by Greg Iles
She slides into the chair across from me with a creak of crepitus. “You know it,” she says with a smile. “I can taste the bayou in them.”
Looking into her exhausted but still handsome face, I remember Dr. Kirby telling me that she’s suffering from sleep deprivation. “You don’t have a sitter tonight?”
She waves her hand. “Duncan only likes one well enough to let her help at night, and she needed a night off.”
“Mom, you’ve got to take care of yourself. Money’s no object when it comes to that.”
She forces a smile. “Let’s change the subject.”
“All right. Do you know very much about the Bienville Poker Club?”
My question surprises her. “Blake Donnelly and that crowd?”
“I think Donnelly’s about the best of the bunch. Some of them are pretty shady.”
“Oh, that doesn’t surprise me. How many people really do honest work anymore? Blake’s just rich enough to live a little straighter than the others.”
“I figured Claude Buckman must be richer than Blake.”
Mom purses her lips and weighs what information she possesses. “Oh, I don’t know. Blake’s pumped a lot of oil for a lot of years, collected a lot of mailbox money. Either way, Claude is a slug. Can’t keep his nasty hands to himself. Never could. Ugh.”
We’re silent for a bit, and she sips her coffee in relative contentment.
“What did Dr. Kirby say before he left?” I ask.
She looks unsure whether to tell me, or maybe whether to be completely honest. “I just thank heaven for Jack. He’s been so patient. One of those younger doctors would have thrown up his hands over Duncan long ago.”
I nod but say nothing, leaving silence for her to fill.
“Jack thinks the end is getting close,” Mom says in a church whisper. “Duncan’s not going to stop drinking. I could empty all the bottles, but then he’d break his hip trying to get out to the car. Or, worse, run his wheelchair off the porch. I’m sure you judge me for letting him have it, but, Marshall . . . it’s the only thing that eases his nerves.” She raises her right hand and wipes a tear from one eye. “I know he’ll die sooner, but what’s the alternative? A few extra months of misery?”
I reach out and take her left hand. “I don’t judge you, Mom. You’re a saint to have come this far. Dad’s going to do what he’s going to do.”
More tears come, but I pretend not to see them. She takes a napkin from a holder on the table and dabs the corners of her eyes.
“When you’re in the house,” she says in a wistful voice, “I remember how it used to be, when you and Adam were boys. I don’t just remember it. I see it, every detail. I can hear your voices, see your little faces while you watched me cook or I worked on schoolwork with you. Not that either of you needed much help. Other than getting you started.”
I smile and listen to her weave her memories into words. Mom doesn’t usually wax nostalgic when I’m here. I guess the prospect that she may finally be facing life without her partner, whatever his flaws, has her looking backward rather than forward. As she goes on, I recall Max’s terrible tale of murder on Cemetery Road. After Mom falls silent and sips her coffee again, I take the opening.
“Mom, this afternoon, Jack Kirby told me about some things the Poker Club was involved with—violent things.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. They’re all about the dollar. And men like that quickly lose sight of right and wrong.”
At the last moment I hesitate, but I’ve got to know. “Max Matheson suggested that what happened to Dad’s first family wasn’t an accident. That some Klansmen from Ferriday might have been behind that wreck. Did Dad ever express any suspicion to you?”
My mother’s coffee cup has frozen in midair. Her eyes are wide and locked on my face.
“Mom?”
She sets down her cup and licks her lips. “I’ve never heard anybody suggest that before. I certainly never heard Duncan suggest it. And I don’t want you to ask him about it, either. No good could possibly come of that. Not after all these years. My Lord.”
“That’s why I’m asking you, not him.”
She looks at me for a long time without speaking. In this moment I feel I’m living up to the idea that children are a burden.
“Do you believe there’s anything to the story?” she asks.
“Max told me that it was a case of mistaken identity. That Dad was the intended target. The killers were waiting near that hairpin turn to run him off the road, and in the rain they couldn’t tell it wasn’t him.”
