Muted by shock, Kate clutched the receiver and squeezed her eyes shut. But Mitch was still talking and she couldn’t shut out the suffering in his voice.
“I miss mah little girl, an’ I still love Pam. An’ she tole me she loves me, but cain’t live with me like this no more …”
“Mitch, how long has Pam been gone?” she asked gently.
“Nine months … nine months!” He paused. “Wanna hear somethin’ funny? She left me on April Fools’ day. Ain’t that a hoot?” He was crying again.
“It gets worse for you in the spring, doesn’t it, Mitch,” Kate said. “I know. It was the same for me. But Mitch, it wasn’t your fault. Paul made the choice. You could’ve both died out there, and what good would that have been? It was an accident, Mitch.”
“But he didn’t have to die, Kate,” he nearly wailed. “It was like, one minute he was holdin’ on to the front of the Jeep, and the next, he was climbin’ into it. Like there was somethin’ he wanted in there. If he’d just stayed on the hood, he would’ve been okay. But he pulled himself in through the door. I yelled at him, but I guess he couldn’t hear me.”
Kate evenly asked, “What do you think he went back for?”
“I doan know. He’d put that rose in his pocket for you …”
“The desert rose.”
“Yeah, that was all they found on him. That, and his wallet.” He stopped suddenly and Kate felt herself grow still. “Wait a minute! The wallet wasn’t on him. Thas right … thas right!” He was talking to himself now. She no longer existed. “They found it under his arm. Funny, after all this time to remember that. Yeah. It was under his arm and they took it along to the hospital. I guess that’s what he wanted.”
Kate turned her eyes to the small plastic bag. “And that’s what you brought me from the hospital? The desert rose and his wallet?”
“Why’re ya askin’ me like you don’t know?”
“I never looked in the bag, Mitch. I couldn’t bear it.”
“What coulda been so important in his wallet? What in the hell was in it worth dyin’ for?”
They were both silent for a moment, then Kate hesitantly asked, “Mitch, did you and Paul ever talk about anything—personal?”
“Like what?”
“Like—did he ever tell you anything that he wanted kept secret? Something maybe he didn’t want me to know?” She realized his silence meant he was struggling with something, and she added, “I already know about the other women, Mitch. It hurt me then, and it hurts me now, but I mean something else.”
“No,” he quickly said, his voice nearly sober. “If Army had any secrets, he never told them to me.”
She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Matt. “If I find out anything important, I promise I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Mitch. I didn’t mean to cause you any more pain.”
“S’okay, Kate. I’m kinda glad you called.”
“Get some help, Mitch,” she said gently. “If you and Pam still love each other, it’s worth doing.” He started to protest, and in a calm, chiding voice she stated, “And don’t give me any of that macho bullshit, Mitchell Browder. Everyone needs help once in a while.”
“I tried. It was too hard.”
“Listen to me, Mitch. I know all about it. I’ve been drinking, too. It’s been a real easy way to hide from life. There was a lot I just wasn’t seeing because of it.”
“Have you been able to quit?” he asked.
“Yes. Recently.”
“How do you feel? Without it, I mean?”
“The truth? Scared …”
“I already feel that way.”
“I know, Mitch,” she said, understanding in her voice. “But one of these days you’ll be drinking, and you’ll do something that’ll scare the hell out of you. And you may not be able to undo it. Don’t wait for that to happen. I’m sure it’s not too late for you and Pam. Forgive yourself, Mitch. Do that, and I’m sure Pam will forgive you, too.”
“What made you quit, Kate?”
“It’s not something I can tell you. Let’s just say I hurt a lot of people I care about very much.”
“Are you still alone?” he asked. She didn’t answer right away and he said, “Kate?”
“No, Mitch. I guess I was never alone. I just didn’t realize it.”
• • •
The longer she sat on the bed staring at the little bag, the more nervous she became, and by the time she reached for it, her palms were damp. The desert rose and Paul’s wallet tumbled out onto the blanket.
