The Records Room wasn't hard to find. It was in the basement, beyond the morgue, and like the morgue, it held the records of finished cases, but unlike the morgue, the cases here were already buried, in a locked and windowless vault. Picking the lock was child's play, a useful skill to have with mischievous Oompa-Loompas as a part of the landscape, and as Willy stowed his tools, and pushed his legitimizing cleaning cart into the room before him, he wondered that records like these would be kept for so many years. They made incinerators for these sorts of things, ya know. But, ya know, ya never know when someone is gonna get unhappy, and sue ya, and then ya need t' have these things, so there ya have it.

Willy flipped on the light. Skulking was fine, but a real cleaning person would switch on the lights, and it made it so much easier to see. As far in the past as Willy's fishing expedition was gonna take him, he suspected the microfiche cache was where he would find his quarry, but he found he was wrong. The room stretched on for eons, shelf after shelf, year after year, and though the hospital was computerizing their records, they were doing it from latest to last-est, with the fifties, so far, untouched. Trawling the stacks, Willy found the files he wanted, his and his mother's, and sliding down to the floor, his back against the support, he began to read.


Nora watched Charlie push the scrambled eggs around on his plate, mashing them into the hash browns, as if his fork were a bulldozer. It was a repeat of yesterday.

"Is Willy going to walk you to school today, dear?"

Charlie looked up. "I don't know. He didn't say."

"Is he going to grace us with his presence, and show up for breakfast?"

"Don't sound so grumpy, George," reproved Grandpa Joe, looking over the top rim of his glasses to say it. "He's entitled, if he wants to."

"I don't know," said Charlie glumly. "He didn't say."

"Does he say anything, Charlie?"

"George!"

Charlie nodded at Grandma Josephine, glad to see she was sticking up for Willy these days.

"Daisies!"

All eyes turned to Georgina.

"Blue-bells turned into daises," she sniffed matter-of-factly, "and I know what I'm talking about."

It was a conversation stopper. No one knew if she did or she didn't, and no one wanted to dampen the day by finding out.


In like a lion, out like a lamb. That was him: brave at the start, but limp as a rag now. It was March that made him think of it. This was March, but why couldn't the days be longer? Stepping out into the light would have been nice, after the darkness of those files. The stuff stuffed between the lines in those things was harrowing. How do you know that you don't want to know, what you don't know? Willy settled his newsboy cap over the surgical cap, and turned up the collar on his worn pea coat. It was as well he'd known the ending before he began the reading: they live. They both live … happily ever after, no less, for four and a-half, going on five, years. Dandy, wasn't it? He began walking. He'd been walking for ten minutes before he realized he had no idea where he was going. It wasn't back to the Factory. That wasn't this way. This way wasn't any way. He changed direction. He ought to go back to the Factory.

A few paces later, he changed his mind. The Factory was no place to take these thoughts. It was no place to take these files: these files, half-stuffed down the back of his trousers, secured by the belt around his middle. You could just about hear the crunch of the papers when he walked, and he could feel their corners, digging into his skin; discomfort that made the abstractions in them real. The hospital didn't need 'em anymore. Willy wasn't gonna sue. The hospital and its doctors and nurses had done brilliant work, even if his pater thought that that was a miscarriage. An arcuate uterus had been the culprit that had tried to do them in, but they'd been saved. What could have ended in a miscarriage that ended both their lives, had ended as a premature birth instead; a very premature birth, but viable, as it turned out. Who knew? The doctors knew, and the nurses knew, and the staff knew, and anyone else who read these files after the fact would know—and it was loooong after the fact by now—and what business would that be of theirs? Zilch, zero, rien. At this late date, it was his business—his alone—and Willy took them.

Willy changed course again. Where to go? He plodded along, wondering if he cared. He listened to the sound of his footfalls, as the sky became lighter. He thought of Charlie's oxen, plodding along the Oregon Trail. Plodding along, plodding, plodding … yeah, the Oregon Trail … there was an idea! Specifically, Charlie's observation: who needed guides, when you could follow the graves? Willy had his own Oregon Trail, local, not loco, no less. Willy set out to follow the graves.


"I don't think he's coming," said Charlie. "I'd better get ready to go."

"What did Willy mean about being a disruption?" asked Nora, running hot water over the dishes stacked in the sink.

"That would mean business as usual, for him," said George, shrugging into his coat. "I'm heading for Terence's shop."

"Where is Terence? Why isn't he back?" Nora let her hands go idle, wondering if anyone would volunteer an answer.

"Yes, why isn't he back? Wait for me, George. I'll walk with you till I split for the toothpaste factory." Noah reached for his coat, and hearing no answer, he pushed a little. "Charlie? Do you know?"

