Book of Days_ A Novel - James L. Rubart [21]
"He passed away eight years ago." The familiar ache settled in his stomach as an image of his dad and him standing on West Seattle's Alki Beach filled his mind. Cameron missed that grin and the hearty laughter that always accompanied it.
"Oh, Cameron, my heart hurts for you." Susan blinked and covered her mouth. "So young."
"Thanks." They sat in silence for a minute, and it seemed to fill a dark corner of his heart with light, if only slightly. "My dad said when he was a kid, he saw a book that showed him the past and the future. Do you know anything about that?"
Susan stared into Cameron's eyes, then looked down and smoothed her forest green shorts. "I haven't thought about that for years, but I do remember a few things. Wow. Funny how it's stayed with me." She tilted her head back and scanned the ceiling, as if she would find what to say etched on its surface.
"Boscoe and Big Boss were involved in this group called Indian Guides, and they'd go on all these hikes and adventures together. Every Monday morning at lunchtime in the school's orange cafeteria, Little Boss would report what they'd done and where they'd gone.
"Well, after one of their weekend hikes, he started acting all closed up and wouldn't talk to me or anyone else. After a few weeks of that I finally asked him, 'Why are you being so quiet all of a sudden?' or something like that. He poked his straw up and down in his chocolate milk and said, 'I know when I'm going to die.'
"It was a strange thing to say coming from a nine-year-old kid, and I didn't know how to respond. Then he said, 'When I grow up I'm going to have a son and I know things about him too.' I laughed but Little Boss just kept staring at his milk carton.
"I asked him where he saw these things, but all he would say is, 'I don't know if I could find it again. Maybe I dreamed it all up.'"
"We never talked about it after that. Back then I thought he was making up stories, but over the years I've often wondered what he saw. Looking back with an adult's perspective, he certainly believed he saw this book you're looking for."
Cameron shuddered. His dad had seen something. Maybe he was just a kid, but what he saw had changed him. "I have to find that book."
"Why is this book so important to you, Cameron?"
"My dad said I needed to find it to understand."
"Understand what?"
"What would happen to me. Or what is happening to me. What he thinks he saw."
"And what is that?"
Cameron stared at Susan Hillman. Wisps of her brown hair hung over her eyes. This was a woman it would be easy to slide into friendship with, a woman he'd be tempted to spill his guts to. "I'm not sure."
"I see." And by the way she looked at him, it seemed Susan truly did see.
"Are you hoping that if you find this book Little Boss spoke of, it will give your life meaning?"
"No." Cameron held his breath and looked away, as if turning could deflect the question. How could he tell her he had to find the book because he was scared he was losing his mind and he was hoping his dad was right and the book would cure him?
How could he describe losing his memories of Jessie and tell how he would try anything to get them back? How he was terrified of ending up like his dad, talking about nothing and everything mixed up into a mess the best linguists in the world couldn't decipher? How he'd promised his father he'd search for a book that probably only existed in his dad's mind and Jessie's imagination?
Susan looked at him with compassion. "I had a son about your age. Are you thirty-four? Thirty-five?"
"Thirty-three." Cameron shifted in his seat. "Had?"
Susan nodded as she brushed back her hair. "I'd like to offer you a stone."
Interesting. Susan understood loss but didn't want to talk about it. Part of him didn't want to talk about Dad and Jessie, but she had a choice. He didn't. "Offer a what?"
She reached over and opened an old dark mahogany cabinet sitting next to the front door and brought out a bowl made of stained glass. It was full of rocks, all