Phantom of Riverside Park (39 page)

Satisfied, Nicky leaned against David’s leg.
“I like your donkey.”

“I’m glad you do. I have lots of animals I
hope you’ll like.”

“You got a race car?”

“No. I’m afraid not.”

“I’m gonna build a race car. You wanna he’p?”
David had hoped for so little and received so much. “Do you?” Nicky
asked, sliding his hand into David’s. And suddenly, there was
mercy.

“Yes, I’d like that. I’d like that very
much.”

Nicky’s mouth stretched into a wide trusting
smile, and David saw how he resembled his mother and how a smile
like that could twist a man up like a pretzel. The little boy raced
off, pulling David along, then skidded to a stop at the back
door.

“Can me and David go outside and play,
Mommy?”

“Sure, you can. Breakfast can wait.”

The last thing he saw before the screen door
popped shut behind them was Elizabeth sitting in his kitchen with a
rich smile on her lips and a hint of tears in her eyes.

o0o

Standing at the window watching Nicky and
David, Elizabeth knew it was possible for the heart to be swollen
too big for the chest and still go on beating. She was enormously
proud of her son. And even more of David. Just think. He had been
shut up in the darkness for years, and she was the one who had
brought him into the light.

The wonderful thing about giving love with
heart and arms wide open is that it comes right back to you, a
shining thing that glows off you like moon dust. Quite simply,
David had given her back her dreams.

As she watched him out the window playing
with her son, the future stretched before her, a glorious and
hopeful thing.

The ringing of the telephone brought her away
from the window. Should she answer it? This was not her house.
Still, nobody was else was up, and what if it were important? Some
sort of emergency, even?

She’d started toward the phone when the
ringing stopped. Back at her post, she watched Nicky chattering
away and David laughing, the two of them working away on a large
cardboard box.

“I thought I’d find you here.” McKenzie stood
in the door in a pink seersucker robe. “Telephone’s for you. It’s
your lawyer.”

Elizabeth hated how that word sliced her
heart. For a while she’d forgotten the law suit. For a while she’d
forgotten that her happiness was stolen and could be snatched away
at a moment’s notice by something as simple as a phone call.

“You can take it on the kitchen extension, or
if you need privacy there’s another one in the study next door.”
McKenzie sank into a chair, yawning, while Elizabeth picked up the
receiver.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, dear lady!” She had to hold
the receiver away from her ear in the wake of his booming good
cheer. “I just wanted to give you a report,” he said, and then
proceeded to talk at length about motions and responses and a
telephone conference with the Belliveaus’ lawyer that yielded
nothing. “Bottom line here is that they haven’t yet seen the light.
But they will, don’t you worry.”

“You still think they’ll drop the custody
suit?”

“I’d bet my last dollar on it. I tried to
call David, but his office said he’s out of town.”

“He’s here.” McKenzie shot out of her chair,
then sank back down, suddenly full of bleary-eyed interest.

“Smart man. That’s exactly where I’d be if I
had a wife like you.” Elizabeth felt herself blushing. “Tell him
the news for me, will you?”

“Certainly.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as we have any new
developments.”

“Thanks.”

“Good news, I hope,” McKenzie said when she’d
hung up.

“Not yet.”

“So...my brother’s here?” McKenzie smiled.
“And you already know about it. Could that possibly mean what I
hope it means?”

Elizabeth felt hot to the roots of her hair.
“Well, if you’re talking about...actually, I was still up when he
got in last night and the door was open and we...”

What they’d done was far too private to tell,
even to a loving sister.

“Well, what?”

“We talked a bit.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly.
Still, Elizabeth didn’t like keeping secrets from McKenzie,
especially since she was planning to pry into her private life.

“Hmmm, this is good, this is very good. I
can’t wait to ask him about it.” McKenzie chuckled. “Just you wait
till David Lassiter gets his lazy bones out of the bed.”

“He already has.”

“Really? This gets better by the minute.
Where is he?”

“In the backyard playing with Nicky. They’re
building a race car.”

