by Elizabeth Cox
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"Where're you going?"
"I'll call you." He did not tell her more.
"But . . . "
He did not say if he would ever come back.
The night Calder went away, he sat on the edge of their bed and told Clementine good-bye. She wouldn't beg. He left, going towards Adam's room. She heard the door close downstairs, softly. She heard the car start, then a long pause before it pulled from the gravelly driveway onto the road.
For many years Clementine hoped for Calder's return. She loved him. She hoped he would miss them and that she might wake up one morning to find him sitting in the kitchen; but, as hope faded, she learned to accept her lonely days. She applied for a job in town, finding sitters for Adam during the day. The sitters, though, could not handle Adam's unexpected tantrums, so Clementine took in washing and sewing, and worked from home. She felt chained to her life with Adam, and on certain days thought she could not continue. She needed to do something where she could meet people in the community. She joined the church.
One day as Clementine was telling a woman from church how hard it was to raise Adam, the woman told her about a state hospital where "someone like Adam" could live. "People would care for him," she said. "It's a hospital near Raleigh. Cadwell. You should look into it." The woman felt sorry for Clementine.
Cadwell, an institution with a large campus of buildings and grounds, housed brain-damaged children, as well as schizophrenic and psychotic adults. When Clementine went there for a visit, the rooms smelled so bad she held her breath to keep from retching. Patients walked the halls as though they were lost; others stood in locked rooms, staring out of small, barred windows. Several were yelling. Everyone looked unwashed. Clementine drove away knowing she could not leave Adam in such a place, but felt the strain of long caretaking days, while the prospects of her own life dimmed.
There were no other choices and, in the dark secrets of her mind, Clementine began to imagine the freedom she would have if Adam were to die suddenly—in a car wreck or maybe he would get sick and die in a hospital. Something innocent, quick, not painful. She hated herself when she dreamed of his death, but for several years those imaginings pursued her. She never told anyone about them, and felt monstrous when she thought about her desire to be free of him.
Adam, who trusted everyone and expected people to like him, was a lonely child. He sought out friends at the park, but as soon as other children recognized his strange behavior, they avoided him. Still, nothing stopped his overtures for friendship, and Clementine began to admire his perseverance. She developed routines with him—taking him to the park, the grocery store, to church; and, by the time Adam was ten, his open-heartedness had won the favor of many townspeople. Mr. Greenwood hired him to bag groceries, and others from church stopped him on the street to ask about Adam's beloved hubcaps that he had begun to collect from garages around town.
Clementine earned the reputation of being an excellent seamstress, receiving more orders than she could fill. Her own clothes, as well as Adam's, were made of fine fabrics. With the money she earned, along with the money from Calder, she started a savings account for Adam. Their life together had taken a turn, becoming more settled, until Adam began to exhibit an interest in girls. He looked at magazine pictures of pretty women. He liked seeing pictures of girls in swim suits.
Then, out of the blue, Calder returned for Adam's twelfth birthday. Clementine woke to see a truck parked in front of the house. Calder was asleep in the front seat. She approached the truck. "Calder? You could have come in," she said, as though no time had passed, as though he had not been away for five years.
"I wasn't sure if I'd be welcome." Calder stepped out of the truck, thinner than she remembered, and his face looked angular, very much like Adam's. "You are," she said, and hoped he had returned for good, but didn't ask. During those first two absent years, Calder had phoned Adam every Sunday night; then the calls became less frequent. Now he was here.
Excerpted from A Question of Mercy by Elizabeth Cox. Copyright © 2016 by Elizabeth Cox. Excerpted by permission of Story River Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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