Tags:
Fiction,
Literary,
General,
Family & Relationships,
Psychological fiction,
Family Life,
People with mental disabilities,
Patients,
Mothers and Sons,
Arson,
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
“She’s cool,” he
said. “You should keep this one.”
I heard the sound of dishes clinking together in the kitchen
and left the brothers to help clean up. I found Miss Emma up
to her elbows in dishwater.
“Let me dry.” I picked up the dish towel hanging from the
handle of the refrigerator.
“Why, thank you, darlin’.” She handed me a plate. “I heard
you playing in there. That was lovely. I didn’t know a sound
like that could come out of that electric thing.”
“Thanks,” I said, adding, “Marcus plays really well by ear.”
“It’s his choice of music that makes me ill.” I had the feeling
nothing Marcus did would be good enough for her.
“It’s what everybody listens to, though,” I said carefully.
She laughed a little.“I can see why Jamie likes you so much.”
I felt my cheeks redden. Had he talked about me to his
parents?
“You care about people like he does.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I mean, I care about people, but not like
Jamie does. He’s amazing. Three weeks ago, I almost killed him.
I did. Now I feel like…” I shook my head, unable to put into
words how I felt. Taken in. By Jamie. By his family. More at
home with them than I’d felt in six years with my icy aunt and
silent uncle.
“Jamie does have a gift with people, all right,” she said.“The
way some people are born with musical talent or math skills
or what have you. It’s genetic.”
I must have looked dubious, because she continued.
“I don’t have the gift, Lord knows,” she said, “but I had a
74
diane chamberlain
brother who did. He died in his thirties, rest his soul, but he
was…it’s more than kindness. It’s a way of seeing inside a
person. To really feel what they’re feeling. It’s like they can’t
help but feel it.”
“Empathy,” I said.
“Oh, that stupid tattoo.” She squirted more dish soap into the
water in the sink.“I about had a conniption when I saw that thing.
But he’s a grown man, not much his mama can do about it now.
He doesn’t need that tattoo.” She scrubbed the pan the corn
bread had been baked in.“My aunt had the gift, too, though she
said it was more of a curse,because you had to take on somebody
else’s pain. We were at the movies this one time? A woman and
boy sat down in front of us before the lights were shut out. They
didn’t say one single word, but Aunt Ginny said there was something wrong with the woman.That she felt a whole lot of anguish
coming from her. That was the word she used— anguish. ”
“Uh-huh,” I said, keeping my expression neutral. Miss
Emma was going off the deep end, but I wasn’t about to let
her see my skepticism.
“I know it sounds crazy,” she said. “I thought so too at the
time. When the movie was over, Aunt Ginny couldn’t stop
herself from asking the woman if she was all right. Ginny had
a way of talking to people that made them open right up to
her. But the woman said everything was fine. As we were
walking out of the theater, though, and the little boy was out
of earshot, she told us that her mother’d had a stroke just that
morning and she was worried sick about her. Ginny’d picked
right up on that worry and took it inside herself. She ended
up with a bleeding ulcer from taking on too many other
people’s worries. That’s how Jamie is, too.”
before the storm
75
I remembered Jamie after the accident, when I wondered
why he’d expressed no anger toward me. You already feel like
crap about it, he’d said. Why should I make you feel any worse?
I shivered.
Miss Emma handed me the corn-bread pan to dry. “Here’s
what happens with people like Jamie or my brother or my aunt,”
she said. “They feel what the other person feels so strong that
it’s less painful for them to just…give in. I knew when Jamie
was small that he had the gift. He knew when his friends were
upset about something and he’d get upset himself, even if he
didn’t know what
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley