Victoria Falls
Page 10
As she became more creative with these light fingertip touches I began to hear the same melodious Hebrew or Arabic phrases from our first night that were initially a whisper and then a faint song. At one point she paused, placing both of her hands first around my feet and then in my hair, and as she was moving away from my head, she whispered into my ear.
“You are greatly loved, James. Yahweh wants you to know that you are greatly loved.”
At that she put her face next to mine and held it there for several minutes. What happened next was our transition into transcendence. As she pulled her legs back into a lotus position, her knees were now touching my side and her arms were extended so that her hands were just inches away from my skin.
She began to breathe in a more rhythmical pattern, and now her long exhales were punctuated by short gasps that sounded like small ecstatic whimpers. As she began to move her hands in that several-inch space just above my legs and chest, I could feel the heat from her hands begin to increase.
It was a heat that I had never experienced before. There was both a warmth and an exhilaration that messaged both intense love and sensual stimulation. Melissa brought me to a place that was way beyond the physical. I began to sense that I was floating, that my body was still firmly on the bed, but my spirit was soaring to a place that only the two of us could fully comprehend.
She shifted to her knees and using her long, curly hair she began to bathe my entire body so that only her curls were touching my skin. The effect of her luxurious hair moving back and forth, up and down my body was incredibly erotic. She moaned a little as we both experienced the sweetness of that sacred space, and I could only think of the fragility of what had just occurred. Despite the beauty of our intimacy and her seeming ability to give herself completely to another person, I fell asleep with the reminder that she had prefaced our lovemaking by reminding me that she might leave at any time.
CHAPTER TEN
CHARLIE AWAKENED TO THE SOUND OF SLEET TAPPING against the window. He looked at the clock—9:30 A.M. He had finally fallen asleep around 5:00 and now the events of the night before came rushing back.
Jenny was gone; the man in the truck had returned in the middle of the night; Jenny’s phone was inoperable; and since it was Saturday, James Monroe was scheduled to arrive home. In Heather’s mind he was only a few hours away from Winnetka and would be home in plenty of time to take Ryan to the all-day indoor soccer tournament.
He wandered downstairs and made coffee, trying to prioritize who he should call first. He knew he should call Heather, but the prospect of beginning his day with her prosecutorial reaction made him want to connect with his father first. At least if he talked to James, he could honestly say to Heather that his father had asked him to stay.
He was about to dial Vancouver information when he noticed that he had missed three earlier calls from Heather. Looking at the call history, he realized that it was 11:45 A.M. in Winnetka, just about the time when he could not possibly get back to Winnetka in time, even if he drove straight through. He clicked on the most recent call and hit dial. He couldn’t imagine what he would say to Heather, since now she would have to find someone to take Ryan to soccer.
“Why don’t you answer your phone?” It was Heather’s typical salutation—starting the conversation midstream.
“I must have put the ringer on mute.”
“Please tell me you are almost home.”
“I’m actually still in Lake Louise.”
Charlie knew that this information would bring silence on the other end, and he also knew that Heather’s tone—still fairly neutral—was about to change completely. He braced himself for the onslaught.
“What the hell, Charlie! Why did you lie to me?”
“How did I lie?”
He knew that she was referring to his earlier promise to be home by Sunday, but he couldn’t think of any other response.
“You told me you were heading home two days ago. Do Ryan and I mean nothing to you?”
He knew that she was closing in for the kill, but he was suddenly out of excuses.
“Of course, I care about you and Ryan.”
“You know what? Just stay out in fucking Canada. If you cared about us, you’d be honest with me, and you’d be almost home by now.”
Charlie was out of responses, and he allowed the silence to sear into the phone.
“What am I supposed to tell Ryan? Really Charlie, what kind of father are you?” Heather knew that the bad father accusation would be the one that would sting the most, and she kept going. “Who am I going to find in the middle of a weekend to take him to soccer? I have to be at that meeting by 12:15. Unlike you, I keep my commitments. As usual, Charlie, it’s all about you. Do you ever think about your family and their needs?”
Charlie thought about telling Heather about the late night visit, the phone, and how he had only had four hours of sleep. But Heather had already voiced her incredulity that Jenny had been kidnapped, and because of his earlier dishonesty, he had essentially lost all credibility with his wife.
“I’m going to come home as soon as I can.”
Heather allowed the weakness of his response to linger for a moment before her closing volley of criticism.
“You know what, Charlie. I have put up with your insecurities and your dishonesty for over ten years. I’m tired of being a single parent who gets zero support from her spouse. The crazy thing is that I am constantly defending you, even lying for you when your partners call here because you won’t answer your phone. I give and I give, and I get nothing in return. Other people might like you, but as a husband and a father you are a complete disappointment. Other husbands keep their word. Other fathers spend time with their kids, so really, don’t come home. Don’t come home until you are ready to grow up and act like a man.”
