Recovering Charles

by Jason F. Wright

  Sometimes, when he and the other coach were working with the infielders, I’d take a couple guys behind the dugout and give them a wad of the shredded pink gum from its tinfoil pouch. Few things are more exhilarating for a thirteen-year-old than providing forbidden bubblegum to a teammate. Not long after Mrs. Armstrong’s ban took effect, Dad stopped at a Circle K on the way to practice and came out with three packs of Big League Chew. “Just in case.” He winked. “You never know when you might run low.”

  My dad told me that Mrs. Armstrong was a sweet woman who just had a few “issues.” I guess he thought I should know what that meant. I didn’t. I was only a right fielder.

  On that spring training vacation, Mom sat reading in the stands for hours while Dad and I jostled for autographs and fought professional sports memorabilia hounds and little kids alike for signatures and foul balls. She smiled so kindly when I arrived at our spot above the third base line with a ball I’d caught off a rookie’s splintered bat. I can’t even remember his name anymore.

  “That’s spectacular!” Mom took the ball from me and pretended to examine it. “I bet this will find a special spot in your room, won’t it, dear?”

  “Sure will!”

  Dad bought us matching, old-school, cotton Yankee baseball caps. I misplaced mine a couple months later and never found it again.

  I think that was the same year we met Billy Crystal in the parking lot. Mom took our picture, and Mr. Crystal signed my pennant. I bet I held it on my lap for at least a hundred miles on the way to Atlanta.

  I remember Dad talking Mom into taking an eight-hour detour to Georgia to visit a friend from college. This man arranged for a special VIP tour of Coca-Cola’s headquarters. We got free hats, red-and-white T-shirts, and some Coke samples in little glass bottles that Mom kept calling “precious” and “cute.” I’m sure Mom couldn’t have cared less. Still, she plugged along.

  “It might not have been my favorite thing to do,” she said to Dad and me as we rolled out of town the next morning en route to our home in Texas. “But neither was seeing that mini-league baseball match. It doesn’t matter though, because I love to see you two happy. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  That wouldn’t be true for long.

  Chapter

  5

  I awoke and withstood the temptation.

  It wasn’t easy.

  The television wanted to be on, and I wanted to hear how things had progressed overnight in New Orleans and the surrounding area. I wondered how many more victims had been found in attics or in submerged cars. Was my father among them?

  How is Bernard holding up?

  I showered, shaved, threw on my favorite pair of jeans and a New Jersey Nets sweatshirt, ate a bowl of Corn Pops, and grabbed my cell phone and camera. Then I set the cell phone back on the kitchen counter and walked out the door. Free from distractions. Free from expectations. Free from the man who wanted me to unplug my life and travel to his city in mourning.

  Even four years after the attacks of September 11th, Ground Zero was still a powerful place to sit and absorb the ambiance. It was also a unique setting to capture human goodness on film. Foot traffic increased each year during the days leading up to the anniversary, and the mood was reverent, respectful, resolute.

  While others snapped away without regard for the historic setting, I always asked permission, never intruded when it was obvious someone needed privacy, and always felt guilty no matter how friendly or grateful the subject was.

  I walked around and chatted with a few tourists. What brought them to New York? Where were they on 9/11? What did they think of Mayor Bloomberg’s plans for the memorial?

  I watched people process the giant hole in the ground for the first time. I watched a father take a photo of his daughter with a police officer on the viewing platform. It reminded me of the time Dad stopped an off-duty firefighter in a Dallas Sabarro’s and insisted on paying for his lunch.

  On previous trips I’d met some of the most fascinating people at the site that changed America forever. Survivors, neighbors, mothers and fathers of the fallen. I once met a young woman named Kellie whose childhood friend, Liz, had been killed that September morning. She carried in her purse one of the many letters Liz had written to her over the years. “I have every letter she ever sent me,” Kellie told me. “They are a small piece of her.” I admired Kellie’s spirit.

