Gateways. Part 53

Jack rolled away from the tree and lay on his back.

"Thought I was going to lose you there, Dad."

As his heart regained a normal rhythm, Tom watched Jack lie there with closed eyes as rain pounded his face.

"I thought I was a goner too. Thanks."

"De nada."

Nothing? No, it wasn't nothing. It was something...something very special. He owed his life to Jack.

He couldn't think of anyone he'd more like to be indebted to.

Tom swallowed the lump in his throat. "Come on. Let's see if we can find that canoe and get to someplace dry."

Tuesday

1.

"I've decided to move back north," Dad said as Jack packed his duffel bag for the trip home.

Jack studied his face, still bruised from the accident, and weathered from the storm. "You're sure about that?"

Dad nodded. "Very. I'll never be able to look at Anya's house without remembering what...what we saw there...what happened to her. And I can't see me ever looking out my front door at the Everglades without thinking of the other night...all that blood spilled, especially Carl's...and that sinkhole and the things that came out of it. And the storm, that tornado..." He shook his head. "We d.a.m.n near died out there."

"But we didn't," Jack told him. "That's all that counts."

It hadn't been easy getting back. The canoe had been far enough from the twister to come through in one piece, but the subsequent battle through the storm had been an ordeal. With the smaller channels filling up, and no way to judge east or west, Jack had become disoriented and made a few wrong turns. It took nearly two hours of paddling before they arrived at the air-boat dock and gratefully collapsed in the shelter of the car.

Monday had been spent recuperating. Muscles Jack didn't even know he had protested every time he moved. The groundsmen-sans Carl-were out in force cleaning up the mess left by the storm. They must have seen Anya's shredded screen door but probably attributed it to the storm.

Late in the afternoon, after the crews had finished for the day and no one was about, Jack and his father buried Anya's remains in her garden, among the plants she'd loved. Since she kept pretty much to herself, no one had discovered yet that she was missing.

Jack dug a two-foot hole in the wet soil-deeper than any dog or c.o.o.n would go-and then Dad reverently placed the quarter-folded skin within. He'd chosen not to wrap it in anything. Better to let it decompose quickly and recycle its nutrients back to her plants.

And then a quiet night of mourning, Dad looking for answers to a long list of questions, Jack doing his best not to answer them. Dad didn't need to know more than he already did and, despite what he'd been through, probably wouldn't accept the truth as Jack understood it. So Jack told him only what he'd gleaned from Anya and let him a.s.sume that the rest of the answers had died with her. It never occurred to either of them to turn on the Monday night football game.

"Besides," Dad was saying on this bright morning, "what am I doing down here while my sons and all my grandchildren are up north? It makes no sense. I don't know what I was thinking."

Maybe you weren't thinking, Jack thought. Maybe you were being manipulated. Maybe everything that's happened down here was part of a plan-a plan that, thanks to Anya, didn't go quite the way it was supposed to.

And then again, maybe not.

But with the Otherness so obviously involved, Jack couldn't help but think that his father had been scheduled to die last Tuesday morning.

"Maybe I'll come south for just a month or two a year," Dad went on, "say February and March. Statistics say that an American male who reaches age sixty-five can expect to live another sixteen years. That leaves me ten more. Makes no sense to spend them fifteen hundred miles from the most important people in my life."

"You're right. It doesn't."

Jack had a feeling he'd better watch over his father. He was sure the Otherness wasn't through with him yet. Rasalom's words kept haunting him: ...a strong man slowly battered into despair and hopelessness...that is a delicacy. In your case, it might even approach ecstasy...

How was this battering into despair and hopelessness going to happen? By destroying everyone he cared about?

He was glad his father would be closer to home, but right now he wanted to get back to Gia and Vicky. Worry for them was a knife point in his back, urging him home. And he had to get working on a way to become a citizen before March, when the baby was due.

Yesterday he'd overnighted the Ruger back to one of his mail drops. He'd pick it up after it was forwarded to another drop. All he had to do now was pack up his clothes and head for the airport.

The phone rang.

