She put the gifts back in their boxes and stored them under the bed.
She waited until after dinner to visit Mary Millicent.
As soon as she opened the secret door, she heard voices. Her curiosity getting the best of her, she crept halfway up the stairs. The voices were coming from Mary Millicent’s room.
She peered through the railing into Sonny’s room, which was illuminated by the light from dozens of flickering candles. Candles were everywhere-on the windowsills, on the tabletops and bureau, set in trays on the floor-illuminating the still form on the bed.
Jamie wondered if Sonny was dead and the candles were part of a wake. But the catheter tube was still connected to its bag.
She knew that Amanda had done this and that she had sat with her son in the candlelight, holding his hand, kissing his lips, remembering Christmases past when he was a beautiful young man and had his whole life ahead of him.
Jamie wondered how long a person in his condition could be kept alive.
She climbed the last few stairs, tiptoed over to the bed, and touched Sonny’s hand. She agreed with Mary Millicent. It was time for Amanda to let Sonny die, but she also understood why a mother might put off such a decision and instead pray for a miracle.
She had no doubt that Amanda had genuinely loved her son, who had apparently been a very nice young man. Jamie wondered if Sonny had really wanted to follow in his mother’s footsteps. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Except she wondered how you know that other people’s religion is wrong for them and that your own would be better. What if all God cared about was that people be good to one another?
Amazed at her own daring, Jamie carefully climbed the second staircase far enough to peek under the railing that guarded the stairwell. A small Christmas tree with twinkling lights stood in the middle of the table. Mary Millicent in her wheelchair was wearing a new sweater with the tags still on it. Sitting with her at the table were Amanda and Gus-her children. Gus was telling a story about their father, recalling the Christmas when he drove their brand-new pony cart right into the great hall. He had been wearing a Santa Claus hat and jingle bells were attached to the pony’s harness.
Feeling very much the intruder, Jamie crept back down the stairs.
Chapter Eighteen
AFTER TUCKING THEIR mother into bed, Gus followed his sister down the stairs to Sonny’s room. The room was incredibly beautiful with all the candles reflecting in the hundreds of diamond-shaped windowpanes.
Gus stood beside his sister at her son’s bedside and watched while she stroked Sonny’s forehead and spoke to him in a soothing voice, like a mother would talk to an infant in a crib. Suddenly Gus couldn’t stand it anymore and grabbed Amanda’s arm. “Let him go,” he begged. “Please let him go. You promised that you would.”
“It’s already begun,” she said. “Freda removed the feeding tube last week. She says that starvation is actually a very gentle way to die.”
“How much longer will it take?” Gus asked, staring at his nephew.
“Not long,” Amanda said, kissing Gus’s cheek and stroking his back. “Aren’t we lucky that the Lord allowed us to have this wonderful boy to know and love for twenty wonderful years? Just think of all those lovely memories. We have been blessed.”
One of those memories came to Gus’s mind. Sonny was racing ahead of him across the great hall and up the stairs on sturdy little legs, anxious to show off his new hamster that went round and round in its own little Ferris wheel. Beautiful Sonny, the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows highlighting his golden curls, looked over his shoulder and called out, “You’re going to love him, Uncle Gus. His name is Brownie.” Sonny waited at the top of the stairs for him and slipped his hand into his.
Gus had to pause and close his eyes for a moment to deal with the ache that filled his chest. And for an instant, he could feel that small, sweet, warm hand in his own. He had loved the boy Sonny without reservation-and the young man he had become, a young man who had shared his uncle’s love for the ranch and wanted to live here always. Sonny had asked Gus to help him make his mother understand that he was not cut out to be an evangelist or to run an oil company or a political movement. He did not want to follow in anyone’s footsteps. He wanted to be himself. And Gus had said yes, that he would side with him against Amanda, and remembered feeling amazement at how correct that decision seemed. Sonny wanted to be his own man. And that made Gus proud.
But Amanda refused even to discuss the matter, and less than a week after that conversation, Sonny had been reduced to a vegetable.
If Gus thought there was even the tiniest chance that there was a heaven and he would see Sonny again, he would become the devoutest of believers and give away all his worldly goods and wear rags like Saint Francis of Assisi. As it was, every single day he cursed the God that he didn’t believe in for taking away that precious boy. And he had insisted on finding someone mortal to blame when maybe the accident had been just that. Accidental. No one’s fault-except perhaps Amanda’s goddamned God if he did happen to exist.
Amanda smoothed Sonny’s hair from his forehead and planted a kiss there. “I love you, my darling,” she told him. His face was gaunt, but she could still see the beautiful boy he had been-physically and spiritually. Everyone who saw him responded to his beauty. They wanted to be near him and bask in his smile, shake his hand. Her son had the power to save the world. After the accident, she hadn’t been able to understand why God had let such a thing happen to him. Finally, she had given up trying and simply bowed before God, submitting herself completely to his will. It was the only way she could find peace. That was when God had pointed the way. He was calling Sonny home, but he had shown her the way to have Sonny’s child. She would have another child to raise and adore. Yet, if an angel were to appear before her and tell her that she could have her son back if she would tear the baby from Jamie Long’s belly and kill it with her bare hands, she would do it.
Amanda sighed. What must God think of her for having such thoughts? And she banished them from her mind.
Gus was standing beside her, his face buried in his hands. The poor darling. He had vowed never to return to the ranch as long as she kept Sonny like this but had relented when she told him it was time to say good-bye-time for their boy to float up to heaven. But oh, how hard it was going to be not to have Sonny’s warm, living skin to caress. His lips to kiss. His body to wash. His physical self would be lost to her.
She embraced her brother. Gus buried his face against her shoulder, his entire body shaking with sobs. She stroked his back and kissed the top of his head as she would a child’s and told him that she loved him dearly and that they would always have each other. Then the two of them went around the room putting out the candles before making their way down the wooden staircase. They would have a nightcap before Amanda returned to watch over Sonny through the night.
The lights on the Christmas tree had been turned off, but its towering ghostly presence still dominated the great hall. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floor as they crossed to the library, where embers still glowed in the massive fireplace.
Gus turned on a lamp, threw a couple of logs on the fire, and stoked it a bit. Amanda seated herself on a leather sofa facing the fireplace and poured two glasses of sherry from a crystal decanter.
Gus sat beside her. Seated, he and his sister were almost the same height. He leaned back, making himself as comfortable as he could with his short legs jutting out in front of him. How he loved this room. For him, it was the heart of the house-the place where they had come after dinner when his father was still alive. In the winter, there was always a fire in the fireplace. He and his father would play chess, or he would play cards or checkers with Amanda while their parents read and enjoyed an after-dinner drink. Gus had always adored his sister, but after her marriage ended and she and Sonny came to live with him in Virginia, they had become even closer. Sometimes he found himself wishing that she wasn’t his sister so that he could love her in other ways. As it was, however, their love was purer and deeper and would last a lifetime.