by Jeff Vrolyks
* * *
The sun was just coming up, daylight beginning to mingle with the fluorescent lights of the hospital room when Timothy finally awakened. Bleary-eyed and confused, he gazed around the hospital room, saw his grandparents sitting side by side in chairs facing him. Grandma wasn’t sleeping, but her eyes were closed as she leaned her head against Grandpa’s shoulder. Grandpa was looking at charts and posters on the far wall. He looked over at Timothy and alerted, beamed, shot out of his chair.
“Son!”
Doctors came in and evaluated him. Tests were run on him before they’d give the three Stoddard’s privacy. Once they were alone Phillip apologized to him for this having happened, took full responsibility.
“If I fell off the ladder like you said, it’s not your fault but my own.”
“Oh sweetheart,” Phyllis said and hugged him on the bed. “You scared us half to death. What would we do if we lost you?”
“I don’t remember falling off the ladder. I don’t remember… the last thing I remember was you telling me the story of Martin Luther King Jr at the dinner table. Where’s Eddie? He didn’t want to come?”
“Son,” Phillip said. His expression said a lot more, those low brooding eyes. “I pray I’m wrong, but I think he moved out.”
“What?!”
“The Buick is gone. And I went up in the loft on a hunch, and sure enough all his belongings are gone, too.”
“No!” He began weeping. “Why would he do that!” His grandparents wept for Timothy. “He’s my best friend. My only friend.” He sobbed. “He’ll be back. Maybe something came up.”
His grandparents exchanged a sorrowful stare. He wouldn’t be back, their eyes said. Their poor grandson. They let him cry himself dry without saying a word. They stood beside the bed holding one another’s hand, just heart-broken for him.
It was ten minutes later when he was done crying, lay there in deep reflective thought. “Maybe it was my fault,” he finally said. “Why he left.”
“Honey, don’t say that,” Phyllis said.
“I might have scared him off.” He met eyes with his grandma. “I told him your story. About the Sotheby’s and Goodall’s, the Hunsacker farm. About how Big Jonah and Otis were hanged here on our farm. It must have spooked him pretty good.”
“It probably isn’t a good story to tell people, dear,” Phillip said.
“I know. And I’m sorry, Grandma. I’m sorry for breaking the promise I made to you.”
She looked sternly at him. “Did you tell him about how Dwayne died?”
“I did. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
“Of course I forgive you. Maybe you did spook him. I doubt he believed what you said.”
“Oh he believed me,” Timothy assured her. “I could tell. I told him everything. I told him about the black church you used to go to, and your friend Charlotte. I told him Dwayne met up with Charlotte in the avocado grove and opened her mouth real wide, eyes glowing and all that. The hair and everything.”
Phyllis shook her head at the thought. “That’s a horrible story to tell someone. How did he react? About what Charlotte did to him.”
“Bear in mind that Eddie is not a racist. Is definitely not a racist.”
“We know that,” Phillip said. “That boy doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. One can tell having dealt with racist people as long as we have.”
Timothy nodded in agreement. “He said if he saw a negro girl do something like that, he’d probably be less fond of black people.” Before his grandparents could remark, he added, “But it was a joke! He didn’t really mean that.”
“Honey,” Phyllis said with a knitted brow, “why do you think Charlotte was black?”
“She wasn’t?”
“No. I never said she was black.”
“Oh. I guess I just assumed she was. She went to your black church.”
“She did. But there were a couple white folk who attended that church. Charlotte was one of them. White as can be. Blue eyes and hair so light it was like gossamer.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”