Mom closes her eyes, and her lips move as though she’s praying in silence. “Dear God, I hope that didn’t happen.”
“I do, too. But I fear that it did.”
She takes a quick sip of coffee the way a prisoner might, as though protecting it from a thief. The gesture makes me strangely anxious.
“When I met your father,” she says, “he was a wounded man. Losing Eloise and Emily is what started this whole nightmare of alcoholism.”
Eloise and Emily. To me these are but names. To my mother they were real people.
“Oh, he drank before that, but in moderation. I talked to a lot of his colleagues at that time, even to his mother. I started at the Watchman as a reporter, you know. I was twenty-two, fresh out of the W. Didn’t know a thing.”
She means the Mississippi State College for Women. “How many years did you work there?”
“Six. I was working the night of the accident. And nobody ever suggested it was murder. Because of the storm, I suppose. But I know this: losing his wife and daughter changed Duncan forever.” Her eyes are fixed on the table with unsettling concentration. “Once we started seeing each other, I threw my whole self into healing him. And he came a long way back to the world. After you and Adam came along—while you were both here—Duncan was whole again, or just about. Then . . .”
“You don’t have to talk about Adam. I’ve been thinking about him a lot over the last two days.”
She pushes her cup away and looks into my eyes. “I want you to understand one thing. Losing Adam the way we did sent me into depression, but eventually I was able to work through it. You never get over losing a child—you know that better than most—but you can live with it. If you’re lucky. But for Duncan . . . it was different. He’d come so far after that first tragedy, but the wound was still raw underneath. When Adam drowned and was never found, it was like somebody took a knife and drove it into that old wound, then twisted until it severed something.”
Mom’s face becomes distorted by the pain of recollection. “No matter how much time passed or what I tried, I couldn’t reach that part of him. He couldn’t heal. It seems incredible to think that thirty-one years wouldn’t be enough to get over something, but I’ve learned that time means nothing in some cases. And the greatest tragedy is that he let it destroy his relationship with you.”
“Mom, I understand where he is. It’s all right.”
“No, you don’t,” she counters, sounding angry. “You don’t understand how proud he is of you.”
“Mom—”
“I mean it!” She grips my hand. “I’ve never bothered you with this, because it’s so painful. And I know how skeptical you are. But he’s about to be gone. You know that TV in there? That big flat-screen television. Why do you think he bought that? He hates television news. He bought that TV to watch you. No other reason.”
I heard her words, but I can’t find it in myself to believe them.
“You know how tight Duncan is,” she says. “But the day you became a regular guest on MSNBC, he drove to Walmart and bought that set for cash money.”
This revelation leaves me mute at my mother’s table.
“I know it’s too late for you two to have a real relationship,” she says. “But don’t you think you’ve punished him enough?”
Her question stuns me like a slap across the face. “Me? You think I’ve punished him?”
She doesn’t answer my quest
ion. “If you two could have even one civil conversation before the end, a real talk, where you tell each other how you feel, not how hurt and angry you are—”
“Mom, if he gives half a damn about my work, why has he been the way he has all these years?”
“Envy,” she says simply.
“What?”
She squeezes my hands as if trying to physically channel her feelings into my heart. “You’ve gone so much further in your career than he ever did, it’s hard for him to live with it. Every upward step you take reminds him that he refused to get up after fate knocked him down that second time. The stronger you get, the weaker he feels. It’s wrong to be that way, but . . . I suppose it’s human.”
“Tell me something, Mom. Why did Dad never write any stories about the Poker Club’s corruption? He didn’t hesitate to go after certain kinds of evils. Why not that one?”
She looks genuinely puzzled. “That I don’t know. We knew those men socially, of course, or their fathers. But Duncan knew a lot of the men he attacked during the civil rights trouble, and he didn’t let that stop him.”
“That’s what I don’t get.”
She shrugs wearily. “We’re not put on this earth to know everything.” The smile that follows this statement must have taken a lot of fortitude to summon. “I’m just glad to have you under our roof. I hope your air conditioner stays broken for a month.”
