Forever Friday (14 page)

“Yes, I’m fine.” Fighting back more tears, Huck sat up, focusing her gaze upon the man who’d just saved her life. She began to ask about his unbelievable cry when she noticed the blood. “Oh, Gabe, your face is bleeding.” She leaned forward and daubed his forehead with the hem of her dress.

Gabe raised himself into a sitting position. “Chocolate on one dress and blood on another. I wonder what time Foley Brothers opens.”

“Stop cracking jokes. You could be seriously hurt.”

“Believe me. It’s nothing but a scratch.” He touched the wound. “See. The bleeding’s stopped. Good thing I’m hardheaded.”

“I think we should get you to a hospital.” Huck stood. “Don’t move. I’ll go inside and call an ambulance.”

“No, Huck … please.” Gabe managed to stand with a wobble, then plopped into the swing. “I’m just a little dizzy. Been hurt much worse than this. All I need is a smoke.” He located his coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

“But you may have a concussion.” Huck sat beside Gabe. “Papa got kicked in the head by a mule and suffered double vision for days.”

Gabe grinned. “I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than seeing two of you.” He struck a match, holding it up to reveal a long but nonserious gash.

“Light your cigarette and hush,” Huck ordered. “I’ll run get some rubbing alcohol and …” She paused, almost cringing at how the alcohol would sting, then continued. “And a bandage.”

Huck scampered inside, switching on lights as she searched for Mrs. Thompson’s first-aid supplies. She vaguely remembered her landlady mentioning they were not stored in the bathroom, but inside a cabinet somewhere toward the rear of the house, perhaps off the back hallway.

Huck’s brain wanted to dwell on the horrible events of the past few minutes, but her heart resisted. Clark Richards was now in her past. He would move to Chicago, and she’d never have to see him again. Of course her mother, as well as the rest of the family, would hear about their breakup soon. It would be all over Huntsville, nothing even close to the truth. Clark would never be foolish enough to reveal what actually
happened. Never admit he’d gone mad. She should probably call the police and press charges, but unless Gabe insisted differently, she’d just rather forget the whole ugly mess.

Huck located the cabinet and gathered gauze, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and some hospital tape. She smiled. The man she’d been searching for her entire life was outside on another porch swing. And now she knew that his feelings for her were more than simple adoration. He loved her. He had shown sacrificial love by placing his life on the line without hesitation. That’s what Gabe’s caring cry of desperation had been about. It had to have been him, although it wasn’t the same timbre of his gentle voice. It was much deeper. She’d read stories where lovers in peril could suddenly perform miraculous feats of courage and strength, then have no recollection of what they’d done.

Huck shivered.

The cry in the night and Clark’s sudden, inexplicable departure had certainly mirrored the miraculous. She wondered if Gabe may not have remembered doing it … unless …?

Overcome with emotion, Huck began to tremble, dropping the first-aid supplies. She fell to her knees and wept. But this time her tears flowed because of a sudden realization. A knowing joy. An epiphany.

The cry in the night was what had made Clark run, saving her life and Gabe’s. She had assumed it was Gabe’s voice, a desperate groan as he leapt to save her. She had assumed the cry was abnormally human.

But it wasn’t.

It was angelic.

The voice that had pierced the night was Mister Jack’s.

Summer 2006

Adam Colby

I’d waited exactly seventeen minutes when I received the disappointing text message from Yevette. She was my best hope toward filling in the many gaps of the Alexanders’ story not included in the postcards. It was her third time to cancel our meeting. So I trudged to the counter and ordered a double espresso, my favorite pity-party beverage to symbolize life’s bitterness.

“Strike three,” I muttered, then returned to my corner table at the crowded Town Square Starbucks. One of the postcard albums lay open because I’d just read Gabe’s poem about “love’s desperate cry.” I slammed it closed and uttered my own: “I give up.”

