Phantom of Riverside Park (18 page)

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. The talk all over town is the
upcoming wedding of Taylor Belliveau and the expectation of a
Belliveau heir. He’s the only son. His two cousins are female.
Unless Taylor produces a son, the family name dies.”

“Or unless the father sows a few wild
oats.”

“Not likely. He has prostate cancer.”

“What about the father of the cousins?”

“Dead.”

“Anything on why Taylor didn’t marry
Elizabeth?”

“Everything. In their out-dated caste system
she was nothing but expendable goods. The mother and the child,
both.”

The idea that anybody could think of a soft,
sweet woman like Elizabeth in that way made David’s blood boil. If
he had a woman like her he would cherish every hair on her head. He
would guard every bone in her body. He would worship the very air
she breathed.

If only he had a woman...

David silenced his runaway imaginings. During
the day he had no trouble controlling his thoughts. It was late at
night that they haunted him.

All the regret in the world didn’t change one
iota of his life. It was not only counterproductive to wish for
things you knew you could never have, it was painful. Thinking
about all that might have been was the same as scratching a scab
off an old wound. David had scratched and now he was bleeding. For
the first time in many years, the raw pain of loss made him
heartsick.

He turned to leave, but the vision of the
little boy curling his thin body into a raggedy old bear for warmth
drew him across the room. Softly, so as not to wake the sleeping
child, David pulled the covers up.

Nicky snuggled into the blankets, then smiled
in his sleep.

“Goodnight, Nicky,” David whispered. “I hope
your dreams are good ones, and I hope they all come true.”

He had barely gained the door when a little
voice piped up.

“Are you my guard John angel?”

David was trapped. There was no way he could
ignore the child. He turned back toward the bed, keeping in the
deep shadows of the room.

“Why do you ask?”

The little boy scooted up against his
pillows, dragging his teddy bear with him. “Angels fly ‘round at
night. Do you fly?”

“Only in an airplane.”

“I’m gonna get a airplane when I’m big. You
got a lemon zing?”

“What’s a lemon zing?”

“A big black car. Me ‘n Papa’s been ridin’ in
one ‘cause my gaurd John angel sent it to me.”

David had to suppress his chuckle. The little
boy was dead serious.

“Do you like the car?”

“Yes. It’s got a telebision. I watched Scooby
Dooby where are you. Do angels watch telebision?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mommy knows. She knows everything.”

David knew he should leave, but he was
fascinated. Besides, he couldn’t remember having this much fun.

“What does your Mommy know?”

“She said I was special.”

“I think you are.”

“Are you special?”

“No.”

“How come?”

David felt as if he were in a confessional
talking to a miniature priest. There was no way he could lie in the
face of Nicky’s earnestness.

“Because I don’t have a little boy like you
to love.”

“How come?”

“Because I’m very ugly.”

“Uncle Fred’s got a ugly guard John angel.
He’s got a wart on his nose. You got a wart?”

“No.”

Nicky pondered that for a minute, then he
held his bear toward David.

“Here. Hold Bear. He makes you all better.
Don’t squeeze him. He’s real.”

David couldn’t refuse the bear for fear of
hurting the little boy’s feelings. He edged closer, keeping to the
shadows, then reached out for the tattered gift. The stuffed bear
had been loved so much he’d lost most of his fur and part of his
stuffing.

“Thank you, Nicky. This is a good bear.”

“You know my name.” Nicky giggled and clapped
his hands. “My guard John angel knows my name. I’m gonna tell
Mommy!”

This was a complication David hadn’t
considered, and one he certainly didn’t need.

“Can you keep a secret, Nicky?”

“Yes. I didn’t tell Mommy I cried.”

“What made you cry?”

Nicky ducked his head and his voice became
very small.

“The girl called me ugly.”

A little boy’s pain shot through David and he
had to clench his hands into fists to keep from going to the bed
and gathering the child in his arms. As long ago as it had been and
as impossible as it seemed, David still remembered the comfort of
his father’s hugs.

