"We’re okay. All the commotion’s been a little hard on Dad. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. To tell you the truth, I don’t either."
As usual, I’m making Mary’s life miserable. But just once more, just one more time and I’ll leave you alone.
"Did you get the eulogy?"
"Yes."
"And you delivered it?"
"Yes."
I want to ask her what people thought. I want to know if she got the inflection right, the pauses, the tone. How did the crowd react? What did they say afterwards?
"Who did you say it was from?"
"I didn’t say and no one asked."
No one asked? No one cared. Just another collection of words. Nice words about a nice lady. How nice. People don’t listen. They hear, but they don’t listen.
"What about the other patients?" I ask, changing the subject. "What have you heard?"
The line goes quiet. Did I lose the connection? Reception up here in the mountains is pretty sketchy sometimes.
"Why are you calling me, Charlie?" Her voice is still barely above a whisper. "Shouldn’t you call the police and tell them what you know?"
Ah. Reception is fine. Communication is sketchy.
"I can’t call the police. There’s nothing to tell them anyway. I left them with everything."
"I figured that was you."
"Did they ask you about me?"
"No. They didn’t know you’d ever met me."
I wonder how long they tried to find Albert Mackey before he became a file folder of dead end notes in a box, sealed and date stamped and archived.
"And you didn’t volunteer any information?"
"No."
"Thank you."
"There are some things that are meant to be private."
She’d understood the eulogy. I knew she would. That’s why I’d left it for her. I wonder if Jake is there at the table with her, watching her talk, watching a fly crawl across the counter.
"So have you heard anything?" I ask again.
"They’re going to rebuild the lab. The Foundation has promised that. And they’ve located all the original patients who are still alive and brought them back to Park Hills. There’s a new program, but it’s based more on Michael’s original theories and less on the drug and stem cell therapy."
There’s a pause as my unspoken question hovers.
"Dad’s not part of it," she answers my thought. "He’s not healthy enough. At least not right now. Maybe later."
We both know maybe later doesn’t exist for Jake. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow is the best we can hope for.
"It’s really calmed down a lot," Mary says. "The media stuff. The phone stopped ringing a week or so ago. Do you know someone from People magazine called me right after it happened? Can you believe that?"
"I saw a picture of you and Jake in the Chicago Tribune."
"Really?"
"Uh huh."
We’re dwindling. Soon the conversation will resort to the weather.
"Mary, I’m sorry if I hurt you in any way. I didn’t . . . "
"No," she says, interrupting. "I think we did the right thing. I think we made a difference."
"I hope so."
"Will I hear from you again?"
"No. You’re rid of me for good. I promise."
"Then take care of yourself."
"You do the same, Mary. You do the same."
When I hang up the phone, I imagine Mary on the other end doing the same thing. Click. Done. Turn and walk forward. Always walk forward.
The tiny Lutheran church with the white spire is barely a quarter full for the funeral. Snow falls lightly outside the windows. Maybe the weather has kept people away. Or maybe there just weren’t a lot of people to come. As the short service comes to a close, a slightly built man stands and walks to the front of the chapel. He bears the leathery scar of a burn victim across one cheek. He walks up the aisle; the small crowd stares and whispers. No one seems to recognize him. He hears them wondering. This happens all the time. It’s part of the game. Charlie Sandors turns to face them, smiles sadly, and adjusts the microphone to speak.
"Gavin VanMorten was a man who loved whales."
The End
About the Author
Liz McKinney-Johnson spent the majority of her professional life as an award-winning marketing copywriter and creative director, running her own agency for most her career. There she honed the ability to wade through piles of client-provided data, unearth the one or two pieces of information a normal person might actually find interesting, then craft that discovery into an attention-grabbing message. It’s a skill that translates well to plot and character development. As does the field itself, since most advertising is about 98% fiction.
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