Wading Home_ A Novel Of New Orleans Part 12

He'd been sitting only a minute or so when it happened. From deep in the pit of his gut, a storm churned and spiraled up to his neck. He tried to gather a breath, but his throat tightened and his windpipes felt choked and nothing came. His chest burned. He heaved and panted and gasped, and finally got up and staggered to the bathroom, where he leaned over the toilet and retched.

Hearing him in the bathroom, Velmyra rushed in and found him kneeling on the floor, his head near the toilet bowl.

"I'm OK, I'm OK," he said. But when he tried to get up, the room whirled before his eyes like an off-kilter merry-go-round, and the taste of bile bubbled again in his throat.

"It's all right." Velmyra knelt beside him, her voice calm. "Just stay here, stay quiet a minute." With one hand on his arm, she smoothed his back with wide circles as he gave over to violent spasms of nausea.

"I'm OK now." He got up and made his way past her to the living room and sat again on the sofa. The room tilted again, moved in circles, and felt close, airless. He felt a chill. Sweat beads sprouted on his forehead as tiny quakes exploded beneath his skin. Velmyra sat next to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

She spoke quietly. "Julian, it's all right. It's all right if you want to just let it out."

He looked at her as tears filled his eyes. Then he leaned forward and looked straight ahead, holding himself, rocking.

"I think..." he said in a whisper. "I think he's really gone."

He felt himself go limp in her arms as the flood of tears came, first quietly, then in shuddering sobs. As grief breached his wall of strength, she put both arms around him and held his head to her chest. And they sat like that, quietly, as Julian rocked and cried, until night darkened the room.

Neither would remember how the next thing happened, or even whose idea it had been. Whether he'd led her or she'd led him to the small, cramped feather bed framed by rusted bra.s.s where Velmyra had slept that first night, and where now they both lay knotted into each other, a welter of angles and curves beneath the raw, floursack cotton backing of Genevieve's handmade quilt.

It had been years, but their bodies remembered the details of the dance. There had been no words-only the smooth step and glide of old partners, the entwining and uncoiling, the shifting from one side, quietly, gently, to the other, his arm just beneath her neck, her head buried in the crook of his shoulder. His tongue dipping into the small well at the base of her throat, her back arching as his arm circled the slim world of her waist. Remembering, rediscovering, as forgotten pa.s.sageways opened and memory guided them through.

They moved carefully, delicately, because the fragile balance of air and light between them could be so easily tipped with a misplaced word, a gesture. As she offered herself without restraint, he folded her into the s.p.a.ce where his pain dwelt, and breathed softly as she filled it up. Easy now, Easy now, he told himself, and felt, for the first time in a long time, at home. he told himself, and felt, for the first time in a long time, at home.

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Before the morning light, she'd awakened to find him gone. Walking out onto the porch in her T-shirt, she heard the sound coming from the direction of the creek and followed the muted, high-pitched wail.

Standing in the pale glow of the early morning moon, he was shirtless, shoeless, his unbelted jeans sagging slightly below his waist, the trumpet pressed to his lips and its bell lifted out over the bank of the creek. The thin bra.s.sy moan thickened in the damp air, floating between the rustle of leaves and gra.s.ses, and the shrill whir of cicadas and crickets.

He was playing something familiar, no doubt something she'd heard him play years ago. A simple melody, childlike, pure, but with an underpinning of old-time blues. A love song, maybe, for two people adrift in different worlds. She stepped on a branch and the sharp breaking sound startled him.

He looked up. "Sorry, I guess I woke you."

"I reached over and you were gone." She folded her arms against her chest. "Sounds beautiful. You OK?"

"Yeah." He held up his horn, shiny in the moon's light, and touched his jaw. "Feels a little better now and I messed around with my embouchure. I think I'm on the right track."

"Great."

He nodded to her, then looked across the dark creek, its rippling surface dimly illumined by the shine of the moon.