“No one will ever call you ugly again,
Nicky.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Nicky considered that for a while, then
nodded his head vigorously.

“You a good angel. Can I have Bear back
now?”

David passed the beat-up bear to its rightful
owner.

“It’s time for sleep now, Nicky. Scoot down
on your bed and cover up tight. And remember ...don’t tell anybody
about our visit. It’s our secret. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight, Nicky.”

“‘Night.” David was almost at the door when
Nicky called to him again. “Do angels sing?”

“Some of them.”

“My mommy sings me to sleep at night.”

Nicky looked at him with such shining
expectation that David felt his heart crack. Once when he’d been
young and full of the promise of youth, he had sung for the sheer
pleasure of it. One of his favorites was the song his daddy would
belt out when he’d scoop up David’s mom and waltz her around the
room.

David stuck his head into the hallway to make
sure it was empty, then he closed the door and started to sing
“Blueberry Hill.” His singing voice was rusty from disuse, but the
child in the bed was no music critic. He was merely a little boy
who needed the comfort of a familiar ritual.

Nicky was asleep before David finished the
first verse. Watching him, David ached. There was purity and
innocence in the room, qualities so rare in today’s world that
finding them was enough to make a man yearn. With a start David
realized he wasn’t yearning merely for innocence lost but for
something much more personal, much more powerful.

He was yearning for love, the kind of solid
enduring love that would produce a small boy with a smile that
could break your heart in two and a simple faith that could fill
your empty soul.

David wished he had the right to lean over
the bed and kiss the boy goodnight. But he didn’t. He couldn’t even
risk stealing a kiss for fear of waking the boy and being
discovered--not as an angel, but a beast.

Instead he left the hospital and drove
through the pre-dawn city to an empty apartment and an even emptier
bed.

Papa made a batch of chocolate chip cookies
to celebrate Nicky’s return from the hospital and Elizabeth picked
up a half gallon of cherry ice cream. They were all sitting around
the living room stuffed and smiling. She and Papa couldn’t seem to
stop.

Nicky never had stopped in the first place.
He’d always been a sunny-natured child who, until recently, had no
idea that he looked any different from other children.

Elizabeth would never have to worry about
that again. She glanced at her son. Sitting on the sofa with Bear
in his lap and a ring of chocolate around his mouth, he was so
beautiful he was almost angelic. As he bent over his crayon
drawing, a lock of blond hair slid into his eyes. Elizabeth reached
over and smoothed it back.

“I guess I know what you’re thinking,” Papa
said.

“That the cookies were good?”

It felt wonderful to be playful again.

“Naturally they were good. Sara Lee and Betty
Crocker are small berries compared to Thomas Jennings.”

Nicky looked up and suddenly began to sing
“Blueberry Hill,” except that he didn’t find a thrill: he found a
pill, which must have made perfect sense to him. The only thing
he’d complained about during his hospital stay was the
medicine.

He belted the song out the way he did all his
songs, and by the time he’d finished Elizabeth and Papa were wiping
tears of mirth.

“Where did you learn that song?” Elizabeth
asked her son.

“A angel teached me,” he said, then clamped
his hand over his mouth, his eyes as big as saucers.

“If you listen they’ll teach you lots of
things,” Papa said. “The trick is to listen. Seems kids are better
at it than adults.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know, Nicky. I guess old folks have
too much else to listen to. So much racket going on all the time
they can’t hear the angels.”

Elizabeth smiled as she cleared away the ice
cream bowls. This was the kind of evening she loved, being at home
with her family, listening to conversation meander as slow and easy
as the creek behind her childhood home.

Thinking of the Delta, Manny and Judith
whispered through her mind, and Taylor Belliveau. She wondered what
they were all doing tonight, and if they knew how impoverished
their lives were because they didn’t have Nicky in them.

She stood in the kitchen listening to the
sweet flow of words between her grandfather and her son, newly
restored.

“Life doesn’t get better than this,” she said
to no one in particular, then she went back to the den to admire
her son’s crayon drawing. It was a crude stick figure, a man in a
hat and trench coat. Or it could have been a short-haired woman in
a dress.

“That’s great, Nicky. Who is it? Papa?”

“No. It’s my guard John angel.”

She and Papa smiled at each other over the
top of Nicky’s head, then Papa went to turn on the evening
news.

“That’s a very nice angel. After your bath
we’ll put him in your scrapbook to save him.”

“I’m not dirty. See?” He caught his ears in
both hands and stretched them as far as he could. “I got clean
ears.”

“Nevertheless, you have to bathe. But because
tonight is special, I’ll put in lots of bubbles then sit on the
side of the tub and give your back a good scrubby dub dub.”

“I’m gonna get a scrubby dub dub, Papa,” he
shouted, then raced down the hallway, his crayon drawing
forgotten.

Elizabeth tucked it in her pocket and
followed her son while Papa listened to the top news stories of the
day. As she sat on the side of the tub watching her son splash in
the water, she thought of the one last detail she had to take care
of before she could finally close the book on this chapter in their
lives. She had to see David Lassiter about the debt she owed
him.

She wasn’t going to think about that tonight.
Nothing was going to mar this celebration.

“Elizabeth.”

Papa appeared suddenly the doorway, looking
as if he’d seen a ghost. She jumped up and caught his arm.

“Papa, what’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“You’d better come in here.” He went back
into the living room and Elizabeth followed.

The image on the television screen burned
into the room as the announcer spoke.

“The one-car accident that claimed the life
of one of the Delta’s leading citizens occurred around two a.m.
this morning.”

“Who...”

“Shhh.” Papa shushed her.

The camera panned closer to the wreckage, a
red Corvette convertible wrapped around a telephone pole just
beyond the bridge that spanned the river. Elizabeth shivered. Death
had always frightened her. Not that she was afraid of what would
happen to the one who had died, but she was afraid of what would
happen to those left behind.

“Friends of the family say the victim was
returning from his engagement party when the accident
occurred.”

A picture of the victim flashed on the
screen.

“Taylor...” Elizabeth sank to the sofa, her
insides ripped out, while the announcer droned on about Taylor.

The things he knew where statistics, which
had never seemed colder to Elizabeth than at that moment as she
listened to the reporter using them to sum up a man’s life. A man’s
life couldn’t be captured in facts, but in the small day-to-day
activities that touched the heart.

Sitting in her little house on Vine street in
her own sofa that she’d picked up at a garage sale for twenty-five
dollars and then covered with some blue corduroy fabric she found
for a dollar and ninety eight cents a yard, Elizabeth drifted
backward to a golden day in Oxford, Mississippi.

She and Taylor had been sitting side by side
under an oak tree in The Grove on the Ole Miss campus with their
books scattered about and remnants of their picnic still spread on
a beach towel. Elizabeth could picture the towel as plain as day.
She’d bought it at Fred’s Dollar Store on sale for three dollars,
in spite of the fact that it featured Mickey Mouse which usually
made anything more expensive.

That’s what she’d been telling Taylor, all
about finding this great bargain, and she guessed she’d been
secretly trying to impress upon him the fact that she was frugal,
which she considered one of the hallmarks of a good wife. It was a
subtle campaign she waged. She knew she was pregnant, but hadn’t
yet told Taylor because she was waiting for exactly the right
moment.

She’d told about the table cloths Fred’s had
on sale, too, just in case he got the hint that domesticity would
be a nice thing, and decided to propose to her on the spot.

All the talk of table cloths didn’t make him
propose, but it did set him on a trip down memory lane, which was a
rare thing for Taylor Belliveau, a man accustomed to living
completely in the present.

“Did I ever tell you about the time the
beetles tried to take over Miss Anna Lisa’s dinner party?” he said,
and Elizabeth knew immediately the memory was a fond one for Taylor
because he only called his mother Miss Anna Lisa when she’d done
something that tickled him.

“No, you didn’t.” The fact of the matter was
that Taylor rarely told her stories about his family. It was almost
as if he had shut her up in a compartment totally separate from
them. She took this new openness of his as a good sign. “Tell
me.”