by Annie Jocoby
“I know. I felt the same way. But even moreso.” I was a little disappointed that Luke still wasn’t ready to talk about his mother, but I certainly didn’t want to push it. “I actually thought that I wanted to die. I just didn’t know how I would face life without you, and with Nottingham.”
“Well, you never have to find out,” he said. “And, now that everything’s in the open, I hope that we can continue to live our lives without any secrets.”
“Of course,” I said, hoping that I truly meant that. “It was the hardest thing in the world, lying to you, and keeping all of that nonsense with Nottingham a secret. There’s no way that I’ll ever do that again, though. It’s not in my nature to be deceptive like that. It really isn’t. I wasn’t raised like that.”
He kissed my forehead again, and said “I’m really glad to hear that.”
And then he took another deep breath, and his eyes blinked rapidly. “Well, I need to address the 800 lb gorilla. I mean, obviously, my mom is dead. I guess I should probably tell you what happened to her. I’m sure that it’s going to be brought up anyhow, so you might as well hear it from me.”
I nodded my head and was silent. I stroked his hair a little, as he bowed his head and put his face in his hands.
“Oh, god,” he said. “When I was 10 years old, I...” And then he stopped. He obviously was having a hard time going on. “My mom and Chris went out. I can’t remember why they went out just the two of them, but they went out together. I think that he was only 11 at the time.” He squinted his eyes and looked out in the distance for a second, and then said “no wait, I do remember why they went out, just the two of them. I mean, she took us out individually a lot, because that was how she was. She wanted to give each of us individual attention, because it was so difficult to try to fight for her focus when there were so many of us at home.”
“Anyhow,” he continued, “she and Chris went to the movies. And Chris loved McDonald’s. More than any of us other kids, he always wanted to go there whenever we went out.”
I squeezed his hand silently, and he squeezed mine right back.
He was silent for a few more minutes, and tears started to form in his eyes. “There was a man,” he said. “He was pissed off at his wife, I think. Going through a bad divorce, and the wife refused to let him see the kids. And he worked at that McDonald’s until he was fired.”
I felt my heart racing, as I knew where this was going. I remember reading about this when I was just 10 myself – about the McDonald’s shooter who killed 15 people before the cops killed him.
But I let him go on.
“He, this man, he came into the store with an automatic weapon...the place was packed, and Chris later told me that there was a mass panic. People screaming and running under the tables. He told me that the sound was deafening, and he didn’t know what was going on, there was so much chaos.”
Luke was breathing harder and harder. “The gun man, he pointed the gun directly at Chris, and my mom, she stepped in front of him, and yelled for him to run. I guess he did. We found out later that my mom was actually the last person he killed before the cops got there and killed him. And the only reason why my mom was the last one he killed was that he had finally run out of bullets.”
I felt tears coming to my eyes. “Oh, Luke, I don’t know what to say.”
He shook his head. “Not much to say. Five kids left behind, and a father who couldn’t get out of bed for like a year. Serena was quite a bit older than the rest of us, so she probably should have taken the reins, because pop couldn’t care for us at all. But she didn’t. She was 18, and she got out of the house almost immediately after mom died. My brothers were 11, I was 10, and Amy was 13. Amy was the one who actually cared for the rest of us while my pop did his grieving.”
He put his two fingers between his eyes, and shook his head. “Oh, god. Poor Chris. I mean, he didn’t actually witness my mother’s death, thank god, but he blamed himself so much for so long. She died saving him. It should have been me, he always said. It should have been me.” Another deep breath. “And it would have been him if my mom didn’t do what she did. She’d still be alive, but Christopher would be dead. Chris knew this, as young as he was, and he couldn’t get over it at all.”
“Luke, I...” That was all I could manage, because I felt the tears coming. “God, I just can’t believe that you had to go through this. You always seem so...even-tempered. Level-headed. I have always admired that about you, because I went through years in a depressed fog just because some asshole didn’t like my artwork. And here you are, having gone through something major, and you always have seemed so sunny.”
