“How about that,” Charlie said.
* * *
Sunday, Romy carried a vase with yellow and white daisies into Susan’s room and struggled to place them on the stand alongside white mums and silver helium balloons. Charlie noticed that Scudder, that nasty pimp of a banker, had sent red roses. Bradley Roy had gone to eat lunch, and Susan was alone. She opened her eyes in response to all the clunking that was going on around her bed.
“Come here, you,” Susan rasped. Romy stepped toward her. She smiled and gently brushed Romy’s cheek. Tears filled the woman’s eyes.
“Are you sad because you miss your children?” Romy asked.
Susan bit her lip and nodded, then sobbed.
“I miss my mommy,” Romy said. “I cry sometimes, too.” She gave the stricken woman a birdlike look, cocking her head this way and that. “You’re sad because you think you can’t walk.”
Susan let out an agonized groan. Charlie looked away.
“Have you tried?” Romy asked, unblinking.
‘No.”
“When you try, maybe you can.”
Susan reached out and grabbed her hand, still sobbing. “Thank you, sweetie. But you have no idea.”
Charlie noticed that the kids seemed to cheer Susan up. She chatted with them for a few minutes, ignoring her estranged husband until she reached out and clasped his hand. “Thank you for coming by,” she said. A minute later, she tossed it aside. “I want to be alone now.”
“You sure?”
She gave him her argument-winning face. “Daddy will be back soon. So take the children and go now, please.”
“All right.”
“Oh, one other thing,” she said.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I’m still mad at you.”
“I know. Some things never change.”
* * *
Monday afternoon, Bradley Roy followed Charlie from the hospital to Mason Brothers Funeral Home. Charlie, still amazed that his father-in-law wanted to attend Shaundra Warner’s funeral, kept checking the mirror, half-expecting Bradley Roy to peel off and disappear. But the old man stuck on his tail, and they parked near the edge of the half-full parking lot shortly before two o’clock. A hearse sat under a dark green awning at the side door with a limousine and a half-dozen other cars lined up behind it. Their white flags hung limp in the still summer air.
“Hot day,” Bradley Roy said, climbing out of his car. Charlie approached, wearing a black eyepatch and a thousand-dollar suit he’d bought for the book tour he’d cancelled that morning, thereby enraging his handlers. Bradley Roy glanced at the modest old bungalows across the street. “Never been to this part of town before.” He gave Charlie’s scarred face an appraising look, then turned toward the funeral home. “Reckon they’ll run late? I don’t want to be gone long. Susie’s nervous about the operation tomorrow.” He cleared his throat and said, “She says you been friendly as a dog lately. Thinks you’re up to something. I told her I threatened to kill you if you didn’t do right.”
“There’s always that to look forward to, I guess.”
“You comin’ back?”
“I’ll be there for the operation. I’ve got to take care of the kids this afternoon. Babysitter has to go somewhere.”
“You talkin’ about the new ones, right?”
“Right.”
“Damn quickest adoption I ever heard of,” Bradley Roy muttered. “You sure they ain’t yours?”
“They are mine,” Charlie said.
“I know you’re liberal, but I’m asking you a question, and I’d appreciate an honest answer.”
“My name’s on their birth certificates.”
Bradley Roy tugged his belt with both hands. “I’m not sure exactly what that means, you sayin’ it like you’re dealin’ with a car title.”
“I’m their long-lost daddy.”
“That’s two things you’re saying, ain’t it? Maybe three.”
Charlie looked away and whistled.
“I guess you’ll have to forgive Susie her trespasses with that asshole.”
“Assholes,” Charlie muttered under his breath.
“I’m still trying to get used to the fact that I got black grandkids. I mean, I’m from Forsyth County. Not that I’m proud of the history. It’s just … a mixed-up world, that’s all.” He pointed at the funeral home. “This is gonna be awkward as hell.”
“You wanted to come.”
