Breaking Point (28 page)

Chap
ter 31

              Woody stayed with me a little longer than he'd planned, and flew back to Pittsburgh the week before Christmas. We met with Bill Felton and Sue Haggerty as well as the state troopers, the sheriff's department and even the Fire Marshall. We gave statements to anyone who wanted them. No one seemed inclined to release any of the information about Donald Petrick to the press. Frank Goodwin insisted his niece had had no part in the drug production or sales, and there was no real evidence to prove otherwise, nor any reason to dig for any. Frank and his buddies would be put away for a long time under Iowa's tough-on-drug laws. Woody talked a little about Melanie, but I think he was more embarrassed about falling for her than he was saddened by the loss. Lying in a ditch with a slug in your leg can go a long way toward taking the romance out of a relationship.

             
My nephew stopped by a lot while Wood was in residence. Tucker had acquired his driver’s license as well as his mother's old blue Oldsmobile. He and Woody seemed to have formed a bond, maybe based on their mutual paternal dilemmas. Woody had never known his father and I think Tucker wished he'd never met his, at least for the time being. He even drove Woody down to Iowa City for his doctor's appointments, which left me free to do my own thing, if I'd had one.

             
I ran into Caroline, whom I was starting to think of more as Sister Grace, at the grocery store one Saturday afternoon. She was buying a bunch of things for gift baskets for the underprivileged and I helped her load the stuff into her car. We stood in the sunny parking lot on what was probably the warmest day in weeks. She had read the story in the Press Citizen about Woody and me and our near death experience in the wilderness. I kind of down-played my part in all of it. I was still troubled a little by the notion that I, knowingly or not, may have left Melanie to die in the fire. I was afraid that Sister Grace would somehow read my mind and ask me about it. I did mention my nephew and she admitted that she'd met him but said that anything they talked about was confidential.

             
"I really can't comment on our conversations, Rudy. But Tucker is a very bright boy. He's witty and creative and his mind just never stops." She laughed. "He reminds me of another young boy I used to know." Sister Grace poked me gently in the chest and said, "And he thinks his Uncle Rudy is the greatest thing since...well, I guess since Game Boy." She smiled up at me.

             
"Well, as you said, he is a bright young man," I replied. She mentioned then that she agreed with his assessment of his uncle. I took that for what it was worth, which wasn't much. We agreed we'd have lunch again after the holidays and I said I'd give her a call. It still felt odd to be having any type of conversation with her at all, much less one like this. I was getting used to it, though, and it felt OK.

             
Maxine wanted her Christmas lights hung out along the edge of the roof, so Tucker and I spent one afternoon doing that while Woody sat at the front window, watching us and sipping hot chocolate. I told him that all he needed was a smoking jacket and an ascot and offered to get him both for Christmas. He said he'd rather have a pair of binoculars, so the next time he was here he wouldn't have to borrow mine to watch the eagles. Maxine was fussing over him all day and when I followed her to the kitchen for a glass of water, she started on me.

             
"I've invited Jessica James here for Christmas," she said, watching for my reaction.

             
"James?" I smiled. "Her last name is James?" That makes her Jessie James, you know?" Maxine said she did indeed know what that made her, but that she was also a very nice and interesting woman. Max herself had noticed what seemed like a spark of interest from me at Thanksgiving and wanted to know how I felt.

             
"If you mean about having her here for Christmas, sure go ahead." I'd actually thought Jessie was a very attractive woman and wouldn't mind getting to know her better, but I wasn't going to tell my sister that just yet. If I did, she'd run to the phone as soon as I was gone and call Jessie. I knew Maxine only too well.

             
"Her folks are back in Delaware, you know," Max said. Of course I knew nothing of the sort and how could I? She went on, "Jessie decided to wait and fly back the day after New Year’s, when her brother and sister will be there, too. So that will leave her all alone in Iowa for the holidays and I thought she'd have a good time here with us."

             
I nodded and changed the subject. "What are you serving for Christmas?"

             
"Ravioli, meatballs, salad and the usual. I thought I'd bake a ham, too. And Jessie will be bringing homemade cheesecake for dessert."

             
I was starting to salivate, so I gulped down the glass of water and went back to the outdoor lights. I wanted to do a good job of it, so I wouldn't feel guilty when I wrangled an invitation for Wood and me to stay for dinner tonight. Whatever Max was serving would be better than the Rice-a-Roni I'd planned to stir up for us.

