by Lee Thompson
When he woke, he had little energy but he forced himself out of bed, dressed slowly and painfully, and told his grandmother he was going to the cemetery. She held him and whispered, “Give them my love too.”
He stroked her hair, kissed her temple, and promised he would.
Herman’s plot was next to their dad’s. Both were devoid of headstones. Those would come later, once the ground thawed and then hardened under the harsh summer light and dry, driving winds.
He sat between them, the manila envelope on his lap.
He said, “Grandma sends you guys her love. And she sent me with something else. It might hurt, but maybe nothing can hurt either of you anymore. That’s my prayer, that you’re at peace, and that you’re together.”
He pulled the letters out. Many were between five and fifteen pages. He arranged them by date, hoping they’d make more sense that way. He read the first aloud, and by the time he started the second, he was crying. Two of them were from their mother. They were shorter narratives, but packed with details. Their father rambled, leaped around, but eventually came back to his story. When he’d finished them, he sat quiet for a moment, the seat of his pants wet, and he worked on putting it all together so he could share it with Herman, and so their father could hear how Luther felt about it all through nothing more than the tone of his voice.
Their dad had been eighteen when he’d met their mother. He’d been a hustler, flipping cars, making deals, sometimes moving dope for small-time wannabe wiseguys who knew he was quick on his feet and mute as a snake. Then he met her man and they’d become fast friends. Lovers in a way, sharing intimacies of their most private hopes, their most fearful dreams. And he met her in his friend’s cottage on the lake, at the heart of summer, her walking onto shore in her bathing suit with the water beading her dampened skin, her nose and cheeks slightly sunburned, her shoulders muscled in a feminine way, strong, waist slim and hardened from hours of swimming. He’d come to meet her lover, his friend, and found her instead. They ate and laughed on the back deck. Fruits; warm, buttery bread; a glass or two of wine. And he was at a loss for words, choking on emotions he had never felt and only seen from a distance in others.
That first afternoon, she said, “Come back and see me again.”
He promised he would, feeling weightless, his head spinning and mouth dry as he got in his car and against all he wanted, drove away. Later he would realize it was a test. His friend had left them to temptation on purpose, he brought it up a month later, two days after the affair had begun on that same beach with the sun bleaching their skin and desire bleaching their souls of all other needs. He’d never felt so insatiable, never wanted as badly to sink inside and merge with a woman until they were one.
They were getting away with it. And as much as they loved they were ashamed because they both loved him. And when he thought he could trust them, he relaxed and they only found themselves wound tighter inside. Two strings weaved to the point of breaking, but the pain, the tension, was part of the excitement, at least until she got pregnant.
Her fear was off the charts then. She wanted an abortion but Luther’s father could not fathom destroying their own flesh and blood, even if it was to save their own skin, if not doing so would lead to their own destruction. She wept every day, as Herman grew inside her womb. She had imagined the life he would have, forced upon him by their choices. The sins of the father forever marking the path of his son.
They knew they needed a plan. Yet anything they chose to do would carry with it dire consequences. If they ran, he would track them down and make them suffer. If they told him the truth, he would take turns on them, the more pain he inflicted on her the more Luther’s dad would die, inch by inch, with her. If they killed him (his father’s idea, and one that terrorized his mother’s dreams), they would have to flee to avoid retribution from his associates.
Choices and consequences, and all the while Herman took up more space inside her, a second heartbeat, a child so susceptible to damage.
Since she was so petite, at three months along, she began to wear baggier clothes. It was a dead giveaway, Luther’s father thought, having never realized, nor wanting to accept, that all along he’d been sharing her, that he had to, that she had to, to avoid any suspicion.
The first trouble came with a late summer storm…
She said, “Something’s wrong.”
They were in his car, parked out at the lake, the radio playing softly, the sun setting over the water, turning it black and purple and orange like the sky. He asked her what it was. She said, “I’m bleeding.”
“Where?”
“Where do you think?”
“Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“He’ll find out if I go. Someone will call him.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“If it’s dying,” she said, “I could let it die. He’ll never know then. Things can go on the way they have been.”
“No,” he said, starting the car. He took her to St. Mary’s. He wanted to be with her but she had to go in there alone, she said. He smoked while he waited. He drank a pint, and then another, chilled to the bone despite the sweltering summer night.
She didn’t come out. At dawn he went inside. He couldn’t find her anywhere. They had no record of her admittance. He thought, She ran away. She’s going to kill our baby and she thinks it’s to help us, but it won’t…
He had no idea where she could have gone. She hadn’t been in her right mind since she found out, and he had never been more certain that he would do everything in his power to protect her. He still loved his friend, but he loved her and their unborn more.
He went home and got his gun. Jimmy was drunk at the cottage. He’d destroyed the living room. His knuckles were swollen and bloody. Luther’s father said, “Where is she?”
Jimmy laughed.
Luther’s dad said, “You killed her.” He ran at him and tackled him.
There was the roar of tires outside a moment before they collided. Then the crash of thunder, a slapping sound, like a dozen men beating hammers against the sides of the house, little holes punched through the drywall. Dust, splintered wood, the whine of bullets.
Jimmy was on the floor, and Luther’s dad was on top of him, clinging to him so he couldn’t get away. Windows shattered. Luther’s dad rolled away, felt something burn into his chest. He knelt near the wall, unable to breathe. He found himself in the middle of a battle he wanted no part of and he feared Jimmy was dead, that he’d never find out where his friend had dumped her body.
Jimmy was unharmed though. Luther’s dad wasn’t. He felt the piece of wood buried high in his chest, a spindle from the staircase, maybe. He was unable to tell how deeply it had penetrated. Scary feeling. There was little blood seeping around the shard of banister. He grabbed a hold of the three inches protruding from his chest and tried to dislodge it, but the pain was so sharp he nearly blacked out, wobbled there, leaning against the wall, sliding down it.
Jimmy was at his side, his eyes absent of panic or intoxication. Clear. Sober. Calm.
Luther’s dad had come there to kill him and Jimmy said, “Don’t move. I’m calling for help. We got a war on our hands, brother.”
So an hour later he was back in the same hospital where he’d last seen the woman he loved. The doctors drugged him, and for a while everything faded away. Jimmy was by his bed when he woke. His hands were swollen. He said, “You saved my life. How did you know they were going to hit my place?”
Luther’s dad said, “The car tires…” half-groggy. He could remember the squeal of tires, like an accident waiting to happen, a life waiting to be snuffed, suddenly, unexpectedly.
Jimmy said, “I owe you everything I have.”
“Moria.”
“I haven’t been able to find her.”
“I’m worried.”
“I know,” Jimmy said. “You love her like a sister. Like I love you like a brother.”
“Don’t love me,”
Luther’s father said.
Jimmy nodded. He contemplated something. His gaze was unreadable. He said, “What was it you asked me right before you tackled me?”
“What?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
“I said, ‘You killed her.’”
“Moria, huh?”
“Who else?”
“Why would you think I killed her?”
“Am I dying?”
“Everybody’s dying,” Jimmy said. “How long have you been sneaking around with her?”
“She’s pregnant.”
Jimmy looked away. He nodded again. Then he left without another word.
Big mistake. Luther’s dad didn’t know what Jimmy would do. The more you loved someone, and the more they hurt you, the more dangerous and cruel your wrath could be.