  On this day I met a husband and wife from India who had made Ground Zero their top priority during their first-ever visit to the States. They knew no one who’d died, knew no one who’d survived, knew absolutely no one in any way connected with the tragedy. But they respected freedom and grieved for the slain innocent.

  I asked if I could take their photo; they posed with somber eyes and mouths. They wrote their names on my notepad so I could spell them correctly later when I tagged the photo. I asked to shoot one last picture of them from behind. They each shook my hand and walked on.

  I captured them strolling slowly away, holding hands. The woman’s head resting on her husband’s shoulder, her hand tucked in her coat pocket. They disappeared.

  I sat.

  ~ ~

  Not everyone in our Fort Worth, Texas, suburb had grass, but we did. Mom wanted grass and Dad wanted Mom to be happy. So when he designed our home, Dad included a top-of-the-line sprinkler system. Even during the driest of droughts, Mom had her grass. It was thick, dark green grass that made your legs itchy if you sat in it too long. Grass that looked like it had been stolen from Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.

  Fortunately for all of us, Dad liked cutting the grass almost as much as Mom enjoyed watching it grow from her reading chair on the top of the three-tiered deck on the back of the house. Dad pulled the mower from his custom-built shed every Saturday morning before the sun rose to its peak and the air became so hot it could melt the blades of grass together. He sometimes mowed it like a baseball diamond, creating elaborate patterns that made Mom smile.

  Mom would watch from her spot, reading a book or knitting or just sitting with her eyes closed and a glass of lemonade in her hand.

  And then the phone would ring.

  Every Saturday, Grandma Fleek would call at 10:00 am to check in. Every single Saturday. The phone would ring, but neither Dad nor I would dare to answer it. Mom would pick it up and disappear somewhere in the house. The calls were so important to both Mom and Grandma that Mom wouldn’t leave the house on Saturdays for errands until the call came and ended. Even if Mom had spoken to Grandma four times during the

  week, which often happened, Grandma still called on Saturday morning. Even if Mom had inadvertently hurt Grandma’s famously sensitive feelings, which also often happened, the call still came. It was their “make good” time.

  And it always worked.

  I was washing the car in the driveway one Saturday in June of 1990 as Dad made a careful, final pass around some landscaping stones. The mower was too loud for either of us to hear the phone ring, but at some point we both noticed Mom talking on the cordless phone from her chair.

  I looked at my Swatch. It was 9:17 am.

  She stood abruptly. A few seconds later, she dropped her book and her hand went to her mouth.

  The scream that followed was so loud we could have heard it over a thousand mowers.

  Then Mom dropped the phone and fell to her knees.

  Dad and I raced to her side.

  Mom’s voice trembled. “My mother, my mother.”

  Dad picked up the phone and was introduced to Nikki Van De Car, an officer with the El Paso police department.

  Grandma was dead.

  “What?”

  “A fatal car accident, sir.”

  “Accident? Where?”

  “El Paso. Two miles from her home, sir. I’m so sorry to make this call, to have upset your wife.”

  “When?”

  “Early this morning. Three cars. Appears to be a DUI. Mrs. Fleek and the driver of the second car both died at the scene. Witnesses sa
y the third driver, a Mexican citizen, lost control while intoxicated and ran a red light downtown.”

  “You mean an illegal?”

  “The investigation is ongoing, sir.”

  “Are you sure it’s her? You’re absolutely sure? She never drives alone, never.”

  “There was a passenger, sir. Her neighbor, we believe. Mary Henry. She’s stable at Thomason Hospital. It appears they’d been to breakfast about a block from the crash.”

  Dad opened the sliding glass door off the deck and stepped into the house. “You’ve arrested him, right? What’s his name?” Anger began to wedge its way between Dad’s words.

  “We’ll speak further when you arrive.”

  “But there will be an arrest? There will be charges?”

  “Tend to your family, sir, and we’ll speak again soon. Again, my condolences. Our department’s condolences.”