Charlie had gone up to his loft, to get his backpack. To tell, or not to tell? Willy hadn't said not to. "Willy says Terence is a comet. He says Terence isn't coming back."

"Charlie! How can Willy say that! Of course Terence is coming back."

"I hope so, mum, but Willy doesn't think so."

Nora pursed her lips, starting to say more, but George had perked up his ears, and Nora didn't want to have to listen to any more witty-nasty barbs about Willy from her father. They weren't as funny as George thought they were. Thinking Terence wasn't coming back must make Willy sad, though you'd never see it in him. Nora hadn't suspected for a minute Willy thought that way. Thinking she'd like to discuss this more with Charlie, she shooed the others from the house. "That answers that, then. Run along, you two."

The door closed behind them, and Nora, seeing Charlie alight on the landing, realized nothing had changed. Josephine and Georgina were just as much an audience as the men. Private conversations were hard to come by.

"When you're ready to go, I'll walk you to the Factory door."

Charlie opened his mouth to protest, but Nora held up her right hand as if she were being sworn in, and crossed her heart with the other.

"I promise, I won't go any farther than that."

Charlie, thinking Willy might join him on the walk in progress, laughed. His mother had read his mind.


Willy started with Thea. Willy was sure about her. About where she was, that was. And there she was, right where he'd thought she'd be. She could use more flowers. He'd see to that when he got back to the Factory. The greenhouses were overflowing, and he always liked an excuse to visit down there. Finding a pretty stone to lay on the grave, Willy hadn't much to say. What he'd learned today hadn't to do with Thea, but he knew he owed her an apology.

"Dear Thea, were it not for you, the pater's move might have moved me never to defy him again, ever, or if I did, I'd have left it too late, and though you may not be my paren, you count. Big time."

The delight of her laughter was a glissando on the wind. 'I know that, dear heart,' he thought he heard her say. 'I'm on to you. I'm a parent who wouldn't prove your point that parents are awful, so using the technicality, you said I didn't count.'

Willy nodded, hearing the gentle rebuke in her voice.

'That's cherrypicking, dearest, to make your theory work. You know I taught you better than that.'

Bowing his head, Willy clasped his hands behind his back, squirming at the reminder. She had, and she was right: he'd let his thinking get sloppy. But…

'Not all parents are like your father.'

"D'ya think?"

'Not for years now, heart of my heart, I'm dead, but Charlie's a find, and so are his parents, if you'll give them a chance, so run along now, and give them a chance.'

"'Kay."

'Sweetheart?'

"Yes?"

'You're paying forwards what I did, what Sin did, and I love you for it.'

"I love you, too. Byeee!"

And Willy smiled, and ran along, feeling warm all over.


Mama was different. Willy didn't know—he only thought he knew—where she was, and Dede had claimed the stones were pathetic. Willy might be wrong. But Dede would say that, true or not, and the lot was the only place Willy knew to go. It was the last place he'd seen his mother… Leaving Thea's grave, he'd taken the files from their hiding place. They were uncomfortable, and he was far from the hospital. He'd share them with Mama; they could go over them, together.

Nearing the lot, Willy changed course again, heading for the alley at the back of the row of houses. Libby counted too, and Libby had the monitoring equipment. Willy could count on Libby to monitor him, and Willy wanted privacy at the moment. He'd take the route between the cameras, and that route started from the alley. It ended where the toolshed had stood, and that location proved unacceptable. Willy took himself and the files to the flat, oblong stone, and sitting thereon, he read them again, page by page, as the dawn came and went, and the morning grew older.


Libby, alerted by a chime, went to his screen, and saw what he saw: jacketed files, perused by a jacketed man in overalls, wearing gloves, and a cap over a surgical cap, purple, no less. It didn't take much to guess who that was, or where he had come from. Oh, I say, to have been a fly on that wall!

Libby kept his seat, sipping the coffee he'd made, watching. He'd had surgical privileges with that hospital for years; decades, in fact, and he'd paid a visit or two to that vault of a Records Room. He'd read more than once what he could guess were in Willy's hands now; more than twice, in fact. He knew those folders intimately. Though concern creased his brow, Libby saw no need to interfere. Willy seemed to be handling it.


Early morning cars, passing on the street, were the only sounds. The trees had yet to leaf, and the fallen leaves had long been rotting. Damp with frost, there wasn't the wind to move them. The lot was always like this: empty. Willy never felt anything here. It was just a lot, tarted up. Cared for, but with no one caring. Maybe that's what Dede meant, when he'd said the stones Willy had laid there were pathetic. Willy laid more every year; every October. Maybe after enough years, the design would be complete. There was no hurry. There was no one to see it; to understand it, and he, who did, already knew the outcome. Maybe this ritual was pathetic. But at least it was an attempt. An attempt to remember something that had felt good. Something that had been worthwhile here. The truth was incongruous.

