What I saw made me squint and blink back the sting from my eyes. It was as if I still stood in the heat of the desert over twenty years ago as an arid wind filled the corners of my eyes with grains of sand from a place I can not seem to cleanse from my soul.
The envelope contained two items. One was a picture of my mother as she lay in her hospital bed. She was propped up by pillows and blankets arranged just so to hold her upright, her lack of strength and fatigue evident in the photograph, even though she was smiling. The side effects from the steroids her oncologists had prescribed had taken a toll on her body, her face puffy and swollen, but the light in her eyes remained strong even as she lay on her deathbed. What gave me pause, though, and caused my hand to tremble beyond my control was the man who sat on the edge of the bed next to her, one arm around her shoulders, the other holding her hand in his. The man next to my mother was Murton Wheeler.
Somewhere in the depths of my consciousness I heard Rosencrantz say my name. When I turned to look at him I saw his lips move, but the sounds I heard were muted, like he was talking to me under water. My throat was dry and when I tried to swallow it felt like I no longer knew how. “It’s personal, Rosie,” I managed to say. “Would you excuse me, please?” I looked at the photograph again, and I didn’t hear his response, but in the periphery of my vision I saw him leave the room and pull the door shut behind him.
I sat down at one of the small cubicles and lay the photograph on the table before me. I can not say for certain how long I stared at it, but eventually I unfolded the pages that were in the envelope as well and began to read. The letter was from my mother, in her own hand, and it was addressed to me, dated less than a week before she died. It read,
My dear Virgil,
This is a fine picture of Murton and me, isn’t it? I thought you might like to keep it. When you and Murton became friends it was a friendship that changed our family for the better. After his own mother died, I watched you boys play and grow together over the years and I began to think of you as brothers, and myself as a substitute for the mother he never had the opportunity to know or love.
Murton was a fine child and from what I gather, he has turned into a fine man as well. I believe it’s time to let the past go, Virgil. You have chosen to punish Murton for what happened, but I thank him. I thank him for asking you to stop that horrible night in the desert. I thank him for wandering off and getting lost in the dark. But mostly, I thank him for keeping you alive while your body bled from the inside. It’s time for you to forgive yourself and Murton for what happened over there, and quite frankly, I think you should thank him too. I have.
I hope throughout the years my love for you was as evident as it could be. I hope you’re lucky enough to eventually find someone to share your life with. Don’t be afraid of marriage. There is a woman out there waiting for you and all you have to do is be open enough to recognize it when she finds you. Have children if you can, and someday when they’re grown and gone and you find yourself older and in the twilight of your life, find this letter and read it again. My hope is it will offer you an understanding not previously possible. I consider it an honor to be able to live on through you and I’m proud to say I am your mother. I love you Virgil, my sweet darling boy.
Love,
Mom
P.S. Don’t forget to duck if someone shoots at you. Ha ha.
Later that night I worked behind the bar with Delroy, but the truth was, the events of the last two days had left me in a fog and I was mostly in the way. Jamaican people on the whole are some of the most patient, kind and forgiving individuals I have ever met, but everyone has their limits. Finally, after I had made a half dozen drinks in a row the wrong way, or more specifically, when he could take no more, Delroy pulled me aside and asked what was wrong. I told him about my case, from when I first heard of Franklin Dugan’s murder, to speaking briefly with an old high school flame and her peculiar and mercurial husband, my encounter with Sandy, seeing Murton, and most of all, the letter and photograph that allowed my mother to speak to me from the grave as if the elements of time, space, and mortality held no sway in her existence even though she had passed over a year ago.
“Let me see dat picture, you,” he said. When I handed him the picture he studied it for a long time before he spoke. “My mother’s name was Hazel,” he said. “She stood ‘bout five feet tall, her, no more of dat, mon. She work her whole life, mostly laundry for the rich people live in the hills high above the road dat look out over the bay water. One day Robert and me went wid her to carry the buckets. We were both only fourteen. When dat truck swerved to miss the goats in the road it headed right toward us. She shoved Robert and me into the ditch but dat truck, mon, it struck her dead. She land right next to us, she did. I never forget it. I never had a picture of my mother, no. No letter, either. But I’ll tell you this, if I did, I do what it say to do, mon.” Then he did something that surprised me. He handed me the picture then put both his hands on my face and kissed me on the cheek. “Your mother, she don’t live here,” he said as he tapped his finger at the side of my head. “She don’t live in no picture, either.” Then he placed his palm flat upon my chest over my beating heart and said, “She live in here, just like your grandfather do. Go home now. There’s nothing here for you. Not tonight, no.”
How did you ever become so wise, Delroy?
Bottom line? If you find yourself in need, seek out the advice of a Jamaican bartender.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next morning on my way to work, with little forethought, I turned into the entrance of the cemetery where my mother is buried and wound my way around the perimeter road and parked my truck on the service pathway next to her burial plot. A black Crown Victoria sat on the road a few yards ahead of me, its parking lights on, its engine idling. I got out of my truck and walked with my head down until I was almost abreast of my mom’s gravesite. What I saw when I got there stopped me in my tracks.
Murton Wheeler stood by the grave, a single flower clutched in his right hand. I walked up behind him, but before I could speak he placed the flower on top of her tombstone, his back still toward me and said, “I always loved your mom, Jonesy. You know that, don’t you? She was the mom I never had. Remember how she cried when we got back from sand land? She hugged me like I was her own then kissed me on both cheeks and once on the lips, just like she did with you.”
I walked up next to where he stood and looked him in the eye. “I remember her crying even harder when you disappeared,” I said. “You broke her heart, Murt.”
A morning wind blew hard across the burial ground and the flower Murt had placed atop her tombstone fell off the back. He retrieved it, this time placing it on the ground in front of her marker and used his fingers to half bury the stem in the ground to hold it in place. When he stood, he looked at me and said, “There are things you don’t know, Jonesy. Sometimes things go a certain way and you end up someplace you never knew existed, and you see things that are hard to forget.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Murton?
“I’m talking about trying to figure some things out, that’s all.” He turned a full circle and looked across the cemetery as he did so. “Did you know I was here the day you buried your mom? You didn’t, did you? I can tell by the look on your face. I wanted to talk to you then, but I knew how that would probably turn out.”
“Maybe not,” I said, but even as I said the words I thought he was probably right. “Who were those men looking for you last night at the bar? Why did you leave?”