He had to get out of the hospital and find her, but he barely had the strength to wiggle his toes. He worried he might not be able to walk for a week or more. Too much time; Jimmy would find Moria by then. He’d decide what to do about Luther’s father too. It was the drugs perhaps, the loopiness he felt, that had coaxed his confession, so straightforwardly. As the next hour passed, he thought it was miraculous that Jimmy hadn’t strangled him, left behind a corpse in the room. He wasn’t sure if he was in the ICU or on a regular floor. Have to get out of here, he thought. Have to find her…
Nine days passed before he was allowed (or had the strength) to leave the hospital. He went home, expected the place to be as trashed as Jimmy’s living room had been, but everything was in order. And she’d been there. A letter on his pillow. He read it several times…
I’m sorry I deceived you. I had to go to another hospital in another town. The baby is fine, but I could never explain how worried that bit of spotting made me. As soon as I got back into town, an old friend told me Jimmy is looking for me. What did you tell him? How can I tell you where I am without putting you at risk? I don’t even know if you’re alive. I can tell you haven’t been home. Where are you? Where?
That’s what he was wondering too: Where are you?
Her letter created more questions than answers. He had no idea about her intentions, about them, their future…
It was foolish to think she’d return, and even more foolish to believe he’d been able to find her. Anyone could disappear in those days, before Internet and cell phones. You found a job that paid cash, you never bought a new car, you relied on your privacy, protected it, never talked about your past. You didn’t make new friends, and nobody who was looking for you could ever find you.
The heartbreak, the hopelessness, about killed him. Every day he waited for Jimmy to return and to take his life, or worse, for him to walk in casually with a single photo in hand. And in the photo would be Moria lying in a ditch, half-covered with brackish water, her eyes blackened, her throat slit…
He didn’t want to sleep. Didn’t want to dream.
Then, a year after he was home, after he’d read her letter a thousand times, and visited, multiple times, every place the two of them had been, all his searching fruitless. A year later, and Jimmy swung by in his BMW. He was dressed in jeans and a white polo shirt. It was early fall. He said, “Come with me.”
Luther’s father went. His life, the life he’d known, was pointless without her. He was sick of grieving, knowing that he’d never see her again, alive or dead. The BMW was so comfortable, so quiet, Jimmy’s shifting of the transmission so smooth, he almost fell asleep despite the fact he was headed for his death.
The industrial section had fallen into disrepair over the last decade. The streets were strewn with trash, windows busted out of buildings, all the color leeched from the bricks. A perpetual smog hung over the towering, crumbling masses, hiding the sun and deepening the chill in the air. Jimmy parked close to a building with a red door. He told Luther’s dad, “Follow me.”
He did, but not to the red door. They walked around the building. The chain-linked fence had been knocked down, the concertina wire spooled off to one side. There were two men beyond it, fifty feet away. It’d have been pointless to run, although he battled the temptation, the other one, to try and break Jimmy’s neck.
The river ran through here somewhere, close by. He imagined it couldn’t be any more bleak than the streets. There weren’t any homeless here—nothing to beg, borrow, or steal—and there weren’t any witnesses.
The two men waiting had their hands over their stomachs. Jimmy led him around the corner, around the back of the building. Moria was there with an infant in her arms on the bank of the river. They’d parked a cargo van close by her. When she saw him, she cried, and the child, so white and small, shook in her arms.
He wanted to run to her, but he walked, a rattle in his chest, a swelling in his head, tears in his eyes. She reached out for him when he was twenty feet away, as if she too accepted that this was the best they could hope for, and if they must die, the three of them, like a family, the best they could hope for was that their embrace would feel like it lasted forever.
Luther’s dad stopped in front of her, reached out, stroked her cheek, and then their son’s. It looked like a healthy baby, lots of hair, bright eyes as watchful as any wary man’s. She said, “I named him Herman.”
He nodded. He said, “I like it.”
Jimmy approached them. The other two men didn’t move more than their arms. They produced pistols. Luther’s dad said, “Let them go.”
“You have two choices, old friend. Only two.”
“I don’t want to hear them.”
“You will, you have to,” Jimmy said, reaching up, cupping his cheek. The men with him raised their pistols and pointed them at Moria. Jimmy smiled sadly and said, “You let her live, or you let the baby live. You’re not getting both.”
“Kill me, let them both live.”
