by Thomas Scott
Virgil turned slowly, his eyes still closed. He was, in a way, afraid to open them.
“If you’re going to take a nap, you might want to sit down.”
When Virgil opened his eyes he saw his father sitting in the grass, next to the cross. He was dressed as he always was, in the same clothing he’d been wearing the day he was shot and killed. Except for the shirt. The bloody shirt had been buried under the willow tree. Virgil picked up one of the chairs and turned it so it faced the cross, then sat down and leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs. “I’ve missed you, Dad.”
“I’ve missed you too, Son…in a way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Things are different over here. I’ve told you that. Time is…well, not quite so linear would be the way to put it, I guess.”
Virgil couldn’t quite wrap his head around that statement, and he knew better than to ask for an explanation. “Where exactly, Dad, is ‘here?’”
“I really can’t say, Virg. I wish I could.”
“Against the rules?”
Mason laughed. The sound made Virgil’s heart ache. “No, it’s not. There are no rules here. There’s no right or wrong, or good or bad. There just…is.”
Sometimes, Virgil would admit, the conversations he had with his dead father were frustrating. “That makes no sense to me at all.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t. It’s not that I can’t tell you. I just don’t know how. It’s too…complex for words.”
“Are you happy?”
“Happy is a human emotion, Son.”
“I know that.”
“I’d say I’m well. How’s that?”
“I guess it will have to do.”
They were both quiet for a beat. Then Virgil said, “Why today?”
“There’s a reason for everything, Virg. Every single thing. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Okay. I won’t. But you haven’t answered me.”
“I am trying. Let me ask you something. Do you think your mother and I made the right decision when we took Murton in after his mom died and his father disappeared?”
“Of course. Murt’s the best. You know that. You and mom get all the credit for that.”
“Do we? I’d say a fair amount of credit goes to you. Maybe more than you think.”
“I don’t know, Dad. We were just kids.”
“But you held each other up, every step of the way, didn’t you?”
“To a point.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Mason said. “But the past is more than the past, no matter what you’ve made of it.”
“Excuse me?”
“He never really disappeared from our lives. He was just working undercover.”
“He disappeared from mine,” Virgil said.
“Yes, he did. But the two of you have put that behind you now, and I’m proud of both of you. Where do you suppose Murton would be right now if we’d turned our backs and let him go in the system?”
“I don’t know, Dad. It was a long time ago.”
“Was it?”
“Would you stop that, please? You guys did take him in and everything turned out fine. What difference does it make?”
“It makes all the difference in the world, Virg. Everything matters. That’s the message I’m trying to convey here.”
Virgil was mildly frustrated. “Message received. I get it. Everything matters.”
“You sound irritated.”
“It’s hard sometimes. It’s like you’re speaking in code or something.”
“There’s only so much I can say.”
“I thought there weren’t any rules.”
“I said there weren’t any rules here. That doesn’t apply to you. Try to keep that in mind, will you?”
Virgil took a deep breath. “Okay, Dad. I will.”
“Your boy is almost here, Virg.”
Virgil smiled at his father, the frustration gone. “I know, Dad. Sandy’s never been happier. Me either.”
“Sometimes a father has to make difficult decisions and when that time comes you’ve got to rely on what you’ve learned. The hard choices are the ones that matter most. You’re about to discover that. Just remember what I said. There’s a reason for everything, and everything matters. Every single thing.”
Virgil felt a chill in the air. “Is someone in danger? What are you trying to say? What am I about to learn?”
Mason stood and moved Virgil’s badge back to the other side of the cross. “You think you’re in control, Virg, but you’re not. No one ever really is. That day I took Murton from his father and brought him into our lives…it changed everything. I set a course without even realizing it. I didn’t know. How could I? I was operating on pure instinct, doing what I thought was best.”
“What do you mean, thought? You make it sound like it was a mistake.”
Instead of answering, Mason looked past Virgil and said, “Now there’s a beautiful soul if I’ve ever seen one. Keep your powder dry, Virg. Things are going to get interesting.”
Virgil turned in his chair and saw Sandy and Jonas walking toward him, hand in hand. When he turned back to the cross, his father was gone.
8
Sandy and Jonas made it back to her house and went inside. “I’ve got to go potty,” she told him. “Wait right here and then we’ll go down to the pond and you can do some fishing. How’s that sound?”
Jonas said it sounded okay.
After she finished in the bathroom Sandy called out to Jonas. “Do you want a drink of water before we go outside?”
No answer. “Jonas?”
She walked down the hall and into the living room. Empty.
“Jonas? Are you hiding? Come on, you silly goose.” She looked out the kitchen window and saw Jonas standing in the middle of the back yard. Further away, Virgil sat in a lawn chair. He was bent forward, his arms resting on his thighs. He was staring at the cross.
Sandy went out the back door and across the lawn. Jonas took her hand and said, “Who’s that man Mr. Virgil’s talking to?”
Sandy couldn’t see him…not this time, but she knew who it was. “That’s Mr. Virgil’s daddy.”
