Recovering Charles (20 page)

When Igot to the bridge, I was thankful the two sleeping men’s bodies were fragile and dry.

Nothing dramatic. Just two men—brothers, friends, maybe strangers—who fell asleep under a bridge and never woke up. I loaded them each in a bag and dragged them to the center of the road.

I spray-painted a giant circle around the bodies with arrows pointing to them from all directions. Then I said a prayer. Not a Jerome prayer, just a Millward prayer. “God help them.”

My rental car was untouched.
A small miracle,
I thought,
in a city that ran out of miracles for me.

I drove out of town like I knew exactly where I was going.

Chapter
27

The drive home was divinely uneventful.

I slept in my car at the Hattiesburg Holiday Inn Express. I stayed at a very familiar Best Western in Virginia and took a twenty-five-minute shower.

By sundown on the second full day I was fighting traffic in the city.

I’d decided not to talk to Jordan on the way home. We sent a handful of text messages. She sent that she’d had success with the “project” and would fill me in when I got home.

For the first time since I was sixteen I actually chose to drive in the slow lane. I spent miles imagining a heroic death for my father. I suppose I hoped he’d had one of his premonitions about his death before Katrina hit.

What if he had? What if he wasn’t heroic? When have I been this conflicted?

I was angry. Dad had agreed to have me search in the dark. Even suggested it. Would a call or letter from Jez have been any different? Why had Bela lied to me? Had her loyalty to my father been so strong?

Some of the questions lodged in my mind. Others ran through my mind, past my mouth, and into the air.

I wished someone were there to hear them.

My mind, still numb from the images of my stay in New Awlins, conjured up and sorted through a hundred and fifty miles of circumstances for my father’s death.

Drowned in a neighbor’s attic, trying to pull them to safety.

Drowned in Jezebel’s attic, trying to pull
her
to safety.

Stabbed at the Convention Center, killed while protecting a child.

Electrocuted.

Burned to death, saving a family pet from a burning home in the Garden District.

Crushed by a pickup truck that rushed with the storm surge over the canal breech. Dad swimming furiously to push a woman and her baby in an inner tube from the truck’s path.

Drowned by a woman he was trying to save. Her frantic, panicked motions drowning them both.

Heat exhaustion. Collapsed from an arduous trip to the Convention Center. He delivered a woman in a wheelchair in time to find oxygen. Because of Dad’s speed she was one of the lucky ones who received medical attention in time. Dad stayed with the widow until she boarded a bus for Houston. Alive and thankful.

Some scenarios made me feel better than others. But all were more appealing than imagining my father had been found behind Circus Circus in Las Vegas with a gunshot wound and a gambling debt.

I turned on the radio and listened to classic rock until I rolled through the Lincoln Tunnel.

It was after seven when I returned the rental car in Greenwich Village and got in a cab. I was exhausted, dirty, and ready to bury my father in every appropriate way.

I hoped Jordan would be waiting for me.

“Knock, knock.” I opened the front door to my clean, dry apartment. It looked precisely as it had when I had left.

Except that there was a woman sitting next to Jordan on my futon.

Jezebel.

Chapter
28

Jezebel hugged me.

   What else could I expect? She held on to me and sniffled through a “Hello, I’m relieved you made it. So relieved” before stepping back.

“Jordan?”

“Welcome home.” She held me in a long, warm embrace. “I think you know Jezebel,” she said when the hug ended too soon.

“Uh.” I kept looking at Jezebel and wondering if I’d eaten bad Mexican fast food at the place in Blacksburg. “What’s going on?”

“Sit down.”

“OK,” I said dumbly, and I did.

I finally realized that the smell coming from my kitchen was jambalaya. Once I noticed it, I couldn’t ignore it. If it tasted even a fraction as well as it smelled, I knew I was going to sleep very well on a very full stomach.

Jezebel sat on the other end of the futon.

Jordan sat between us.

The three of us were sitting on a futon made for two.

Jordan sat up straight. “Luke, I spoke to Jezebel.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She refused to tell me anything,
anything,
over the phone.”

Color me surprised.
“So you invited her for dinner?”

Jezebel tried not to laugh but a snort most definitely escaped.

“Not quite. She invited herself.”

I couldn’t avoid noticing Jezebel had taken a shower. Her hair still looked slightly damp.

“How did you get here?” I asked her.

“Airplane. They reopened the airport, just enough flights a day to get a few people in and out.”

“How did you get to my place?”

“Luke,” Jordan cut Jezebel off, “I picked her up at the airport.”

I stood up, not out of anger, but because the sideways conservation on the futon was as awkward as the discussion. “And did I pay for her plane ticket?”