“That’s not happening. You’re living with your choice, with the absence of one or the other. I think you’ll choose her, which will make her hate you eventually. She’ll be full of shame. But if you chose the kid, he’s going to always want to know what happened to his mother, isn’t he? And he’ll hate you when he finds out eventually. And he will. As long as I’m alive, I’ll always be a reminder. Good old Uncle Jimmy, the guy with the crazy stories. They don’t have to be true, only possible. But it’ll be true in your case. So choose, old friend. Right now.”
“I won’t do it.”
“I’ll kill both of them then,” Jimmy said. “That’s your only other option.”
Luther’s father stared at Moria. She said, “Don’t fear for me. Keep our son.”
Jimmy said, “You have thirty seconds.”
Luther’s dad thought he should have tried harder, maybe somehow he could have found them, maybe somehow, if he’d been with her after she’d given birth, he’d have been able to protect her. He couldn’t imagine losing her again. The child, blood or not, he didn’t know it, had no memories with it. He cleared his throat and said to Jimmy, “Take the kid.”
“I’m not taking it, she’s throwing it in the river.”
Moria spat on him. “I will not.”
“If you don’t, then I’ll shoot lover boy.”
Luther’s dad said, “Shoot me then.”
Jimmy said to the two men, “You heard him.”
“Wait!” Moria cried out. “Stop. Why do you have to do any of this? Because I’m supposed to love only you? Haven’t you heard that love can’t be controlled? How could we have helped what we did? Tell me!”
“It’s a tragedy,” Jimmy said, “because I believe you. I loved you that way. Nothing could change it. Nothing will change it. But you or him or the kid are going in the river. You have five seconds to decide.”
“What will you do to us if we chose the child’s fate?” she said.
“I won’t have to do anything,” he said.
“You’ll let us go?”
“Physically,” he said.
She looked like she doubted him. Luther’s father didn’t. It’d be
hard enough to live with, harder with each other, the small glances, the guilt. She said, “I can’t do it.”
Luther’s dad said, “I need you in my life.”
Jimmy said, “So toss the kid, Moria.”
“How can we live after this?” she said.
Luther’s dad said, “We’ll find a way.”
She looked doubtful. She stroked the baby’s hair, the line of his face from temple to jaw. She kissed its cheek and sobbed, her nose running. Luther’s dad wanted to hold her, he knew he would soon enough, but that his embrace would never truly bring her comfort again.
She approached the bank.
The river was covered with a filmy, oily layer on its surface.
There were old tires here and there. Rutted earth. The sun sinking in the sky.
She said to Herman, “I will always carry you in my heart.”
Then she threw him.
Luther’s dad had to fight the impulse to jump in after the child, but only for a second, because Moria, a second after Herman left her arms, screamed out, and slid down the bank, watching the high arc of the screaming child, its descent toward the horrible river.
And Jimmy and his two goons were watching it too. They watched it fall four feet short of the water, its back smash against a rusty piece of steel, flip over, roll into the murk, its cry gurgled, and Moria close behind it, crying like she had never done before, so loud it was deafening, as she jumped into the current and began to swim after her baby.
All Luther’s dad had was a pocketknife. He had pulled it while Moria sealed her fate, driven by a mother’s love. He stabbed Jimmy in the left eye, sinking the knife to the hilt, and pushed past him, stabbed the second man in the side of the neck, kicked him in the knee, pawed over him, enraged, hurting, imagining Moria grabbing hold of their son and sinking in the waters, from exhaustion, from shock.
The third man had begun to turn, but Luther’s father had stooped and picked up the second man’s gun. He pointed it at the third man, aimed center mass. Pulled the trigger four times. The gun wasn’t big, but it bucked hard in his fist. Blood dotted the ground. The air stank worse than before. He walked up to him, lying prone, wheezing. He pocketed his gun and put a bullet in his head, and then in the head of the second man, and then he walked back to Jimmy and knelt by him and said, “See you in hell,” and put the muzzle to his remaining eye and pulled the trigger.