'And
seeing as her mother's still alive, and the family home is more than sufficient
for her needs, I think Linny will be fine. It will take time… like with you,
Danny.'
She
reaches out and takes my hand. She smiles. 'But I think she will be fine.'
I
smile. Sometimes I feel like crying, but now it is different.
'Thank
you,' I say, I think for the hundred thousandth time.
She
nods.
A
waitress appears to my right.
'You
folks hungry?' she asks.
'Starving,'
Caroline says. 'Can you make some eggs and rye toast?'
The
girl, whose badge says Charlene, says
Sure we can make eggs and rye toast.
And then
Charlene turns to me, and she smiles, and she asks me what I want.
I
look up at her. I want to hug her. 'You have a baked ham sandwich?'
Charlene
smiles again. She has the whitest teeth of anyone I've seen.
'Sure
we have baked ham,' she says. 'Honey, we have the finest baked ham this side of
the Georgia state line.'
I
start to laugh.
Caroline
frowns.
Charlene
starts laughing too, but she doesn't know why.
Frank
Stroud did not lose his job for impersonating a priest.
He
made me believe such a thing was possible, but he was joking.
He
seemed to take it all in his stride, like he didn't even need me to tell him
thank you.
After
the appeal was over, after my story was forgotten news, I saw him on TV. He was
saying something about corruption in some police precinct somewhere.
He
was like that, it seemed. Always fighting something.
I
will never forget him.
She
ate her eggs the same way she always had.
We
could have been in Benny's. We could have been on the verandah enjoying the
smell of my mother's fried chicken cooking.
I
asked her why; why did she come to see me after so many years?
She
just smiled. She just smiled and said
Because…
I
asked her also why she left the way she did, what it was that her father did
that prompted their sudden departure from Greenleaf all those years ago.
She
was quiet for a time, and then she said that there were things that happened
back then that she didn't understand, but she felt it had something to do with
people he was involved with. He had been a doctor, a good one, but there were
people who came to him for help late at night, or the early hours of the
morning sometimes, and she believed that those people were connected to another
part of his life that he had no wish to share with her.
She
had thought about pursuing this, discovering the truth of what had happened,
but she'd been scared to look, scared to touch a wound that was almost healed.
And
then she smiled once more, and laughed gently, and we didn't speak of it again.
'I
would like to see you again,' I said.
'I
understand,' Caroline said.
I
leaned forward imperceptibly. There was something in her expression, something
there back of her eyes… a word, a sound… something…
I
felt my heart close up like a child's fist, tight and desperate, a futile
response.
'I
have a life, Daniel -'
She
looked at me, looked right through me perhaps.
I
felt transparent.
I
heard nothing but the sound of my own heart, beating frantically like the wings
of a moth.
'I
have a life,' she said, repeating it as if to convince herself. 'What happened
between us… we were kids, nothing more than kids… you know that, right?'
I
sensed a fragment of desperation in her tone, as if once again she was saying
these things merely to convince herself that she was right.
'I
have a job,' she went on, 'and I have my own house and a car and a dog…'
She
paused, she looked right at me. There was something so direct in her
unflinching gaze that I was momentarily unnerved.
'And
a husband,' she said. 'I have my life…'
She
glanced away. I could see tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
'Frank
came to see me… he told me about Linny, how her father had died and she wanted
to give evidence about what had happened. He told me she had tried again and
again to send some message out but her father had always been there. He told me
what he was doing and why… and believe me, I wanted to believe you were
innocent; all these years I really wanted to believe you were innocent… and now
I know you are I feel like I have attained some sense of closure…'
She
reached towards me and closed her hand over mine.
'But
I can't see you again. You have to go forward, Daniel, but I can't go backwards
to meet you, you understand?'
I did
not, but I nodded as if I did, perhaps in an effort to make myself believe I
understood her, believe that she was right.
'I
wanted to see you again,' she whispered. 'I thought of you often, more than
often, but I could never bring myself to come see you in that place… the
thought of you dying…'
She
turned away, just for a moment she turned away.
'I
wanted to make sure you were okay… I wanted to tell you that whatever anyone
might have said, you were the first.'
I
looked up at her.
She
smiled with that same tilt to the side, her hair falling in slow-motion.
'Always
the first. And I did love you, loved you the only way I knew how back then… but
I have to leave you here to find your own way.'