Heather knew that this final jab at his manhood would sink the knife of bitterness deep into his gut, and in her usual style, she decided to end the phone call before he was able to respond. “Goodbye, Charlie. If you ever decide that you are willing to give something to this marriage, give me a call. Otherwise it’s probably better if we don’t communicate for a while. I’m tired of pretending to have a happy marriage when it is really a disaster.”
Charlie saw his screen go blank as Heather ended the call. He sat at the kitchen table and looked outside at the sleet that had now turned to snow. He thought about all of the selfish things Heather had done since they had been married, and how he had adopted a passive-aggressive response that allowed him to agree with her in the short term while subtly undermining her and their marriage over the long haul. There was a part of him that wanted it to come to this. She had suggested a period of no communication, a trial separation, and perhaps this was the opening he had longed for. What would it be like to be divorced? He knew that Jenny had spoken about their father’s divorce, and at the thought of his father he dialed information for Vancouver and asked to be connected to the Stanley Park precinct of the Vancouver police.
“Stanley Park.”
“Yes, where would my brother be able to stay for a night or two until I am able to come get him? He is out of money and he needs a place to stay.”
“We send all of the short termers to Victoria House. They will feed and house him for up to a week.”
“Do you possibly have their phone number?”
“Just a minute.”
While he was away from the phone Charlie thought about also asking him for the acceptable timeframe for reporting missing persons, but reconsidered after calibrating the potential suspicion that might be raised by such an odd request.
“604-927-1853.”
“Thanks very much.”
Charlie carefully dialed the number, realizing that his real father might answer the phone.
“Victoria House.”
“Is James Monroe there?”
“Left yesterday for Lake Louise. Can I help with something?”
“This is his son calling.”
“Am I talking to Rob?”
“Yep, I’m Rob Curtin. The two of us run this place.”
“Rob, if James left there yesterday, how long does it take him to get to Lake Louise?”
“Can you tell me again how you are related to James?”
“Actually Jenny and I are related, and I’ve never met James.”
“It’s an eight- or nine-hour trip; usually he stays over in Kamloops. He left here at 4:00 P.M. yesterday, so he should be there before noon today—unless the weather is bad.”
“Thanks so much, Rob.”
“Tell me your name again.”
“Charlie Benjamin.”
Charlie now realized that James might arrive in the next two hours, and he thought about how he would break the news about Jenny. He also realized that this might be the last opportunity he would have to wash away his fingerprints from around the bathtub. It seemed unlikely that police detectives would ever be in the house looking for fingerprints, but he had already decided that he would not include the bathtub interlude in any narrative that he would give about his twenty-four hours with Jenny.
As he entered the bathroom and knelt down by the tub, he noticed the bottle of shampoo that he had groped for under the tub. He instinctively took the bottle and placed it in the very back of the small bathroom closet. The entire room smelled like Jenny’s fresh bath, and the snow had already covered the skylight so that the bathroom was dark despite the late morning hour.
As Charlie took a small cloth and began to wash down the sides of the tub, he remembered reading about Jewish purification rituals where the entire body—including the hair—was washed in preparation for burial. If Jenny was in fact dead, he would tell James about his brief time with her as she bathed—sister and brother finally united during a purification ritual preparing her for burial. It was a morbid thought, but he forced himself to consider it.
As he started to wipe away possible fingerprints from the floor surrounding the tub, he heard several long honks in the driveway. He ran to the bedroom window and in the light snowfall he saw his father emerge from the cab of a late-model pickup. He looked older than the pictures of him in the living room, and his gray hair was cut very short. Even from the window, Charlie could see that James was thin and fit—a man who had continued to be active into his sixties. He had on jeans and a brown leather jacket, and Charlie noticed a cowboy hat on the dashboard of the truck.
His heart was full of anticipation as he bounded down the stairs and opened the front door. As soon as James saw Charlie, his face broadened into a welcoming smile.
“Are you Teresa Benjamin’s son? Are you Charlie Benjamin?”
“I am. I think you knew my mom in Africa.”
“Your mom was quite a woman. Someone who I will always cherish and remember.”
“She thought a lot of you as well. In fact, she mentioned your name on her deathbed.”
Both men just stood there allowing the import of Teresa’s death to be the initial nexus of their reunion. They had both known and loved Teresa, and their reunion must have been something she had dreamed about for decades. Now that they were meeting for the first time, they both found it difficult to express their latent emotion and their common expectation. Charlie knew that he should immediately tell James about Jenny’s disappearance, but he wanted the positive aspects of their first father-son meeting to linger for a minute more. Instead of mentioning Jenny, he returned to Teresa.
“She died just five months ago—late October.”
James knew that he would have the opportunity to talk more about Teresa, and so he decided to transition back to the moment. His mantra since moving to Canada was to live in the present.
“In any event, Charlie, welcome to Lake Louise. I assume Jenny has taken good care of you.”
“She took very good care of me, but she’s been missing since yesterday afternoon.”
