I had kept it all these years, tucked away with other mementos from my childhood: a broken locket, a certificate for winning the fifth-grade spelling bee.
I pulled it out now, still in its envelope addressed to my mother. She’d crumpled it up and thrown it away after his death. But I’d taken it out of the trash, smoothed it, hidden it inside my dictionary.
I opened it now, the paper worn and brittle.
Mavis,
I cannot go on with this any longer. I don’t know who you are anymore or who I am when I am with you. We’ve badly lost our way and I am sorry for my part in it.
David
It was Ben who’d found him.
Our father had been out in his studio in the carriage house—the transistor radio playing classic rock, the tiny fridge full of beer.
I looked at the note once more before carefully folding it up.
I don’t know who you are anymore.
Did he write those words because she truly wasn’t herself anymore?
What if it wasn’t just the grief over Bobbi’s death that had changed her?
I thought of her coming back from California with her suitcase full of old photographs and Bobbi’s good-luck stone.
The stone I’d catch her talking to, arguing with, begging it to bring Bobbi back.
I remembered the text from the art book my mother had copied and saved:She was said to be able not only to easily change form but to store her essence within a vessel or object, such as this pyxis circa 1500 BC.
I thought of the section in the demon book I’d read, about cursed and possessed objects, the ability of evil spirits to reside within them.
“Holy shit,” I said aloud.
It was the stone.
Azha had attached itself to the stone. Maybe before Bobbi had it, maybe after.
The stone was like the pyxis in the book.
I didn’t know the details, but I was suddenly sure that when my mother came back from California, it wasn’t just the stone she’d brought back. It was something else. Something that had taken up residence inside her, growing, festering, casting its dark shadow over everything. That’s why she couldn’t be far from it. Maybe Azha still needed it.
I heard knocking and jumped.
Janice. It had to be Janice.
I raced downstairs to find her waving at me frantically through the front window. Moxie was there waiting to greet her. I opened the door. “Come on in.”
“She was right!” Janice said as she flew into the room, patting Moxie on the head.
“Huh?”
“Your mother. Those Pick Four numbers she gave me. Wait until I tell her!”
She hurriedly shrugged off her coat and headed toward my mother’s room.
“The Pick Four numbers were right!” she announced. “I won! By all rights, I should give the winnings to you. Or at least split it with you.”
My mother smiled. “No need,” she said.