I reach out and squeeze her hand. “I’m glad to be here, Mom.”
She rubs the inside of my wrist for a while with her fingers.
“I don’t want to discuss this now,” she says, “but I suppose the time is coming when we’ll have to consider finances.”
I feel simultaneous anxiety and relief. For months I’ve been trying to get her to intercede with my father, but he’s clung to control of the books like a man guarding a terrible secret.
She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Do you have any idea what the Watchman might sell for today?”
I’ve dreaded answering this question. “If we’re lucky? Ten percent over its real estate value.”
Her eyes widen, and then she goes pale. “You don’t mean that? I knew values had been falling, but . . . I thought surely it would still bring two or three million.”
I shake my head sadly, then squeeze her hand. “Six years ago it would have sold for nine times EBITDA. Today—”
“What’s EBI-whatever?”
“Earnings, basically. Nine times annual earnings. I tried to get Dad to sell then, but—”
She holds up her hand. “Water under the bridge. He couldn’t give up control. That was the last vestige of his masculinity. And he couldn’t let you see what a mess he’d made of things. Today is all that matters.”
“The question is debt, Mom. I know Dad borrowed heavily to buy out Uncle Ray.”
She shuts her eyes like a woman praying for strength. “The worst decision we ever made. Duncan also bought the new press right after that. That cost nearly two million dollars. What could we get for it now?”
“You can’t give away presses today. Consolidation of printing has killed their value.”
She takes a deep breath and looks into her coffee cup. What can it feel like, after so much duty and sacrifice, to face this final insult? To confront widowhood and old age in need, when it could so easily have been avoided?
“The trick is to wipe out all the debt we can,” I tell her. “But no matter what happens, I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry about that for even one second.”
Relief and despair fight for control of her face. “I don’t want you to have to do that.”
“I’ve been hoping you would come up to Washington and live with me.”
She clears her throat. “That’s very kind. But all of my friends are here.”
“Well, you can stay here. I’m not pressuring you.”
“You could look after me a lot easier if you lived here, too.”
For a couple of seconds I struggle to come up with a reply, but then I see that she’s teasing me.
She gets up and washes out her cup. Looking over her shoulder, she says, “Marty Denis told us you had a date to that party at the Aurora last night. He said you took Nadine Sullivan.”
“Oh, God. I didn’t see Marty there.”
“Well, he was.” She dries her cup with a rag, then hangs it on a hook beneath the cabinet. “I always liked Nadine’s mother, Margaret. A real lady. And Nadine’s as cute as a bug’s ear.”
Why does everyone describe Nadine as if she were nine years old? Of course, the people who describe her that way are about seventy. “Mom—”
“I know, I know. I’m just hoping there are some grandchildren in my future. It’s past time.”
“We’ll see,” I tell her, getting to my feet.
“Cute as a bug’s ear,” she repeats, walking into the hall. “And smart. Ten years after you left St. Mark’s, she had her picture in the paper for winning all the same awards you and Adam did.”
“Eight years,” I correct her. “Nadine’s eight years younger than I am.”
“Even better! She’s as smart as Jet Talal was, but not as . . . complicated.”
“Mom, that’s enough.”
“All right.” She’s actually chuckling now. “You can’t blame me for trying.”
Without meaning to, I’ve followed her to their bedroom. Before I can make my escape to my own room, she opens the door, revealing my father lying asleep in his hospital bed. The bed has been tilted up at the middle, putting him at a forty-degree angle. He’s lying with his mouth open, his white hair sticking out in all directions. A faint, irregular wheeze comes from his nose or mouth, and his blotchy hands, folded on his stomach, jerk without rhyme or reason.
“I thought his tremors were under control,” I think aloud.
“They are, for the most part. But during REM sleep he can jerk violently. That’s part of what causes his insomnia.”