James stopped in his tracks and looked into Charlie’s eyes.
“Where is she? What do you mean ‘missing’?”
“We were cross-country skiing yesterday afternoon on the Lake Moraine trail. She came back here to get her phone. She didn’t want to miss your call. When I came back she was gone.”
“There’s got to be more to it than that.”
“A mechanic was here yesterday morning. He came back in his truck last night. When I approached him he sped off. I got part of his license plate.”
James’s eyes were still fixed on Charlie. Charlie thought about all of the prevarication that his father had to deal with in Vancouver. All of those made-up stories that he undoubtedly had heard from people hoping to stay for an extra week at the shelter. He suddenly realized that James had every right to be skeptical.
“Did you check the trail?”
“I didn’t check the trail because Jenny’s cross-country skis were propped up next to the door when I got back. Besides, I found her hair clip on the floor of the car, and why would the mechanic return in the middle of the night? He must have been looking for her phone that I later found in the woodpile.”
Charlie realized that his explanation sounded rushed and disjointed. There were too many disparate parts to his explanation. It was beginning to sound like a hastily thrown-together alibi, and as the two of them continued to stand in the doorway, Charlie wanted to reassure his father in some way. Both of them realized that Jenny’s disappearance now presented a barrier to what had begun as a happy reunion of father and son.
“We need to check the trail. For all you know she injured herself as she was skiing back to find you. Jenny has several other pairs of skis; she may have used one of those.”
As James slipped by him and into the front hallway, Charlie felt foolish and bewildered. He noticed that his father was leaving on his coat.
“Of course I should have checked the trail,” Charlie thought. “I should have checked it as soon as I found Jenny missing.”
“So you heard a truck last night in the driveway?”
“It was the mechanic’s truck; I even saw him get out and look around.”
When Charlie started to explain about finding the phone, he brought the disassembled phone to the kitchen table like a child might bring a broken toy to his father. James looked at it, reassembled it, and for a moment the screen lit up as if it were coming on. After a flicker it went dark again. Charlie regarded the flicker as the first hopeful sign since her disappearance, and for a moment he thought that Jenny was now somehow aware that her father was home.
Charlie didn’t mention being in the bathroom while Jenny was about to wash her hair or the potential fingerprint issue, but he was relieved to tell someone other than Heather what had happened during the past twenty-four hours. As he finished the entire narrative, James began to buckle on the cross-country ski boots that Charlie had worn the day before.
“I’m going to ski the trail. Why don’t you fix us some lunch and I will be back in about ninety minutes.”
Charlie watched as his father strapped on the cross-country skis and headed for the trail. As he fixed some soup and sandwiches, he hoped that his father did not find Jenny on the five-mile loop. If he did find her, it meant she had been injured and had spent the night on the trail in ten-degree weather. Whatever her condition at this point, Charlie would be seen as being negligent and culpable if she had debilitating injuries, or worse, if she had died. But her being on the trail would not explain the mechanic’s night visit to the woodpile or Jenny’s hair clip in the front seat of the car. And if she had returned for her phone, why would she have left it on the woodpile?
True to his word, Charlie’s father skied back into the driveway ninety minutes after his departure. Watching him remove his skis, Charlie already knew from his unhurried demeanor that he had not found Jenny.
“We’ve done our due diligence. She’s not on the trail and it hasn’t snowed enough to completely cover a body. She
wouldn’t have skied off the trail, so now we are most likely looking for another explanation.”
As the two of them sat down for a late lunch, Charlie felt as if he had gained some credibility. Now the late night truck and the frozen phone seemed to be more important factors in Jenny’s disappearance. Whatever blame James had been assigning to Charlie was now replaced with a desire for more information about the events leading to Jenny’s disappearance.
“Remind me again how you knew I was in Lake Louise?”
There was a long pause, and both men looked over at the crackling fire before Charlie responded.
“My mother told me on her deathbed that you are my real father. That she met you in Africa. I found your address in her wallet after she died.”
There was a brief pause as they both returned to the awkwardness they had experienced when James first arrived.
“I knew that you had been born, but it wasn’t my place to tell Teresa how to handle things. I had already complicated her life. It was probably better all around that only the two of us knew the truth. But I’m glad that you drove all the way out here to see me. Most men who have never had a son secretly wish for one, as I always have. Did you tell Jenny?”
“I told her on Thursday night. She didn’t take it well at first, but she was better on Friday morning when we decided to go skiing.”
“Tell me what she said.”
Charlie thought for a second, trying to remember Jenny’s actual words.
“Not then, but earlier, when I first arrived, she said that the two of you were very close—that she is the most important person in your life, that the two of you are as close as a father and daughter can possibly be.”
Charlie looked across the table and noticed that James was gazing across the room at the picture of Jenny and him outside a cave. She could only have been twelve or thirteen. Charlie could sense that James was on the verge of losing the equilibrium that he had carefully kept intact since his arrival, and he decided to quickly change the subject.