"Daddy used to bring me down here. We used to sit right over there on that bank." He pointed across the water to where an oak branch dripped gray fingers of Spanish moss over the water, and where, when he was five, his father had tossed him into the creek to get him to swim. He had splashed about violently thinking he would surely drown, until his feet touched bottom and he realized the water was only waist high.

He smiled, remembering. Someday you're gonna appreciate this place, son. I hope it ain't too late when you do. Someday you're gonna appreciate this place, son. I hope it ain't too late when you do.

Velmyra sat down on a patch of gra.s.s at the water's edge and drew her knees to her chest.

"Daddy tried to get me to fish, but all I wanted to do was get back to town. Play my horn." Julian exhaled a slow breath. He removed the mouthpiece and placed it against his lips, buzzed softly through it.

He lifted his chin to the moonlit sky, closed his eyes. Then opened them and looked at her. "I got a feeling he tried to get here,'cause that's what he would do. But he just didn't make it."

Velmyra looked down at her bare feet. "Maybe you're right."

"You know, even if Daddy had made it, I'd almost hate to see him now. I don't think I could stand to tell him what happened to this place. Crazy, I know."

"I don't blame you. Next to you, this place was the most important thing in his life."

"I feel like it's my fault."

"No. Don't even go there."

Julian opened the spit valve of his trumpet and let the condensation run onto the ground. He lifted the horn again and played a long, slow, loose-lipped note at the bottom of his range, then let the tail of the sound disappear into the trees. He sat down on the wet gra.s.s next to Velmyra.

"I didn't love the place like he did-he knew that-but at least I could have been on top of the legal stuff. I could have gotten him to get a lawyer so something like this wouldn't have to happen."

Velmyra put a hand on his shoulder. "Stop it. Stop being so hard on yourself. You couldn't know. Maybe things happen..."

She stopped, but he knew where she was going. Maybe things happened the way they did for a reason. Maybe things happened the way they did for a reason. If Silver Creek was fated to fall into strangers' hands, maybe it was best that Simon wasn't around to see it. If Silver Creek was fated to fall into strangers' hands, maybe it was best that Simon wasn't around to see it.

He reached an arm around her.

"Thank you, for coming with me," he said, and bit back the urge to say, What happened to us? What happened to us? Since the night he'd first seen her at Sylvia's, he'd been thinking about the way they'd been before. Sure, there'd been a storm or two in their time together-that was normal-but even their roughest tempests had calmed after heart-to-hearts over red wine, misty-eyed apologies, and nights of make-up pa.s.sion. He remembered earlier, the heat of her hand on his back as his body convulsed with grief, and thought to himself that only a fool would have let this woman get away. He'd been that fool, for sure. Some way, he had blown it. If only he could remember how. Since the night he'd first seen her at Sylvia's, he'd been thinking about the way they'd been before. Sure, there'd been a storm or two in their time together-that was normal-but even their roughest tempests had calmed after heart-to-hearts over red wine, misty-eyed apologies, and nights of make-up pa.s.sion. He remembered earlier, the heat of her hand on his back as his body convulsed with grief, and thought to himself that only a fool would have let this woman get away. He'd been that fool, for sure. Some way, he had blown it. If only he could remember how.

In the far corner of the sky, he thought he saw a glimmer of the new day, but realized it was just the moon's lingering light. He looked down at his hands, fingered a chromatic scale on the valves. Finally, looking at her profile, he said, "I hate we couldn't make it work. I just don't know what happened."

A quizzical light filled her eyes as she looked at him, then turned away. "There were reasons."

"Like?"

She examined a hangnail on her index finger. "We were...different, you and me. We were headed different places, had different dreams. Sometimes, things just don't work."

In his recollection, the differences between them had best played out one evening in May. They hadn't been together long when he and Velmyra were window shopping at the Riverwalk shops and ran into Mr. Martrel, his old junior high school band teacher. Sporting his favorite red plaid jacket and too-long 60s Afro, Mr. Martrel was a well-known local pianist, on his way to a gig at one of the local courtyard cafes in the French Quarter.

