Phantom of Riverside Park

by Peggy Webb

  “I’ll ‘member, Mommy.”

  “I think you will like him, Nicky, and I know he’ll like you.”

  Nicky squirmed out of her reach and bounced around the kitchen, already bored with that subject while McKenzie surreptitiously wiped her eyes.

  “Can I have cereal now? The donkey needs me.”

  o0o

  David didn’t make up his mind about driving down to Mississippi until the very last minute, and as usual, he did it his way, without calling McKenzie, without consulting anybody.

  He didn’t wait for the day of the party, either, for he’d always believed in the element of surprise. Too, he wanted to travel in the dark, arrive in the dark, look around and see things for himself before anybody noticed he was there. See Elizabeth before she saw him.

  He hadn’t asked which wing McKenzie put her and her family in. It was too late, now. He didn’t want to tip his hand. McKenzie had probably opened up the south wing because of the view of the gardens. That’s where she usually stashed guests.

  He didn’t want to think of Elizabeth as a guest, as somebody merely passing through, and so he pushed that thought from his mind and concentrated, instead, on the little towns he was driving by. Olive Branch, Byhalia, Holly Springs, Hickory Flat. Towns he’d seen mostly in the dark, softened by the moon. It was a journey he’d made a thousand times, this car-trip south on highway 78, yet it occurred to him that this was his first journey, the beginning of something--he didn’t know what--something akin to being born and seeing everything for the first time.

  It was pitch black and quiet when he arrived at the farm, nearly midnight, and not a single light burned save for a sprinkling of stars, a sliver of moon and the lanterns that flanked the front door. He stood just inside the hallway orienting himself to the darkness. There was something momentous and indefinable in his house, like a giant hand tugging at his heart, like an enormous whirlwind building that would move the boundaries he’d set for himself and reshape everything he knew to be true.

  Though he rarely drank and certainly not this late at night, David went by the kitchen and poured himself a glass of Chardonnay. He sat in the deep shadows nursing his glass and staring into the night. Somewhere in his house his wife lay sleeping. Alone. Her bedroom door shut against him.

  Loneliness overwhelmed him, a loneliness so all-encompassing he felt as if his whole body had collapsed and he was nothing but loose skin sitting in the chair brooding and drinking.

  David finished his glass of wine then stole up the stairs, an intruder in his own house. He eased into his bedroom though he didn’t know why he was being so careful. There was nobody around to hear him, even if he did make a racket.

  The first thing he noticed when he entered his bedroom was the connecting door ajar. He thought the housekeeper must have left it open when she cleaned, or else McKenzie when she gave her tour. She always treated company to a tour of the historic mansion, though why she’d shown David’s private quarters was a mystery to him. She generally omitted all the private quarters.

  He set his bag on the floor and walked across the thick rug to close the door. That’s when he saw her, Elizabeth clad in white, standing on the balcony with her face tipped up to the stars. His first reaction was to close the door before she saw him. The second, and stronger, was to soak her up as if his skin were parching and she were a pool of cool clear water.

  Hidden in the deep shadows of his room he studied the way she held herself--tall and regal--and the way the stars seemed caught in her bright hair. He was hypnotized by her, dissolving, flesh and bone melting and reconfiguring itself so that the man who emerged, reborn, was somebody David didn’t even know.

  Once she had kissed him. Softly. On the mouth. Standing on tiptoe. He could still feel the imprint of her lips. And if she would do it again, just once while she wore the luminescence of the moon, he could die in Grandfather Snead’s bed complete at last, a man made whole.

  All of a sudden Elizabeth turned toward him. Her hand flew up to her throat and her mouth opened for a barely audible sigh. He felt pierced. And saddened beyond imagining, grieving, really, for all he had lost. Not for the normality of living in the daylight hours, but for living with his heart wide open. He grieved for his failure to love.

  “David. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

  “No.” She left the balcony, closed the French doors and started toward him, as natural as if they were in the habit of having late-night conversations, as if the connecting door that separated them was always left ajar. “Something prickled at the back of my neck, awareness, I suppose. You know how you get when there’s a bond, you don’t even have to see the person to know he’s in the room.”

  A bond of friendship, she meant. Of course, she did. Still, his heart beat faster because it didn’t know any better, because it didn’t know how to behave with Elizabeth in her nightgown standing so close he could smell the honeysuckle caught in her hair.

  “McKenzie told me about Nicky’s party. I thought I’d come down early to meet him, if you don’t mind.” What if she did? What if McKenzie were mistaken and Elizabeth wanted to protect her son from such a sorry sight? He hurried on before she could answer. “I would really like to meet your son, Elizabeth.”

  “I want you to, David,” she said, and then miraculously she stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly on the mouth. “I’m so glad you came.”

  Elizabeth’s nightgown whispered against his legs and he knew that she’d kissed him, not as a form of thanks but because she wanted to.

  He should let her go. He knew that. It would be the honorable thing to do, the only right thing. But the part of him that was pure primitive male started kissing her back. He was, after all, a man, and his blood was stirred with wine and passion, proximity and opportunity.