"That should be the sales office," Dad said. "I phoned them first thing this morning about putting the place on the market."

As he left, Jack reminded himself to check out Blagden & Sons once he got home. See if he could find out why they wanted that sand from the cenote. He had a feeling it wasn't for mixing concrete for back porches.

He scooped the last of his things out of the bureau and froze: The rectangle of Anya's skin lay in the bottom of the drawer.

His mouth went dry. This couldn't be. They'd buried it yesterday, yet here it was, without a speck of dirt.

Jack walked out to the main room where his father was discussing prices and commissions with the sales office; he went directly to the back porch and grabbed the shovel he used yesterday. He headed for Anya's garden.

The burial spot was just as they'd left it. Jack dug into the loose soil and quickly reached the two-foot level.

No skin.

He dug down another six inches-he knew he hadn't gone this deep yesterday-and still nothing but dirt.

Anya's skin was gone.

No, wait, not gone. It was lying in a drawer in his Dad's guest bedroom. But how...?

Jack didn't waste time with unanswerable questions-how it had gotten out of the hole and into the house, why it was there. Either he'd find out later or he wouldn't.

He quickly refilled the hole and hurried back to the house. Dad was still on the phone. He looked up with a questioning expression as Jack pa.s.sed but Jack waved him off. Back in the room he went directly to the bureau and froze again. Now the drawer was empty.

What the h.e.l.l?

He turned and saw a now familiar pattern through the open top of his duffel bag. He stretched the zippered mouth and stared.

There it lay. Apparently Anya, or at least this piece of her, wanted to go home with him.

Jack sighed. Again, he wouldn't ask why, he'd just go with the flow and trust that sooner or later this would all make sense.

He covered the skin with his remaining clothes and zipped the bag closed.

All right, Anya, he thought. You want to come along, be my guest.

He lifted the bag and headed for the front room. Dad hung up as he entered.

"Well, just a few papers to sign and the place is officially on the market."

"Great. I hear they've got people lined up to get in here, so it shouldn't take long."

"Yeah."

A silence grew between them. Jack knew he had to go, but he was reluctant to leave his father here alone.

Finally Dad said, "It's been wonderful getting to know you, Jack. There's so much about you I still don't know, but what I've learned...I'm surprised, but pleasantly so."

"You're pretty full of surprises yourself."

"But you know all mine now. I get the feeling-no, I know know you've still got quite a few left." you've still got quite a few left."

Here we go. "Probably not as many as you think. But who knows what you'll find out once you get back north?"

Dad nodded. "Right. Who knows?"

As if there'd been some unspoken signal, they embraced.

"Good to have you back, son," his father whispered. "Really, really good."

They broke the clinch, but still gripped each other's arms.

"Good to know the real you, Dad. You can take my back any time." He broke free and grabbed his duffel. "See you back home."

"Call me when you get in."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. I've always worried about you, but after what I've learned about you down here, I'll really, really worry about you."

Jack laughed as he pushed through the door and headed for the car and the airport and the plane home to Gia and Vicky.

Afterword.

South Floridians will know I played fast and loose with some of the geography in Gateways Gateways. Joanie's Blue Crab Cafe is not on US 1, but on the other side of the state, on Route 41 in Ochopee. But the crab cakes and softsh.e.l.l crab sandwiches are just as good as I described. While researching the Glades I'd often drive twenty or thirty miles out of my way to grab a bite and an Ybor Gold at Joanie's.

As for Gator Country FM 101.9, it's hard to pull in if you're on US 1, but travel a little ways west and there it is. A good station for modern country and it kept me company during the drives.

Novaton may seem like Homestead, but it's an amalgam of a number of towns I stayed in during my research sorties.

One thing I did not make up or overstate is the shameful neglect, mismanagement, and outright abuse suffered by the Everglades during the twentieth century. It's a fragile, fascinating environment, sui generis, that's been d.a.m.n near ruined by rampant overdevelopment. There's lots of talk lately of restoring the Everglades; let's hope the folks talking the talk will walk the walk before it's too late.

F. Paul Wilson The Jersey Sh.o.r.e March, 2003