“But you said in the car that Mr. Virgil’s daddy is in heaven just like my daddy.”
Yep, Sandy thought. I sure did. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go back inside for a few minutes. Mr. Virgil probably needs some privacy.”
But Jonas wasn’t having it. He pulled free from Sandy and ran toward the pond. He began shouting: “Mr. Virgil, Mr. Virgil, can I talk to my daddy too?”
Virgil wrapped Jonas up in a hug and caught Sandy mouthing sorry to him, her arms spread out in a what do we do now gesture. Jonas squirmed away from Virgil and put his hands on the cross. “Is my daddy in there too?”
“No, buddy. He isn’t,” Virgil said.
“I want to talk to my daddy. If you can talk to your daddy, can’t I talk to mine?”
Virgil gently turned Jonas away from the cross and looked him in the eyes. “Did you see my dad?”
“Yeah. He didn’t have a shirt on. He must be cold.”
“I think he’s okay. You know what? Your daddy is okay too.”
“But I want to see him.”
“I don’t think it works that way, little buddy. Say, how about we catch some fish? How’s that sound?”
Jonas looked at Virgil for a long time without speaking. Sandy walked over and put her arms around both of them and then to Jonas said, “You can talk to your daddy anytime you want. Did you know that? I believe he hears you when you do.”
Jonas looked up at her. “I do talk to him. I talk to him all the time, mostly with my prayers at bedtime. Mommy says prayers are how we talk to people in heaven. But he doesn’t answer me.”
“I think maybe he does answer you, sweetheart. Sometimes it’s just hard to hear.”
“I never hear him.”
Sandy placed her hand on Jonas’s chest. “That’s because you have to listen with your hear
t instead of your ears.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You will someday, honey. I promise.”
Virgil gave Sandy a look that said careful, but then thought, who was he to be handing out advice? The three of them talked around it for a while until, like most children, Jonas grew bored with the subject when it became clear that the ghost of Ed Donatti wasn’t going to appear.
They fished for a while and when Jonas hooked a large mouth Virgil let him haul it out of the water by himself. They got the hook out and Jonas held the fish above the water until it flopped out of his hands and swam away. After an hour or so Sandy insisted that she take Jonas inside for a bath and a nap. Virgil took his time putting the fishing gear away and when he got inside Sandy had Jonas tucked in bed in one of the spare bedrooms.
Despite the cool temperature, they went back outside and sat on the deck. Sandy said, “Virgil, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“It’s okay,” Virgil said. “You couldn’t have known. Hell, I never know. Can’t expect you to, can I?”
“I guess not,” Sandy said. “So, what’s up?”
Virgil looked down at the pond and the cross near the water’s edge. “Did you see him?”
“Your dad? No, I didn’t.”
Virgil didn’t want to hear that. “I have a hard time believing I’m able to communicate with my dead father, you know?”
Sandy reached over, put her hands on the sides of Virgil’s face and turned it back toward her. “I know you do. And he’s not…dead. I can’t explain any of it…I don’t know what’s going on but I sort of think you should stop saying that.”
“I just don’t get it.”
“Probably because you’re not supposed to,” Sandy said.
“When you guys—you and Jonas—were walking toward the pond he said, ‘Here comes a beautiful soul.’”
Sandy smiled and put her hands on her stomach. “Our boy.”
Virgil thought otherwise. “I don’t know. I think he might have meant you.”
Sandy let out a chuckle. “Me? I doubt it.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it if I were you.”
Sandy shook her head. “Are you even listening to yourself?”
“Tell me the rest of it,” Sandy said.
“I don’t know how to explain it. It was almost kind of dark. He kept saying everything matters. Every single thing. What’s that supposed to mean? I know everything matters. When doesn’t it? Then he said something about not being in control…that no one is in control of anything, and he was talking about me and Murt and how my parents took him in when we were just kids and the way everything turned out. It’s like he wants to tell me something but he just won’t say the words.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Sandy said. “Start at the beginning. When I was at Pam’s and turned the TV on I saw our backyard from a news chopper. What was that all about?”
Virgil reached into his pocket and pulled his badge out. “It’s about this,” he said. “Cora and Mac came over. The state troopers are going to strike, the governor is calling in the guard, and they want me back.” He spent the next ten minutes bringing her up on everything, including Murton joining the MCU.
“What about the private investigation business you guys have going? What’ll happen with that?”
“This is supposed to remain quiet, so keep it to yourself. We’re going to keep it open, except it will be used strictly as a research operation. Becky will handle all of it. You know how she is with the computers.”
“Is that legal?”
“Cora says so. Independent contract researcher. Says it happens all the time.”
“I’ve never heard of it before. Who’ll be paying her?”
“Me and Murt…with state money. Cora said it’ll come out of the discretionary fund.”
“That seems a little…odd.”
Virgil grunted. “Yeah. I used the word ‘shady’ but I know what you mean. Mac’s just covering his ass.”
“At whose expense?”
“You’re usually the one advocating for him, you know.”
“That’s not exactly accurate,” Sandy said.
