Scarlet Woman. Gwynne Forster

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СКАЧАТЬ and they finished the funeral arrangements while they reminisced about their childhood. Blake didn’t like the drama and commotion that accompanied Southern mourning, and he was glad to have a moment alone. He walked out to the front gate where the summer breeze carried the scent of roses and the clear moonlit night brought him memories of his childhood. And loneliness. He went inside for his cell phone, came back and telephoned Melinda. Maybe it didn’t make sense, but he needed to hear her voice.

      “I’ve just been thinking that I had no idea where you are,” she said after they greeted each other.

      “I’m in Six Mile, about twenty miles outside of Birmingham. It’s small, barely a hamlet. Here’s my cell-phone number. Call me if you want to.”

      “I will, and I’m glad you called me. How’s your mother taking this?”

      “Philosophically as usual. I guess it’s worse for me than for Mama and my sister and brother, because my relationship with him was so much poorer than theirs, but I’m making it. Being with John and Callie, my older brother and sister, and talking things over with them puts a clearer perspective on my childhood. I’ll be fine.”

      “How’d you get there from Birmingham? Rent a car?”

      He leaned against the gate and inhaled the perfume of the roses. Strange how the floral scene reminded him of Melinda. Bright. Cheerful and sweet. “I’d planned to rent one, but Callie met me.” He told her of Callie’s reaction when he asked her whether she wanted to drive her own car. “I’ll have to be more careful. Callie says I’m just a guy who takes charge, but that can seem overbearing. What do you think?” He realized that he wanted her to think well of him, and that surprised him, because he didn’t remember ever caring whether anyone liked him. He had to do some serious thinking about what Melinda Rodgers meant to him and what, if anything, he’d do about it.

      Her voice, soft and mellifluous, caressed his ears and wrapped him in contentment. “I think you’re tough, and I imagine you can be overbearing, but you haven’t treated me to any of that, so I don’t know.”

      “What were you doing when I called?”

      “I…uh—”

      “What?” He told himself to straighten out his mind, lest his imagination get out of control.

      “Well, I was lying here looking up at the ceiling, and don’t ask me where my mind was.”

      “Would I be presumptuous to think your mind might have been on me?”

      “Roses are red and violets are blue.”

      He laughed because he couldn’t help it and because so much of something inside of him strained to get out. “I wouldn’t take anything for that. Go ahead and keep your secrets.”

      “Are you going to let me know when you’re coming back so I can meet you?”

      He closed his eyes and let contentment wash over him. In the seventeen years since he’d left his paternal home and the mother who’d nurtured him, he’d forgotten what it was like to have someone care about his comfort and well-being. Irene made a stab at it, but he didn’t cooperate because he didn’t want an office wife.

      “I said I would, and when I tell you I’ll do something, I do it if it’s humanly possible. Remember that. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

      “Can I do anything for you while you’re away?”

      “Thanks, but…” It occurred to him that she could, but he hesitated to involve her. He hadn’t heard from Ethan in over two weeks, and if the boy got into trouble again, he’d be a three-time loser, which meant he’d be an old man before he got out of jail.

      “If you don’t mind, call this number, ask for Ethan, and find out how he is. Tell him where I am and that I want him to call me tomorrow night. Don’t give him your name, telephone number, or address. Just say I told you to call him. If he’s in trouble, call me back.”

      To her credit, he thought, she didn’t question him about his relationship to Ethan, but promised to do as he asked.

      He didn’t want to leave her with a cold good-bye, but their relationship didn’t warrant much more. So he merely said, “Talk to you again before I leave here,” and she seemed to understand.

      “I’ll expect that,” she said. “Take care of yourself.”

      He hung up and went inside. He didn’t feel like dancing, but he walked with livelier steps.

      Two days later, Blake stood at his father’s final resting place, dealing with his emotions.

      “If you had wound up in jail or as an addict,” his mother said, “maybe you’d have grounds to hate him. But look at you. He must have given you something that inspired you to reach so high and accomplish so much.”

      What could he say? She looked at it with the eyes of a woman who loved both her husband and her children; she wouldn’t lay blame. He wished he were in the habit of praying, because he could use some unbiased guidance right then.

      Gloria Hunter’s fingers gripped his arm. “Let it go, son. If you don’t forgive your father, you’ll never be able to love anybody, not the woman you marry, not even your own children.” His mother tightened her grip on him as she whispered, “Please let it die with him.”

      Strange that he should think of Melinda at a time when he was finding his way out of the morass of pain and bewilderment that dogged him and had been a part of his life for as long as he remembered. What did she feel for her father? It was suddenly important for him to know if she loved Booker Jones, a man who few people in Ellicott City, other than his family and parishioners, seemed able to tolerate.

      His mother’s words bruised his ears. “Son, you’ve got to let it go.”

      In his mind’s eye, he saw again his father stand, tears streaking his cheeks, when Columbia University conferred the doctor of laws degree on his younger son. As pain seared his chest, he knelt and kissed the sealed metal casket. When he stood, his mother’s arms enfolded him, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen her smile so broadly or her eyes sparkle so brightly with happiness.

      Melinda waited until late the next morning before she tried to locate Ethan. She supposed he might be a relative, since Blake didn’t have any children. She amended that. He didn’t have any that she knew of.

      “Ethan ain’t here,” the voice of an older female said in answer to Melinda’s question. When asked where she could find him, the woman advised, “Look down at Doone’s poolroom over on Oela Avenue facing the railroad. If he ain’t there, I couldn’t say where he is.”

      She couldn’t find a phone number for Doone’s, but though she was wary as to what she might discover there, she got in her car and drove to the place.

      “Whatta ya want, miss?” a big bouncer type of a man asked her.

      “I’m looking for a boy named Ethan.”

      He pointed to one of the pool tables. “Right over there. Hey, Ethan, a lady’s here to see ya.”

      Melinda watched the boy amble toward her. An attractive, neat kid whom she imagined was about sixteen years old, she СКАЧАТЬ