CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Laurel
Music, music in my mind. Pretty music. Reminding me of when I still laughed at everything. What happened to those days? I was so tired of asking myself the same simplistic questions over and over. I knew better than anyone exactly what happened. I made it happen by my insistent nature, that flyaway part of me that could never be grounded. That’s what Clive would say.
He was so pretty, so wonderfully pretty and handsome and strong. And he was mine. I know that he was. No man makes love to you on his wedding night without really being yours. A tear. I hated crying. But lately that’s all done in that barren room, far from our beautiful apartment where I could see trees and people and life, to here where I had nothing. Not even my own name. I couldn’t help looking at his face, but for some reason on this day, it hurt more than usual. The anger at what could have been and what I could have done stared me in the face. I took a long drag from my cigarette. Blowing smoke rings the way that I used to do as a teenager growing up in Cleveland.
I don’t miss those days. Being the only child of parents who you never really felt were like you. And when I found out that there was a reason for this lingering malaise that I’d had as long as I could remember, this malaise that was born of being of alien blood, not the same as the people who claimed to be of me…then I understood.
But understanding didn’t make the malaise go away. My brief marriage had been my attempt at practicing what it might be like to have a family that you chose. Practicing for the family I thought I’d someday have with him. Clive. But I knew that Clive wasn’t ready yet. He had his mountains to climb, and at that point I would’ve just been excess baggage. The marriage taught me about living with someone else, learning to bend your needs and desires in ways that fit with someone else’s. But it didn’t teach me about myself. It didn’t fill the hole that wouldn’t go away.
That’s why I had to find my father, even if it meant turning away from Clive for a moment, or what I thought would be a moment. My father was the key to putting together the jagged pieces of my life. A white mother who hated the thought of the black child she’d spawned. Had the hate always been there, I wondered, had there ever been love or had I been conceived in a well of distrust or worse? Even if the truth ripped through me, I had to know. I wandered from town to town for ten years, from the time I left Hendersonville. Something about that night with Clive when we first made love opened up the old wounds, the old questions of who I was. So I followed the trail of a man I knew only as Father. From tiny hamlets to backwater towns, piecing together a life of simplicity. Until the day I got the call. He wasn’t dead as I had feared, but alive, though barely, in a VA hospital outside Gary, Indiana.
As I opened the door to the hospital room, I remembered my mother. I wondered if I’d see the same hatred or merely indifference to a life quickly given and then forgotten. I walked through the door and was struck by the smell of urine, as if bedpans that hadn’t been emptied for so long that the stench had become a part of the walls. I gazed into the eyes of my father, glazed over with cataracts, a thick shock of white, stubbly hair clinging to his small brown face, and I said, “Hello.”
He looked up absentmindedly from his pillow and smiled. “Well, hello.”
Before I could lose my nerve, I blurted out quickly, “I hate to bother you, sir, but…um…are you…Armand Davis?”
“Yes, last time I checked.” He kind of chuckled, and then coughed as if the effort of speaking had taxed him more than his weak frame could take.
“Please, don’t take this wrong, sir…but I’ve been looking for you for a long time and I…I’d just like to talk to you for a few minutes, if you have some time.”
“Well, young lady, I think you can pretty much tell by the look of things that I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t get much company these days, so I guess I’ve got a few minutes to chat if you’d like.”
I swallowed and smiled gratefully. At least I hadn’t been booted out summarily. Yet. He still didn’t know why I was here. I pulled up the rickety metal chair and sat closer to him.
“Do I look familiar to you?”
He peered at me. “No, should you?”
I didn’t know how to say this tactfully. “Well I thought that maybe, well maybe I might remind you of someone…like…” I hesitated. ”Well, like your daughter.”
He sat up stiffly, and then said gruffly, “I don’t have a daughter, at least not one I know.” He sank back into the pillows and closed his eyes. “I did have a daughter. But that was a long time ago. I never knew her.”
I don’t know why but I took his hand. “I’m her. I’m the daughter you didn’t know.”
His eyes opened wider, and he sat up and intensely studied my face, then after a long moment that seemed like hours, he smiled very slightly. “Yes, I guess you would be. You look just like her,” he said, voice cracking.
“My mother?” I could barely say the word, still remembering the hatred in the eyes of the one who had carried me for nine months, and then dumped me like baggage that she couldn’t wait to rid herself of.
He nodded, settling himself on his pillows, his hand fidgeting with the faded sheets. “I wanted to marry her…when I found out she was expecting. We hadn’t known each other long, ’bout six months, we’d had a good time. Hadn’t expected anything to come of it…so when she got pregnant, well I think it kinda threw both of us for a loop.”
He went silent for a moment. “Well anyway, she wouldn’t hear of it. ’Twas okay to hang out with a colored fella, ’specially one coming back from the War. All the gals was after us then…but to marry one…in Chicago. No. Wasn’t happening. So we…decided it would be best to give you up, give you a chance to be raised by a couple who could do it right, give you things, a nice life.”
I wanted to shout out, but they could never give me your love, only you could do that. But I didn’t. I just listened.