For at least a nanosecond, everyone in the room looked my way. Beads of sweaty embarrassment dotted my forehead. I swiped them with a napkin as an early-thirty-something woman with auburn hair approached me from across the room. She stopped beside my table and glanced down at the album. “You must be Adam Colby.”

Before I could reply, the woman introduced herself as Yevette Galloway, then stepped over to the counter and ordered a sugar-free Italian
soda. Except for a black opal pendant, she wore no jewelry. She was reed slender, dressed in handstitched western boots, designer jeans, and one of those fitted denim tops with fancy needlework. Even in boots, she moved with the delicate grace of a ballet dancer. For the first time in two years, I caught myself wanting to stare. Beautiful women were everywhere and most men noticed, some more discreetly than others. It was part of the male job description. It was how the game was played. But when Haley and I split, my girl-watching mechanism malfunctioned. I didn’t care to ever watch or play the game again …

Until now.

It made me uncomfortable, so I shifted my gaze to the dark depths of my espresso and downed a big gulp, burning my tongue. Back when Haley and I were together, I felt free to admire other women—from a distance—because it didn’t mean anything. Now, I wondered if my past appreciation of the opposite sex had contained a hidden meaning, something threatening lurking about on a subconscious level. Had my eye antics produced negative vibes that over time ran Haley off? I glanced toward Yevette, then into my cup, crossing and recrossing my legs as harsh reality stirred the brew in my stomach.

Yevette returned, placed her soda on the table, and sat across from me. “The postcards,” she said matter-of-factly, like an attorney submitting exhibit A. “I suppose I should’ve just taken them anyway.”

“Anyway? Are they yours?”

Yevette shook her head. “Huck wanted them destroyed upon her death.”

“Why?”

Reaching across the table, Yevette stroked the album with a finger.
“During the last year of Huck’s life, she wasn’t in her right mind about half the time. I don’t think she really wanted them destroyed. Anyway, I couldn’t do it.”

“So you hid them on the same shelf with the photo albums?” I asked, studying her heart-shaped face.

“I assumed they’d be overlooked and discarded.”

“Your assumption almost proved …” I swallowed. “It was only a one-day estate sale, so in between my dealings with customers, I began gathering what we in the business call
dumpster collectibles
.”

“Trash,” she said matter-of-factly.

I thought she’d tag her response with a slight smile, or even a chuckle. She didn’t.

I cleared my throat and continued. “Sometimes people have their pictures taken with movie stars, sports figures, even U.S. presidents. Before I pitched the albums, I thumbed through a couple.”

“That’s what I get for not following Huck’s wishes.” Yevette sighed. “It’s not your fault.”

My hands trembled slightly as I clutched my espresso. “So … even though the postcards aren’t yours, you didn’t want anyone else to find them. Is that why you canceled our meeting three times?”

She nodded slowly, as if lost in thought behind her large hazel eyes.

“But today, you came anyway.”

“Yes,” she answered, then said nothing.

In the background, the hiss of steamed milk emphasized the thickening silence. My brain was pondering another question when Yevette spoke.

“I finally stopped resisting the inevitable,” she said bluntly, “and
decided that it was okay for someone else to know everything. But first, I had to see you for myself, without your knowing. Examine you up close. Then I’d determine if you were real.”

I chuckled, probably for the first time in weeks. “So how long have you been in here watching me?”

“Long enough to text you a message and then change my mind.”

“Am I real?”

“As best I can tell.” Yevette leaned forward, her eyes changing from hazel to green. She curled a finger over her lips, then settled back in her chair.

“Good,” I answered, wanting to laugh at the paradox. It was
this woman
who seemed to teeter upon the edge of reality. I was also a little unnerved about the eye-color thing—probably just the light—and wanted to get down to business before she changed her mind again. “Like I mentioned over the phone, there are some details about Mr. and Mrs. Alexander I need to know.”

“Need or want?”

