by Toby Devens
Mark giggled uneasily.
“Anyway, when I told them I was searching for Harald they gave me these flyers. And tape. I’ve been taping them to windows and lampposts and you name it. He’s the pin-up boy of East Baltimore, your daddy is.” I gave him a wry smile and his false eyelashes batted furiously, telegraphing compassion. “Ah, babykins. Someone’s going to spot him. Cross my heart. Just wait till morning when the folks hit the streets.”
I nodded, yearning with all my heart to believe him. But I knew the effects of below-freezing temperatures on a fragile body and I didn’t think we had that much time.
***
At sunup, with my father still at large, Fleur and I sat in the Streeper Street living room trying to come up with fresh leads for the new cop on duty. Male, approaching retirement, basset-jowled, and nursing a bad cold, Sgt. Jamison wasn’t nearly as comforting as the nice woman officer from the day before.
He blew his nose, coughed noisily, and flipped the used tissue into the trash basket, peppering the air with his virus. Then he turned a bleary eye on me. “Look, you’re a doctor, I can play it straight with you. Every hour that passes is a strike against him. And he’s been gone twelve. I read some report that said about half of Alzheimer’s patients die if they’re not located within twenty-four hours. Plus it’s wicked cold out there. So the clock is ticking.” For that, God gave him a coughing fit. When he could talk, he said, “On the other hand, we’ve got squad cars out there looking for him. Someone could have led him to a shelter. He could be sleeping on a heating grate. Miracles do happen.”
Fleur threw him a fist disguised as a look and hauled me off to the kitchen where we refueled on Brendan’s high-test coffee. Wrapped in a chenille bedspread lifted from Rolfe’s old room, she looked like a soothsayer and, after all our years of friendship, she probably could read my mind. “He’s not dead, Gwynnie. His brain may have gone to cottage cheese, but physically he’s strong as a horse. They’ll find him. Didn’t Sergeant Shmucko say they’ve got lots of cops out there trying to track him down? Let them do their job. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? If you think you’ll be out of the loop in the bedroom, catch a half hour on the sofa. I’ll man the phone so you won’t miss anything. Deal?”
“Deal.”
But I couldn’t sleep. As if I weren’t sufficiently haunted by the picture of my father curled up in frozen eternal rest against some dumpster, there was an ice storm predicted for late afternoon. So I went out and knocked on doors and posted fliers under a menacing sky. On my way home, I stopped to light a candle at St. Stanislaus, my mother’s church. She’d gone to mass there every Sunday and I assumed that’s where she’d made her weekly mind-boggling confessions. And she’d been buried there. If any goodness lurked in that tormented soul of hers, it hovered over the statues of the saints or drifted among the incense at St. Stan’s. A long shot, but we were pretty much out of options.
I was brought up Lutheran like my dad—Rolfe, because she disliked him less, got to be Catholic—but I’d never been much for prayer. As a kid, I’d tried, but it hadn’t worked for me. Now, brought to my knees by my father, I prayed to my mother, of all people, to intercede. “If you ever loved him, find him for us. Please, Mama.” That’s how desperate I was.
By the time I left the church, its steps were littered with the first gritty pebbles of ice and ten minutes later sleet was battering so hard, I heard only consonants when Quincy called out behind me, “Gotcha covered.” He pulled alongside, swung his umbrella so we could share, and fell in step with me.
“You can take off the babushka now. Not a good look. Unless you’re trying to blend in with the simple folk of the Polish countryside. How you doing? Not so hot, huh?”
I could only manage a nod.
“Yeah, me either. How long have you been out?”
I held up four gloved fingers.
“Listen, don’t take this like I’m giving up, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth. But I think we’ve done all we can on foot. What say we go back to your dad’s house, find us some dry clothes, grab a cup of coffee, and then, if you want, we can take a car out. Just drive around and see if we can spot him. Does that sound like a plan? And we could stop off at the senior center. Has anyone called over there? Yes? Well, how about the lady who brought over that killer rum cake. Let’s give her a call. She might have an idea.”
