James couldn't read but he knew it was important, after all the postman gave it to him directly.
He sat heavily on the steps. In his 21 years he could not ever remember the postman giving a letter directly to him. He stared at the envelope wondering what to do. He saw the stamp with the airplane on it and he saw the letters forming words. He knew all that, when he was young they tried to teach him but they finally said he was different. He never learned what that meant.
Maybe he should give it to Nancy anyway. Nancy came by almost every day to insure he had put on his clean clothes and taken his bath like she showed him years ago. He loved Nancy, he knew that. She told him once of his mother, he vaguely remembered her as a face with blue eyes and gold hair. Nancy told him his mother wanted to give him a special place when she found out he was different so she left him on the steps of the police station and told him to wait there. At three he tried hard to do as he was told so she wouldn't hit him.
Nancy was different, she would hug him sometimes, talk to him, read to him. He lived with her from seven until he was nineteen, then they said he should try to be independent so they gave him an apartment of his own. He wasn't sure who they were, but Nancy called them the government, it was who paid her to help him. She told him she would have done it for free and James always found it confused him.
Should he give it to her? No, if the postman gave it to him, maybe it was some bad news they didn't want Nancy to see? What should he do? He needed to go to work, Mr. Richard would get mad soon if he didn't help him. His store was three blocks away and Nancy had shown him how to get there. She walked with him every day for weeks until he could do it alone. When she let him lead, and he found the way by himself, she said she was so proud of him and gave him a big kiss on his forehead.
Mr. Richard would get mad sometimes and yell and James would be scared, but then Mr. Richard would calm down and it would be okay. James found he liked work, it gave him something to do all day and when he went home he felt tired, a good tired. After a warm bath and some supper he liked to watch TV until Nancy came and told him he needed to help her.
She would have him help do laundry on Mondays and Thursdays. On Tuesday and Friday he helped her clean the apartment. It wasn't big and he didn't have a lot of things, so cleaning was fun and it made Nancy happy.
As he sat on the steps thinking about all this and staring at the letter. He remembered he'd be late for work! He went back inside and opened the refrigerator to get the brown bag. His lunch, one of the chores Nancy always had him help her do each night. He put the envelope in his back pocket and forgot about it as he carefully locked his home up and placed his key and keyring in his right front pocket like Nancy showed him. He turned and walked to work, Mr. Richard was there at the door waiting, James thought he was mad from his look. As he came close Mr. Richard said, “About time James, I thought you might have been run over. You know you are fifteen minutes late?”
James tried to remember why he was late, the letter! He carefully removed it from his pocket, maybe Mr. Richard could read it to him? “Mr. Richard, I got a letter today, directly from the postman, never had one before. Could you maybe read it for me? I am sorry I am late but I really didn't know what to do.”
Mr. Richard looked at him and his gaze softened as he remembered James was different. He took the offered envelope and read the names to James. James recognized one, his.
“Mr. James Fulton,” Mr. Richard said. “It is from the state welfare office, um, the government James. Shall I open it?”
“Please? I need to see if it is something Nancy can see or not. Why else would he have given it just to me?”
Mr. Richard opened it and scanned the document then stared, not anywhere in particular. After a minute Mr. Richard said, “It is bad news James. Nancy is very ill, um, sick, and is in a hospital. They say they were told you can survive on your own and wish to verify you no longer require a mentor through The Helping Hand Society.”
James looked at him, confused. “Nancy sick? Mentor? When will she be back? What is a mentor? Does she need my help again? I help her a lot you know.”
Mr. Richard stood there, how could he explain it to James? He really never needed James to help him. His small construction supply business was fine with just him and the forklift but Nancy had been in this neighborhood for more than sixty years helping anyone that needed it. Many times without compensation. She even started up a little group of two people and called it The Helping Hand Society. The other woman had died many years ago and Nancy soldiered on. She received state funding only after she left the church orphanage and renounced them for the way they treated some children, especially seven year old James. She then was given several people to help her as she became a powerful figure in the local hierarchy. She talked Mr. Richard into hiring James. In spite having to tell him when to eat lunch and when to go home, he found James as loyal and dedicated a worker as you could find, even if he made mistakes now and then.
Mr. Richard looked at James again, “I don't think she will be back James. From the way they worded it I get the impression it is very serious.” The letter stated advanced Pancreatic Cancer and listed her anticipated demise as 'soon' but Mr. Richard felt inclined not to pass that on to James.