  He might have stopped after one kiss but all of a sudden he had this vision of himself, always viewing the banquet of life through his window, and his own situation became untenable to him. Call him selfish. Call him a cad. Call him anything you pleased, but he had to have Elizabeth.

  He picked her up and carried her to the large canopied bed in her room. A thin sliver of moonlight fell across her face and he could see her eyes, so blue that he fell into them, fell into her, and in that instant his bones rearranged themselves. Everything changed. The bed he was in, the air he breathed, the notions he held. It struck him with a force as powerful as gravity that his motive for being with her was love, and that loving someone is the scariest and the bravest thing we do.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  David woke with Elizabeth curved against him, warm and sweet, with the fragrance of the moon flower coming off her skin, and it all washed over him ...how embarrassed he’d been that his release had been so explosive, so quick and how she’d shushed his apologies then gone to the balcony and plucked the sweet white blossoms from the vine that clambered over the railings. How she’d woven them in her hair, then had strewn petals across his chest, across the sheets and bent down to kiss him. And when he’d wrapped his arms around her once more, he could swear he heard music, as if an old radio had been left on somewhere playing songs from a bygone era.

  What happened then could only be described as magic. They were not merely two bodies in the bed tangled together, but two souls home at last, bound together in love.

  Finally David understood the power of love, of how a house can become an entire universe and how hope can make a heart feel whole. And he’d felt touched by angels.

  He gazed down at Elizabeth, sleeping now, her skin still flushed where he’d touched her, kissed her. The light coming through the window was a pale pink that made her look as if she’d been done in watercolors. She beautiful and even in her sleep her vulnerability showed through.

  With a clarity and wisdom that usually comes far too late, David understood the enormity of what he had done, and guilt sank into his heart like a stone. He’d not only betrayed her trust, he’d made th
e tragic mistake of thinking of himself as a man who at long last could be set free.

  There was no freedom for him. Only the guilt, only the darkness that would surely consume her as it had him. He couldn’t bear to do that to Elizabeth. He wouldn’t to it her.

  There was no way he could undo what had been done. There was nothing he could say to her that would make it right. Nothing he could do for her that would exonerate him.

  He’d broken his promise to her, and for David his word had always been a scared thing. There was only one recourse left--damage control. He would never touch her again, no matter how much he yearned.

  Should he wake her and say, This was all a mistake.

  But it hadn’t been a mistake. He’d known exactly what he was doing, and given the opportunity, he’d do it again. The only recourse left for him was to remove himself from temptation, to earn the contempt he surely deserved.

  He stole from her bed like a thief and shut the connecting door behind him. Then he lay in his bed staring at the ceiling, filled with more regret than a heart can hold.

  He must have finally dozed, for he started awake as if someone where shaking him to warn of a coming thunderstorm.

  It was still early. He could tell by the light coming through his window, too early for anybody to be up.

  David dressed and went downstairs. He wanted to drink coffee while he watched the farm wake up--the rooster crowing with his neck stretched up toward the sun, the hens coming out of the house one by one looking important with their feathers ruffled as they scratched around in the dirt, the donkey adding his honking bray, the cows still in placid repose lifting their heads to check out all the commotion. He wanted to think about his impending meeting with Nicky, to plan for it, to decide what to say, what to do.

  Do you hug a little boy? A little stranger? Shake hands? Bend over because you’re tall and he’s not?

  The smells of coffee wafted toward him, and all at once there was no time left, for Elizabeth was in the kitchen pouring cereal into a bowl, and Nicky was sitting at the table with his hair sticking up like the feathers of a baby bird.

  They froze when they saw him, and then Elizabeth smiled. Actually it was more than a smile: it was a look of such radiance he felt like an open wound.

  “Good morning, David. You’re just in time to have breakfast with us.”

  David looked away from her, hoping for some relief. Nicky’s eyes were round as marbles, but he wasn’t scared, just quiet, taking it all in, David’s height, his hair black as shoe polish and in need of a good trim, and his scars. Most of all his scars.

  David saw all this in a flash, saw the little boy’s curiosity and his caution. But not fear. The child showed no fear.

  Still, he couldn’t go forward. He couldn’t retreat. He couldn’t move.

  Elizabeth rescued him. “Come over here, David, and sit down while I pour you some coffee. There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

  He slid into a chair beside the child who was still holding him in solemn regard, his eyes as deep blue as the egg of a robin. Elizabeth set two cups of coffee on the table, then seated herself on his right, as if all this had been decided long ago, as if this were a routine they followed every morning.

  “Nicky, this is David Lassiter, the nice man I told you about. David, this is my son Nicky.”

  “Hi, Nicky.” David waited, too full to say more.

  “Thank you for he’ping us, Mr. Lass’ter.”

  “You’re welcome, and you can call me David.”

  “Can I, Mommy?” Nicky looked toward his mother for confirmation.

  “Yes, if you’d like.”

  Nicky pondered this for a long time while he studied David in the way of children with hearts and minds wide open.

  “Okay,” he said, his head bobbing up and down like a cork.