“It’s not exactly inaccurate, either. Anyway, you should have seen the look on Murt’s face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so excited.”
“What about you? Are you excited?”
Virgil had shifted the conversation away from Becky and the research aspect, and didn’t fail to notice that Sandy let him. They talked it over for a while, looking at it from all the different angles, Sandy asking him all the right questions…questions that made him think. In the end, though, he decided he was excited about it. Made him feel like his life was back on track. “Yeah, I guess I am. Excited.” Virgil pulled the check out of the envelope and handed it to Sandy. “I’ll tell you what, if nothing else, I’m excited about this.”
Sandy looked at the check. “Oh my god, that’s a hell of a signing bonus.”
“Don’t let Murt hear you call it that. Besides, like Cora said, it’s money I should have had all along, plus interest. Money I would have had if they would’ve just hung in there with me. Guess it doesn’t matter now. Tell me about Pam.”
Murton came around the corner of the house. “I’ll tell you about Pam,” he said.
The sound of Murton’s voice caught Virgil off guard. He turned in his chair. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be over at H.R. getting your paperwork done.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to do. Except I had a visitor just as I was leaving my place.”
He handed a bundle of papers to Virgil. “I got served walking out my own front door. Pam is suing me for the wrongful death of her husband.”
Virgil read through the complaint, shook his head, and handed the papers to Sandy. “This is nothing, Murt. She’s got nothing. I’m not a lawyer, but you know as well as I do that there has to be intent. They have to prove intent. She can’t prove you were trying to harm Ed. You were doing the exact opposite. You were trying to save him.”
Murton bit his lower lip, then said, “Yeah, except I didn’t. They’re going to say that if I hadn’t cut him open, that if I’d just waited for the medics he would have made it.”
“Except that’s not true. Cutting him open was the only thing that gave him any chance at all. The ER doc said so.”
“Let’s hope he remembers that at the next deposition,” Murton said. “Anyway, I just wanted you guys to know. Pam’s on some kind of rampage. And listen Small, I know you guys are sort of friends or something, so you can take this for whatever you think it’s worth, but I’d keep a little distance from her if I were you. At least for a while.”
Virgil gave Sandy a quick look and Murton caught it. “What?”
Sandy reached over and took Murton’s hand. “I love you, Murton Wheeler. I know you know that. And I appreciate your situation, I really do, but it’s not that simple. I was at Pam’s house this morning. She was already drunk when I got there. Jonas was filthy. He hadn’t had a bath in days and I don’t think she’s feeding him with any regularity. We went through the drive-through on the way over here and he ate so fast I thought he was going to be sick. She’s neglecting him and she’s neglecting herself. I’m really worried about her. She says she’s going to lose the house.”
Murton pulled his hand from Sandy’s. “Jonas is here?”
“Yeah, he is. He went fishing with Virgil for a while, then I gave him a bath and now he’s napping in the guest room. He’s going to spend the night with us. Why does that bother you?”
Murton turned and gave Virgil a look that could have meant anything at all.
“Say it,” Virgil said.
“I’m going downtown. See you in the morning.”
“Murt?”
Murton shook his head and walked away. Virgil wanted to press it, to sit him down and talk it out, but he knew from a lifetime of experience that Murton wouldn’t share his feelings unless he was ready.
They
watched him go, then Sandy said, “What just happened?”
“I don’t know. I’m not in control of it, remember? But everything matters, right?”
9
They had coffee together early the next morning as the sun struggled to work its way through the tree line behind the pond. A local news channel was still in the first block of their morning show. Virgil had it on in the background—an endless, annoying sequence of teasers, commercials, and weather reports that cycled through every third minute without giving any real information. It pissed him off. If you wanted the entire story on anything you had to sit through ninety minutes of utter bullshit and piece the segments together yourself.
It was another cool day…a cold front was sluicing over the top of the country and according to the meteorologist on the television—a tall, thin, unbelievably pretty redhead with fantastic teeth and carefully calculated cleavage—this one would be dipping as far south as the Florida panhandle. Based on her looks alone Virgil was certain she didn’t know any more about the weather than he did…a pretty face to read the teleprompter. She’d do a year or two…three at the most before heading to either Hollywood or New York. Anymore than three though, and she was doomed, a weatherperson for life, using way too many words to talk about dew points, cloud cover, and temperature inversions.
She was right about one thing though. It was cold, which, Virgil knew because he’d gone ahead and checked the old-fashioned way…by opening the back door and stepping outside.
Sandy was talking to him about Jonas. “I’ll take him back late this morning, or maybe after lunch. I’m not sure it matters. To Pam, I mean.” Then, “Would you two like some privacy?”
“What? What does that mean?”
“You’re practically drooling is what it means. You’re old enough to be her father.”
Virgil chuffed. “Yeah, if she was like, seven or eight.”
Sandy picked up the remote and killed the TV. “Well, she clearly is not.”
“I was just wondering about the temperature,” Virgil said.
“Uh huh. Keep wondering, and it’ll be below freezing tonight…and that’s inside the house.”