“Need,” I said quietly, deciding she was intuitive enough to communicate on a deeper level than simple conversation. “My wife and I divorced a couple of years ago. I
need
to know where we went wrong.”

“O-kay,” Yevette said slowly.

“Look,” I continued, “when I read Gabe’s poems, I know it sounds really crazy, but I … it seemed like they’d uncovered some kind of secret.”

“A secret?”

“Yeah … of lasting love.

“Like what?”

I stared at the postcard album, wondering if I should mention The
Long Division. “They sacrificed for each other and had eyes only for the other. Reading the poems made me realize all the ways my marriage went wrong.” I felt self-conscious opening up so quickly with Yevette, but I
did
need her to fill in the many gaps in the Alexanders’ story.

“Look,” I said, making eye contact. “Understanding exactly what made their marriage work makes me feel like I could …” I paused and cleared my throat a second time.

“Try again someday?” she finished.

“Maybe. If it’s not too late.”

“Your motives do seem genuine.” Yevette smiled.

“Are you an attorney?” I asked wryly.

She shook her head. “Before Huck died, she told me everything.”

“I thought she wasn’t in her right mind,” I said, then wished I’d kept silent as Yevette’s smile vanished.

“She became confused in her late nineties,” Yevette replied, her tone slightly defensive.

“Alzheimer’s?”

“Not exactly. A form of dementia caused by depression. On some days, Fridays especially, Huck thought Gabe was still alive. She even hallucinated about him coming to see her. On other days she was lucid.”

“May I ask you about your mother?” I said, changing the subject.

“Okay.”

“How long did Priscilla work for the Alexanders?”

“Twenty-six years.”

“Did she know about the postcards?”

“Not to my knowledge. They were kept under lock and key.” Yevette paused, her tone softening. “I didn’t know about them until a
few months before Huck died, when she was living at Bayshore Extended Care.”

“She showed them to you?”

“I helped her put them into albums. It was her idea; said she’d meant to for years. We finished a couple of weeks before she called 911.”

“You mean Mrs. Alexander called 911 from her room at Bayshore?”

“Twice in the same week.”

“Why?”

“The first time she was determined to go to her own beauty shop.”

I laughed out loud. “And the second?”

“Concluded her mail was being stolen.” Yevette paused, her face thoughtful. “It’s okay if you call her Huck. Most people did.”

“And so EMS came?” I continued.

“Both times. With lights flashing and sirens blaring.”

“Was Mrs. Alexander’s … I mean … Huck’s mail really being stolen?”

“In her mind, it was the logical conclusion. Since it was Friday, she thought someone had taken Gabe’s weekly postcard. In truth, she’d not received one since his death eighteen years before.”

“So prior to placing them into albums, where did she and Gabe store them?”

“The postcards were locked in a hidden compartment in a marble-top dresser. They’d bought it on one of their vacations because it was handcrafted by slaves in the 1850s. I remember my mother saying how valuable it was. The hidden compartment was used to hide letters passed along the Underground Railroad.”

I smiled. A great-nephew of the Alexanders had been willed that beautiful historic piece of furniture. Little did he know that the dresser
that protected letters symbolizing human freedom had also protected the symbols of Huck and Gabe’s love.

“I kept the skeleton key to the secret compartment,” Yevette said. “You probably think it’s odd, but it’s one of the few things of theirs I wanted.”

Not knowing how to reply, our conversation halted. My mind had a theory as to why she’d kept the key, but my heart pled the fifth. It was as if we stood in the wilderness before an uncharted crossroad. I desperately wanted to ask why Huck was finally willing to divulge what had been kept private for seventy-some-odd years, then remembered Yevette’s resistance when I’d inquired earlier.

“Huck had her reasons for telling me about each card,” Yevette said, then smiled. “Your face looks like a giant flesh-colored question mark.” She sipped her soda, then leaned across the table and whispered beneath her green eyes. “Eventually, you’ll know what I know. But the postcards will make little sense until I tell you about Mister Jack.”