  Then he slid from his chair and came to stand between David’s knees. He had a fresh clean smell, like dough in a stoneware bowl on a sunny windowsill waiting to be shaped. His tiny hands stole upward and gently traced the long jagged scar that ran the length of David’s face.

  “Does it hurt?” he whispered.

  Only on the inside.

  “No,” he told the child. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  Satisfied, Nicky leaned against David’s leg. “I like your donkey.”

  “I’m glad you do. I have lots of animals I hope you’ll like.”

  “You got a race car?”

  “No. I’m afraid not.”

  “I’m gonna build a race car. You wanna he’p?” David had hoped for so little and received so much. “Do you?” Nicky asked, sliding his hand into David’s. And suddenly, there was mercy.

  “Yes, I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”

  Nicky’s mouth stretched into a wide trusting smile, and David saw how he resembled his mother and how a smile like that could twist a man up like a pretzel. The little boy raced off, pulling David along, then skidded to a stop at the back door.

  “Can me and David go outside and play, Mommy?”

  “Sure, you can. Breakfast can wait.”

  The last thing he saw before the screen door popped shut behind them was Elizabeth sitting in his kitchen with a rich smile on her lips and a hint of tears in her eyes.

  o0o

  Standing at the window watching Nicky and David, Elizabeth knew it was possible for the heart to be swollen too big for the chest and still go on beating. She was enormously proud of her son. And even more of David. Just think. He had been shut up in the darkness for years, and she was the one who had brought him into the light.

  The wonderful thing about giving love with heart and arms wide open is that it comes right back to you, a shining thing that glows off you like moon dust. Quite simply, David had given her back her dreams.

  As she watched him out the window playing with her son, the future stretched before her, a glorious and hopeful thing.

  The ringing of the telephone brought her away from the window. Should she answer it? This was not her house. Still, nobody was else was up, and what if it were important? Some sort of emergency, even?

  She’d started toward the phone when the ringing stopped. Back at her post, she watched Nicky chattering away and David laughing, the two of them working away on a large cardboard box.

  “I thought I’d find you here.” McKenzie stood in the door in a pink seersucker robe. “Telephone’s for you. It’s your lawyer.”

  Elizabeth hated how that word sliced her heart. For a while she’d forgotten the law suit. For a while she’d forgotten that her happiness was stolen and could be snatched away at a moment’s notice by something as simple as a phone call.

  “You can take it on the kitchen extension, or if you need privacy there’s another one in the study next door.” McKenzie sank into a chair, yawning, while Elizabeth picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Good morning, dear lady!” She had to hold the receiver away from her ear in the wake of his booming good cheer. “I just wanted to give you a report,” he said, and then proceeded to talk at length about motions and responses and a telephone conference with the Belliveaus’ lawyer that yielded nothing. “Bottom line here is that they haven’t yet seen the light. But they will, don’t you worry.”

  “You still think they’ll drop the custody suit?”

  “I’d bet my last dollar on it. I tried to call David, but his office said he’s out of town.”

  “He’s here.” McKenzie shot out of her chair, then sank back down, suddenly full of bleary-eyed interest.

  “Smart man. That’s exactly where I’d be if I had a wife like you.” Elizabeth felt herself blushing. “Tell him the news for me, will you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as we have any new developments.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Good news, I hope,” McKenzie said when she’d hung up.

  “Not yet.”

  “So...my brother’s here?” McKenzie
smiled. “And you already know about it. Could that possibly mean what I hope it means?”

  Elizabeth felt hot to the roots of her hair. “Well, if you’re talking about...actually, I was still up when he got in last night and the door was open and we...”

  What they’d done was far too private to tell, even to a loving sister.

  “Well, what?”

  “We talked a bit.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly. Still, Elizabeth didn’t like keeping secrets from McKenzie, especially since she was planning to pry into her private life.

  “Hmmm, this is good, this is very good. I can’t wait to ask him about it.” McKenzie chuckled. “Just you wait till David Lassiter gets his lazy bones out of the bed.”

  “He already has.”

  “Really? This gets better by the minute. Where is he?”

  “In the backyard playing with Nicky. They’re building a race car.”

  “Oh my God!” McKenzie raced to the window then stood with her fist pressed against her lips. When she sat back down at the table, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You don’t know what this means to me. I could kiss the ground that little child walks on.”

  “Nicky’s a great kid,” Elizabeth said, and then because she couldn’t bear to think about the consequences of David meeting her son, she changed the subject. “McKenzie, I don’t mean to pry...well, maybe I do, just a little bit. How did you end up here, with David?”

  “Alone, you mean.” McKenzie poured herself a cup of coffee before answering. “My husband died, and there’s never been anybody else for me.”

  “I’m so sorry. You must get terribly lonely.”

  “Most of the time I don’t think about it. But when I do I figure I’m better off with my animals than with somebody who doesn’t measure up. Speaking of the animals, I’d better get out there.”

  McKenzie left to get dressed, and Elizabeth went back to the window. She liked what she saw. There are some adults who don’t understand how to play with a child, but David wasn’t one of them. He was down on Nicky’s level, figuratively as well as literally, on his knees in the grass, his face as earnest as if he were discussing a business merger with his peers.