  Dad returned outside and looked down at Mom. I sat by her on the floor of the deck, stroking her hair and letting my own tears fall and merge in rivers down both cheeks. Every few minutes Mom looked up and gasped for air and tried to ask Dad a question.

  “We’ll leave today,” Dad said to the officer. “Where do we go?”

  “The remains will be held at Thomason. We’ll need you to formally identify—”

  “Of course.”

  The officer gave Dad her contact information, repeated her condolences, and hung up.

  Dad and I helped Mom into bed. He kissed her forehead and repeated, “I’m here, it’s OK, I’m here. It’s all going to be OK. Shhh.”

  Later Dad left us alone while he made the travel arrangements. I sat on the side of Mom’s bed, just as she had sat on mine almost every night when I was a child.

  I wanted to cry when Mom told me she’d bickered with Grandma on the phone that Tuesday. She’d accused Grandma of trying to guilt her into planning an extended visit to El Paso that summer.

  “Maybe we won’t come at all this year,” Mom had snapped.

  “Your choice. You know where I am,” Grandma answered.

  Those were the last words they spoke to one another.

  Mom cried on and off all afternoon. She asked questions I didn’t know the answers to. She asked questions no teenager should ever have to know the answers to.

  The trip to bury Grandma next to Grandpa passed in a blur. The funeral was a short and simple one. Mary Henry was still recovering at the hospital, but her three children came to honor Grandma. A few friends from church and the seniors’ center also came. Both of Grandma’s sisters lived in Michigan and neither one was healthy enough to travel.

  Of course Grandpa had been dead for years, and like Dad and me, Mom was an only child. There was no one else.

  We were home and cutting the grass again before any of us had time to process the accident and consider life without Grandma, without the Christmas fudge, the hugs that smelled like vitamins, the phone calls to share her silly knock-knock jokes.

  Mom didn’t sleep well after the trip. She had nightmares and struggled with a toxic blend of depression at being orphaned and anger at the man who’d killed her mother with his truck and a dozen beers.

  Dad finally suggested she see a doctor to get help sleeping. “The sooner we get you sleeping well, back in a routine, and comfortable, the sooner you can get back to school. The kids miss you, honey.”

  Dad also asked her to see a counselor who could help her learn to live with her new set of emotions. When therapy didn’t work, they tried antidepressants. When the pills didn’t work, they tried new pills. The doctor’s kept writing prescriptions and Dad kept filling them until Mom could have slept through Desert Storm.

  She was practically dead when she slept and only slightly more alert when she was awake. Meanwhile the school told Dad she could take as much time as she needed. Her friends suggested “more aggressive” treatment for the depression, having no idea that her dependence on the pills was becoming the greater concern. Dad didn’t care how it happened. He just wanted to save her.

  I just wanted my mother back.

  Chapter

  6

  It had been three days since Jerome called.

  “You can’t ignore this, Luke.” Jordan sat next to me in a booth in a deli on 7th Avenue.

  I took a bite of my dill pickle.

  “He might think you’re coming, already on your way even. You can’t leave him wondering, Luke. You can’t.”

  I reminded myself she was helping, or at least trying to.

  “I’m sorry. I know this is your thing. I just want to help.” She began spreading a second layer of cream cheese on her onion bagel.

  “I know you do.” I finished my pickle. “I should call him back, at least to tell him I can’t make it. That’s the right thing to do.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re not going to go look for your father? You’re not

  interested? Curious? He could be alive somewhere. He could be looking for you.”

  “Jordy, he’s got my cell. He’d call.”

  “Unless he’s in trouble.”

  I shook my empty soda cup and reached across to grab hers.

  “Luke, you’re right, it’s none of my business. I’m sorry I keep pushing.”

