"I did. Every Sunday at Patuxent I said, 'I love you. You're not a murderer.'"

"But he still believes he did it."

"You think it wouldn't have made him crazier to know he was behind bars for a crime he didn't commit?"

She doesn't let me answer; she bulldozes on. "Besides, I had Candy to worry about, and a baby-you!-on the way. I had to sc.r.a.pe together the money for Maury's plea bargain and a transfer to Patuxent where he had doctors and a chance for parole. Of course you'd have talked to the newspapers, you'd go on TV. And with your gift of gab, maybe you'd persuade people. But then what? Say the cops did believe I killed Jack, I'd have gone to prison. Then what would have happened to you and Candy? h.e.l.l, what would have happened to Maury? You think you'd all have been happier growing up in an orphanage or being split up and adopted by strangers? Well, do you? I can't hear you." She flaps at her ear. "It's easy to claim you shouldn't live a lie, but sometimes lies are all that let us go on living."

I pitch out of the chair and prowl the room, desperate to set distance between my mother and me. I'm choking on our closeness. Even the thousands of miles between Maryland and London may never be enough to let me breathe again, to let me digest what she has said and make sense of what she goes on saying.

"Day and night all I did was lie. One minute I was lying to the police, the next to Maury's lawyer, then his head doctor, then the pastor. And the whole time I had to remember what I told this person and that. It was as bad as being a little girl again, down in the cellar with the garbage bucket, hiding it here, hiding it there, scared I'd get caught and punished. Knowing that's what I deserved. Hating myself for being such a chickens.h.i.t. Hating you kids even though I loved you. Terrified by these nightmares where I murdered you and Candy by mistake."

I don't know whether to be appalled or to applaud this bravura performance. Mom's operatic scenery eating is all the more remarkable because she's flat on her back, barely moving, a wizened, white-haired woman croaking a last aria that I haven't a clue how to interpret. She has morphed into a combination of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra-a tragic figure who both sacrificed a child and killed her mate-and yet all the while she remains my mother, a tiny, untidy, loving, hateful, scheming, sad human being.

"Now you're probably thinking," she says, "okay, she didn't confess to Maury, but why didn't she own up to me and Candy? Well, I figured you had enough to cope with. Why heap on more? And if I told you, I was afraid I'd be left with nothing. It was a long shot, the kind Jack used to lose his shirt on. But considering the odds, I believed I did the right thing. You and Candy haven't had it so bad, and Maury isn't doing life in prison. That's about the best we could hope for. I'm the only one that lost out. Candy stayed with me, but hates me. You boys ran as far as you could get and you hate me too."

"I don't hate you."

"I don't buy that. I only hope you hate me enough to keep your end of the bargain." She hands me the pillow.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"Did you make up this story to drive me to murder?"

"I didn't make up a d.a.m.n thing. You asked for the truth. Now you've got it." Removing her gla.s.ses, she folds them on her chest, interlaced with her nicotine-stained fingers like rosary beads on the deceased's hands at a Catholic wake. With her eyes shut and her off-white hair in a halo around her head, she resembles a relic in a medieval church, some obscure saint, preserved, yet disheveled after centuries on display. The sight of her, to all appearances already dead, paralyzes me.

"If you won't do it for me," she breaks the silence, "then do it for Maury and Candy so they'll have a little money. Do it for yourself so you can get on with your life and give us grandkids."

I kneel next to the couch. The wine has churned to vinegar in my stomach. I feel drunk, hung over, and achingly sober at the same time. "Are you sure?" My voice quavers, my hands shake. I don't have any clue how to play this part.

"I'm sure. Give me peace."

I've witnessed this scene before-an actor delivering the coup de grace, putting an old woman out of her misery. I'm following stage directions, I'm operating under Mom's explicit instructions, just as I've done so often in the past. I kiss her and tell her I love her, then place the pillow over her face.

The instant I exert pressure, she scissors her legs and flails her arms. She's changed her mind! Elated, I lift the pillow, a.s.suming this has been some biblical test of my devotion. But she says, "Don't cover my eyes. I want you to be the last thing I see. Promise me your memoir won't make me look horrible."

I press the pillow to her face again and peer into her eyes. It's not clear what she feels or thinks. It never has been. Do I detect anger in the brown eye and love in the blue one? Or a mixture in both?