“She told me people die, Mr. Richard. They go to stay with God if they are good and with Satan if they are bad. Is that what you mean, she is dying?” James looked more with a question than with a concern.
“Well, I don't know, it does not say that exactly James. She has a cancer that there is no cure for and from what I read they give the idea it won't be long. But it doesn't say she is dying.” Trying to be kind to James was hard for Mr. Richard. Only because no one, except maybe Nancy, understood how James thought.
Nancy had found his special niche, on Saturday and Sunday James painted. She found early on he had a gift for drawing things. At first she felt it was impressionistic art, but as he developed his motor skills she saw in later years they were beautiful scenes of places that exist only in his mind. Landscapes, buildings, woodlands, seas, sunsets. All so melodious, seeming so entwined with each other. She found a buyer for one, then another and soon James had a steady following of people willing to buy his work. A man from an auction house stopped by each Thursday and picked up the paintings. It was all set up by Nancy, they were sold and the funds deposited in a private account for James.
James remembered Nancy had taken him to the hospital a few times. First time was when she worked at the orphanage and always wore black and white dresses and had a big cross around her neck. Sister Mellisa had gotten mad at him for something, he didn't remember what, but she slapped him and he fell against a table and broke his arm. Nancy was Sister Nancy then and she shoved Mellisa out of the way and told him he needed to go to a hospital. James remembered it didn't hurt much. Not long after that Nancy left there and took James with her.
Mr. Richard told James maybe he'd better work, it would help him relax and not worry to much about Nancy. James felt different. “Is she in the hospital downtown here? Saint Mary's?”
Mr. Richard looked over the document again, “Yes James, why?”
“Mr. Richard, please understand, I never asked for a day off in years but I really must not work today. I have to find a rose.”
“A rose?”
“Yes sir, Nancy always likes red roses, but always just one. She claims all of God's beauty and love sits in a single rose and never is more than one needed. I must see her, today, right now sir. Please?”
Mr. Richard was contemplating what to do. James, to his knowledge, had never ventured beyond the three blocks it took to get here from his home. Finally he made a decision. “Wait a few minutes James. I will be back.”
Mr. Richard returned to James after a few minutes and locked the door. “A taxi is coming for us James, let us go find Nancy.” Mr. Richard felt he owed that much to James and Nancy.
Mr. Richard had the driver stop at a florist and James spent many minutes finding exactly the right rose, its deep red petals turned to crimson as they curved in toward the stem. James wouldn't allow it to be wrapped and he carefully carried it the rest of the trip to the hospital.
James was at a loss again, they didn't want him to see Nancy, she was in something called ICU, but they promised to give her the flower. Mr. Richard talked to the woman and thirty minutes later Nancy had demanded that James be allowed in. The hospital relented, after all, it was Nancy.
James felt sad, she was hooked up to all sorts of machines and was pale, her normal glowing black skin was gray, her soft brown eyes looked so tired, but she smiled such a warm smile as her hand held the rose. “James, you should not have come, I never wanted you to see me like this,” her voice was weak and raspy instead of the deep sweetness he knew so well.
“They said you were sick, Mr. Richard read the note. I know a rose makes you feel better and I never said it, but you know I love you don't you?” James found he was more upset than normal.
“Yes James, I have known. I have loved you like the son I never had. James, promise me to be good so that when the time comes I can see you again in heaven. God has decided it is time I rest.”
She held the rose and smelled it, then rested her hand on the bed, delicately holding the rose between her fingers. The bed sheet slipped, covering from the wrist up. A single tear formed in her eye, sparkling like a diamond as machines started wailing and buzzing. James knew she was no longer there.
~~~
In a famous museum dedicated to art, a rich old man named James sits on a marble bench in front of a huge painting, his head looking downward as he sees the light bathe about his feet as if aglow from an angle above him.
He glances up once again, as he has done for so many years, and sees a soft pale blue sky, sun high, sitting above a landscape of fantastic beauty, plants not of this earth, lush grass, and wondrous buildings all form a backdrop for the single pale hand floating in a soft mist, holding the perfect rose in its delicate grasp. Severed at the wrist the hand drips diamonds upon the world below and a little brass plaque just has the title, Nancy .
Softly the old man whispers, “Soon, I have tried to keep my promise.”