She lightly placed her fingers on the water-stiffened leather and waited. No mystical revelations came to her. No messages from the past. Nothing. It was just an old wallet that somehow held the power to hurt her if she let it.
As she picked it up, her heart began a hollow thumping and the skin on her arms prickled with fear. She dropped it back onto the bed and plucked up the desert rose, closing her eyes. Kate let her thumb worry the weathered surface. She guided her fingers around the “petals.” Her heart rate returned to normal after a few seconds and she inhaled deeply, opening her eyes. When she finally opened the wallet, it made a dry creaking sound and she half expected a moth to fly out, like in a cartoon.
The desert is the greenest he’s ever seen it. Spring rains have been plentiful this year and the Arizona earth has been waiting for just this moment to bear fruit. Shrubs that had been skeletons a few days ago have suddenly developed miniature leaves. Golden barrels and prickly pears sport masses of nodules that look like alien pods, ready to release pink and white and yellow fingers of color. Looking up, he ran see two saguaros in the distance, their arms intertwined in a stately dance of courtship. He smiles and tells himself he’ll bring her out here on his next off day, even if he has to kidnap her. The only time she ever seems to leave the hotel anymore is to visit her parents. He isn’t a fool. He knows she’s unhappy, but Christ! It’s spring! The season is beginning. It’s the best time of the year for baseball. It’s the best time of the year for him.
Tiny wildflowers, invisible to travelers in their cars, are little jewels scattered at his feet. He bends down to pick a blossom and then, having nowhere else to put it, takes his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and stuffs it between two fives. He’ll give it to her later. Maybe it will make her smile—a rarity these days.
He knew she hadn’t wanted to leave Staunton this time. He’d wanted nothing more. The winter had begun to grate on his nerves. His final visit with Mike had left him angry and antsy. It had been one of their worst arguments—and there had been plenty over the twenty-five years they’d known each other—but pride wouldn’t let him relent. He’d left Virginia without making that final call he’d always made before. And now, as the days turned into weeks, the affront has taken on epic proportions. Like a scorned lover, he tells himself Mike can make the first move. He doesn’t have to take that shit from him.
He can feel himself frowning, when a shout breaks the serene silence that hovers over the desert.
“Hey, Army! What the hell are you doing over there?” Paul Armstrong turns in the direction of Mitchell Browder’s voice, but can’t locate him. “Over here!” A head of thick, curly black hair pops up behind a mesquite bush a few hundred yards to Paul’s left. The sun glints off the centerfielder’s mirrored sunglasses and he sees him grin.
“Find something?” Paul shouts.
“Yeah. Bring the bag.”
Paul Armstrong’s boots crunch across the dry wash toward the Jeep they’ve borrowed from a fellow teammate, and permanent resident of Scottsdale. Placing his wallet on the dashboard, Paul reaches between the seats for the heavy leather satchel Mitch uses for his rock collecting.
As he walks toward the spot where Mitch has once again disappeared from view, a slow trickle of sweat runs down his neck. He’s glad they’ve come out early. Even though it is only the eleventh of March, the temperature will probably climb in
to the low nineties before noon. The sun, fully up now, is relentless. The low mountains in the distance are the only things in shadow, as a few dark clouds gather around them.
“Whatcha got?”
Mitch straightens up to his full five feet, nine inches, and places something in Paul’s hand. “Desert rose. Kristy’ll love it.”
Paul runs his index finger around the pale pink stone aptly named for its almost perfect mimicry of a rose in bloom.
“I’ve been coming out here for two years now. First one I’ve found. She can add it to her collection.” Taking it back from Paul, he drops it in the bag.
“You should bring her out here,” Paul comments as Mitch hunkers down again.
“Maybe next year. She’s still too little.” Mitchell’s daughter had just turned four in November and his world, which before had revolved around baseball, had now adjusted its orbit. She is the center of his universe. “Here’s another one!” Mitch’s fingers dig into the soft dirt and pry out a smaller version of his original find.
Paul kneels in front of him, asking, “Can I have it?”
“Didn’t know you were into rocks.”