“Had to. Just keep me away from the one who did that to my girl.” Anger filled his eyes.
“He won’t be here. He’s being held without bond.”
“I might have a hard time being properly mournful, knowing—”
“She’s your niece,” Charlie said.
“By marriage!” Bradley Roy grumbled.
Charlie smiled and gently grabbed his arm.
“Can’t get over the fact that Minerva Doe is my sister-in-law.”
“Don’t remind her of it. She’s a lot more touchy about it than you are. I don’t think I’ll ever mention the fact that she’s my aunt.”
“Well, I don’t blame her. If I woke up one morning and found out I was a Cutchins, I’d be pissed off, too. Bad enough waking up next to one for fifty years. Sorry.”
Charlie gave him a weary laugh. “We are what we are.”
“I wouldn’t settle for that, if I was you.” Bradley Roy swatted him on the back. “Come on. Let’s do this thing.”
At the door, they were directed down a hall to a visitation room half-filled with mourners, most of them Minerva’s age. The carpet was worn, and the wood around the doorknobs had lost its finish. Some of the young women standing around sported dyed blonde hair, gold teeth, and/or tattoos.
Charlie walked over to Minerva, who had just finished talking to a middle-aged couple and now stood by herself. She did a double take when she saw him. “Did someone try to kill you again?”
“Yup,” Charlie said.
“Looks like they came close to doing it.”
“Yup.”
“How many times has it been now?”
“I quit counting.”
“Are you a cat, or does this have something to do with the deal?”
“The deal’s off. I broke it.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Got a new deal.”
She groaned.
Charlie changed the subject. “It looks very nice,” he said, nodding toward the casket.
“Yes. Thank you for that.” Glancing around, she said, “I’ll be glad when this is over.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “The Forsyth sheriff came to see me. Stood at my door Saturday morning with his hat in his hand and told me they’d found my father. I told him I’d seen it on TV. He said, ‘That man has the rest of him.’”
“Meaning me.”
Minerva nodded. “Then he said there wasn’t a case anymore, since the man who murdered my father was killed by his own family. I told him there’d better be a case, and he’d better do right and tell the world what happened to John Riggins, or I’d sic you on him.” Her expression was fierce and she wagged her finger as she spoke. “I told him, ‘Charles Sherman will tear everything up, and you know it.’”
Charlie chuckled softly.
“He said, ‘Yes ma’am.’ This morning he called to tell me they’ll issue a report. I asked him why that man Cutchins … why his own family killed him. The sheriff claimed it was money. Then I asked if there was another reason and he said, ‘You sure you want to know?’ I told him nothing he said could hurt me. He said they were ashamed he’d fathered a black child. So that’s what they couldn’t live with.”
“A drop of blood can be powerful stuff,” Charlie said.
She gave a little huff. “The woman whose son killed her, she’s the one that told the police.”
“Tantie Marie.”
“Maybe she had a conscience.” Minerva buried her face in her hands. “I’m numb from all this, Charles. Just numb. When will it end?
I’ll be ninety years old when Takira’s child gets out of high school, if I last that long. She wants to keep the baby but she doesn’t have a home of her own. I told her she’d have to put it up for adoption.” She shook her head. “Demetrious. I don’t know that there’s anything I can do for him. He is lost. I hate what happened to your wife. I don’t think he would have done it on his own. I don’t see why the district attorney is pushing the death penalty.”
A woman in a black, form-fitting dress walked in and called out Minerva’s name, then rushed to embrace her. Charlie broke away and went over to Takira, who was sitting on a cushioned chair. She gave him a tiny wave. “When is the baby due?” he asked.
She grimaced. “Any time.”
“Good luck.” He knew he should say more, but he couldn’t think of anything right then.
“Thanks.” She gave him a shy smile.
Charlie walked over to the closed casket, which was covered with roses. He ran his hand along the varnished maple. “My apologies,” he whispered. “I’ll try to make it up to you.”