Julian hadn't seen this man who'd most inspired him-one of the main reasons he'd become a musician-since he'd retired years before. Martrel's slumped shoulders and graying hair contrasted sharply with Julian's memory of the youthful teacher sprinting across the field and yelling orders to the marching band. Over the years, the stressful cla.s.sroom days and jazz club nights that found his arthritic back hunched over an upright piano had clearly taken their toll.

Still, Mr. Martrel wore his usual jovial smile and acted as if life could not be better. His smile stretched even wider when Julian introduced Velmyra. He put an arm around them both. Come on over to the cafe, and I'll buy your pretty young lady a drink! Come on over to the cafe, and I'll buy your pretty young lady a drink! Martrel's youthful eyes gleamed. While Velmyra sat crossed-legged at the bar sipping a potent peach daiquiri, Julian and Martrel cranked out one upbeat standard after another-"Cherokee," "Caravan," "Donna Lee," "Salt Peanuts Martrel's youthful eyes gleamed. While Velmyra sat crossed-legged at the bar sipping a potent peach daiquiri, Julian and Martrel cranked out one upbeat standard after another-"Cherokee," "Caravan," "Donna Lee," "Salt Peanuts." With lightning-quick fingers and an equally quick mind that still blazed at full power, Martrel had not lost a step-the ivory keys still dipped beneath his genius touch like magic, flooding cascades of sound from the wooden upright. At the end, the dozen or so customers were on their feet cheering.

Julian and his teacher hugged when they'd finished, and when he and Velmyra walked to the streetcar stop, Velmyra was still clearly under the older musician's spell.

"He's an amazing player." Her eyes sparkled with excitement. "Unbelievable."

"Yeah." Julian grabbed her hand as they crossed the street. "Folks oughta be bustin' down doors to hear him play. What a waste."

Velmyra's eyes narrowed as she pulled her hand back. "A waste? How was it a waste to do what you loved and were good at?" Julian stuttered, backpedaling. He'd planned a quiet dinner for two at his place featuring homemade lasagna and a pricey Valpolicella. This was no way to start the evening.

He had gone on to explain that when Martrel was young he had unwisely forfeited a shot at real success; turning down offers that could have paved a path to wealth, he'd decided to stay in New Orleans. She'd flinched, cut him a look. "But then where would you be?" she threw back at him. They had gone around and around-about the city and its limited opportunities for so many brilliant artists, the merits of nurturing talent and of preserving culture, the selfless pa.s.sion of the teacher versus the ambition of the performer, and so on, until finally, picking over her Caesar salad, she let drop a revelation that pumped a rush of blood to his face.

How was he supposed to know she'd recently turned down an offer to work in the art department of one of Boston's top advertising firms, so that she could keep her low-paying teacher's job in the New Orleans school district? After that, the romantic wine-andcandles evening that Julian had staged descended into strained, spa.r.s.e conversation with gaps of silence as wide and dark as the Mississippi. But the message was clear to both of them: as much as Julian loved the city, he was not about to wind up in a cafe in the French Quarter when he was sixty, playing for scale and tips.

Had that been the beginning of the end? He'd found a way to calm the waters stirred by that unfortunate misstep, cajole his way back into her good graces. But they'd never had that discussion again.

Velmyra looked up from the creek to the starry sky. She turned to him, an uneasiness dimming her eyes.

"Julian, there is something I want to tell you. About why I got married so soon after we broke up."

Now he turned away. "Not important. Old business."

"Well..."

He got up and dusted off his jeans.

"Let's go back." Whatever she had to say about her marriage, he didn't think he could hear it. Not now, and possibly never. He reached for her hand and helped her up, turning his thoughts back to the land, his father, the things presently at hand.

