I nodded and offered a smile that I hoped would show them both that I understood.
Bickman ran his thick fingers through his hair and asked, “What is it you want?”
When he asked that, I turned to his sister and explained what I needed her to do.
Bickman had to carry Marlee up to Charlie’s room. She’d had three back surgeries over the years, and it was impossible for her to climb stairs. She lived in constant pain, but both Marlee and her brother agreed that it was a miracle she could still walk at all. Once we were on the landing, Bickman put her down.
“Let me go in first,” Janey said. “I’ll tell him that you’re here, Pry, and that you need to see him.” The puffiness in Jane’s face was even more pronounced than it had been the night before. She knocked once on the closed door and stepped inside.
“I’ve got to do this alone, now, Lou,” Marlee said. “You wait with Mrs. Thatcher and don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” Bickman still seemed reluctant to have anything to do with this, but it was clear he was devoted to his sister.
When Janey came back out, she was crying openly. I guessed she had stopped trying to hide her tears from Charlie. “Don’t be too long, Pry. He took a turn for the worse today.”
I nodded, and she and Bickman started down the stairs. I faced Marlee. “Are you ready?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. And she did seem ready. She even seemed eager.
I put my hand against the door, but before I pushed it open, I said, “This will mean everything to Charlie.”
A wisp of a smile tugged at her mouth. “It’s funny, isn’t it? He was going to make his confession to me, but as it turns out, it’ll be the other way around.”
“I want to thank you. He’s spent his life carrying the guilt of this thing.”
Marlee’s eyes brimmed with tears. “And guilt is a heavy burden,” she said. “Believe me, Mr. Pryor, I know.”
Walter Mosley
Lavender
From Six Easy Pieces
It was a Tuesday morning, about a quarter past eleven. The little yellow dog hid in among the folds of the drapes, peeking out now and then to see if I was still in the reclining living room chair. Each time he caught sight of me, he bared his teeth and then slowly withdrew into the pale green fabric.
The room smelled of lavender and cigarette smoke.
The ticking of the wind-up clock, which I had carried all the way from France after my discharge, was the only sound except for the occasional passing car. The clock was encased in a fine dark wood, its numerals wrought in pale pink metal — copper and tin, most probably.
The cars on Genesee sounded like the rushing of wind.
I flicked my cigarette in the ashtray. A car slowed down. I could hear the tires squealing against the curb in front of our house.
A car door opened. A man said something in French. Bonnie replied in the same language. It was a joke of some sort. My Louisiana upbringing had given me a casual understanding of French, but I couldn’t keep up with Bonnie’s Parisian patter.
The car drove off. I took a deep drag on the Pall Mall I was nursing. She made it to the front step and paused. She was probably smelling the mottled yellow and red roses that I’d cultivated on either side of the door. When I’d asked her to come live with us she said, “As long as you promise to keep those rosebushes out front.”
The key turned in the lock and the door swung open. I expected her to lag behind because of the suitcase. She always threw the door open first and then lifted the suitcase to come in.
My chair was to the left of the door, off to the side, so the first thing Bonnie saw was the crystal bowl filled with dried stalks of lavender. She was wearing dark blue slacks and a rust-colored sweater. All those weeks in the Air France stewardess uniform made her want to dress down.
She noticed the flowers and smiled, but the smile quickly turned into a frown.
“They came day before yesterday.”
Bonnie yelped and leapt backward. The little yellow dog jumped out of hiding, looked around, and then darted out through the open door.
“Easy,” she cried. “You scared me half to death.”
I stood up from the chair.
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought you saw me.”
“What are you doing home?” Her eyes were wild, fearful.
For the first time I didn’t feel the need or desire to hold her in my arms.
“Just curious,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
I took two steps toward her. I must have looked a little off wearing only briefs and an open bathrobe in the middle of a workday.
Bonnie took a half-step backward.
“The flowers,” I said. “I was wondering about the flowers.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They been sittin’ there since the special delivery man dropped them off. Me and the kids were curious.”
“About what?”
“Who sent ’em.” The tone of my voice was high and pleasant, but the silence underneath was dead.
“I don’t understand,” Bonnie said. I almost believed her.
“They’re for you.”
“Well?” she said. “Then you must have seen the note.”
“Envelope is sealed,” I said. “You know I always try to teach my children that other people’s mail is private. Now what would I look like openin’ your letter?”
She heard the my in “my children.”
Bonnie stared at me for a moment. I gestured with my right hand toward the tiny envelope clipped to an upper stem. She ripped off the top flowers getting the envelope free. She tore it open and read. I think she must have read it through three times before putting it in her pocket.
“Well?”
“From one of the passengers,” she said. “Jogaye Cham. He was on quite a few of the flights.”
“Oh? He send all the stewardesses flowers?”
“I don’t know. Probably. He’s from a royal Senegalese family. His father is a chief. He’s working to unite the emancipated colonies.”
There was a quiet pride in her words.
“He was on at least half of the flights we took, and I was nice to him,” Bonnie continued. “I made sure that we had the foods he liked, and we talked about freedom.”
“Freedom,” I said. “Must be a good line.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, suddenly angry. “Black people in America have been free for a hundred years. Those of us from the Caribbean and Africa still feel the bite of the white man’s whips.”
It was an odd turn of a phrase — “the white man’s whips.” I was reminded that when a couple first become lovers they begin to talk alike. I wondered if Jogaye’s speeches concerned the white man’s whips.