He never could, of course. Paying for the funeral was nothing more than pouring money in a hole in the ground. He’d have to do more. And it would never make up for his indifference to her fate. Some things are lost and stay lost forever. The only thing he could do was pay it forward, somehow.
After he inspected the wreath he’d ordered, he went over to Bradley Roy, who sat alone in a corner, looking very much like he didn’t belong. The older man held a white envelope and tapped his thigh with it. Charlie was about to say something inconsequential when a dignified, middle-aged black man in a dark suit entered the room and announced the service would be starting soon in the chapel.
Two younger men in dark suits rolled the casket away and the crowd followed. Charlie and Bradley Roy accepted beige programs from the young, white-gloved attendants as they shuffled in behind other mourners, about two dozen in all, who spread out amongst the small chapel’s pews behind Minerva and a few of her close relatives.
The Reverend Aaron Sapp of Campbell Chapel AME Church took the pulpit. Charlie, who knew so much and could say so little, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. When he looked over his shoulder, his head jerked back in a double-take. An old white woman was sitting alone on the back row. Arlene Cartier had come to pay her respects to her late niece.
“… If there is any solace in this tragedy, we can at least know that the people responsible for this horrendous death have been brought to justice,” Sapp told the crowd, shaking his head. “Terrible justice.”
Charlie listened as the stocky preacher spoke in a high-pitched voice about forgiveness and redemption. There was a prayer for Demetrious, a “young manchild caught in a moment.” The minister gazed over the crowd, then rested his eyes on the one-eyed white man and spoke of “the mother in a hospital, shot in an act of madness, who we pray will recover fully and find forgiveness in her heart.”
Charlie glanced over at Bradley Roy. His head was bowed, his eyes shut tight. After the preacher finished, a young girl took the stage and sang a gospel song to the accompaniment of an old cassette in a boombox. The tape’s hiss reminded Charlie of the music of the spheres he’d heard between the words of Jasper Riggins the first time he played Professor Talton’s twenty-year-old tape.
After that, mourners stood and sang the hymn printed on the back of the program. Bradley Roy sang quietly and off-key. Charlie mouthed the words.
Following the service, Minerva and Takira followed the pallbearers out of the chapel. As the other mourners trailed behind them, Bradley Roy bent toward Charlie and said, “I can’t go to the grave. I need to get back to Susie.”
“Did you see Shirlene—I mean Shirley … uh, Arlene?” Charlie asked. He turned to point her out, but the back pew was empty. Bradley Roy looked at him like he was crazy, then broke away from him and walked briskly out the chapel door.
Charlie followed and saw his father-in-law catch up with Minerva outside, by the limo. He handed her the envelope he’d clutched tightly during the service, patting her hand as he clasped it in his own. “My daughter wanted me to give you this,” he said.
Minerva, teary-eyed, hugged him. “God bless her.”
“God bless you, too.” Bradley Roy turned and hurried away toward his car.
Charlie trotted after him and called out, “Wait up!”
“I ain’t got time to explain to you, boy.” Bradley Roy fumbled in his pocket. “Here.” He handed Charlie a house key. “You take care of Sirius. He’s your dog. And just remember, if you do wrong by Susie … I’ll kill you.” At least he smiled when he said that.
“I hear you,” Charlie said.
“You take these death threats pretty well.”
“I’m getting used to them. And I appreciate the warning. Usually I don’t even get that.”
Charlie watched him drive off, then went to his car and pulled it to the end of the line of cars behind the hearse.
* * *
Takira went into labor as Shaundra’s casket was being lowered into the grave. Minerva and two other women surrounded the girl, encouraging her to breathe properly and “hold steady.” After Takira had calmed down and the crowd was breaking up, Minerva opened the envelope Bradley Roy had given her.
Charlie, looking over her shoulder in an attempt to read the sympathy card, was there to catch her when her legs buckled and a slip of paper fell from the card. He helped her to the folding chair next to Takira. Both were soon engulfed by church ladies. Charlie stepped back and retrieved the paper as it fluttered away on the ground. It was a check from Susan for $250,000. Written on the memo line: “My share of your father’s farm.”