A southward breeze from the creek cooled the air as they walked toward the cabin. For tomorrow, his to-do list seemed endless: call the California Fortiers, meet with the insurance agent about the New Orleans house, check in with his house sitter in New York, pay bills (as many as he could), and meet again with Kevin to discuss the legalities of fighting for the Silver Creek land. He'd promised to call the guys in the band, who he hadn't talked to since Tokyo, to let them know what was going on. And even though he was no longer hopeful about Simon's survival, he had to find out what happened to him. Had he struggled, suffered? Had anyone tried to help him? He needed to know.

But now, the desperate urgency had pa.s.sed; the tears had calmed him, ushered in resignation, acceptance. Simon was gone. But he had Vel with him, and was suddenly aware of the difference one person-the right person-could make when the rest of your life was as off-course as a storm-tumbled boat at sea.

As they neared the house, Julian stopped, reached for Velmyra and pulled her into his chest. Her face was moist, cool. The tender, soft kiss was as natural as breathing, without awkwardness or effort.

"I'm just now figuring out something." He leaned his cheek against her forehead.

"What's that?"

"How much I missed you all this time."

The quiet of the creek gave way to the faint crowing of a rooster somewhere in the distance. He reached again for her hand, and as soon as they had walked up the steps to the porch, the pop, pop, pop pop, pop, pop of gunshots, each one closer than the one before, fired in the night. of gunshots, each one closer than the one before, fired in the night.

13.

The door to 291 on the East Wing was half closed, but the young, Latina nurse heard the groan of the electronic equipment, the rhythm of the heart monitor, and the hum of the oxygen machine before she'd entered. An IV bag hung next to his bed, feeding him through the one bulbous vein in his bony left hand, while his right hand lay across his chest as if he were pledging allegiance to an unseen flag. His thin face was a parched landscape of patchy white stubble. His eyebrows arched upward in a nuanced frown and his dry lips gapped slightly, as if he were organizing his thoughts to begin a speech of major importance.

"h.e.l.lo, mister, how you doing today?" the young nurse whispered as she leaned toward the old man's ear. She smiled, patted his hand, then looked at the chart at the foot of his bed and checked his numbers. His blood pressure, though still high, was down considerably, and his oxygen saturation oscillated from soso to fairly good, but from what she could tell, he still hadn't had a moment of true consciousness. Clearly, he wasn't in the best shape, but something about him told her this one was a fighter, unlike so many of the John Does that drift into the emergency room of Mercy.

She'd been there the day they brought him in, took one look at him, and said, "He'll never make it." She'd asked about him and learned he'd been found a mile from the hospital, pa.s.sed out on a bench near the access road to the highway that led into town. A middle-aged white couple, sixties hippie types, had pulled their van over onto the shoulder. Seeing he was still breathing, they hauled him into the back seat of their van and made tracks to the emergency room.

So many stories like that since the flood-people wandering away from torn lives like nomads in search of terra firma, some dry plot of earth not threatened by broken levees and rising water. When he had been placed in a room on Two East, though he wasn't her patient, she'd still gone in to check on him. His face, weathered and rough from what must have been an extreme ordeal, still possessed an angelic calm, and his chest rose and fell ever so slightly with each faint, steady breath. Somebody's looking for him, Somebody's looking for him, she'd thought. This man was no vagrant. She'd imagined him in a dining room full of laughter, sitting at the head of a Thanksgiving table, great-grands bouncing on his knee. she'd thought. This man was no vagrant. She'd imagined him in a dining room full of laughter, sitting at the head of a Thanksgiving table, great-grands bouncing on his knee.

No one else was there, so in a moment of impulse, she had squeezed his hand.

His fingers were callused, steel-wool rough and dry. "Squeeze back." She'd whispered. "Tell me you hear me."

She knew it was harder for the ones like this, the ones with no family present, no memory-triggering voices to remind them of blood bonds and guide them through the wilderness of their barren minds.

She'd said it over and over again-Squeeze my hand, tell me you hear me-and kept clenching his hand, even through part of her lunch break. After fifteen or twenty minutes, she was about to give up when she felt a tiny, feeble pressing into her palm.