“I see.” I’ve stood in the room long enough to smell feces. It reminds me a little of when my son was an infant, but it’s not really the same. With a baby, caretakers know that they’re progressing toward a day of continence and control. Whereas here . . . entropy reigns cruel and supreme. This is a world of constipation, fecal impactions, enemas, and agonizing manual evacuation—
“Watch him just a minute while I brush my teeth,” Mom says. “He’s asleep. Just stay with him till I get back.”
“Mom—”
“I’ll be right back,” she says, and then she’s gone.
Though I’ve been back in Bienville for five months, I’ve hardly been alone with my father. Neither of us handles it well. Any discussions inevitably turn to politics and journalism, and while in theory we are of the same mind about the present insanity, our approaches to dealing with it are quite different.
Watching my mother care for this failing shell that was once her proud husband, performing years of menial tasks—and now doing those things that wound and ultimately destroy personal dignity—humbles and even shames me. To do those things and not complain, to stand by your partner come what may . . . that is love. My mother and father endured what my wife and I could not: the death of a son. They didn’t survive it whole, perhaps, but they stayed together. I’ve kept that in mind while Jet and I have fallen ever deeper into what surely feels like love. But where Jet and I are concerned, I know only one thing beyond doubt—
We have not been tested like this.
Looking down at Dad now, trapped in the grim spiral of life’s last unwinding, I’m confronted by the essential fact of our relationship. Were it not for this man, I would not exist. Surely he and I must have shared happy experiences before my fourteenth year, when Adam drowned and nearly took the rest of us down with him. A few times over the years I’ve had flashes of memory, déjà vu while doing something with a friend or acquaintance, and wondered if I’d done it before with my father. But somehow, the bitterness that followed Adam’s death ruined all that preceded it, like quinine poured into
Coca-Cola. Eventually I came to believe that if my father’s love for me couldn’t survive the loss of my brother, then it wasn’t ever love. I’ve applied the same ruthless logic to my own life. My love for my wife didn’t survive the death of our son, ergo I must not have truly loved her. Whereas my son . . .
“I’m back,” Mom says, laying her hand on my forearm. “I’ll take over now. You get some sleep. I think we have a difficult few days ahead.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I look down at this woman who bore me—worn down to 120 pounds and standing a head and a half shorter than I—and know without doubt that her courage dwarfs my own. Despite Dr. Kirby’s caution to the contrary, her strength seems immeasurable. I pull her close and hug tight, feel her shaking against me.
Then I leave her to face the night alone.
Chapter 29
If publishing yesterday’s edition of the Watchman was like kicking over a hornet’s nest, then publishing today’s was like detonating a bomb. Above the fold we printed the trail camera photo of convicted felon Dave Cowart facing Buck Ferris on the night he died. Beneath the photo we reported that the county coroner had detected blood on a piece of brick taken from a spot where Buck was known to have been digging for relics on that night. We also reported that fragments of human bone had been excavated from a trench on the paper mill site, a trench clearly marked as a digging location in Buck’s personal notebook. We got these facts into the paper only because, twenty minutes after I lay down in the bed of my childhood, Byron Ellis called and told me that after consulting his attorney and two black activists he trusted, he was ready to tell the truth about how Buck died, regardless of the consequences.
The obvious implication is that the Tenisaw County sheriff has been lying about Buck’s death and that deputies fabricated or tampered with evidence by moving a brick from the paper mill site to Lafitte’s Den. As a deterrent to further police misconduct, we revealed that some bone fragments and teeth were on their way to a lab at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. We also pointed out that the discovery of human remains requires that the sheriff halt construction while the Department of Archives and History decides whether to declare a preservation easement on the mill site. In the hope of avoiding being charged with felony trespass by an angry sheriff, I held back the identity of the “amateur archaeologist” who had recovered those bone fragments. I had hoped to announce that the artifacts bolstered Buck’s theory of the mill site, but the archaeologist that Quinn Ferris trusts most at LSU has been out of town and won’t be able to examine what I dug up until this afternoon.