Mrs. Parente, the knitter from the senior center. My dad’s pal. She hadn’t even crossed my mind.
I gave Quincy my first smile of the day, a grateful one. The world’s first transvestite detective. And a damned sight better sleuth than Sgt. Jamison who, Fleur told me when I checked in by cell phone, was snoring on my father’s sofa, spewing germs like Old Faithful.
“We’re heading home,” I shouted into the phone over the pelting sleet. “But in the meantime, see if Sylvie can find a Mrs. Parente’s phone number. Tell her she’s the lady who bought over the cake yesterday.”
“Someone brought over cake? There’s cake?” Fleur crackled back just before I lost the connection.
We were four blocks from Streeper Street, picking our way gingerly over the slick sidewalk when suddenly the sky split, discharging a blast of icy shrapnel, and I lost my footing. Quincy caught me on my way down and hauled me to my feet. Then he steered me into the closest refuge, my father’s favorite McDonald’s.
“Let’s wait out the worst of it here,” he said, as we basked in the warmth and the light. Then he got a good look at me and pursed his lips. “Oh darlin’,” he said, backing off, “you really do look like the abominable snow-woman. Ronald McDonald meet Madame Yeti.” He grabbed a fistful of napkins and mopped the frost off my face, then wiped his own. “Much better. We don’t want to frighten the horses, do we? And now, if you’ll excuse me for just a sec, my teeth are swimming. Got to tinkle. Order me a large coffee, black, please. And one of those fried apple pies. That should thaw out my intestinal tract.”
He was off. And then, within what seemed like seconds, he was back. I was concentrating on laying out spoons and napkins so I saw the bulky shadow of him on the table before I heard him say, “Would you like fries with this, ma’am?”
I looked up to see a grinning Quincy and, standing next to him, my father.
“Daddy,” I rushed toward him. I hugged him. I kissed his stubbly cheek, his forehead, the palm of one hand. I wrapped my arms around his bony shoulders and rocked him. He was my father, but he was also my baby.
When I finally backed off, he said, “So where have you been?” Which made me laugh hysterically. Then Quincy began to cackle and finally my father caught the giggles and the three of us stood there in the warm, greasy, delicious McDonald’s air laughing until we cried. After a minute, the men stopped but I was way beyond tears of relief and I couldn’t stifle my sobs. I only sucked them up when Quincy said, “You’re scaring him.” He was right. My father, his face twisted with sympathy, reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a wrinkled gray handkerchief. He pressed it to my eyes. How many times had he done that over the course of my childhood, that gesture that was an apology and an admission of helplessness? Then he pressed it against my nose.
“Blow,” he said, very clearly.
I blew and leaned against him, savoring that one sweet moment with the balance shifted.
***
We entered the Streeper Street house triumphantly, Quincy trilling, “Yoo-hoo, anybody home? Look what the cats dragged in.”
Fleur emerged from the kitchen and, at the sight of our bedraggled trio, flung the fork she’d been licking into the sink and threw herself at my bemused father. Sylvie, after an initial gasp, slumped against the breakfront, eyes closed, praising the Lord and thanking Jesus again and again. I called the police to report we’d found my dad.
Over a fresh pot of coffee, and soup and bread for my father, Quincy explained how he’d be
en alerted by the snoring from the next stall and bent over to see legs ending in slippers under the partition. “I said, ‘Who’s in there, who’s in there?’ I shouted it a few times which woke him and he called back ‘hello, hello’ and, of course, I recognized the voice. ‘Harald, unlock the door,’ I told him. ‘It’s Quincy, you remember me, Quincy, Gwyneth’s friend. I work for Fleur, the lady with the dress shop. Open the door.’ Nothing. He wouldn’t. Or couldn’t. So I had to crawl under. And let me tell you, that was a contortionist’s trick. Thank God I’m a dancer and stay in shape. It’s a big shape, but it’s in shape.” He bobbled his massive head, appreciating his own joke. “So I slither under, trying not to think of the germ colonies I’m wiping out on my back. But it was worth it, because there he was, weren’t you sweetheart, sitting on the throne. All dressed up with no place to go. Cozy as a cat. His slippers were dry so he’d probably been there since it started icing up.”