             
We did stay for dinner that evening and were invited back for all our dinners until Woody flew back home four days later. I even managed to be civil to my brother-in-law, but it was only for Maxine's sake. It would be a long while before I'd care to socialize with him on my own account. Talmadge and Max seemed to be getting along fine, at least, and that made me feel better. Tucker was being civil to his father, a welcome change for which I credited Sister Grace. My niece, Madeline brought another girl home for a dinner on one of the nights, and that put all of us on our best behavior, so it went pretty well.

             
When Woody was gone, my place seemed kind of empty, so I went back to my schedule of walking at the track and even braved the madness at the Coralridge Mall, where I did some Christmas shopping. I tried to read, but I wasn't in the mood for anything I picked up.

             
I still felt bad about the mayor's suicide and kept replaying the final scene in my head, making it come out with a more satisfying ending. In my best effort, the baby had really died right after it was born but that was as far as I could get with it. If Petrick had lived and had been exonerated, he would still have had to live with himself and his memories of that night. I was aware that human nature or the human spirit or however you think of it, is able to conquer a lot of things. But it was still a mystery to me how people ever got past really big losses and pain, like losing loved ones in the Holocaust or having a child kidnapped and never found. Those events are so intense as to almost kill a person's spirit, it seemed and I didn't know how they went on and ever laughed or loved again.

             
Now, the mayor would never know if he could have risen above the truth of what he'd done so many years earlier. Keeping it hidden all those years hadn't been a solution. Petrick's guilt about his dead son hadn't diminished, no matter how much he did for the community, or for unwed mothers, or for their babies. I knew what he had done, but still, I felt bad for him for some reason. On the other side of the scales, I couldn't see that the world was any worse off without the likes of Melanie Goodwin and Charlie Wilson walking around. I didn't understand any of it, and I was in no mood for C.S. Lewis, or anyone else, to offer any insight.

             
A week or so before Christmas, I drove down to Iowa City and visited the pawn shop that I'd called a few weeks earlier. I explained to the manager that I'd have been in sooner, but had found myself in a sort of a rut. It had really been more of a drainage ditch, but I liked the sound of my own pun enough to overlook the misnomer. He examined the ruby pendant and he offered me four hundred dollars, which was about twenty five percent of what I'd paid for it fifteen years earlier. Jewelry, it seemed, was not a sound investment. Leaving the pendant, and maybe a piece of myself, on top of the glass showcase, I pocketed the money and walked out.

             
Late that night, I folded a sheet of paper around the eight, fifty dollar bills and slid them into a business envelope. I printed Sister Alex's name and the address of Saint Martin's Convent on the outside and pasted two stamps in the corner. I walked the ten blocks or so over to the new post office near the highway, where I dropped the envelope in the box outside the door. It started snowing when I was walking back home and I looked up, letting the cold flakes land on my cheeks and melt away.

             
I took the long way home, circling around Chestnut Street. The cold air felt fresh and invigorating. The yellow of the street lights showed brightly through the thickly falling snow, and seemed like a picture on a Christmas card, or a miniature snow scene.

             
I remembered the last Christmas that I'd spent with Caroline, when I'd given her the ruby pendant. It had been snowing that night, too. Maybe, I thought, Sister Sarah was right. Maybe there was a higher calling that Caroline had been drawn to. I wondered if any of the sisters at Saint Martin's had ever been in love. I supposed it was possible.

             
I'd been clinging to the memory of love as if it were the love itself, instead of just a frozen frame of time, unaltered by the passing years. People do change, day by day and sometimes moment by moment. We couldn't go back and we couldn't start over. There was no more "Rudy and Caroline." It was a bittersweet realization, though, and I can't say I welcomed it.

             
As I walked past a small white house that was loaded down with colored lights, I heard singing. Among the many brightly-lit lawn decorations, was a set of three plastic carolers, propped up near the edge of the walk. A recorder must have been hidden somewhere nearby, because a tinny sounding version of "Winter Wonderland" filled the air. I found myself singing along under my breath as I walked by. Then, bending to scoop up a handful of snow, I pressed it into a ball and nailed the stop sign on the corner, dead center.

             
Tomorrow, I decided, I'd call my sister and see if she'd thought to invite her friend, Jessie, for dinner on Christmas Eve There was no point in letting her sit home by herself. I tried to remember what color Jessie's eyes were. I was pretty sure they were green.

             
I whistled "Jingle Bells" the rest of the way home, as swirling snowflakes fell to earth and blanketed the streets of Oak Grove, Iowa.

The End