"I almost killed you. I didn't mean to."

Forlorn, Willy studied the picture of his mother he'd found in her file. It was paper-clipped to her discharge authorization. It was an instant photo, in black and white, the camera taking it probably the toy of her doctor, the picture taken for a lark. She was sitting up in her hospital bed, smiling happily at the camera. It was odd to see a picture of his mother; odd to see a picture of his mother with her head not torn out of it; odd to see Dede had let this one live. He must not have known about it. His mother looked like him: strikingly like him. Except for his sex, they might be clones. Dede was right about the teeth. His were hers. Willy stared into the image; lost himself in it; wondered, if he stared into it long enough, if she would speak to him: answer his question: Why? He knew the when, and maybe the what, and if the what were what he thought it was, that took care of the where.

The traffic noise picked up. This was hopeless. He barely remembered his mother. Sitting staring at dried chemicals on curled paper wouldn't change that. Gathering the files together, tenderly returning the photo to its place, Willy stood up, and took a step.

'Ma cher enfant…'

It was a shiver—the merest shiver—of a thought at the corner of his brain. 'My dear child…'

'Tu n'as pas fait ça…'

He'd speak, but that would break the thread. 'You didn't do that…'

The words were weak, garbled, but they were there, he'd swear it.

'Je vécu pour voir si tu vivais.'

Willy's lips barely moved.

"You lived to see if I lived?"

Like a perfumed handkerchief, waved in assent, the pungent smell of the damp earth rose into his nostrils, the voice too choked with emotion to speak further. Or perhaps the speaker was gathering her strength, after a great effort. Willy dared not move, but he dared not stay. He was losing his mind, and he needed his mind. His mother may have lived, but it hadn't been for long. Maudlin imaginings wouldn't help, but this might be real. He made an effort. He did for Thea.

"I lived. I live still. I wish I'd known you." A tear dampened his jacket collar. "I miss the you I didn't get to know."

Pausing, as one does when one is exhaling, the lot soothed him with its usual indifference. Waiting, Willy lowered his eyes, and sensing nothing more, moved off the oblong stone, and towards the phantom tool shed. Phantom words followed him.

'Les années j'ai eu avec toi étaient le plus heureux de ma vie. Trouver une famille, Willy, trouver un enfant … ne laisse pas Wilbur ruiner ça, comme lui fait avec nous.'

Keen eyes sought to penetrate the stones of the design, even as tears stung them. He didn't know if the years he had spent with his mother were the happiest of his life, as she was saying; he only remembered them as happy feelings, like a temperate sun against your cheek, or mud squishing between your toes, or the smell of new mown grass.

"I have found a family, Mama dear, and a child, as you say. I won't let Dede ruin it."

The faint feeling of connection slipped away. The lot was just the lot. Through salty tears, Willy made his way back to the alley.


Though the context has no doubt given it away, Araminta's last speech translates to: "The years I had with you were the happiest of my life. Find yourself a family, Willy, find yourself a child. Don't let Wilbur ruin that, as he did with us."
I used French here, because it seemed to me, were it possible at all, the dearly departed communicating with the living might be a strenuous undertaking (you decide about the pun) and if so, one best done in one's native tongue. For Minty, that would be French. French is not my native tongue, so please forgive any errors there may be.

I do not own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in any of its many forms, and there is no copyright infringement intended. Thanks for reading, thanks for sticking with this story, and thanks, if you would, for sharing your thoughts.

Linkwonka88: It does make you wonder, doesn't it? Some people don't want things easy, I guess; they want them hard. Tina Turner's spoken introduction to "Proud Mary" makes the point: "You know, every now and then, I think you might like to hear something from us, nice, and easy, but there's just one thing ... you see we never ever do nothing nice, and easy, we always do it nice, and rough." And I guess that describes old Wilbur. Thanks for reviewing.
Sonny April: Perception is everything, and I so envy you yours. The
Wizard of Oz's Emerald City is indeed emerald in the movie, and would that it were so, but in the book it is emerald colored glasses worn by its denizens that make it appear emerald. I think Wilbur is like that: not what he appears. Thank you for a very refreshing point of view, and for taking the time to review.
Squirrela: Thanks, good chapters are good. Writing the nurse was fun. She's a good soul, focused on her work, but perhaps to the exclusion of all else. Where
was that hospital ID? ;-) Thanks for your review.