“And no one saw him in there?” Fleur asked. “For more than an hour?”
“Brendan checked earlier and didn’t spot him. Maybe he wasn’t there then. And with the storm, the place was nearly empty, right Gwyn? Even if one of the staff walked in, they’re kids. They wouldn’t question a locked stall with a pair of feet hanging down.”
“But you have no idea of where he was before McDonald’s?” she pressed.
“Well, he had the scent of French fries on his breath, Nancy Drew. And I wiped some ketchup from his chin when I cleaned him up. The kids at the counter said they didn’t feed him. So he’d probably dug himself up a dumpster dinner. All we know is his survival skills kicked in. The wheres and hows of his long day’s journey into whatever will probably remain a mystery. He’s not telling, are you, Harald? And, really, who cares? He’s healthy, he’s happy, and he’s back. That’s all that counts.”
After he demolished the last of Mrs. Parente’s cake, my father let me take him into his room to check him over. He seemed to be in good shape for a man who’d braved the frigid streets of Baltimore for twenty hours. The only residual evidence of his trial was mild dehydration, even after all the water and orange juice we pumped into him at McDonald’s, plus more water, tea, and soup at home. There was no sign of hypothermia, probably because he’d been wearing his ratty old sweater and a blue flannel shirt beneath. Or maybe because intermittently he’d found refuge in warm halls or by steam vents. Or maybe his surprisingly healthy state was the work of my mother. You’d think I would have given up on her, even on her spirit, after what she put us through. But somehow it was a comfort to think she’d zombied up from warmer climes to answer my prayer.
Dr. Dan, who stopped by later to give him a more thorough examination, said Harald was a tough customer who’d live to amble off again. Which is why we needed to talk.
“Later,” I pleaded.
Once Sylvie and I settled my father in bed, I hunted down a bottle of aquavit and poured a round for the rest of us.
“To my father,” I said, hoisting the toast in the direction of his bedroom. “To safe returns and happy endings. And to Quincy. How can I ever thank you?”
Quincy pressed a multi-ringed hand against his broad chest, honestly touched. “Oh, baby, there’s no need. Now I will say you’re lucky I decided to use the men’s room and not the ladies’ as I’ve been known to do in my time. And I’m just glad he was willing to go along with me. I mean, would you trot off merrily with some six-foot black queen in a Judy Garland at The Palace sweatshirt and false eyelashes? The man may be lacking something upstairs, but he still has marvelous taste. So skoal to Harald. Skoal to us all.”
Before he left, Dan cornered me in the kitchen. “You don’t want to hear this and I don’t want to say this, but it’s time, Gwyneth. He needs a safer place.” I saw the collapse of my face mirrored in his own. We looked distraught. “Michelle says you haven’t phoned.” It had only been a week since he’d scrawled the social worker’s name and number on the paper that was still folded in my wallet. “She’ll ease you into it. It may take months to get him settled, so you need to get started now.”
And before I left, Sylvie pulled me aside. “I can’t go through such a fright again, Dr. Berke. I have blood pressure. So I’m telling you now that I’ll work through New Year’s, but that’s it. And if you’re thinking of using Blossom, her new class schedule starts January third so you can’t count on her. I’m sorry, but at least I’m giving you a month to come up with someone to watch Mr. Harald.” Her eyes were moist.
I put my arm around her. “That’s very fair, Sylvie.”
Which was true, but I didn’t know if I could find a place for him to live in such a short time. And even if I could, I didn’t know how I was going to live with myself.
Chapter 34
I was still emotionally wrung out when Simon finally checked in Sunday night. He’d been swamped of course and was just coming up for air. He missed me. How was I doing?
I told him about the search for my father. How the old man had wandered for hours in an ice storm without a coat. How I’d been out all night tracking him. I made a point that my friends had rallied. I sniffled as I recounted the McDonald’s reunion.
