Less than two months after his diagnosis, my father stopped speaking. One week after that, he stopped getting out of bed on his own. I had no choice but to place him in a facility capable of monitoring his condition and taking care of him on a day-to-day basis. He spent his remaining six years in Cloverdale Assisted Living in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. I visited often, and I always found him in the same place, in his wheelchair at a large window overlooking the west lawn and a small duck pond.
Prior to his death, the nurses said he never spoke while awake, but he often mumbled in his sleep. He said the name, David Pickford, often, but they could make out nothing else. When they asked if that name meant something to me, I told them no.
My father died for the second time at his favorite window. For that, I was grateful. I wanted him to find peace with what he had done. I wanted to forgive him, and I told him that I did. I found it far easier to convince him of this than it was to convince myself.
Prior to the disease taking complete hold, my father signed power of attorney over his estate to me, and with Matteo’s help, I was able to complete a financial picture. Without going into detail here, this being a painful subject for me, we found Charter sent my father ten thousand dollars per month beginning one month after my mother died and continuing until the middle of 1996, about two years after Pickford “cleaned up” Charter. He had left many of the employees with instructions akin to autopilot, and someone in accounting saw fit to continue payments to my father.
Part of me wanted to hate my father, and I suppose few would blame me if I did, but in my thirty plus years on the planet, I learned life is far too short and fragile to harbor hate in your heart. It eats at your soul, burns but doesn’t burn. I told myself he did what he felt was right at the time. Fault should not be found in a man protecting his family with the tools provided, only in those who did not try. My father tried. He risked retaliation from Charter every month he sent me money as a kid by way of Preacher.
My father invested his assets wisely, and on the day he died, his estate was worth nearly six million dollars. I donated all of it to Alzheimer’s research. I had no need for his money.
If my father’s death was due to the shot, we never found proof. To this day, Cammie and Preacher show no signs of illness. Stella and I watch closely whenever we’re together. I’m sure Darby does, too.
In the fall of 1999, about a year after the events at Carrie Furnace, I returned to college. I didn’t go back to Penn State. The memories were far too strong. Instead, I went to Carnegie Mellon and earned a degree in art. I learned to enjoy painting, drawing, and sketching again. I’ve had several small showings over the years, mostly friends and family, but nice, nonetheless. If you happen to find yourself in a doctor’s office or bank in the Pittsburgh area, take a look at the paintings on the wall—you may find one with J. Thatch scrawled in the bottom right. A couple others with Pip.
The day I received my diploma from Carnegie Mellon, Dewitt Matteo and Tess were in the audience. I’d be lying if I said Matteo wasn’t ecstatic. He said, although Auntie Jo’s instructions explicitly said I needed to attend Penn State, they did not say I needed to earn out my degree there. He felt this was enough of a loophole to unfreeze the hold on my trust and grant access to the funds she left for me. As executor of the trust, he did, and with nobody to contest, I became a wealthy man that year.
Part of the funds were used to buy a small farm up near Moraine State Park. We live there to this day.
“Can we go soon? I’m hungry.”
“Soon, Dalton. One more quick stop, okay?”
“Oh, all right.”
I picked the name Dalton because I knew how much it would irk his Uncle Preacher. To this day, he despised his real name.
I hadn’t seen him in nearly a year. After the furnace in ’98, he stuck around for a few days. Then one morning, the Pontiac GTO was no longer outside and he was gone. No note, no forwarding address. He insisted he was a nomad and sitting still was not an option. He went back to that thing he did. If you had asked my kid-self if I would ever consider calling a hitman my friend, I probably would have said ‘absolutely,’ because what young boy doesn’t want a hitman as a friend? Preacher was and always will be considered a guardian angel in my mind. His wings might be dirty, but there was a good man in there. Every time I spotted a white SUV in my rearview, I took solace in the fact that there was also a black GTO out there somewhere, a balance in the universe.
“You fold the blanket, I’ll put away lunch and the radio.”
Dalton frowned up at me. “I don’t know why you bring that thing. It never works out here. Next year we should bring an iPod.”
I smiled but said nothing to this. I liked that old transistor radio.
Our things gathered, I reached out and took my son’s tiny little hand in mine. We walked to the east, past several mature oaks and a small reflecting pool, to a single grave under the shade of a willow. I pulled a rag from our picnic basket and wiped off the white marble. Then I replaced the flowers in the vase with the last rose we brought along, this one yellow.
“Who is Gerdy McCowen?” Dalton asked.
“Someone special.”
“Geez, you know lots of dead people.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at this. “Yeah, I suppose I do. Can you give me a second?”
“Will I get in trouble if I skip rocks on that pond?”
“I think you’ll be okay.”
When he was gone but still within eyeshot, I knelt down at Gerdy’s grave and closed my eyes.
“I like to think you’re with me every day. Whenever I feel the warmth of the sun, or hear someone laugh, I think of you. You were always the bright spot in one of the darkest chapters of my life, and I don’t think I would have made it out the other side if I hadn’t known you. I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you those first few years. I’ve got my head on straight now. I know what’s important. And you, Gerdy McCowen, will always be one of those important sparks in my life.” I paused for a second and looked back over one of the hills to my right. “I stopped by and said hi to Krendal and Lurline, too. I always pictured him running the cafeteria up there in heaven, with lines running out the door and around the next cloud.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
My eyes snapped open, and I spun around perhaps a little faster than I probably should have.
I found Detective Joy Fogel standing about half a dozen paces behind me.