“Oh my God!” McKenzie raced to the window
then stood with her fist pressed against her lips. When she sat
back down at the table, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You
don’t know what this means to me. I could kiss the ground that
little child walks on.”

“Nicky’s a great kid,” Elizabeth said, and
then because she couldn’t bear to think about the consequences of
David meeting her son, she changed the subject. “McKenzie, I don’t
mean to pry...well, maybe I do, just a little bit. How did you end
up here, with David?”

“Alone, you mean.” McKenzie poured herself a
cup of coffee before answering. “My husband died, and there’s never
been anybody else for me.”

“I’m so sorry. You must get terribly
lonely.”

“Most of the time I don’t think about it. But
when I do I figure I’m better off with my animals than with
somebody who doesn’t measure up. Speaking of the animals, I’d
better get out there.”

McKenzie left to get dressed, and Elizabeth
went back to the window. She liked what she saw. There are some
adults who don’t understand how to play with a child, but David
wasn’t one of them. He was down on Nicky’s level, figuratively as
well as literally, on his knees in the grass, his face as earnest
as if he were discussing a business merger with his peers.

“I slept late,” Papa said, coming into the
kitchen. “Good thing I smelled the coffee or I might have
lollygagged in bed all day.” He joined her at the window, then
froze. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered.

Elizabeth felt like dropping straight to her
knees on the kitchen floor and thanking God that Papa had seen
David at a distance before meeting him face to face. His reaction
would have lacerated David’s soul.

She put her hand on his arm. “Papa, he can’t
stand pity. You mustn’t let him see it.”

“It’s not pity, Elizabeth, it’s gratitude.
Dear lord in heaven, what that man sacrificed for his country, for
all of us.” Papa stretched his neck the way he always did when he
was getting ready to defend somebody. “That man out there in the
yard is a genuine hero, and I intend to go out there and tell him
so. I intend to shake his hand and say,
thank you,
soldier
.”

“I love you, Papa.”

“Never thought you didn’t. Not for a minute.
Now I reckon I better have a cup of coffee to settle my nerves a
bit. I don’t want to go out there and make a fool of myself.”

o0o

With judicious use of his pocket knife and
some duct tape he’d found in the garage, David had turned the
cardboard box into a reasonable facsimile of a race car. Nicky
marched around twice, inspecting it and nodding his
satisfaction.

Suddenly he cocked his head and eyed David.
“Can that mean lady find me?”

“What mean lady?” The sinking feeling in the
pit of his stomach told David he already knew the answer.

“The one who taked me away from Mommy.”

David wanted to hit something. Hard. “No. She
can’t find you.”

Nicky nodded, solemn and much too wise for a
four-year-old. “Good. ‘Cause if she comes I’m gonna run away in my
race car an’ she can’t catch me.”

David wanted to gather the little boy into
his arms and say
I’ll never let them take you away again
,
but he knew better than to make promises to Nicky that he might not
be able to keep. To a child, promises are sacred.

He couldn’t even say,
I’m doing
everything in my power to see that you never have to leave your
mommy again
. A four-year-old child shouldn’t have to hear
about a legal battle brought on by adults who should know
better.

Instead he said, “That’s a very good
idea.”

Nicky smiled, then climbed into his race car
and made revving motor sounds which ceased abruptly. “Hey, Papa!
Come see my race car. Me an’ David maked it.”

“In a minute, Nicky. First I have to say
hello to your new friend.”

Totally unprepared, David turned to face
Elizabeth’s grandfather. The old man came toward him, upright and
spry, smiling as he held out his hand.

“I’m Elizabeth’s grandfather, Thomas
Jennings.”

“David Lassiter.” The old man’s handshake was
firm, and his eyes held David’s without wavering.

“I served in the trenches in the Great War,
son, and as one soldier to another, I just want to say thank
you.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet
you.”

David told the truth. It was funny how the
thing he had dreaded had turned out to be not only painless but
pleasant. Funny as well as scary.

There was too much to love about Elizabeth
and her family, too much to lull a man into a false sense of
security, too much to make a man believe that a temporary agreement
might last forever. David couldn’t afford to fool himself.
Elizabeth would stay till the case was settled, and then she’d be
out of his life.

