A Room With A View

Chapter Forty - Agatha

October 28, Saturday

Agatha waited just outside the door. Her fingers twitched, her dry skin crackling with every stretch toward the doorknob. She couldn't bring herself to do it.

A man dressed in a fur-clad cloak opened the door. He was followed by a woman wearing a Viking-era gown. The costumes of these young people were ridiculous. Agatha despised the idea of Halloween altogether, but if one had to dress up at least they could where something traditional, like a sheet with two holes cut out for eyes. None of these expensive fabrics or silly princess garbs. Nowadays it seemed as if everyone made mountains out of mole hills, and the concept of Halloween was one such example of over indulgence. 

A tiny boy dressed as a robot squeezed through the crack in the open door. Agatha stopped thinking entirely. She hadn't been this close to one of the twins in six months. Agatha had forgotten just how much they resembled Joshua. 

Agatha leaned down, the hood of her cloak falling over her face. She held out her hand to the boy. He turned to look at it, at her, and crept closer. Agatha could see the birthmark on the tip of his nose, the dimples he shared with Joshua, the thatch of dark hair. This was her boy, her grandson. 

Her lips parted, and in a dry rasping voice, she croaked, "I'm your--", but she didn't get a chance to finish. A woman in a pink coat with a snarl on her face took the boy by the hand, whisking him away. She pulled him inside and shut the door, leaving Agatha out in the hallway, completely and utterly alone.

Agatha leaned back against the wall. Her chest was fluttering. She pulled the hood back from her face and fanned herself with a gnarled hand. 

He had been within mere inches of her fingers. She had almost held him. Agatha had never held her grandsons, let alone even touched them. Joshua made sure of that.

The thought of her son sent a tear trickling through the crow's feet around Agatha's eye. She had tried to speak with him. She had tried to call, write, stop him in the lobby, show up at his work. She had tried everything she could think of to communicate with him, but Joshua had always shut her down. In truth, Agatha was even beginning to forget the sound of his voice. It had been so long since Agatha had been near her son. It was why she was so desperate to hold her grandsons. They looked so like their father; Agatha wanted to have the feeling of rocking her son one last time.

The door opened again. Agatha hurriedly pulled the hood low over her eyes, obscuring her face. There was bubble of too loud conversation, and the tune of Elena's obscene music, before the door shut again.

Agatha could see two black patent leather shoes stop just before her.

"Are you alright?"

It was Phineas's voice. Agatha could feel her lip curling. He was a waif of a man who didn't have a single brave bone in his body. If not for his father, Agatha would have left the Watley years ago. But Phineas's father had been a strong man, and Agatha had admired him. The senior Watley had known where to take the building. It was a skill set that seemed to have missed a generation.

"Yes," Agatha rasped.

The shoes took a quick step back. 

"Ms. Newman. I apologize. I did not recognize you. I wasn't expecting you to...ah...wear a costume," Phineas said.

Agatha growled. She was pleased to see the shoes retreat quickly toward the elevator.

It wasn't a costume, it was a cloak. It had belonged to Agatha's grandfather, and she'd kept a hold of it all these years. It was patchy and the suede had lost its smoothness, but it was the only thing her grandfather had had on his back when the family emigrated from Poland.

And she was wearing it as a disguise, not a costume. After what she'd said to Elena, Agatha knew that she would not be welcome in the apartment. Agatha didn't regret what she'd said, she'd spoken the truth she'd been harboring for many years, but she did feel a slight twinge of guilt over insulting the one tenuous link she'd had to her son. Elena had been the only one who had listened to Agatha when she spoke. Joshua simply looked the other way, as if she didn't exist.

Agatha placed a hand against the wall and used it to pull herself up. Her knees nearly buckled, but Agatha forced them to stay still while she stood. It was embarrassing how weak her body had become. She never thought she'd see the day when her legs didn't behave as they should.

Her mood even blacker than before, Agatha walked along the edge of the hallway toward the elevator. There was no one in that apartment who would let her inside. She'd thought that perhaps she would be brave enough to walk in herself, but she wasn't.

"What a coward," Agatha spat to her reflection in the elevator. "You are a disgrace to your family name."

Agatha turned away from the mirror and stared at the screen showing the elevator car's progress. It was newfangled technology that the senior Watley would never have allowed. Yes, he had wanted the best for the Watley, but only insofar as the building didn't lose its history and respect.

The floors clicked upwards. Agatha shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her cloak. She was hit with a memory she hadn't thought of in many years.

The last person to wear the cloak had been Neil. He'd wanted to borrow it for a school play, and Agatha had said no. She'd wanted Neil to play football. He was always faster on the field than Joshua. Joshua had her husband's long, gangly legs and he'd run like a baby deer on ice.

But Neil hadn't wanted to play football. All he'd wanted to do was act, and Agatha had never been there for him.

She would need to send the cloak to Neil. She was running out of time.