That's how I suspect my eyes appear to Mom as I go about the grim business of extinguishing her life. There's anguish in them. But there's love too, and maybe a single poisonous drop of the hatred she has accused me of.

Words, endless words I've said to serve the moment. So many half-remembered scripts and scattered quotes. If only I could bring myself to speak straight from the heart, there's time. There's so much time. It takes far longer than I imagined. Far, far longer. And never once does Mom look away. Still, I don't stop, and when it's over, there's no mistake about it and not the slightest resemblance to a death on stage or screen.

The color drains from her eyes by degrees until they're dull and fixed. The pupils dilate and darken into black holes that admit and emit no light. An opposing force that I wasn't aware of until now eases under my hands. When I raise the pillow, her jaw drops and her mouth gapes at an angle.

I tuck the pillow under her head and close her eyes. Her mouth won't shut. Then I stumble to the kitchen and wish I had something stronger than wine to drink. Something to deaden the trembling that starts deep inside, then spreads to my fingertips.

When Candy calls from the Hilton and says she's there with Maury, I almost blurt out what I've done. I hurry her off the phone, but she's caught the alarm in my voice. Minutes later, it doesn't surprise me-even if it does amp up my inner turmoil-to hear her key in the front door. I rush to her the way Mom described Dad rushing at the knife. "She's gone," I say.

"You let her leave?"

"Mom's dead." I hug her face to my chest so she can't see my eyes.

"You said she was asleep."

"I thought she was. But when I went to check on her, she wasn't breathing. I tried CPR. I tried mouth-to-mouth."

Candy breaks into deep racking sobs that spread from her core to her extremities, like the shaking in me. I dread letting go of her, and she doesn't seem to have any desire to leave my arms. We're more than willing to postpone whatever comes next and stay locked together in grief and relief.

Finally, though, a priest, an undertaker, Maury, and Lawrence have to be notified. I phone Lawrence, while Candy goes into the living room to have a last look at Mom. I call the local funeral parlor, but can't bring myself to dial the Hilton and break the news to Maury.

Candy comes back from the living room dry-eyed and purposeful, behaving with the same ritualistic calm as she does in her role as a Eucharistic minister. Taking the telephone from my hand, she calls the church and almost immediately a young, smooth-skinned Filipino priest arrives and begins administering what used to be referred to as extreme unction or the last rites. He calls it the anointing of the sick. It doesn't matter that Mom isn't sick; she's stone dead. The priest thumbs oil from a gold container and dabs it at her ashen skin. Candy and I station ourselves on either side of him. She responds to his prayers while I, the former altar boy, act as little better than a dumb witness.

Then two st.u.r.dy fellows, black-clad and solemn, show up in a hea.r.s.e and shoo us out of the living room. Over my shoulder, I catch sight of them unfolding a zippered body bag. I can't bear to see more. In the kitchen I shamelessly slug down the last of the wine. It's not enough. Nothing will ever be.

By the time Lawrence arrives, aromatic of aftershave lotion and crisp winter air, I'm quite drunk, not just from pinot noir, not only from all the booze I've swilled today, but from the magnitude of the moment, the enormity of what I've done. At last I break into tears, and find myself crying on Lawrence's shoulder. He comforts me, murmuring, "There's nothing worse than losing your mother."

Meanwhile Candy takes charge. She thanks the priest, discreetly palms an offering into his hand and promises to get back to him about the requiem ma.s.s. She escorts the undertakers as they wheel Mom on a gurney out to the waiting Cadillac. Through the venetian blinds, I watch my sister a.s.sure the neighbors that nothing is wrong except that a very old woman has pa.s.sed away.

When she returns, I'm still sobbing and have an excuse not to discuss practical details. As soon as I can decently do so, I say that I have to leave. "I want to tell Maury in person."

Candy doesn't object. She appears as eager as I am to be on her own.

My dazed drive to the Hilton has the quick cuts and illogical leaps of a dream. There's no continuous landscape, just a chaos of flashing lights, billboards, street signs, and franchise names. It's a miracle I keep the car on the road. For an instant I question why I do. But I reach the hotel, climb out of the Chrysler, and slouch against the front fender. For a time-I can't estimate how long-I gaze at the acre of asphalt. When the yellow lines of parking places start strobing in my watery eyes, I go inside.

