The Illumination_ A Novel - Kevin Brockmeier [17]
“Wait. Mr. Williford? Jason Williford? But he died. He died in the accident.”
The prickliness in his voice made her stomach tighten. “Obviously he didn’t die. Obviously if he had died he wouldn’t be phoning the hospital all day long asking if we’ve found his wife’s book yet.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right about that.”
“His wife asked me to take it. She said he was dead and she couldn’t bear to read it again. That’s what she said, those words exactly. I told her it wouldn’t be right, but then she died, too. Right there in front of me. I watched her go, and I thought it was what she would have wanted.”
“Well—” He shook his head. “All that may be true, but I still have to tell him we’ve found it. Excuse me a minute,” and he tucked the journal protectively under his arm and flipped his phone open. Within seconds he was talking to someone at the hospital. “Hello, this is Dr. Alstadt. I need you to get a patient’s number for me. His name is Jason Williford. That’s Williford, spelled W-I-L-L … yes, that’s right. Thank you.” She tried hard to listen as he dialed the number, but the sound inside her head was so much louder than the sound outside that she could barely distinguish his voice. It was like a rainstorm beating against a tin roof, thousands of drops landing like little round stones, and by the time the storm faded, she was sitting next to him on the sofa and he was repeating her name, meeting her gaze while he cocked his head to the side. He waited until he was sure he had her attention before he said what he had to say.
“Mr. Williford wants to come over right away. I gave him your address. He’s a mess, Carol Ann. I don’t know whether he plans to build a shrine to this thing or burn it,” he told her, brandishing the journal, “but one thing I’m sure of—if he’s ever going to move on, he needs it back.”
He was silent for so long that she thought he might have finished, but eventually, pausing to take the weight of his words, he continued. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m sorry about that. I believe you when you say it was an accident, and I’m sure you never intended to hurt anyone. But you need to know that you’ve taken the most terrible month of this man’s life and made it that much worse.”
He gave her hand a consoling squeeze. She felt as if he had slapped her face.
For a while the two of them waited on the sofa. She thought, This is not really happening, and also, In an hour this will already have happened, the same phrases she had found herself repeating as the orderly wheeled her onto the elevator to have her hand disfigured.
Soon enough a taxi arrived in the driveway. Its motor halted, and she heard a pair of crutches tapping up the walk. A few seconds later the bell rang. She followed Dr. Alstadt down the front hall, rushing ahead of him at the last second to open the door. Outside there was the flexing coolness of a spring breeze. She stood there in it with her hand on her chest, the doctor beside her in his shirt and tie, before them a man with a look of breaking sadness in his eyes, all of them glowing in the darkness.
Jason Williford
The reality cuts across our minds like a wound whose edges crave to heal, but cannot. Thus, one of the great sins, perhaps the great sin, is to say: It will heal; it has healed; there is no wound; there is something more important than this wound. There is nothing more important than this wound.
—Whittaker Chambers
In the accident he had cracked his sternum and three of his ribs, dislocated his right shoulder, fractured his pelvis, and knocked identical wedge-shaped