“I wish you would have said good-bye. Or sent a letter. Something. Anything. I went into the city to find you a couple of times.”
Jake stared at Spencer, wondering if he was supposed to say something here because Spencer had paused, like he wanted some sort of dialogue. Jake rinsed his mug under the faucet and placed it in the rack beside the sink. A few drops of water beaded on its surface.
“Everyone figured you’d come back some day. And here you are. More than half a lifetime later.”
Jake shrugged, as if that was some sort of an answer. He hoped Spencer would let it go.
“What’d you do when you got to New York?” Spencer pushed.
Jake remembered his visit to David Finch—his father’s art dealer. Jake had asked for thirty-one dollars, so he’d be able to stay at the YMCA while he found a job, got on his feet. He promised to pay it back when he could. Finch had said no. That Jacob wouldn’t approve. That he was sorry. And then he had closed the door in Jake’s face.
Two nights of no meals and no place safe to sleep later, Jake had sold a little piece of himself—the first of many. And learned, with an odd mix of horror and pride, that he was a survivor. The next part of his life had faded and been forgotten. The drugs helped. For a very long time they had helped. “Got on with my life.”
Jake’s eyes left Spencer and slid down to the safari pool out on the deck. In a way there was something serene, almost meditative about it. Maybe it wasn’t a sign of neglect after all. Maybe his father had been going Zen.
“What, exactly, do you do, Jake?”
“I paint the dead.” He looked back to the pond/pool.
“Another great American artist,” Spencer said, and poured his coffee down the drain.
8
His father’s jaw hung slack, cheeks dented in as if an invisible hand squeezed his face. Charred gray stubble flecked his skin and white specks of mucus hung at the corners of his closed eyes and open mouth. The left side of his face was a black-red mess of scab and antibiotic ointment bisected by a long sutured scar that ran from eyebrow to chin. His hands were bandaged knobs at the ends of his wrists, bloody gauze clubs. He snored loudly, the tremor of his voice shaking the air in the room. Even in medicated sleep the man commanded attention.
The room was full of flowers of every conceivable color, hue, and proportion. It smelled like a jungle, and Jake wondered what his old man would say about the composition.
The pneumatic door closer hissed softly and Jake turned to see a nurse in hospital blues come in. She was small, compact, and there was something familiar about her. “Has anyone asked you about the mail?”
Jake’s eyes swept back to his father, then to her brown stare, then down to her name tag. Rachael, it read. He would have much preferred a last name to go with the woman. “Mail?” was all he said.
She nodded. “The mail department called up and asked the station what they should do.”
Jake looked at her, wondering what the hell she was talking about. “About what?” he asked.
“About your father’s mail. It’s piling up.”
Jake sighed, tightened up his chest to process oxygen a little more efficiently, then shrugged. “Just put it in his nightstand. I’ll take care of it.”
The nurse stared at him for a few seconds, then her head began to shake side to side. She raised an eyebrow. “There’s an awful lot, Mr. Coleridge.”
“Cole. My name is Cole.”
She paused for a second, as if her hard drive had crashed. “Um, there’s nine sacks of mail for your father downstairs. I suspect that a lot more is coming. There will be more flowers, too.”
Jake’s brain was still hung up on trying to figure out what was so familiar about her. “Nine sacks?” he asked, jerking a thumb at his father. “For him?”
“Apparently so, yes.”
Jake let out a sigh that he followed with a loose shrug. It was hard to forget that his father was famous but he had somehow managed it. But the world of the triple W would no doubt be abuzz with news of his father’s accident. “Any suggestions?”
“Peter Beard stayed overnight once. His people took care of everything. We’re not equipped to handle this much mail.”
Jake smiled. “I don’t have any people.” Or a desire to be here, he wanted to add. “I’ll get someone to come collect it.” His father’s snoring hitched with an interrupted breath, then stopped. “Do you have a pediatrics ward?” he asked.
Nurse Rachael nodded. “Of course, second floor. Why?”
“Take all of my father’s flowers to pediatrics. Hand them out to the children. Throw the cards out.”
The nurse nodded slowly as she tried to find something wrong in his directives. When she couldn’t find a loophole, she smiled. “That’s a wonderful idea.” Suddenly, Jake realized what was so familiar about her.
Jake turned back to his father. “Has he been awake at all?”
Nurse Rachael nodded. “He was up last night, at the beginning of my shift.” As if to accentuate the point, she suppressed a yawn with the back of her hand. “He was in pretty good spirits.”
“Him?” he asked, not meaning to sound so surprised. Jake could not remember his father ever being in good spirits. The light etched his face with deep shadow, hollowed out his cheeks. He looked dead. Then the snoring started back up and the illusion was broken. “Did he say anything?”
“We talked a little. He asked for a drink and I got him a glass of water. When he took a sip he asked, ‘What the hell is this piss?’ Apparently he was hoping for scotch.” She smiled. “He seems to like me. He gets agitated around the other nurses. But a little of his fear seems to leave when I’m here. He keeps telling me that I look like Mia.”
Jake’s vital signs fluttered and he felt a little more of the old fear come back. So his father had noticed it, too. “You do.” He took in a breath and thought back to the days when you could smoke in a hospital room. Glory Days, Springsteen had called them. “Mia was my mother. My father hasn’t spoken her name in thirty-three years.”
Nurse Rachael—look-alike—nodded knowingly. “Divorce?”
Jake thought back to the last time he had seen his mother. It had been after a gallery opening in the city when he was twelve. She drove home by herself, leaving Jacob to his sycophants, his critics, and his booze. She sat down on the corner of the bed and he woke in a fog. Her hair was tussled from the open convertible and she was wearing a black cocktail dress and a pearl necklace. She smelled faintly of perfume and salt air.
She had leaned over and kissed him. Told him she loved him. That she was going back out for cigarettes. And a bag of Mallomars. They’d go down to the beach and watch the sun come up from the sleeping bag. She rubbed his back, then went out for smokes and cookies.
She never came back.
“No,” he shook his head, and the loose image of that night fell apart. “My mother was murdered.”
9
June 1978
Sumter Point