Phantom of Riverside Park

by Peggy Webb

  “Never lie to yourself, Elizabeth,” he said.

  And she hadn’t. Not in all the years she’d been in Memphis.

  She wasn’t about to start now. The reason she was standing in David’s doorway like a honeysuckle vine taking root was simple: he’d set her heart on fire.

  It wasn’t the kind of flame that burned for her son nor for Papa. It wasn’t the kind that made her wake up at night in a sweat over whether she could manage one more day, one more hour, one more minute to carry the terrible burden of poverty and fear. It wasn’t that kind of flame at all, but rather a respectable-sized spark of curiosity that made her want to know more about the man.

  She didn’t want to know the things the news media revealed. She wanted to know the small intimate details of his life--what he had for breakfast, whether he was a grapefruit man or a bacon-eggs-and-biscuit man, what kind of music he liked and whether he was the sort of man who would drape a strong arm over the back of the sofa and invite a woman to rest her weary head.

  Was he that kind of man?

  The moon laid a bright path across the floor, and at the end sat David Lassiter.

  “I think you are the kindest man I’ve ever known,” she said, and then she left quickly while the words were still floating about in the room like angels of mercy.

  o0o

  Shaken to the bone, David stared at the door until his vision began to blur.

  “I must be tired,” he said, but when he raked his hands across his eyes he knew that the cause of his blurred vision was not fatigue but tears, tears so hot they scalded his face and burned his soul.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I feel like some kind of queen,” Quincy said, and to tell the truth, Thomas was feeling high and mighty himself. Imagine, him arriving at the hospital in a limousine, high-stepping out of that long black car like he was Somebody with a capital S.

  It made Nicky feel good, too. Instead of being concerned about his surgery, the child was jumping up and down in excitement. Elizabeth, though, was pale and subdued, a mother worried about her child.

  “Everything’s going to be all right.” Thomas hoped he was telling the truth.

  Edwards held open the door for the ladies, and Quincy wiggled her bottom around on the seat. “Just look at me. I look like somebody ought to be cleaning my house instead of vicey versy.”

  That made Elizabeth laugh, which was probably Quincy’s plan all along. She didn’t want people to know how smart she was, but in Thomas’s book she could outdo just about anybody when she wanted to.

  Edwards had even set Nicky behind the wheel and let him toot the horn before they pulled out of the driveway and headed north to pick up Fred. Everybody was climbing on board to support that child, and Thomas had never seen anybody as happy as Nicky.

  “I must be somethin’ really special, huh?” he said when they stopped for Fred.

  “Yes, Nicky,” Elizabeth said. “You’re very, very special.”

  “And ‘cause I’m special I get to ride in a lemon zing, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And who sent it to me? Who, Mommy?”

  Elizabeth had told him the story every night for the past two weeks, but he never tired of hearing it.

  “A very kind man who must be one of your guardian angels, Nicky.”

  “‘Cause I’m a good boy?”

  “Yes, because you’re a really good boy.”

  And because there was, after all, a benevolent God who’d been bending down listening to Thomas’ prayers all those long years.

  “It took you long enough, God. I thought I was going to be dead before You ever got around to this,” he’d said last night after he crawled in bed. Not because he was ungrateful, but because he was scared and had to tell somebody. He couldn’t tell Elizabeth. He wanted to be a tower of strength for her.

  What scared him was the possibility that they’d all arrive at the hospital and somebody would pop out from behind door number three the way they did on television and yell, “Surprise. There’s nothing here. The joke’s on you.”

  Instead, a regular greeting committee was waiting for them, nurses and orderlies and no telling what all, treating them like VIPs.

  That’s the way it had been ever since Elizabeth had gone to see David Lassiter that second time. Doors opened up, doctors appeared, fancy, ones, too, and now this--this suite at the hospital, all for little Nicky.

  “Edwards is at your disposal until Nicky comes home from the hospital,” Lassiter had told Elizabeth after he’d made all the arrangements. Called her up on the telephone himself. That shot him up another notch in Thomas’s book. You could bet your bottom dollar on that.

  And he’d proceeded to be as good as his word.

  Why, these last two weeks everywhere his granddaughter went she was carted off in that automobile as shiny as patent leather shoes. Elizabeth hadn’t let on, but Thomas could tell she was pleased. Not that she was stuck-up or even had any desire to be, not by a long shot. She’d been happy for the sake of Nicky.

  Thomas looked over at her sitting by the hospital bed holding a little boy who looked fragile as a toothpick, and all of a sudden the bubble burst and he thought that he might never see Nicky again. Something could go wrong back there in the bowels of the hospital. It happened.

  He nearly cried thinking about it. Now he wished he hadn’t been such a smart-aleck with God.

  “We’ve come to take the child.” Two men in green wheeled the gurney into the room, and Thomas wanted to take a stick and run both of them off. That’s how scared he was. But he couldn’t let on. Elizabeth needed him.

  He stood by her side while she kissed Nicky and told him goodbye. “It’ll be over soon, sweetheart, and I’ll be waiting right here for you.”

  “Papa, too?” Nicky’s voice was small and sleepy-sounding from the shot the nurse had given him.