Now Jezebel stood. “What? You think because I’m black and from New Awlins I can’t buy my own plane ticket?” She had the same look in her eyes I’d seen when she nearly gave a beating to Officer Baldy at Jackson Square.

“Relax. I didn’t know if you had your credit cards—”

“Oh, no, Citibank don’t give ’dem credit cards to no
Negro
women—”

“Stop it you two!” Jordan stood up as well, forcing us into a tighter circle than any of us liked. In unison we all took a step back.

“Jez—” Jordan started.

“‘Jez’? You’re calling her Jez already?” I interrupted. Jordan hated to be interrupted.

“Luke Francis Millward. Stop. This is inappropriate. Just stop. All of it. Both of you.”

She was right. Suddenly I felt like I was twelve again. And I didn’t entirely mind it. Perhaps it was only fair for Jezebel to get what I’d spared her in New Orleans.

“Jezebel.” Jordan was about to negotiate. She looked at me for a nod at using her full first name. I gave it.

“Luke didn’t mean anything you just implied. You know that. He meant that he wasn’t sure you’d have access to your funds, to your credit cards, debit cards.” Then she turned to me.

“Luke, are you paying any attention? First, you didn’t buy her ticket. I did. We’re not married and you didn’t leave me an emergency VISA like I’m some sixteen-year-old kid. I bought it. She can pay me back when she gets home. I’m sure she will.”

“Naturally,” Jez said. Nice and snide.

“Secondly, Luke, have you looked past the surprise of seeing this beautiful woman on your couch to even wonder why she came?”

I had, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it.

“Jez, could you check on that delicious-smelling dinner you’ve started? I need a moment with Luke.”

Jez walked past me into the kitchen, all of fifteen feet away. Jordan pulled me into my bathroom and shut the door.

“Luke. Please listen to her. For me?”

“She lied, Jordan. They
all
lied.”

“I get that. Be mad at her later, but she’s traveled all the way up here for more than a shower.”

She hugged me again.

“After dinner.”

“Fair.” She kissed me on the cheek. “You OK?”

“I’m starving.”

We ate dinner and made small talk. Very small.

Jordan talked about her week, her clients, her boss, and makeup.

Jez talked about her flight up and the last time she’d been to New York. It had been just a few months ago for a show. I wondered if my dad had come, too.

I talked about the drive there and back. Jez hadn’t heard any of it and looked sincerely interested. I wanted to ask about Bela, but didn’t.

After dinner Jordan offered—
insisted
—on cleaning up. “That was the most fantastic meal I’ve had in a year. I mean it.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. It’s just simple Cajun cooking.”

Jordan was still mumbling about it when she took the last of the dishes and placed them by the sink. She began washing them by hand, despite my owning a very nice dishwasher.

“Why don’t you two go for a walk; it’s gorgeous outside.”

I looked at Jez. She shrugged.

I shrugged back.

Jez snorted again. “You’re too much. Let’s go.” She walked out the door without looking back.

She was still standing in front of the notoriously slow elevator when I caught up with her.

“Two elevators,” I said. “One is slow, one is broken all the time.”

Jez reached down and pushed the button again. “I hear this works,” she said.

“I’ve heard that, too.” I counted to five and pressed the button again. “Jez, I’m sorry about that. Back there. The credit card thing.”

“It’s OK. We’re blowing off steam.”

I had to wonder what steam
she
was storing. I was the one who’d been shammed. “Right,” I wisely said instead.

The elevator arrived and we rode down to the first floor. The doorman held the front door for us.

“That would take some getting used to,” she said.

“I never quite have,” I fibbed. Actually I’d been in the city long enough to take it for granted.

We began walking east for no apparent reason, but before we left the block I stopped her. “Mind if we just sit?” I motioned to a nearby bench.

“Are you kidding me? I’m so exhausted. I couldn’t believe that girl of yours suggested a walk. I’ve been on my feet for almost two weeks.” It wasn’t easy to collapse onto a metal bench, but Jezebel tried.

“Much better.” I sat next to her.

We sat quietly for a few moments.

“You flew in today?”

“This morning. Jordan’s wonderful, Luke.”

“Thanks.”

More silence.

“I have a story to tell you.”

“I know.”

“It’s why I came.”

“I know.”

“Your dad was a wonderful man, Luke. And I loved him with all my heart.”

“I see it.” I looked her in the eyes. “I see it.”

“If Charlie Millward had asked me to travel to the ends of the earth just to turn around and come home, I’d have done it. So long as he was by my side.” She took a breath and rubbed her face. “I am
not
going to cry anymore.” She took another breath and continued.

