“And you put a little deck over the back porch.”
“Right. Edgar built that sometime ago.”
“It’s tough for him to have Jimmy home.”
“Edgar’s all right. He can do what he can do. He’s a good man, but this all is beyond him. He got hurt real good a long time ago, and this is just a heartache.”
“I know that.” Mason laid his hands on the old table. “Forgive me, Mrs. Brand, but I’ve had clients lose children, and I don’t think people get over it. And I’m not even sure they should. Matt was a remarkable kid. And now Jimmy’s pretty sick.”
“Thank you, Mason.” Her face was a slate. “I think he is.”
“Well, I came down to see what I might do.” Mason assessed the woman, and she seemed ready to talk. “Should Jimmy be in hospice there at the clinic? I think we know where this is going.”
“Jimmy says he knows, and yes, I know. It’s not surprise we’re after. I’m so glad he’s home. That’s all. We’ve talked about it all, Mason.”
Mason reached past the teacups and took her hand. “I can help with any of the expenses. Absolutely.”
She patted his hand. “I want him here. If it gets too bad for him, we’ll go from there.”
“Has anyone from the clinic been out? Has he seen the doctor?”
“That’s next.”
“Look. Let me call Kathleen Gunderson down there and have her come out. There may be some things they can do for him. She’s the head of the clinic.”
“I see her around town once or twice a year.”
“May I call her?”
Mrs. Brand’s eyes closed for a moment, and she nodded. “It won’t hurt.”
Mason stood and leaned into the front room, “Nice to see you, Mr. Brand. Take care. I’m going to slip out the back.”
“Mason,” the older man said as farewell, without looking up.
On the back deck Mason asked Mrs. Brand, “How’s your garden? I can smell the squash growing.”
“Come back tomorrow, and I’ll load you up.”
“That’s a deal. Goodnight. Thanks for the tea.”
“Goodnight. Thank you, Mason.” She stepped back inside and closed the door.
In the chilly silent night under the ancient trees, Mason scanned the neighborhood. It was confusing how so many pieces of this old map fit. Lights were going out; half the houses were dim. The garage in which Jimmy Brand slept his sleep looked like a cottage in a fairy tale in which children were in danger. Mason walked backward out the Brands’ driveway. He wasn’t dizzy, but it was strange to be here, strange to walk. He’d let it get too late again and he had wanted to see Jimmy.
The books had affected Mason, and he had read them all. The first novel, Reservoir, was the story of that last week, the accident, the long day. He’d read it when he was a struggling attorney, and he wanted to tell Jimmy about reading it in his one-bedroom condominium in Denver, because it was the only book that had ever made him gasp and hurl it across a room, breaking the glass on a framed Weston Grimes print that hung above his old leather couch. The first nice piece of art he bought. He had then gone over and picked the book from the glass and reread the section about the party at the reservoir aloud, making sure, and then he had thrown the book again, this time into the corner where all it could do was gash the wall. Jimmy had gotten the scene just right, the wind in the ancient dry cottonwoods, the sound the car tires made easing over the river rock by the old boat ramp, the powdery white dust puffing from every footfall.