Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy

Author:Brian McGreevy [McGreevy, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780374532918
Amazon: B00AK2QOA8
Publisher: FSG Originals
Published: 2012-03-27T07:00:00+00:00

Those Who Are Able We Invite You to Rise

On the way home Roman sat in the passenger side of the pickup with his head leaning against the window. He tapped his knuckles against the door paneling in time with the passing of lampposts and telephone poles. Olivia’s eyes were fixed ahead and there was a standoff as each waited on the other. Roman reached to turn on the radio. Olivia hit the brakes, coming to a sudden stop in the middle of the road.

“Jesus,” said Roman.

She took his chin in her hand and roughly turned his face to hers.

“Jesus,” said Roman again.

“I will cut you off without a cent,” she said. “You think I won’t?”

He looked at her without saying anything.

“You think I won’t?”

Her fingers made white bruises in his jaw. The breath from his nose rolled over her knuckles. He cast his eyes down.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

She released him and rested her hand on the gearshift. Her hand was shaking.

“I just—” she said, “all I want is—”

She didn’t finish the sentence as her eyes drifted to a malfunctioning lamppost, the light waning to a glow of filament and then sputtering out and then flaring once more, and the shaking of her hand passed through her body in a shudder. Her eyelids fluttered.

“Mom, are you okay?” said Roman.

She inhaled sharply and her eyes refocused.

“Mom … I see them too,” said Roman.

Olivia started the engine again and put her hand on Roman’s knee.

“All I want in this world is what’s best for my baby.”

* * *

From the archives of Norman Godfrey:

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: none

To begin, a blunt admission, because there is hardly any point proceeding without it. Upon reflection, that you and Mother should have a—what dismay in giving irrevocable shape to the words—sexual affair is, on its face, unsurprising. Terribly banal, even. Is there a commoner platitude: these things happen. As though commonness in any way trivializes it. Birth is common, the hour before sunrise.

Betrayal. What could be commoner?

But an accounting of your heart is neither my place nor purpose, I simply feel I must be honest with you because if I was not it would mean irreparably to lose you. So please forgive my honesty in order that I may forgive you. I cannot lose you, Uncle.

Especially now, my purpose in writing not my own unhappy discovery but another of larger consequence.

To begin, Roman was arrested last night. He was caught on the mill property (in the company, one might surmise, of Peter Rumancek, but as to the purpose of their errand your guess is as good as mine), where he earned, in Roman’s inimitable fashion, the disfavor of a pair of policemen who brought him in for “malicious mischief.” Suffice to say the incident did not lighten Mother’s disposition. For my part, I was actually greatly relieved: I had cloistered myself in my room all evening and thought some ongoing row might further divert attention from me. But today relations reached a striking armistice.

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