  I drank her soda until the straw pulled up the final noisy drops. “I just . . . I just don’t know what I’d gain by going on an expedition. If he was in New Orleans when the storm hit, and if his friends haven’t seen or heard from him, he’s probably gone. And I’m OK with that. I know his heart was good, even though we’d drifted apart. There were no hard feelings between us the last time we spoke. No regrets.” I said the words hoping they’d feel true. They didn’t.

  “Then I support you. Whatever is best for you. I’m all in.”

  ~ ~

  All in. I remember the first time I heard Dad say those words. Dad’s friend Kaiser suggested a poker night during the holidays the year Grandma died. He showed up with five or six guys from the firm and a pack of brand-new cards from Caesars Palace he’d picked up on a business trip to Vegas. That first night they sat around a table in the basement drinking beer and playing Texas Hold’em. I was supposed to be glued to a movie on the huge rear-projection TV dad had bought, but poker and its strategies fascinated me. Probably more than that, I just liked hearing Dad laugh.

  That night became the first of many poker nights. It didn’t take long at all for Dad to purchase a real poker table. He also bought a special table for the cashier, real poker chips, a silly dealer’s visor, and an expensive safe to put the cash in.

  He said it wasn’t complete until he built the bar in the basement to go with it.

  Sometimes I watched. Sometimes Dad had his guys play a round with pretzel sticks so I could sit in. Mom didn’t seem to mind when I asked her what she thought about it. She didn’t mind much of anything.

  Dad’s group played every Friday night. And though Dad didn’t always win, they always played in his basement where he could keep an eye on Mom and be there if she needed him.

  Dad was lonely during Mom’s final year, but he was also resolute that she’d survive and break her addictions. He prayed for her as she shuffled in a slow circuit from her bed to the refrigerator to the couch in the living room to the medicine cabinet and back to bed. He prayed she would feel better, sleep better, be in a better mood when she woke from her daylong naps. He prayed her mood swings would ease.

  He prayed he could save her.

  Sadly, I don’t think Mom ever grasped just how lonely Dad had become without her.

  On rare occasions, Mom could be talked into dinner out or a Sunday drive, but I think she did it to appease us more than the chance to breathe fresh air or remind herself what Fort Worth looked like. We dragged her to a couple of Dallas Mavericks

  basketball games—which she didn’t pretend to enjoy—and a movie or two.

  And Dad kept asking, even though she stopped saying yes.

  “I’
ll never stop asking, sweetheart, because I love you.”

  “I know, Charles, I know. But let me sleep now. I’m exhausted.”

  “How about a trip up north? Oklahoma City next week?”

  “You’ve got to work, Charles.”

  “I could take a few more days.”

  “You’ve already taken weeks, Charles. Maybe next month. I’ll go next month.”

  She didn’t.

  “Sweetheart, you up for breakfast out? Pancakes? Waffle House? Maybe we could stop by the nursery after and you could help me pick some new plants for around the fountain in the front.”

  “No thanks, Charles. You and Luke go. Bring me back something to eat.”

  “Next time, then,” Dad always said.

  “Sure. Next time. I promise I’ll go next time.”

  She didn’t.

  Right after Grandma died, Dad arranged for an in-home therapist to visit a few times. Mom was kind, she listened, she nodded at all the appropriate points. But when the counselor suggested it was time for Mom to respect her mother by going back to work, she asked Dad for a “short breather” from the sessions.

  “But you’ll see her again, right? She’s really good, sweetheart. One of the best in the Metroplex.”

  “Yes, Charles, she is. Just not for a while. Just a breather. I’m really doing better. Truly better.”

  “All right then. A few weeks and you’ll see her again?”

  “I will.”

  She didn’t.

  Chapter

  7

  Larry Gorton’s feet were in their usual position atop his desk.

  “Knock, knock,” I said, pushing his door open.

  “Mr. Millward!” His voice was low and authoritative. “You, my former star pupil, have been delinquent. Please enter and tell me why you haven’t come to visit me in such a long time that this old man can barely match your name to your face.”

  “You’re not an old man—”