“I thought about you a lot, especially the first few years. But I didn’t want to spoil things for you. So after a while I think I almost convinced myself that it never happened. That you never really happened.”
I didn’t know what to say. Somehow the pain we both felt bound us together. So I just sat by his bed, holding his hand tightly.
He propped himself up on one elbow, studying me again, then asking hesitantly, “Were they good people…your folks that raised you?”
Memories of them. My adopted parents, hardworking, well meaning but distant, never really understanding their impulsive daughter. “They were good and kind to me. But…I always felt like…” I remembered opening the drawer finding the faded picture, the inscription on the back read: Laurel age 3 mos. “Well, like I was a substitute for another child. Then around the time that I found out that I was adopted, I also found out that there had been another child, their own child who’d died when she was an infant.” I was flooded with memories of the christening gown carefully folded in the drawer…of the faded yellow rose, the birth announcement…a single shoe… “Her name was Laurel. Just like mine. Only she was first. And she was theirs. I found out they’d adopted me about a year after she died.”
A breeze rattled the metal blinds, and my father squeezed my hand tighter. I had never told anyone, not even Clive about that, and it felt like I had finally released a dark part of me. The secret that I now finally admitted to couldn’t hurt me anymore. And now questions, all the questions that had peppered my thoughts for years wanted to come out, to shout out. Things I had to know.
“Father, do you mind if I call you that?” There was a hesitation that seemed like an eternity. I so needed him to say yes.
“No not at all.” He smiled. “In fact, I’d like that.”
A weight had been lifted from me. The rejection of my mother was somehow being made up for by the love of my father. I looked down, not wanting to pry, but I needed to know. “Father, did you have other children?”
He adjusted himself on his pillows carefully before answe
ring. “No. I never married. I almost did once, but it didn’t work out.”
“Do you wish you had?”
“Oh sure, who doesn’t wish sometimes to be with someone?” He sighed slightly, then brushed his small, knotted hands across his hair, almost self consciously. “But I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. I had this injury, from the war. I was in a bunker that exploded, and a little piece of shrapnel got stuck, right here.” He motioned to a slight bump behind his ear. “Go on, touch it.”
Gingerly, I touched his scalp and the tough protrusion. “Does it hurt?”
He shrugged. “A lot of times, but mostly I’ve had these headaches. Sometimes for weeks I could hardly get up the pain was so bad. Went to see lots of doctors through the years. Some better than others. But nobody could ever really help me. That’s how I ended up here. It’s gotten worse over the years, so now all I can do most of the time is rest.”
The plodding sound of nurses feet against the cheap linoleum floors approached. The door creaked as it was opened, revealing a shiny faced Filipino nurse. “Visiting hours are over, Miss. I’ll have to ask you to leave now.”
Panic took over me. There was so much more I wanted to ask, to know. My father must have noticed because he nodded and said softly but firmly, “She’ll be going in a minute.” Apparently satisfied, the nurse shut the door.
I got up hesitantly, my head was spinning, and I was trying to get myself together. “Thank you for talking to me…I…” I tried to get out the rest, but for some reason, tears started filling my eyes. My body was shaking with all of the emotion and pain that I’d held in for so long.
My father gingerly pulled himself up and put his arm around me, hugging me tightly and rocking me back and forth. “It’s okay, Laurel. It’s okay to cry…” His tears mixed with mine.
And so it started. Me hungry for knowledge of who I was, and him happy to share a life and a past of seeming little consequence to anyone else. He showed me pictures of my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, cousins, places he’d grown up. He shared family stories, and slowly I started feeling like the outlines of what had been my life was finally being given flesh and that I was finally being made whole.
The months passed almost without either of us noticing that time, always the silent enemy was coming for its marker. I did part time receptionist work at the hospital to be nearer to him and to pay my few bills. A friend lived nearby, so I slept on her couch and rode the bus in every day. I thought of Clive, but I couldn’t call him until this emptiness within me was filled. Then one day it ended almost as it had begun.
My father sat up, coughed a little, and then sipped water from the paper cup by his bed. Neatly he dabbed a few errant drops of water from the bottom of his chin. A fastidious man, careful about his appearance even in these circumstances. “You know, Laurel…I’ve been wondering.”
I looked up not sure what to expect.
“I’ve been wondering about you, and your life. You’ve spent so much time with me these past months, a pretty girl like you, must’ve left somebody behind.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never told him directly about Clive, but somehow he’d guessed.
He patted the side of the bed and motioned for me to sit next to him, then tenderly and with so much kindness, he tilted my chin up like I was a little girl. “You know you can’t leave things for too long ’cause before you know it they get restless and move on.”
A tight knot starting to form. I knew he was right, but I guess I never really squarely faced up to how long it had been and the possible consequences. Clive and I had always been apart for long periods of time, and then when we’d gotten back together it had been as if we’d never been separated. Tears started to sting my eyes. I tried to hold them back, but I couldn’t.
“Darlin’, all I’m sayin is that you’ve got a life, and I want you to live it. If I’ve helped you understand more about who you are, then I’ve done more for you then I ever thought I could. But you’ve got to go back to what you left behind.”