But she held me in her arms.

There is a place in all of us where hope
refuses to die. That place in David whispered that maybe everything
would work out all right, maybe he didn’t have to let Elizabeth go,
maybe having let him into her bed she might let him into her
heart.

Logic, that stern gatekeeper, rose up his
ugly head and said
no way.
David was fooling nobody but
himself. What Elizabeth was feeling right now was gratitude, plain
and simple. True, she might stay for a while, but then she’d start
feeling trapped and betrayed. She’d grow to hate him.

Too many people had already taken advantage
of Elizabeth. He wasn’t going to add his name to the list.

David was avoiding her, and that’s all there
was to it.

She hadn’t seen him since mid-morning when
he’d emerged from the backyard with Papa and Nicky to announce they
were going fishing. She’d half-way expected an invitation, and when
it hadn’t come she’d thought they might have lunch together, but
Papa and Nicky had returned alone.

Then Elizabeth had latched onto the notion of
having a family dinner with David at the head of the table carving
the roast. She would light candles. She’d wear blue.

As a matter of fact, she was wearing blue in
spite of the fact that David never showed his face.

What she’d done, of course, was take one
night and build a whole future around it. Call her old-fashioned.
Call her a chip off Mae Mae’s block. For Elizabeth, intimacy meant
commitment.

Maybe David had his reasons for avoiding her,
but that didn’t make her feel a bit better.

Elizabeth went looking for McKenzie and found
her in the library surrounded by liquor bottles.

“Come in, Elizabeth. Join me in a small
libation.”

“What are you having?”

Elizabeth didn’t drink much, but the idea of
it all suddenly had great appeal. Anesthesia in a bottle. Instant
forgetfulness. The custody case, gone. The threat of losing Nicky,
vanished. Papa’s illness, poof. David’s screaming absence,
disappeared.

“Vodka and cranberry juice. It’s good for
your kidneys.”

“Great. Let’s cure our kidneys and pickle our
livers. I’m in that kind of mood.”

McKenzie didn’t even ask
what kind.
Friends don’t have to ask.

“So am I,” she said, and when Elizabeth got
close she could see the mascara streaked on McKenzie’s cheeks. She
didn’t ask why. McKenzie would tell it all in her own good
time.

McKenzie poured her a drink, and she kicked
off her shoes and curled up in a chair opposite David’s sister.

“You look pretty in that blue dress,
Elizabeth. I hope you wore it for David, and I hope he was bowled
over.”

“I did, and he wasn’t. I haven’t seen him
since morning.”

“Men. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without
‘em.” McKenzie drained her glass, then fixed herself another
drink.

“I wouldn’t know. And from the looks of
things I’m never going to get to find out.” Elizabeth was horrified
at her confession. Drink had loosened her tongue, otherwise she
wouldn’t be sitting there pouring out her secret heart to David’s
sister. Some things ought to be kept private.

Except on certain occasions. Occasions like
this when the night made you lonely and the drink made you sad.

“Do you think David is ever going to let
anybody get close?” she asked, meaning herself, of course. It was a
bold and outrageous thing to say considering the circumstances,
considering she was hardly more than a guest in that house,
somebody just passing through.

“Let me tell you about my brother.” McKenzie
refilled her glass. “He was engaged before Iraq, sort of, to this
little twit who thought Puccini was a foreign sports car. Japanese,
for Pete’s sake.”

Elizabeth doubled over laughing. Taylor might
have thought her cotton patch trash, but she knew her opera. Loved
it, too.

“David loved her anyhow. He always had the
ability to see beyond a person’s faults, which is a good thing or
he’d have kicked me out years ago.”

It wasn’t like McKenzie to put herself down.
She must really be in a dark mood.

“Before everything that happened to him over
there,” McKenzie continued, meaning the war, “he used to go around
the house singing. Always the song Daddy loved. Nearly drove us all
crazy.” McKenzie threw back her head, lowered her voice an octave
in imitation of her brother and belted out “Blueberry Hill”.