He smiled. “Ah, well, I guess it’s just my disposition. I mean, I’ve had dark periods. Not like poor Chris, of course. His wounds run deeper than mine or the rest of the family, just because the nature of what happened. The whole family has had dark periods, in fact, but what happened is no longer acute. It still aches, especially during this time of the year, but it’s not something that fills us up with pain, the way that it did for years after what happened.”
I put my head on his shoulder, and threw my arm around his neck at the same time. “You’re very brave. I don’t know what I would do if something like that had happened to me. I mean, it almost did, when I was just a little baby, but it all worked out, thank god.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when I was less than a year old, my mother had this stalker guy, Andrew. He raped her, and then he became psychotic and thought that she was his dead wife. So, he came into the house and threatened her with a gun. And, before he threatened her, he threatened me. I had this baby-sitter, Helena, and he made her leave the house at gun-point, before picking me up and holding me. I still remember that, even though I was very young. I remember him picking me up and holding me for like an hour. He wasn’t mean to me, or anything, though. In fact, he tried to get me to calm down, but there was no way I was going to calm down after what had just happened.”
It was Luke’s turn to be silent and look at me with sympathetic eyes. “Oh, god, Dalilah, that sounds awful.”
“Yeah, well, it was. Because my mom came home, and, before I knew it, she had me in her arms and that man was still threatening us with a gun. Then she sent me away with Daniel, who was my father’s personal assistant and driver at the time. And, well, my dad was shot. As I was told later on, he came in the door when that Andrew had a gun to my mother, and he deflected Andrew by pretending to be the guy who was sleeping with Andrew’s wife. Remember, Andrew thought that my mom was his dead wife, Cherry. So, Andrew decided to shoot my dad instead of my mom.”
Luke’s hand flew up to his mouth. “Oh, my god. What happened?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “My dad came through surgery, of course, and it was a bumpy road for awhile. My mom killed Andrew by plunging a butcher knife into his back before he shot my dad, so that was one good thing that happened. In the end, though, that whole incident just really made my mom and dad stronger together. They’re fantastic people and so good together, but I guess that they had their problems in the early days. But when my dad was almost killed, they managed to really become a strong and solid unit. But that wasn’t easy, because I guess my dad went through a lot of soul searching after that incident, and really beat himself up about his past.”
Luke nodded his head. “I remember reading all about your father’s past. Guess having something like having a near-death experience just brings it all home, huh?”
“So it seems,” I said, not wanting to talk about my own near-drowning, and the reckoning that came from that. I was still a bit raw from the whole Nottingham ordeal, so talking about the rip-tide incident would bring all of that back for me. I wanted to put it all behind me as quickly as possible.
Luke smiled. “Well, this little trip has certainly turned into a bit of a downer. But I’m glad to finally have been able to open up to you about what happened. It has been difficult to talk about, as you might imagine.” H
e got quiet for a few minutes. “In fact,” he finally said, “you’re the first person I have talked to about my mom, except for my other family members. And the family therapist that the state provided for us after it happened.”
“Really? You haven’t talked about that with Jake?”
“No,” he said. “Not even with Jake. Jake still doesn’t know how my mom died. I mean, he knows that she was murdered. Freddy does too,” he said, referring to the homeless guy who Luke talked to quite a bit. “Freddy’s dad was murdered, so I did tell him about my mom’s death. But I haven’t been able to really talk about how it all went down until just now with you.”
I felt touched that I was the one who finally got him to bring down his walls about the subject. I touched his cheek, and kissed him lightly. He smiled and brought out the blanket that we brought, and put it around us as the bus bumped along the road.
“So, what are you thinking?” I asked him.
“Just that life seems to be really at its pinnacle now. Funny, huh? I mean, you’re married, I’m probably going to be a felon, my career is in the toilet again. Yet, I couldn’t be happier right now.”