“I’m not, but Kate might like it.”
“Be my guest,” Mitch says, tossing it to Paul.
Paul stands, pocketing the stone. “I think it’s Miller time.”
Mitch looks up at his friend in amusement. “Don’t you think it’s a little early?”
Paul is already walking back to the Jeep. “It’s never too early for a good beer buzz.”
Mitchell shakes his head as he picks up the leather bag from where Paul has dropped it.
The two men sit in companionable silence. The flat rock they’ve found to perch on is already warm, and the frosty beer tastes good, even at ten o’clock in the morning. A small collared lizard, tempted by the sun, ventures out from under a barrel cactus and climbs onto a pile of stones.
They don’t move for a few seconds and are rewarded with the comical sight of the lizard doing push-ups, the better to see a cricket that has had the misfortune of crossing into his sights.
Paul chuckles. “Reminds me of Wart.”
“Only the lizard’s better looking,” Mitch comments, taking another pull from the bottle he holds. The lizard darts off his roost and is devouring the hapless cricket. “Eats like Wart, too.”
A rumbling sounds far away and Paul looks over his shoulder at the mountains. “Thunder?”
Mitch nods. “Speaking of Koslowski, J heard a rumor he’s not gonna make it this year.”
John “Wart” Koslowski had been the Giants’ utility infielder until shoulder surgery had sidelined him late last season.
“Yeah, I heard. Kangaroo court won’t be the same without him. We could always count on him to do something flaky.”
They are both quiet again, then Paul says, “I remember when you were a hound, but you weren’t hunting rocks.”
“Things change.” Mitch stretches out his legs and then stands, fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket.
Unable to get a rise out of Mitch, Paul comments, “Those’ll stunt your growth, y’know. Oops, sorry … I guess it’s too late.”
Mitch gives him a dirty look, then answers defensively, “I’m cutting down … Besides, Kristy keeps asking me, “ ‘Daddy, why are you on fire?’ ” He takes a deep drag and expels the smoke. “I never have a good answer for her.” He shakes his head and smiles. “Kids. They give you a whole new perspective on things.”
“I’m sure they do.”
Paul has gotten up and is making his way to the Jeep. Mitch watches him and winces. “Sorry, man,” he calls after him.
But Paul chooses to ignore his apology, and tosses the two bottles into the back of the car.
“How much time have we got?” Mitch asks, coming up behind Paul.
“About two hours.” Paul is stripping off his long-sleeved shirt. Dark blotches stand out on his blue T-shirt where he has sweated through the cotton fabric. “Don’t worry, lover-boy. I’ll have you home in time.”
Mitchell’s family is flying in that afternoon. He hasn’t seen them in nearly three weeks, and he can’t wait to see his little daughter’s face when he shows her all the fascinating rocks he’s found. He’ll hold back the desert rose until the end. She’ll be thrilled.
While Mitch contentedly scours the dry wash, Paul makes his way “downstream,” picking up rocks and lobbing them across the desert as he goes. He can’t stop thinking about what Mitch has said about kids. Even after all these years, it never fails to hurt him when someone inadvertently comments on the joys of children. The looks of pity that come over their faces when Kate asks to hold a new baby always angers him. They always ask—in what they think is a subtle manner—why they haven’t adopted. If Kate is present, she’ll fix him with a sad look that only makes him angrier. But why should he have to explain his feelings about adoption to these people? It’s none of their damn business.
But Mitch’s proclamation won’t leave him alone. He’s been thinking about this for a few months, and now, standing in the vast solitude of the desert, Paul comes to a decision. He doesn’t want to live the lie anymore. He’s let it go on too long already. The boy is practically grown and Paul hasn’t shared in any part of Matt’s life. He’s tired of the empty ache. People will be hurt, but so be it. He wants to acknowledge his son. He doesn’t care what the consequences will be. This suddenly seems like the only possible thing to do—to be able to say to the world, “I have a son.”