“The day the storm hit, that night really, we all stayed in the club. We thought there was a decent chance the Quarter would stay dry. We were right. But before the storm had even passed, your dad said he needed to leave. Couldn’t have been 5:00
am
yet. Was still raining pretty good. But he said he needed to get home to the Lower Ninth. There was no stopping him. Trust me, we all tried.”

She clucked at a pigeon walking within a few feet of her and carrying a piece of a soft-baked pretzel.

“He took a cell phone and promised to call, said he’d be OK, said the worst was past and we’d dodged the bullet. Shoot, that’s what the TV was saying right up until the levees tumbled and flooded us.”

“How did Dad get there?”

“He walked.”

“All the way home?”

“It’s only three miles or so and he had a flashlight in both pockets. He called when he hit the neighborhood and said he needed to help a neighbor. Must have helped another and another because Jerome got worried when the rain started to lighten up but Charlie hadn’t come back yet.”

“And Dad’s place was like he left it.”

“That’s right,” she nodded. “He hadn’t been there yet.”

“So sometime between Jerome checking his place and the levees breaking he got in there . . . He knew the levees would break.”

“Mm-hmm. He knew,” she agreed. “We never spoke to him again. A day or so later when we really started to worry, you know, we hoped he’d somehow ended up in Texas or Georgia or somewhere. I would have been angry, and Lord knows I would have told him so, but he’d have been alive, right? Anyway, when he hadn’t called or come back to the Quarter, Jerome called you.”

“And you didn’t know
anything
then?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?”

“Nothing, Luke. We were looking and we were praying—
Lord
did we pray.”

“So when did you find him?”

“Two days before you arrived. But Luke, we didn’t think you were coming.”

“Why? I said I was.”

“Come on, Luke, this is me. Be real with me. You dragged your feet and you know it.”

Maybe a little
.

“You weren’t in a rush were you? You were not in any big hurry to come recover your alcoholic father.”

“OK. I get it.”

“Luke, I’m telling you the truth, sweetheart. We did not think you were coming. We were stunned. We’d just had Charlie’s funeral and then you come waltzing in.”

“Why so soon, Jez? No one was holding funerals yet.”

“Because we didn’t think you were coming, and Castle, the man who sponsored your dad and helped free him from the bottle, was leaving to be with his sister. He wanted to be a part of it so much, Luke. So we put our ragtag funeral march together. I don’t much care if anyone thinks we should have waited, no offense. It was a simple celebration.”

“So where did you bury him?”

“We didn’t. We couldn’t. The casket was empty. They do that from time to time down there. FEMA had put him in a freezer and said there was nothing we could do with him right now. Wasn’t a funeral home open for probably five hundred miles.” She slid over and put an arm around me. “I’m sorry to tell you like this, to talk like he was just another victim of this mess.”

“So when can I retrieve him?”

“Oh. Well, sweetheart, if you bury him outside the area you can recover Charles right now.”

“But you want him buried in New Orleans.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I want him buried next to his wife, Luke. That’s who the Lord ordained as his spouse, for better or worse. I’ll live knowing my world was changed by the six months I spent with him.”

I appreciated the gesture more than I could explain, but my mind was already on
the
question I needed answered most.

“How did he die?”

Jez took my hand. “You know we couldn’t reach him; cell service got bad in a hurry. Spotty. Sometimes you got through, usually you didn’t. Texts were better, but even that was so hit-and-miss. Finally after a couple days of not hearing anything, an officer came by the club. Said the day before he’d met a man who claimed he worked here and needed to get a message to us that he was OK. He was trying to help at the Convention Center. Keep peace. Keep people alive, I guess. Then he heard about a lady who was six, eight blocks away, dying without her oxygen. Apparently Charlie went running around like crazy trying to find some. Trying everything to keep her alive.”

She let go of my hand long enough to wipe her eyes.

“The officer—”

“Frank?”

“That’s right.” She seemed embarrassed by the admission that Frank had known, too.

“Frank said he saw the man twelve hours later carrying the woman down the street in water up to his chest. He was pushing through the water. Calling for help. And Lord, it was
hot
. The man, your father, got the woman to Frank’s arms at the curb of the Convention Center and then laid down on the grass around the corner. Frank raced that woman to the airport where they had a little hospital set up. When Frank came back to check on your father, he was still lying flat on the grass. Only now, your father, my Charles, had a handwritten sign on his chest.”

Jezebel’s tears streamed all the way down her neck.

“A sign?”

“It said,
Saved a woman’s life
.”