I laughed. “Well, if you put it like that, it certainly does seem like we’re a couple of cuckoo birds for being happy right now, but I know what you mean. I’m really ecstatic myself, right now, for the same reason as you. I guess it does just go to show that, no matter what life gives you, if you have the person you love by your side, nothing can ever seem that horrible.”
He kissed my lips and said “ain’t that the truth.”
Chapter 36
Luke
The bus was finally pulling into the Portland stop, after a good 10 hours on the road. It was only a five hour drive from New York City to Portland, but, with all the stops, it took considerably longer on the Greyhound. Not that I minded. Dalilah and I had snuggled under the blanket for much of the way there, and it was cozy sitting there with her the whole way. She had fallen asleep in my arms, and, as I listened to her deep breathing and eventual snoring, I felt so comforted. There was a time when I honestly thought that I would never get the chance to hear her snore again, so that sound was music to my ears.
As we disembarked from the bus, Pop was sitting there, waiting for us in the snow. He grinned broadly at us, while waving his corduroy cap. He approached us, and took our luggage.
“Pop,” I said, giving him a hug. “This is Dalilah.”
He extended his hand to her, and she took it, but then gave him a hug. “I’m so happy to finally meet you,” she said.
“Likewise,” he said, and then turned to me. “Well, you told me she was beautiful, Luke, but I had no idea.”
Dalilah blushed, although I knew that she was used to hearing that sort of thing. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Roberts.”
“Michael,” he said. “Call me Michael. And, maybe sometime soon, you’re gonna want to just call me dad.”
We all made our way back to dad’s ancient pickup truck. “Sorry, Dalilah, but I guess your luggage is going to get a little bit wet,” he said, as he put our suitcases in the back of the pickup. “Can’t be helped, though. It’s been snowing for days here. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more that has accumulated, though. It just snows, and then stops, and then snows some more.”
“Not a problem, Michael,” Dalilah said. “A little bit of snow isn’t going to hurt a thing.”
At that, we all piled into the bench seat of the cab. I sat in the middle, and dad put on his wipers to clear the snow off his windshield as the ancient truck made its way back to pop’s modest home.
Michael put his arm around Luke’s neck as he drove along. “So good to see you,” he said. “The prodigal son returns.”
“Oh, come on, pop, it hasn’t been that long.”
“Right. Well, you just keep thinking that.”
“I was home last Christmas.”
“Huh. Well, you don’t live that far away, you could not be such a stranger, you know.”
“You too. The car goes both ways.”
“I don’t come to the city, you know that. Too many people, too much sketchiness.” The old man shook his head. I knew my pop, and I knew the real reason why he refused to go into the city. Because of what had happened to my mom, he was afraid of the violence of large metropolises. Not that Portland was bucolic, although where my pop lived, it was pretty rural, as he didn’t live in Portland proper. I always told everybody that my family was from Portland, but the actual house was situated in an unincorporated countryside that was just outside the city limits.
“I know, pop, and I’m sorry I don’t visit more. But I’m here now.”
“And it’s good that you are. Mark, Chris and Amy are already there, and Amy’s husband.”
I held my breath, hoping that Serena wouldn’t be there. She often wasn’t, finding better things to do than hang out with the family over the holidays. But, once in awhile, she made a guest appearance, probably because she wanted to throw her wealth in all of our faces.
“What about Serena?”
“She’s coming. Her sucker of a husband is finally divorcing her sorry ass, so she has no place else to go.”
I looked at Dalilah. “Well, looks like you’re going to meet Serena after all. Lucky you.”
Dalilah just smiled, and squeezed my hand. “That’s fine, Luke.” And then she whispered. “As long as I’m with you, this is going to be a great holiday indeed.”
Pop just smiled, as he heard her say that. “Ah, young love,” he said. “I remember that well.”