Thunder sounds again, almost in punctuation to his thoughts, and he turns toward the mountains. The horizon is one long line of steel-gray clouds that have stalled over the Mazatzal Mountains. A giant thunderhead looms above one of the peaks and the soft, misty color that it’s painted that part of the landscape with its rain belies the true force of the storm. While Paul stands in the sunshine, it is coming down hard up there.
He looks for Mitch, who seems to have vanished into thin air. He is about to call out, when he sees a flash of red behind a stand of ocotillo, and then the centerielder comes into view. Paul takes a deep breath. He is frightened in that moment and the feeling of unease won’t leave him.
Sheet lightning illuminates the murk that surrounds the mountains, and Paul suddenly makes up his mind.
“Hey, Mitch!” he shouts. His friend’s head comes up, and Paul makes the time-out gesture. They walk toward each other to close the five-hundred-foot gap between them. When he gets within speaking distance, Paul says, “Maybe we should wrap this up.”
“The rain?” Mitch asks.
Paul nods. “I know it’s not flash-flood season, but it looks pretty bad up there.”
“Give me fifteen minutes. I found some rocks that look like they could be geodes.”
Mitch is already walking back to the spot he’s left, when Paul says, “Just remember how those rocks got there.” Mitch raises his hand in acknowledgment while Paul watches his retreating back. Another reverberation of thunder pushes him into action and Paul heads for the car.
It takes him five minutes to reach the Jeep, slip the key into the ignition, and turn the engine over. In those five minutes, while he thinks only of getting the Jeep out of the dry wash, Mitch is out of his line of sight. The motor starts with its characteristic unmuffled roar. But the engine’s noise can’t mask another, louder noise.
Only two seconds pass between the time he hears that horrible sound and his boots hit the sandy soil. Only two heartbeats. But it still isn’t enough of a head start. He can see Mitch racing across the bed of the wash. Mitch scrambling up the side. Mitch losing his foothold. Mitch tumbling into the path of the oncoming, improbable river of boulders, dirt, trees, and raging water. Nature’s freight train, carrying the force of sixty thousand tons of TNT, has derailed and is barreling down on them both.
“MITCH!” Paul’s scream is swallowed up by the deafening flash flood.
His legs pump hard in the crumbling dirt as he speeds toward his friend. His f
ingers greedily close on the waistband of Mitch’s jeans and he hauls him upward with all the strength he has. Mitch’s boots scrabble to find a toehold as the first surge of muddy debris bears down on them.
Paul’s Virginia driver’s license was the first thing she saw. Except for the haze of dried mud, it looked much like hers. The lamination had held together, and as she wiped her thumb across the surface to clean it, Paul’s smiling face emerged. While her own photo looked like a mug shot taken on her worst hair day, his was wonderful. He always managed to look perfect, and she remembered joking with him about it more than once.
There was a Chevron credit card and his American Express Platinum card. An almost indistinguishable proof of insurance had glued itself into the only other slot he’d filled. Kate removed the brittle paper money. The bills were stuck together in places and as she peeled them apart she placed them in a tidy row on the blanket. A twenty, four ones, a five, another one. The last two five-dollar bills parted company and revealed a tiny, perfectly preserved wildflower. It was a vivid purple and its delicate petals were flattened to form a one-dimensional representation of its species. Kate carefully slid the flower onto her palm. Inexplicably, she knew it had been meant for her eyes, and Kate smiled at the thought of Paul putting it away. It was his final gift to her. A final glimpse into the past. This had been the Paul she’d fallen in love with. Paul, before the success and all the lying and cheating that had seemed to come with that success. She knew just where the little flower belonged.
Kate rose from the bed and walked to the dresser. A Limoges box made to resemble a life-sized pansy blossom sat next to her jewelry box, and she opened it and placed the wildflower inside. Paul had given her the porcelain box for her twenty-fifth birthday. It had come from Shreve, Crump, and Low in San Francisco and he’d picked it out himself, a rarity in their years together. The present had been very special for that reason. Usually, Mike had been consulted in the gift-giving department.
Remember the Time Page 32