Chapter Thirty
No question about it: Taking care of Sirius meant moving back to Thornbriar, albeit surreptitiously. What else could Charlie do after Trouble’s sinister reading of Dog Heaven in the hospital? The pooch needed a bodyguard, and that would be Romy, since Trouble feared her. When Charlie brought his new kids to the house, Sirius went immediately to the girl, not his old master. He whimpered and licked her face. She whispered something Charlie couldn’t hear, but it comforted the old dog immensely.
And so they squatted. Monday night, Romy and Wyatt camped out in the family room while Charlie slept on the couch. Sirius spent the night curled up on Romy’s sleeping bag.
Tuesday morning, Charlie left the kids with the babysitter and went to the hospital to wait out Susan’s surgery. Sitting on a cushioned bench in the third-floor waiting room, Bradley Roy told him about the big check Susan had written. “I’ll tell you what sparked it. The bank president, Scuzzer or Scudder, came to see her.”
“Scuzzier,” suggested Charlie.
“I thought he was bein’ nice, then he started talking about the discrimination case, and I realized that’s what he was there for. He was gonna hold her job for her and keep her on salary, then he switched gears to talk about her testimony, how important it was.” Bradley Roy snorted in disgust. “Susie got angry and told him the bank had been discriminating not only in who they hired and promoted, but who they loaned to, and she wasn’t going to be a part of it anymore. After he left, she told me she decided the money Vange gave her as her cut from the farm wasn’t rightfully her mother’s to give or hers to take.”
“Minerva nearly fainted when she saw it.”
“Susie nearly fainted when she wrote the check. She had to go into debt to do it.”
Charlie’s mouth dropped open.
“I told you she’d need your help,” Bradley Roy said. “Susie hates her momma now that she knows she tried to have you killed. You actin’ like you want to go on a date with her is the only thing that cheers her up. Still thinks you’re a crazy fool.”
Recovering slightly, Charlie said, “Some things never change.”
“You know what really gets me? That Scuzzier guy, acting like he’s part of the family, asking about Beck and Ben like they’re his own kids. The nerve. Charlie. Charlie! Hey, where you goin’?”
/> * * *
Dr. Pennywell couldn’t say if Susan would ever walk again. “Pray for a miracle,” he suggested to Bradley Roy and Charlie. Susan had just been wheeled out of the operating room after three hours, and the surgeon declared the procedure a success, inasmuch as he’d removed the bullet. But by this time, Charlie was wary of any miracle a person had to pray for, since they came with all kinds of consequences and strings attached.
Charlie was sitting at her bedside when Susan woke from the anesthesia. “I’m taking care of Sirius now,” he said, hoping to establish his new role in the household while she was too groggy to consider the implications.
“That’s good.” Susan gazed out the window. “He loves you more than anyone else.”
Charlie saw no point in disagreeing, although he wasn’t sure that this was true, now that the dog had met Romy.
* * *
Friday, Susan was transferred to Shepherd Spinal Center for rehabilitation. Since Bible Camp ended that day, Charlie left Romy and Wyatt with the sitter and drove in his brand-new minivan to Sheila’s ranch house near Cumming. Beck and Ben jumped up and down when he walked in the door.
Phil McRae, still in his orange AutoParts polo shirt, was home early from the store. It had been two years since Charlie had seen his brother-in-law. He hugged Phil for the first time in their lives. Phil gave him a bemused grin when they broke apart. Charlie noticed that Phil’s neck was crooked and furrowed his brow in concern.
“What’s wrong?” Phil asked.
“Fuckin’ raccoons.”
“Fuckin’ raccoons is right. I don’t even hunt anymore. Little bastards are dangerous, I tell ya.”
“You have no idea.”
Brambleman Page 57