And then he was quiet for a few minutes. Finally, he spoke. “Uh, Luke, there’s going to be somebody else there at the house.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Her name is Carolyn. She’s uh, my fiancée.”
I blinked my eyes, and felt selfish as I didn’t quite know what to say about that. A part of me wanted to congratulate him for moving on with his life, but another part of me wanted to slap him for betraying mom. As irrational as that was. But I just couldn’t picture him with another woman, even after all these years.
“Carolyn,” I said, finally, after I found my words. “You never mentioned anything about there being a Carolyn.”
“Well, it’s one of those things,” he said. “I knew her in high school, and she looked me up on Facebook of all things.”
I had to smile. My pop on Facebook. The social media giant had long since fallen out of favor with my generation, but my pop’s generation still used it quite a bit.
“Oh, let me guess. She always had a crush on you.”
“No,” he said. “The other way around. I always had a crush on her. And, she had moved to Portland, and knew nobody, so she and I got together.”
My pop had actually grown up in Wisconsin, so the fact that one of his classmates moved to his neck of the woods was somewhat remarkable.
I got silent, not really knowing what to say. I was wrestling with my emotions on this, and didn’t want to admit that, because it seemed so petty and selfish. But I just couldn’t imagine somebody else taking my mom’s place.
But Dalilah, of course, had no such reservations. “Congratulations, Michael,” she said, stepping into the void. “You must be so happy to have found somebody.” She nudged me a little bit, as she obviously wanted me to say something positive about this new development between my dad and this mysterious Carolyn woman.
“Well, thank you, Dalilah,” he said, a note of sarcasm in his gruff voice. “I appreciate your good wishes.”
Finally, I just half-heartedly said “yeah, pop, that’s great that you have somebody. Boy, I can’t wait to see everyone. It’s been way too long.”
“Listen,” Michael said. “It’s been almost 11 years since your mother. 11 years. Now, I know that you don’t think that I should be happy in my golden years, but you gotta suck it up. And grow up while you’re at it.”
I knew that. Objectively, I knew it. Emotionally, not so much. Again, I felt selfish for wishing that my pop could a
lways just keep the image and memory of my mom pristine and not sully it with somebody else.
This was going to be a long visit.
Chapter 37
Dalilah
As I bumped along in the tiny pickup, I knew that I was going to have to talk to Luke when I got him alone. He obviously wasn’t doing well with the fact that his father had a new woman in his life. That wasn’t fair, of course, but, at the same time, I understood the impulse to feel that way. I knew that a person’s head and heart didn’t always match up, and that, sometimes, the heart would be the one that would win out in a battle. Luke’s head had to know that his father deserved every ounce of happiness, and that nobody should have to live life devastated and alone. But his heart was apparently having problems with knowing that his mother might be replaced.
I squeezed his hand to make sure that I was there for him, and he smiled back at me, reluctantly. But the silence in that cab was deafening, and I didn’t try to make small talk to fill the silence. After the whole Nottingham bullshit, I had made a silent vow to myself to live my life as authentically as possible, and filling the air with mindless chatter at that time just didn’t seem to be authentic to me. So, I kept my mouth shut.
Finally, after about a half hour in the cab, we entered into a rural, tree-lined road. The truck turned left onto a gravel driveway and rested on the grass in front of a small white house. Michael got out and got our bags out of the back.
“I’ll take your bags to your room, Dalilah. My son can get his own,” he said, taking my bags out of the back of the truck. Luke got out of the truck, too, and got his bags and we all approached the house.
I felt nervous as I walked into the close quarters. This was a cute house, really. Walking into the house, there was a small dining room with a well-worn green carpet, and a large kitchen with a 1940s stove and 1970s refrigerator. In the kitchen was a small breakfast nook with a hand-crafted table and bench. Michael walked the short way into our bedroom, which was a tiny space with well-worn hardwood floors and just enough room for a full-size bed and one ramshackle dresser.