"Dios mio," she had whispered. "Do it again! Do it one more time." she had whispered. "Do it again! Do it one more time."

She'd needed to know that it wasn't just her imagination, it had really happened. But the next time she'd gotten nothing. She'd told the nurse supervisor, who'd also tried, and gotten nothing.

"Well, he might be in there somewhere." The nurse supervisor had released his hand and shaken her head. "But if he is, he's still got a long road ahead. He's so thin. And besides his blood pressure getting a little better, he's not showing us much."

That had been weeks ago. The young nurse was barely in her twenties-new to the routine-but had seen enough to know his chances were not good; his age worked against him and her supervisor had been right. His breathing, though steady, was shallow. At first figuring him to be in his late sixties, the young nurse remembered the jokes of her black girlfriends in nursing school whose racial bragging rights included phrases like "black don't crack," referring to the age-defying complexions of African Americans. She had a feeling he could be older than he looked.

Now, she looked up to see a round-figured, chubby-faced black nurse, her thick braids piled atop her head like a swirl of soft-serve ice cream, enter the room. They exchanged silent smiles.

"He a friend of yours?" The black nurse reached up to replace his IV bag.

"No." The young R.N. shook her head. "I just saw him when they brought him in."

"Well, he belongs in ICU, except with the flood and everything there's no beds down there," the black nurse said. "Somebody said they thought this one walked all the way from New Orleans or somewhere down there. In this heat, can you believe it? But I guess you do what you gotta do, you know?"

"Do they still not know who he is?"

"No. n.o.body's even called about him. So many folks missing down that way, and a lot of folks don't even know where to look. He didn't have any ID on him. All he had was an old Bible."

"May I see it?"

"I don't know what they did with it. Check the drawer on the night stand over there."

The young R.N. walked to the side of the bed near the large window and opened the drawer to the oak night table. The Gideon Bible? Surely she couldn't have meant that. She placed it aside and kept looking. Housekeeping had apparently washed his clothes; a neatly folded shirt of bright red flannel, a sleeveless undershirt, and a pair of khaki pants lay beneath the Gideon Bible. Odd that he would have worn a long-sleeve shirt in such heat Odd that he would have worn a long-sleeve shirt in such heat. She ran her fingers along the smooth cotton of the red shirt; it was thick, not at all the weight for these humid summer months. Maybe he'd grabbed something to wear that would make him most visible, attract the attention of pa.s.sers-by. Or perhaps he was thinking of protecting his arms from the blazing sun.

She opened another drawer and there lay a larger book, the words "Holy Bible" embossed in gold, and the corners of the thick skin of black leather frayed to brown.

She opened it. The leather was hardened but it was otherwise intact; corners of the onion-skin pages were water-rippled, stained the color of tea. She found the name page.

Ever since they moved to North America from Cuernavaca, her own family had kept such a Bible, where on the first page the births of each family member had been listed, from her grandparents to her own young children. There was clearly writing on the page, but dirt or stains had blurred the family name.

All she needed was a last name, just something to go by, anything at all would help. With a closer look at the faded ink, she could just make out the first three letters of the last name.

She took the Bible and placed it on the bed next to the old man. She leaned over to whisper in his ear, and took his hand in hers.

"Mr... ah...Foreman?" she tried. "Forrest? Mr. Forrest?"

He didn't respond, of course. But she held on to his hand, squeezing and releasing in a rhythmic pattern...squeeze, release, two, three, four, squeeze, release...

After the fourth squeeze, she felt his hand gently closing around hers.

She sucked in a small sharp breath. She reached for the nurse's call b.u.t.ton and soon after she pressed it, the heart monitor droned in a loud, continuous beep. She looked up at the machine, the green numbers changing rapidly. Her own heart raced as she watched his begin to fail.

She rushed to the wall and pressed the alarm b.u.t.ton for Code Blue.

In the next few minutes there was a flurry of activity as a team of three tried to revive him. His pressure was dropping, but there was still a pulse, still a chance.