Getting Old Is to Die for (29 page)

"Then I'd call you a liar. I know you found Dennison. I can see it in your eyes. Don't try to fake a faker. I don't want to hear a crock from you. Sit down, you're making me crazy."

Jack pulls over another chair.

Paxton turns to me. "What is she like, that Patty Dennison? Did she know anything? Was I right, was she lying about what she knew?"

"One thing at a time," Jack says. "Go easy, Gladdy had a very hard day."

"Horse manure. What's with the pompous speech, Mr. Cop? Pardon my language, missus."

"No offense taken." I'm about to speak, but Jack stops me.

"I'm sorry," Jack says, serious now. "I'm here to protect her. First some ground rules. She isn't going to want this case opened again by anyone. And that includes reporters. Not even this reporter."

We haven't discussed it, but Jack is right. There's no way I'll put myself through that agony again.

"What if I tell you it won't go past me?" Paxton says quickly.

"Then it would be my turn to call you a liar. What about that Pulitzer you've always angled for?"

Milt Paxton half raises himself from his wheelchair. "I don't need no stinkin' Pulitzer," he yelps, parodying the famous
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
line. "I gave my damn legs for this story. I need to know."

"Why, Milt?" I ask. "Why is this so important to you?"

Paxton falls back down in his wheelchair. He takes a deep breath. "So I can finally die."

That shocks me. "You really mean that?"

"Damn it, of course I mean it! I gave all that was left of me for this story. Mrs. Gold, you and your family weren't the only victims. It destroyed me, too."

Jack won't let him off the hook. "Promise not to tell anyone."

"I promise, I promise." He grabs a paring knife from a tray of apples on the small table next to him. "When you're done, I'll slit my wrists. Then you won't have to worry. Better yet, you kill me. It would be a blessing. This is all I'm living for--to know the ending."

"Come on, you drama queen," Jack says, trying to lighten things.

"Come on yourself. You call this a life? My legs are gone. So's my liver from all that rotgut I drank; probably my lungs as well from all the cig butts. My doctor laughs when I come in. 'You still here?' he says."

He laughs so hard, it makes him choke, and then he starts coughing. Jack leans over and slaps him on the back. Finally the coughing subsides. Paxton takes a long drink of lemonade and then grins at Jack.

"Thanks, so tell me everything already from the very beginning, you sadist."

Sunset is over and the sky is showing dark gray and cloudy. Very few stars are seen. Jack starts the narrative and I know I'll probably add to it.

"I went to Fair Lawn last week," he says. "I got a room at a motel and started asking around for Patty Dennison and all I got were hostile stares, so I took out my wallet, figuring a bribe might shake something up...."

Milt Paxton leans back and sighs, a happy man, waiting to hear the story of his lifetime.

By now Milt has us turn on the porch lights; all is black around us except for the lights from his neighbors' houses. Moths dance around the lightbulbs. By now we have removed the lemonade pitcher and glasses, so as not to attract any more bugs. Our storytelling brings Milt up to the entrance of Patty's sad man-child and then our leaving.

For a long while we just sit there, all of us lost in our thoughts. I am beginning to feel better, as if in the telling of the story I've exorcised ghosts. Maybe Milt has also.

I ask him if he remembers what he whispered to me on that terrible New Year's Eve.

Milt Paxton sighs deeply. He nods.

I look at him, hold my breath. "Tell me."

"'Brave men sometimes have to die. Your husband was a brave man.' That's what I said."

His words choke me up. "Thank you."

Milt shrugs. "Life deals you a hand and you have to play it." He shivers. Jack gets up and places an afghan around his shoulders.

I sigh also. "My husband once told me something when I asked him about what happened to him in the war and he didn't want to talk about it. He said, 'Life goes on with or without your participation. You have two choices: You can wallow in what you can't change, or you can fall in love with the miracle of every day.'"

We sit there quietly. I take the hand of each of these good men and listen to the song of the crickets.

46

GOING HOME

PHONE CALLS:

Evvie to Gladdy: "I can't believe it. Jack's in New York, too? He met your family before you got there? You saw Patty Dennison? How is that possible? How could you not call me sooner? Wait, I can't take this all in on a phone call. I'm coming to the city. I have to hear about
everything
."

Gladdy to Evvie: "Pack your bag and plan to stay with us. We'll leave for the airport from here."

Ida to Gladdy: "You won't believe what's been going on with us. We're in New York. Actually in Little Italy. Pick up today's
Daily News.
You will be amazed at the adventure we had."

Gladdy to Ida: "You're in New York? How did that happen? Why are you in Little Italy? Never mind, pack all your bags and come up to Emily's apartment. I have to hear all about it. We'll stay here until we leave for home. Evvie's coming, too."