  “Papa, too. And Quincy and Uncle Fred.”

  They wheeled him out, and so began the long wait.

  “Anybody want coffee?” Quincy said, and Elizabeth shook her head no.

  “Bring me some chips,” Fred said, and then when Quincy got back he set in to eating like there was no tomorrow. Silly old coot. By the time he got to his fifth bag, Thomas couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “I’ve told you and told you what that’ll do for your cholesterol,” he said.

  “Maybe you ought to eat some. Maybe it would improve your disposition.”

  Fred grinned when he insulted Thomas. He’d been grinning ever since he got into the limousine. Quincy, too. And my, how she’d preened.

  She wasn’t preening now, though. She was as nervous as Elizabeth, both of them jumping every time somebody came into the waiting room.

  Suddenly Elizabeth grabbed his hand, and Thomas saw the doctor coming toward them like Judgment Day, his face as blank as a piece of paper. Thomas wanted to get up and slap him. Where did they train these doctors, anyhow? How come they couldn’t smile? Didn’t they know a little smile made a body feel better whether the news was good or not?

  Besides that, Thomas had boots older than this doctor. Where did they get them, anyhow? Kindergarten? The next time they had to go through something like this, Thomas was going to take charge. He’d find a doctor with a few years on his face and some experience under his belt instead of leaving it all to strangers, and after all, wasn’t David Lassiter a stranger to them?

  What did they know about him, really, except that he was richer than Midas and had so many cars he could afford to do without his limousine for two weeks?

  “Everything went fine,” the doctor said. Actually he was a plastic surgeon named Jared Hall, the best in the South according to Elizabeth. “Nicky’s as good as new.”

  Thomas revised his opinion on the spot. These young whippersnappers had some of the best training in the world. They sure knew their business because there was no way you could argue with success unless you were a fool of the first degree. Thomas Jennings might be many things, but
he was nobody’s fool.

  “When can I see Nicky?” Elizabeth said.

  “He’ll be in recovery another thirty minutes, then we’ll bring him to the room.”

  “And it’s all over? There’s nothing else that needs to be done?”

  Elizabeth had been anxious about so many things for so many years, she didn’t know how to react when she heard good news for a change. Thomas wished he could have spared her all that anxiety.

  His failure sat on his heart like a stone.

  If he could have kept the farm things might have been different. If he weren’t so old, things would certainly have been different.

  He hates old age. He’d made up his mind a long time ago that he wasn’t going into it gracefully. He was being dragged into old age kicking and screaming all the way.

  “It’s all over,” the doctor told them, and Thomas sent a hallelujah winging upward.

  “Will there be scars?” Elizabeth wanted to know.

  “As young as he is, you won’t even notice in a few weeks.”

  That’s when Elizabeth cried. She’d always been like that, holding up through the worst times he’d ever seen, bending like a willow against the winds of adversity. It was after everything was done that she broke apart.

  Thomas wrapped his arms around his granddaughter, grateful that at least he could still do that much, lend a shoulder to cry on.

  Across the room Quincy was unabashedly wiping tears, and even Fred was looking a little teary-eyed.

  “I can’t believe it, Papa. It’s all over. Finally, it’s all over.”

  o0o

  David had gotten the report on Nicky before Elizabeth, and that should have been the end of it. That should have been the end of a connection that grew stronger every time he saw her.

  George could handle the rest of the details. Or even McKenzie.

  Elizabeth would be looking for a legal document, something that would set forth the terms of repayment. David got George on the intercom.

  “Could you come in here a minute, George? There’s a money matter I need to discuss with you.”

  Less than five minutes later, George was sitting in the chair where Elizabeth had sat, and David was asking about Sondra and the children, not out of politeness but because he had a genuine fondness for all of them. He’d never seen them except in photographs, but he knew their names, their ages, the names of their teachers and their pets and which sports they played.

  George’s children all tended to be athletic like Sondra’s side of the family and not the least bit inclined to follow their father’s footsteps into the comparatively drab world of number crunching.

  “The money we’re spending on Nicky Jennings’ care will not show on the books as charity.”

  “It won’t?” For the first time since David had known him, George showed shock at what his boss demanded. “Excuse me. I meant, how do you want it to show?”

  “It’s a loan which I will repay from my personal account. All except one hundred dollars.” George made rapid notations as David talked. “Elizabeth Jennings will repay the hundred at the rate of ten dollars a year over the next ten years.”

  Now shock-proof, George didn’t even look up from his notebook when he heard the bizarre terms of this unorthodox loan.

  “Get with Glen first thing in the morning and have him prepare the necessary papers.” Glen Stanford, David’s in-house lawyer and the only living remnant of the nightmare he’d brought with him. Glen had been known as Moose in Iraq.

  “How will I handle it from there? Do you want me to deliver them, or Glen?”

  I think you’re the kindest man I’ve ever known, Elizabeth had said.

  She would probably throw the papers in George’s face. Glen’s too, even if he did have a body that looked like a bulldozer and face that looked as if it had been left out in the rain too long.

  “I’ll handle it,” David said.

  So it’s not the end, he thought, and then he astonished himself by wishing it would never come to an end. He wanted Elizabeth Jennings to need him again and again. He wanted her to come to him and sit in the ambient light on the other side of the room so he could see how she looked in a pink dress. He wanted to see her slender white hands move in her lap as graceful as butterflies. He wanted to hear her name him kind, needed to hear her say the words that were balm to his soul.

  It wasn’t a need born of intellect but rather a visceral need that later propelled David from his office and through the night-black streets toward the hospital where a child lay sleeping in a suite so private that even a man with a face like his could walk unnoticed down the hallways.

  The child slept curled on his side with both hands clutching a tattered teddy bear. He had the innocent dewy face of the very young, and pale fine hair that had matted while he slept and now stood up around his head like the tufts on a baby bird.

  David had never meant to enter the room. He’d intended to see for himself that the child was all right, then slip back into the night, his mission over, his connection to the Jennings severed.

  But seeing the boy changed all that. How could any man look at Nicky and walk away?

  David eased quietly into the room. He would keep watch a while, then leave, and nobody would ever know he’d been there.

  Nicky made a sound in his sleep, then flung his covers off. Little stick-like arms and legs peeked from his Big Bird pajamas. He was the most vulnerable looking creature David had ever seen.

  All of a sudden a killing rage filled him, and he wanted to go down to Tunica, Mississippi, and beat Taylor Belliveau into a bloody pulp. How could any man deny this child a name, let alone deny his very existence?

  “The Belliveaus don’t know about Nicky,” Peter had reported to David when he’d called.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. The talk all over town is the upcoming wedding of Taylor Belliveau and the expectation of a Belliveau heir. He’s the only son. His two cousins are female. Unless Taylor produces a son, the family name dies.”

  “Or unless the father sows a few wild oats.”

  “Not likely. He has prostate cancer.”

  “What about the father of the cousins?”

  “Dead.”

  “Anything on why Taylor didn’t marry Elizabeth?”

  “Everything. In their out-dated caste system she was nothing but expendable goods. The mother and the child, both.”

  The idea that anybody could think of a soft, sweet woman like Elizabeth in that way made David’s blood boil. If he had a woman like her he would cherish every hair on her head. He would guard every bone in her body. He would worship the very air she breathed.

  If only he had a woman...

  David silenced his runaway imaginings. During the day he had no trouble controlling his thoughts. It was late at night that they haunted him.

  All the regret in the world didn’t change one iota of his life. It was not only counterproductive to wish for things you knew you could never have, it was painful. Thinking about all that might have been was the same as scratching a scab off an old wound. David had scratched and now he was bleeding. For the first time in many years, the raw pain of loss made him heartsick.

  He turned to leave, but the vision of the little boy curling his thin body into a raggedy old bear for warmth drew him across the room. Softly, so as not to wake the sleeping child, David pulled the covers up.

  Nicky snuggled into the blankets, then smiled in his sleep.

  “Goodnight, Nicky,” David whispered. “I hope your dreams are good ones, and I hope they all come true.”

  He had barely gained the door when a little voice piped up.

  “Are you my guard John angel?”

  David was trapped. There was no way he could ignore the child. He turned back toward the bed, keeping in the deep shadows of the room.

  “Why do you ask?”

  The little boy scooted up against his pillows, dragging his teddy bear with him. “Angels fly ‘round at night. Do
you fly?”

  “Only in an airplane.”

  “I’m gonna get a airplane when I’m big. You got a lemon zing?”

  “What’s a lemon zing?”

  “A big black car. Me ‘n Papa’s been ridin’ in one ‘cause my gaurd John angel sent it to me.”

  David had to suppress his chuckle. The little boy was dead serious.

  “Do you like the car?”

  “Yes. It’s got a telebision. I watched Scooby Dooby where are you. Do angels watch telebision?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Mommy knows. She knows everything.”

  David knew he should leave, but he was fascinated. Besides, he couldn’t remember having this much fun.

  “What does your Mommy know?”

  “She said I was special.”

  “I think you are.”

  “Are you special?”

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  David felt as if he were in a confessional talking to a miniature priest. There was no way he could lie in the face of Nicky’s earnestness.

  “Because I don’t have a little boy like you to love.”

  “How come?”

  “Because I’m very ugly.”

  “Uncle Fred’s got a ugly guard John angel. He’s got a wart on his nose. You got a wart?”

  “No.”

  Nicky pondered that for a minute, then he held his bear toward David.

  “Here. Hold Bear. He makes you all better. Don’t squeeze him. He’s real.”

  David couldn’t refuse the bear for fear of hurting the little boy’s feelings. He edged closer, keeping to the shadows, then reached out for the tattered gift. The stuffed bear had been loved so much he’d lost most of his fur and part of his stuffing.

  “Thank you, Nicky. This is a good bear.”

  “You know my name.” Nicky giggled and clapped his hands. “My guard John angel knows my name. I’m gonna tell Mommy!”

  This was a complication David hadn’t considered, and one he certainly didn’t need.

  “Can you keep a secret, Nicky?”

  “Yes. I didn’t tell Mommy I cried.”