“But, Daddy, I don’t want to leave you. Not like this. There’s nobody to take care of you!”
“That’s what the hospital’s for. They’ve been doing a fine job, so don’t you worry about me.”
I started to say something, but he just smiled and kissed me on the cheek as he always did. But this time it seemed different. He lingered for a moment, and then said quietly, “You know I love you. Daughter.” I hugged him and kissed him gently on his thin cheeks. He held me, running his hands over my head. “Now go on. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
We never did talk again. He died that night as quietly and as unobtrusively as he had lived. They found him in the morning with the sheets tucked neatly under his chin and his hands folded simply on the covers. Sometimes I wonder if he knew he was going and if he was trying to say goodbye to me. To let me go. But it was hard, so hard saying goodbye to him.
That’s all long gone now. I’d always been able to hide the pain with laughter. To make someone up who could be loved. That’s what I did. I made myself up. The way I would’ve liked to have been if I’d had any choice in the matter. And the person that I made up pleased Clive. He loved me. And he’d wanted me. He’d been a part of me. But no more.
I feel the pain coming back, it’s starting in my chest the way it always does, the way it has since that night when I knelt in blood. His blood. And I cried because I hated myself for what had happened.
The glowing tip of my cigarette reminded me of a magic sword in a fantasy film, possessing supernatural powers. And I took this magic sword and thrust it forward into his face. His pretty, wonderful handsome face, blotting it out from the picture. I couldn’t look at it anymore and know that it wasn’t mine. So I ended it. Just like that.
Tears. Again. How I hated tears. I heard voices, but not the ones in my head. They were outside my window. Pulling back the sash, I saw policemen talking to the building manager who was pointing up to my window. I knew they were looking for me. Grabbing my purse and the little bit of money that I had hidden away in the corner, I crept out of the room. The backstairs, the only way. Maybe, just maybe I can get away. But I will. I have to. I have to save myself now. There’s nothing else.
I was running through the woods. My hands were bleeding from skirting around the sides of trees. If I could just get to the highway. The low hanging trees were blocking my path. I brushed back branches and scrambled over scarred rocks that jutted up like giant pock marks in the earth. I could hear the cars speeding by. But I couldn’t see where to go. Around me was dense underbrush. Black green slick leaves crept up the side of my legs. The sound of feet, animal or man, I don’t know which, grew closer. Then a screech as wings brushed past me.
My heart poked through my chest. Dirt ate into my eyes as I ran faster and faster not knowing where. I searched for an open space out of the green brown maze of trees and decaying moss. Without thinking clearly, I ran out waving my arms and almost stepped head-on into a truck.
Brrrrroooooonk blared the horn. Screeeeech went the breaks. The truck stopped dead in front of me.
“Are you fuckin’ outta your mind, lady!?” The door snapped open and this woman, a large woman with a cap of pale blonde hair smashed on her face, jumped out. “You gotta death wish or something. I almost killed you!”
I was so tired and scared that my words just tumbled out. “I…I’m so sorry…I…could you please just give me a ride? Anywhere, wherever you’re going.”
The lady truck driver squinted at me. I knew she was going to say no.
She tossed her head back. “Okay, get in.”
* * *
Detective Bob
“This is all we found.” The cop tossed some beat up photographs onto my desk. What looked like cigarette burns had blotted out one of the faces.
“What d’you mean this is all you found? I thought you said you had her?”
“We did, but she musta slipped away right before our guy went upstairs. The manager told
us that she was there. But when he went up, she’d split. In a hurry, too. Didn’t take any clothes or nothing.”
“Then how the hell do you know that she’s gone? Maybe she just stepped out for a minute. Did you assholes ever think of that?”
“Fuck off, Greene. We got somebody stationed outside of there in case she comes back, but if you ask me, she’s split. So just live with it.”
“You know you guys are really too much. You come within five feet of a murder suspect, and you let her slip out of your hands. You’d think she was some damn pro at this. She’s nothing but a fuckin’ school teacher. And you can’t even get her!”
I was about to really go off, so much for my new attitude, when the captain stuck his head out of his office. “Greene, in here. Now.”
I walked into the captain’s office still steaming. “Did you hear that? They let her get away. She’s the key to the whole fuckin’ case, and they let her get away. I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Are these guys cops or just excuses for cops?”
Captain let me finish, which is unusual. That should’ve been the first hint that something was up. “Greene, there’s a lot of talk of how you aren’t making the mark on this one.”
“That’s bullshit, Captain. I’m making progress. I got two possibles and—”
“And a whole lot of maybes.”
He sat down in his chair and swiveled around to me. “I don’t have time to get into some long harangue with you, Greene. I got other things to do, but I’m telling you, and I won’t be telling you again, you got one month to bring in a real suspect on this one. Otherwise, you’re off this case.”
He drummed his swollen fingers on his desk impatiently. “People want this case wrapped up, and you’re not moving fast enough for them.”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. Take me off a case? Never in the entire twenty years that I’d been on the force had this ever happened. “What people?”
A Dead Man Speaks Page 22