The swipe card turns the red light green and I step into a room that smells of congealed grease. Maury, in his Windbreaker, waits on the sofa like an expectant schoolboy. On a tray in his lap there's a half-eaten hamburger, an untouched plate of French fries, a c.o.ke, and a lengthy menu of cable channels. He hasn't turned on the TV.

"I have some bad news." Careful not to crowd him, I sit at the far end of the couch. "Mom's dead."

"I didn't do it," he exclaims.

"Of course you didn't."

"I don't know what she told you and Candy. But I never hurt her."

"Calm down, Maury. No one's accusing you. She took a nap and just quit breathing. We should be grateful she died in her sleep."

Maury's agitation grows. He has to set the tray on the floor to prevent his food from spilling. "She asked me to kill her. But I couldn't. I wouldn't!" Desperation pours off him like a desert flash flood races over rock.

"I understand." As much for myself as for him, I wish he'd let me touch him, let me slide an arm around his shoulder.

"She didn't want a.s.sistant living," he says.

"No, she didn't. Mom lived a long time and had a rough life. Now she'll rest in peace."

I hear a faint buzz in my ears. Is it the sound of my inner shaking? Or one of the noises Maury makes?

"I need to get down on the floor," he says.

"Go ahead. I don't mind."

"I need to be alone," he says.

I withdraw into the hallway. When he starts moaning, I walk to an alcove where a soft drink machine and an icemaker hum a lonely lullaby to each other. I'd like to lie down on the floor myself. I'd like to sleep, never to wake. Instead, I dip into the ice bin and press a fistful of freezing nuggets to my face.

When my cheeks are numb, I toss the ice into a rattling trash can. Then I return to the room and listen at the door. Out of politeness, I knock before opening it.

Maury's in the bathroom, readying himself for bed. Although I've eaten nothing since noon and long for another drink, I get ready too and am grateful when we are both in bed and the lights go out. The silence, the separate beds, the sense of words unexpressed-all this recalls the excruciating, drawn-out dissolution of many an old love affair. Now, as then, the distance between person and person, between what I've done and what I've failed to do, feels unbridgeable. The urge to apologize battles with an instinct that I've talked enough, that I've already done too much damage. Still, I dither. Do I owe it to Maury to reveal what Mom told me? Will it lift a burden? Or drive him to despair?

Had he known the truth, he might have agreed to Mom's request. n.o.body could blame him-n.o.body except the sort of merciless Furies who sentenced him to life in the first place. But rage and revenge aren't Maury's style. That's me. That's Mom. Maury's no murderer. The fact that he was framed falls into the same category as my finding out that I have a different father. News he can't use.

"Quinn," he speaks up, as if from the end of the world.

"Yes."

"I'm sad."

"I'm sad too."

"I'm sad that the last thing I did in her life was run away from Mom."

"You did the right thing. You're a good person," I say.

"Why did she ask me to kill her?"

"She was so old, she was off her rocker and didn't know what she was doing."

Maury sinks into what I trust is sleep, but I don't dare doze off for fear of nightmares. Mom was no more off her rocker at the end than she was at any point in her life. She had her reasons for choosing to die. Among them, I'd guess, was the habitual desire to absent herself. In this instance she took her toxicity to the grave and left behind something for Candy and Maury. As for what she left me, perhaps she believed that by dying at my hands she bound me to her for eternity.

I'll never know. She was, after all, a liar from a long line of liars. As I reflect on all that I don't know, I add to it all the people I never really knew before-Dad, my biological father, and in some respects Mom, Candy, and Maury. But at least now I know myself. I am a doting son. I'm everything Mom yearned for me to become. A success. A source of pride. An object of envy. The family moneybags. And obedient to the end.

I could argue that she asked for it. I could excuse it as a mercy killing. Or I might maintain that I acted out of the same twisted love as she showered on me. But none of this changes anything. I am a man who murdered his mother. At last the guilt I've felt for so long has found its crime; my dread has discovered its source.

Even if I were inclined to confess, who could I tell? Apart from an anonymous priest, who would it matter to? Not Candy. She doesn't deserve another crippling blow. Not Maury. He probably wouldn't believe me.

