Phantom of Riverside Park (38 page)

She’d wrestled with what to say, how much to
tell Nicky about the way David looked, and in the end she decided
that to say anything at all would fix an image in Nicky’s mind that
David would not be able to overcome. And that wouldn’t be fair to
David or to Nicky.

“Papa, I’ve decided that you and Nicky should
meet David.”

“That’s the right thing to do. I’ve been
wantin’ to tell you. Lola Mae must have beat me to it.”

“Who’s Lola Mae?” This from McKenzie who made
no bones about following every word of their conversation.

“She’s a angel,” Nicky said.

Elizabeth confirmed with a quick nod, then
squatted beside her son.

“You remember what I told you about David
Lassiter, don’t you?”

“He’s a nice man who he’ped us.”

“Yes, he is. He’s a really good man, one of
the kindest people I’ve ever met, and I want you to be very nice to
him. Can you do that?”

“Sure. I’m a good boy.”

“Yes, you are a good boy, and I want you to
remember to tell David...Mr. Lassiter, thank you for being so good
to us.”

He nodded so vigorously his cowlick bobbed up
and down.

“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.

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 the 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.”