She
left the rest of her eggs and rye toast.
I
watched her rise. I watched her edge sideways from behind the table. I watched
her stand and gather her things, reach towards me and touch the side of my
face.
I
could smell her perfume even after I could no longer see her.
And
though I heard the sound of her car I did not turn and look through the window
to watch her disappear.
I did
not let her go; I was merely bound by honor to release her.
And
released she was… like a moth, in that last hair's- breadth of silence before
the flame at last consumes.
And
there were so many questions I had wanted to ask her.
I
felt a breeze creep in through the diner exit, a breeze that seemed to close in
around my table and occupy the seat where Caroline had been only moments
before, and I wondered if I would ever have had the courage to ask those questions.
She
had come and gone so quickly.
Just
like before.
I
stared at the plate ahead of me.
You
have to make your own way now, Daniel…
I
questioned her reasoning and motivation for coming at all.
…
attain
some sense of closure
…
What
had Frank Stroud told her?
I
believed I would never ask him.
I
believed he would perhaps tell me the same thing: that I had to find my own
way.
So I
let her go without a struggle.
And
as the sound of her car faded into nothing I told myself that I
had
let
her go.
Time
would tell.
I
believe I will see him again, my brother.
He
will hold his head high.
As
will I.
And
this time, when we walk together, we will not take separate paths.
We
will walk side-by-side, as we always did… if not in body, then surely in
spirit.
Sometimes
I ask myself about my own life. By almost anyone's standards I am still a young
man, a man who has seen twelve years of his life folded away quietly somewhere
in the zone of forgetting.
Sometimes
I try to tell myself that those twelve years were part of my growing up, part
of the necessary steps I had to take in order to become an adult.
I
watch people around me - in the street, the mall, the tidy lives of those who
spend their daylight hours confined within some office somewhere - and I see
how they take those hours and days and months for granted.
To do
such a thing scares me.
People
sometimes ask me about myself, just in passing you know, like at the bus
station, waiting somewhere for something one has to wait for, and I smile, I
make small talk, and I tell little white lies. Not because I am ashamed, for I
know, have always known, that killing a man was never within me. That's why I
didn't go to war. But people are prejudiced and judgemental, and their own past
experiences have served to darken their thoughts and expectations. Like they
expect the worst. Like they are indoctrinated into thinking that it's always
best to believe the worst… for in that way you can rarely be caught out.
Truth
is, I am not trying to catch anyone, but then again I wouldn't expect them to
know that. I am a stranger, just like everyone else who passes in the street,
and it seems a shame that these days one cannot smile at a child, an adult
even, and not be received with some air of suspicion.
I
will find work. I was never afraid of it, and it will come my way, but for now,
just for a little while, I will take the time to look at the world once more.
To try and see it for what it truly is. I forgot how it was, and I find myself
in a position where I am learning all over again. There is a certain magic in
the process, like sight returning to the blind, hearing to a deaf man, but
there is, equally, pain in my recognition that as we have advanced in so many
ways, we have also walked backwards.
And
the house where I was once a child still stands. It is damp. The windows are
broken. The screen door hangs from its hinges and leans out across the front
steps like a drunk. When you stand on those steps you can feel your weight
threatening the very fabric of the structure.
But
still, I went down there.
Went
inside.
I was
alone, it was quiet as a cemetery, and once inside I moved slowly, carefully, walking
on eggshells. Once again I stood in the hallway looking through into the
kitchen where almost every childhood meal had been eaten, where Nathan and I
had hidden from the world when we returned from Florida. I turned and stood in
the same doorway where I had watched Nathan and Linny, where I had believed my
trust violated, where I had recognized my own inability to control the
significant aspects of my life.
I
shed some tears. For Nathan. For Linny. For myself.
I
think of her even now - Linny Goldbourne - and I imagine her somewhere in North
Carolina, coping with her own healing process, and though I could pick up a
phone and hear the sound of her voice within a heartbeat, I do not wish to.
I
believe also that she does not wish to speak with me, because each of us would
remind the other of a part of our lives that is now gone. Not forgotten, just
gone. A part that is better gone.
What
happened, happened.
We
should each let it go.
The first
time I returned home I did not go upstairs. I told myself that it was
dangerous, that perhaps the stairs were unsafe. That was not the truth.