No, I'll keep my trap shut and I won't do the Oresteia Oresteia. I've done it. I'm not going to ghostwalk through it a second time for the benefit of the BBC. But I'll finish my memoir. I'll restart it and stick to the facts. I'll keep Tamzin on the payroll and, I hope, in my life, but I won't depend on quotes to tell the story. Whether or not it's what the publisher wants, I'll recount my personal history as it happened, settling the debts that the dead bequeath the living. Primary among them is the truth about Maury, telling on the page what I cannot bear to tell him in person.

"Quinn," Maury speaks up. "You said you have your own way of praying. Can we do that now? Pray for Mom your way?"

It's too late to explain to him that I've lost my way and need to find a different one. So I recite the Hail Mary, and Maury joins in at the end, "Mother of G.o.d, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of G.o.d rest in peace. Amen."

Candy

Did I cause it? Did I try to control it? Could I have cured it?

Rattling around in my brain, like pebbles in a bucket, these questions echo the key lessons I learned years ago at Ala-Teen. During Dad's drinking days, Mom sent me to meetings where they taught the cardinal rules that you should never a.s.sume you caused or can control or cure anybody else's problems. But as I kneel in a church pew examining my conscience, I feel guilty on all three scores; I'm to blame for Mom's death.

Sure, she'd been hinting for years, not so subtly manipulating me. Her worst sin, it crosses my mind, may not have been her foul temper, her vicious mouth, or her relish at smacking around me and the boys. Her worst sin might have been her conviction that she had a right to bully us into doing her bidding right up until the end.

But why run on about her faults? Today isn't about Mom's sins. It's about mine. And the darkest smudge on my soul comes from thinking that somebody owed me a favor. After nursemaiding Mom for years, I counted on Maury or Quinn to step up to the plate. I knew what she wanted. What I, deep down and in secret, wanted. So when Maury told me what Mom asked him to do, I could have warned Quinn by phone from the hotel. Instead, I took my sweet time driving home. If I hadn't, Mom might be alive today.

Then where would we be? A lot worse off-reluctant as I am to say that out loud.

After the sacrament of confession was repackaged as reconciliation, I expected it to become more popular. I mean, no more breast-beating, no more shame-ridden whispering. Just a friendly chat with a priest about toning up your soul. Not that different from talking to a personal trainer about losing weight. But this Sat.u.r.day afternoon, the traditional time for penance, the church is practically empty, and the parish has cut down on its utility bill by dimming the lights. I almost trip over three nuns in black habits gliding quietly up the center aisle.

When I slink into the confessional, it's not an old-fashioned cubicle, dim and hushed, with an unpadded kneeler and a screen between the penitent and priest. It's a bright canary yellow room with two armchairs and a pole lamp in the corner. Any chance I'll feel at ease flies out the window when I find that Father Ramos is on duty. I was hoping for the pastor, not the priest who anointed Mom on her deathbed.

He grins and gestures to the empty chair. I mutter, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," and staring at my boots, I let go. What pours out of me seems hideous. "I loved my mother," I say, "but sometimes I hated her, too, and wished she was dead. I've got to admit I wished one of my brothers would kill her. And that's what I'm afraid happened. I'm afraid my younger brother killed her."

"Why do you say that?" Father Ramos cheerfully inquires.

"Just, you know, an intuition."

"Is there any proof?"

"No."

"Have you told anyone else?"

Do I dare be honest? Maybe Father Ramos won't grant me absolution unless I run to the police and rat on Quinn. "I haven't mentioned this to a soul."

"Good." His smile brightens. He's so young and beardless, I have the uncomfortable feeling that I'm confessing to a child.

"For sure, you're sad about your mother," he says. "You were very close to her. But the closeness between a mother and daughter can be hard and confusing. Such talk belongs here, though, under the seal of the sacrament, not outside where it could cause trouble for your brother."

"I blame myself, not him," I say. "I really did wish she'd die so I didn't have to take care of her anymore and I could get married and move to North Carolina."

"You deserve a husband. Your mother wished that for you."

"Still, I'm worried about my brother and what will become of him."

"That's between him and his conscience, between him and his confessor."

"He doesn't have one. He lives in London."

"There are priests in England."

"He doesn't go to Ma.s.s."

"Maybe he'll start. Pray for him."

"I will. I do. But I feel guilty."

"That's natural when a parent dies and a child goes on living."