Gladdy to Emily (in person): "Dig up sleeping bags, air mattresses, extra blankets, whatever, from friends, neighbors. You're having company for a few days. We better do some food shopping. We'll need it for the four extra people I've invited."

Emily to Gladdy (horrified): "You've what?"

Gladdy to Emily: "Hey, fair's fair. When you were a kid you used to invite mobs of kids for sleepovers. Did I ever complain?"

Jack to Gladdy: "You're what? All the girls are coming over? I thought..."

Gladdy to Jack: "Just for a few days. Then we can all head back home together."

"I've been making plans. Like moving out of the Dartford roach hotel..."

Gladdy to Jack (interrupting): "Good idea. You can stay with Lisa and her gang 'til we leave."

"That's not what I had in mind."

"I know. I know. Well, you can always bring a sleeping bag over and join the nine of us. Ha-ha."

A very long silence. Jack to Gladdy: "Not bloody likely."

Gladdy to Jack: "Love you."

Jack to Gladdy: "Love you, too."

What fun. We're like little kids again. And Bella and Sophie have the mouse pajamas to prove it. Let's face it, when you get old (don't you just hate that word) you enter your second childhood. And believe me, it's more fun the second time around.

We've caught up with everyone's stories. Even my Emily and Alan and Lindsay and Patrick are in stitches hearing the girls' Little Italy adventures--how they saved a woman's life and captured a thief. We read the news stories, show proper delight in their photos on page one, and admire the commendation from the Chamber of Commerce, written in Italian, so that none of us can read it. We are expected to admire Sophie's green gown and watch the choked reactions from Ida and Bella.

However, the kids are purposely not around when I relate my journey with Jack to find out the truth of that faithful birthday, New Year's Eve, so long ago. Everyone is affected by my visit with Patty and its horrendous meaning. Emily hugs me and we shed tears together.

Time to leave, with much promising of returning soon. Jack picks us up in a rented van. To "Jackie's" amusement, he is hugged by all my girls, who now have given him a nickname. My hero.

On the plane, Jack and I manage to sit alone and away from the girls. Not that they don't find excuses to visit.

I can't let go of him. I'm afraid he'll disappear again, even though I know he won't. I clutch him throughout the ride. We cuddle and kiss and say wonderfully silly things to one another. And then I feel as if he hadn't been gone from me at all. I don't know if I can stand all this happiness.

"What are you thinking, Gladdy, dear?"

"Everything. Nothing. Trying to sort out all the crazy things that have happened in so short a time. I thought I had lost you forever."

"Nonsense, you knew you had me with a ring through my nose from the moment you batted your eyelashes and said, 'Hi, I'm Gladdy Gold and I live in Phase Two.'"

I give him a small punch on the shoulder. "I still can't get over it. You had the chutzpah to meet my daughter on your own."

"Ouch, my shoulder is black and blue from all the times you've already hit me."

"And deservedly so."

I hug him again. I never want to stop hugging him.

The captain announces over the loudspeaker that we are about to land in Fort Lauderdale.

"Jack?"

"Yes, dear. What?"

I inform him. "It's a package deal; you take me, you get four others." I glance down the aisle at my little family.

He sighs. "I can live with that," he says.

The plane touches down at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

I watch as Jack is being driven crazy by the girls as they point out their luggage to him, with Jack lifting one piece of baggage after another off the carousel.

"Jackie, my other one is the powder blue," says Bella, "with the big white pom-poms."

"See it," says "Jackie" patiently.

Sophie grabs his arm. "You missed mine--go run after it. It's the purple one with the yellow flower stickers."

"Not a problem, Sophie, it will come around again."

"I've got my own," says the ever-independent Ida, who will not lean on any man for any reason.

Sophie jumps up and down, pulling on Jack's arm again. "Here it comes again. Don't miss it."

I smile. The patience of a saint. I wonder how long that will last.

As I turn away to hide my laughter, off to one side I see a familiar man's back, through the jostling crowds. He removes a worn, old-fashioned valise off the moving track. I recognize the tweed jacket with patches on the sleeves. He turns around, and there are the horn-rimmed glasses and the unlit pipe balanced in the side of his mouth. We look at one another. The forever-young man and this elderly woman.

"Jack," I say in a gasp.

He grins at me. "It's time," he says, removing the pipe and tipping it in my direction. "It's time to move on."

He lightly swings his bag and heads for the exit as I watch him slowly fade away into memory.

Acknowledgments

About time I acknowledged the wonderful work done by:

Illustrations by Laura Hartman Maestro

Book design by Karin Batten

Cover design by Marietta Anastassatos

Cover art by Hiro Kimura

My great New York team:

Caitlin Alexander

Nancy Yost

Sharon Propson

My great team on the 580: