Gold Hill (36 page)

“
She remembers all of
this,” Seth said.

“
Clear as day,” Sandy
said.

“
She’s sure,” Seth
said.

“
She’s positive,” Sandy
said.

“
And she’s willing to come
forward?” Seth asked.

“
That’s the weird thing,”
Sandy said. “She wants to. I think knowing Yvonne is finally safe,
and with Jeraine and med school, she’s ready to close this chapter
of her life.”

“
Okay,” Seth said. “I’ll
make some calls. And Yvonne?”

“
She’s asleep at the
penthouse,” Sandy said. “Rodney’s with her.”

Seth let out a
breath.

“
You okay?” Sandy
said.

“
Just relieved,” Seth
said. “We’re not out of the woods yet, but . . . I’m
glad Yvonne is finally home.”

“
Me too,” Sandy said. “I’m
off to bed.”

“
Sleep tight,” Seth hung
up the phone. He stared off into space.

“
What was that?” Ava
asked.

“
The end of a long day,”
Seth said. “Yvonne is home and safe with Tanesha. Would you like to
go dancing?”

“
Not really,” Ava said. “I
was thinking about starting the whole thing over again – swim, make
love, dinner in bed . . . ”

“
I need to make some
calls,” Seth said.

“
About my dad?”

Seth nodded.

“
It’s bad?

“
Worse,” Seth
nodded.

Ava shook her head at him.
She got out of bed, went into the bathroom, and closed the
door.

Seth dialed the phone,
“Ferg?”

“
Hey Seth,” Captain
Ferguson said. “Are you living the life we all envy?”

“
I spent a couple hours
getting my blood filtered today,” Seth said.

“
I’m sure the care package
I sent you helped warm you right up when you were done,” Ferg
laughed. “Not that I meant anything unsavory
or . . . ”

Seth laughed.

“
What’s up?” Ferg
asked.

“
I know you’re getting
ready to arrest Alvin tomorrow,” Seth said. “Can you pull up an old
case for me?”

“
Sure,” Ferg said.
“What’re you looking for?”

“
Just a second,” Seth
said. He got his reading glasses and went through his phone where
he kept a database of all his old case files. He gave the number to
Ferg.

“
We have that up from the
warehouse already,” Ferg said. “Interim chief said make sure the
ducks are in a row for tomorrow. We’re reviewing every case he’s
been involved with.”

“
Is there a Teddy bear in
there?” Seth asked. “I remember one
but . . . ”

“
Uh . . . ” Ferg said. “Let me get the
box.”

Seth waited. Ava came out
of the bathroom. She pulled on a pair of shorts and a fleece
sweater and went out to the deck off their bedroom. She pulled the
sliding glass door closed.

“
Ok go,” Ferg said. “I see
a blood stained chocolate brown bear.”

“
Is there a zipper on the
back?”

“
Uh . . . ” In the background, there was a
sharp “snap” as Ferg putting on latex gloves. “Sure. It’s one of
those talking bears.”

“
Unzip it,” Seth said.
“There’re some photos under the plastic voice box.”

“
Doing bear surgery,” Ferg
said. “I have the zipper open. I see a pink plastic box. I am
lifting the pink box through the zipper and . . .
Holy mother of God, I have to go.”

Seth hung up the
phone.

“
You look grim,” Ava
said.

“
Some things about your
father . . . came to light,” Seth said.

“
Should I go home?” Ava
asked.

“
I’d rather you stayed
here,” Seth said. “This is going to blow back pretty
hard.”

“
But my
mom . . . shouldn’t I be with her?”

“
To comfort
her?”

“
Yeah, I’m never much
comfort to her,” Ava said.

Seth watched her
closely.

“
They’ll say I’m
selfish.”

“
They say that anyway,”
Seth said.

“
The blow back starts
tomorrow?” Ava asked.

Seth nodded.

“
Let’s go dancing,” Ava
said. “Take me out on the town.”

Overwhelmed by her capacity
to live in the face of life’s awful moments, he could only stare at
her. When she blushed at his intense attention, he got up, got
dressed, and took her out.

~~~~~~~~

Thursday early morning —
2:37 a.m. MT

Rodney was a very light
sleeper. He was wide awake the moment she moved from the bed. He
watched the dark shadow of Yvonne get up to use the restroom. She
walked back across the room to the door. She picked something up
from the dresser near the door.

“
Strawberry,” she said in
a soft voice. “I do love the strawberry pens.”

She moved back to the bed
and turned on the bedside table lamp. Yvonne sat down on the bed
with her back to him and opened what seemed to be a
notebook.

“
Dear
Mom
.” The sound of her sweet voice made
him smile. “
You’re at my house. You met
Bumpy’s son Jeraine last night 
. . . I wondered how I got here,” she went back to
reading. “
You remember he’s my
husband 
. . . I didn’t
remember but this is a nice place and he’s Bumpy’s son. He was the
cutest little boy . . .
Your keeper has left Denver and you are finally
home . . .
That’s just
fine, like a dream come true 
. . . Dad’s sleeping on the floor of your
room 
. . . ”

Yvonne chuckled.

“
This whole thing must be
some joke,” Yvonne said. “Tanni, your Dad is in prison. I might not
remember much but I remember my Rodney gets out of prison on June
14, 2020. I’ve counted every day for a very long time.”

Rodney sat up from the
floor.

“
Get some rest and I’ll
see you tomorrow when I get home from school
,” Yvonne read. “Tanni is in med school. I remember that
because I wrote it down. She started this week. There’s something
else I’m supposed to remember, but I don’t know what that would
be.”

“
Yvonne,” Rodney
said.

Yvonne gave a little scream
and clutched the book to her. She turned toward his
voice.

“
Rodney?” she
whispered.

He smiled at her. She
closed her eyes tight.

“
This is a dream. This is
a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream,” she
whispered. “When I open my eyes, I’ll be at the apartment
and . . . ”

She opened her eyes. Rodney
smiled and she closed her eyes.

“
Somebody gave me drugs.
I’m having a hallucination,” she whispered. “My Tanni’s going to be
so mad. She said she’d stop seeing me if I did drugs anymore and
I’ll lose my Tanni and she’s the very best thing in my whole life
and I can’t lose my Tanni
and . . . ”

Tears sprouted from
Yvonne’s tightly closed eyes. Rodney got up from the floor. He sat
down on the bed and touched her shoulder.

“
This isn’t a dream,
Yvie,” he said. “I’m right here with you.”

She opened one eye to look
at him. The eye blinked a few times.

“
Prove it,” Yvonne
said.

He touched her back. Her
other eye opened.

“
Did you break out of
prison?” she whispered. “Was I supposed to remember
that?”

He shook his
head.

“
Do you have to go
back?”

“
Lord, I hope not,” he
said.

She looked him up and down.
He could almost see her mind working.

“
You’ve been out a while.”
New tears ran down her lovely face. “How come you didn’t come get
me?”

“
Because I’m a fool,”
Rodney said. “I thought you were where you wanted to
be.”

“
You’ve been talking to my
mother,” Yvonne shook her head. “That woman is mean.”

“
I didn’t know
until . . . too late that you were
caught . . . ”

“
By a spider,” Yvonne
whispered. “You know, he would tell me that if I
didn’t . . . he would put you in solitary or in a
cell with some mean man who would violate you in the middle of the
night or get someone to gouge your eyes out
or . . . ”

Yvonne gasped. Her hand
went to her mouth.

“
Oh Rodney, I’ve broken
our marriage vows,” Yvonne said. “I haven’t been a very good
wife.”

She was so sincere and so
sweet that Rodney could only smile.

“
You know what?” Rodney
held out his hand to her. She looked at his big hand and put hers
in its palm. He smiled. “I’ve broken our marriage vows
too.”

“
You have?”

“
I have,” Rodney nodded.
“And I didn’t come to save you. I’ve not been a very good
husband.”

“
What are we going to do?”
Yvonne asked.

Rodney kissed the back of
her hand. In his wildest dreams, he’d never imagined he would ever
have a chance with Yvonne again. Of course, Yvonne had never
considered that they wouldn’t be together.

“
You might not want to be
married to me,” he said. “I didn’t come get you. I left you there
and . . . ”

Yvonne’s dark eyes watched
him intently. He stopped talking.

“
What?” he
asked.

“
I’ve only ever wanted to
be married to you,” Yvonne beamed a smile at him. “Do you want to
be married to me?”

He laughed.

“
You should be really mad
at me,” Rodney pointed to the book she clutched to her chest. “In
fact, write that down – Rodney didn’t come get me. Rodney failed me
– so you’ll remember.”

“
I’m not going to write
that down,” Yvonne pulled the book away from his finger. “I’ve
waited for years and years for you to come home. If I write that
down, I might get mad. If I get mad, I’ll have to live in a prison
of anger like my mean mother. Then I would have to live my life in
my anger prison and you would be free and we wouldn’t be together.
That would be awful.”

He smiled at her
wisdom.

“
Do you want to be married
to me?” she asked. “I’ve done . . . a lot of not
very good things while you’ve been gone. I mean, my mother won’t
speak to me and . . . ”

“
Your mother wasn’t
speaking to you when we got married the first time,” Rodney
laughed. She smiled at his joke.

“
What do we do?” Yvonne
whispered.

“
You know what I think?”
Rodney asked.

“
What?”

“
I think we should get
married again,” Rodney said. “Make a new vow.”

“
And this one we won’t
have to break?” Yvonne asked.

“
This one we won’t have to
break,” Rodney said.

“
What about
the . . . spider?” Yvonne’s face flashed with fear.
“He tried to kill Tanni, always says he’s gonna do
it . . . ”

Yvonne’s body shook with
fear. When Rodney shifted to put his arm around her, she threw
herself into his arms. Her whispered words were lost in their tight
embrace. When he pulled back, she was whispering what she’d said
when they came to take him to prison.

“
Don’t go, please don’t
go, don’t go, please don’t leave me, don’t
go . . . ”

As if time bent in his
mind, they were standing in the worn kitchen of their old house.
This time, no police officer pulled him away. No police car waited
to take him to jail. No phony trial was set up to convict him of a
crime he didn’t commit. No solitary confinement and prison abuse
was going to keep him from the only woman God put on this planet
for him to love. As if all of the time between then and now had
never passed, he was holding his Yvonne while she begged him not to
leave her.

This time he was able to
say: “I’m not going anywhere.”

Stunned, she jerked back to
look at him. Her eyes scanned his face for a lie. He nodded his
head.

“
Now that’s something
worth writing down,” she said.

She took off the cap of her
strawberry pen and wrote with her left hand:

Rodney
a
nd I are getting married again and
he
’
s not going
anywhere.

She looked up and smiled at
him.

“
Smells like strawberry,”
she said. “Tanni gets these for me like I’m a child. They always
remind me of her so I don’t tell her that they’re a
little . . . silly.”

Rodney smiled.

“
Do you want
to . . . you know?” Yvonne asked. “It’s
okay.”