“My poor Gwyneth. It sounds like you went through hell. I’m glad your friends were there for you. But why didn’t you phone me? You should have called.”
“And you would have done what? Interrupted your meeting? Put your funding source on hold?” I asked wearily. “What would have been the point? Be honest, Simon. Faced with the choice between your work and me, would you have chosen me?”
Dead silence at the other end. Broken finally by his clearing his throat. And then he said, “Maybe you’re right about the old Simon. But the new and improved Simon would have been there for you. I would have got though my meeting and then excused myself. Then I would have driven to Baltimore to do whatever I could to help you find your papa. But you never gave me the chance, did you?”
“I thought—”
“I know what you thought. And a few years ago, no doubt you would have been right. But not any longer. Not with you.” He let that sink in before he said, “Obviously, we have a way to go in terms of trust, of knowing the other person’s heart. Which is one of the hallmarks of a successful intimate relationship, yes?” It sounded like he was hitting the self-help books again. Maybe I needed to go on Amazon.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling I’d done him an injustice. Tracy, my manicurist, told me I had major trust issues. Stemming from my mother, aggravated by Stan. Now they were spilling over to my relationship with Simon. “I have a tendency to rush to judgment. I’ll work on that,” I promised him.
“No apologies necessary. We’ve both got work to do. Let’s not make too much of it. Just think of it as a little bump in what I hope will be a long and happy road.”
***
Less of a bump, more like a pothole that swallows you whole.
The following day, mid-morning, I was in my office catching up on paperwork when Mindy put a call through from Simon. Forgoing his normal introductory small talk, he cut to the chase. “You haven’t read your Washington Post yet today,” he said, as if he had a crystal ball.
No time in the morning for such luxuries. I brought the paper to work in my briefcase. If I was lucky enough to get a break for lunch, I read it then. If not, I repacked it and tackled it when I could in the evening.
“Why?” I asked. “Did you make the front page?” That was half joke, half serious. You couldn’t put it past him to cop some lofty scientific prize. “It’s right here, though.” I extracted it from my briefcase.
“Well, I’d like you to read it now, please. Style Section; page C3, above the fold. Right-hand column. I’ll wait.”
“Won’t take long,” I said, “I’m a fast reader. Hot Flashes?”
I could almost feel his shudder through the phone. “Yes.”
Hot Flashes, th
e headline, was in bold face. Beneath it, a copy block.
Ducky and Doc: Romance Sails the Pond? That was wealthy Washington benefactor Delores “Ducky” Franzblau in the arms of veddy British, veddy famous cancer doc Simon York at the Kerns-Brubaker Tea Dance fund-raiser yesterday at the Ritz-Carlton. It had to have been more than Ducky’s contribution of two mil to the prestigious New York institution that brought stars to the eyes of York, who never left her side. The couple was pasted together for every waltz and fox-trot. When questioned about a romance, Ducky gushed, “Just old friends. But very close friends,” and the urbane York gallantly commented, “A lovely woman with a generous heart. Can you think of anything more irresistible?”
“Finished,” I announced, in a voice that implied “terminated.” I was swaying in my chair.
He took a deep breath that sounded like it filled all the alveoli of his lungs. “So you see why I wanted to alert you before you found it on your own and perhaps jumped to erroneous conclusions.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I’m looking at the photograph.”
In it, Simon, more alive than I currently hoped, was staring into the camera, his normally serene features drawn into the human equivalent of The Happy Face, irises jumbo dots, grin carved nearly ear to ear. And he was indeed superglued at the hip to Ducky Franzblau, around whose liposuctioned twenty-three-inch waist his arm was entwined. Ducky was fortyish and attractivish with the best nose money could buy and the too-familiar quotient of adoration in the gaze she beamed up at him.
“Very nice,” I said. “Worth a thousand words.”
“All of them false,” Simon said. When the silence at my end grew thunderous, he broke it with, “Gwyneth, are you there?”