Blood Memory

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

He shrugs. “I thought I could deal with it myself. Your father was standing outside your house. I thought he’d left for the island, but he’d been down in the barn, working on one of his sculptures. He’d heard something, too. Luke was holding the old Remington rifle he brought back from Vietnam.”

“The one that hung over our fireplace?”

“That’s right. The 700.”

“So he went into the slave quarters to get that?”

“Apparently so.”

“And then?”

“We separated. I went to look behind Pearlie’s house, while Luke circled around yours. I was on the far side of Pearlie’s house when I heard the shot. I raced around to the garden and found Luke lying dead. Shot in the chest.”

“Are you sure he was dead then? Did you check his pulse?”

“I spent a year in combat in the Pacific, Catherine. I know a gunshot death when I see it.” His voice has the kind of edge that closes further questions in that line.

“Did you see the prowler?”

“You know I did.”

“Please just tell me what you saw.”

“A man ru

“Did you chase him?”

“No. I ran into your house to make sure you and Gwen were all right.”

I try to picture this scene. “Were we?”

“Your mother was asleep, but you weren’t in your bed.”

“What did you do?”

He closes his eyes in recollection. “The telephone rang. It was Pearlie, calling from the main house. She and your grandmother were in a panic. She asked if you were all right. I said you were, but at that point I didn’t know.”

“Did you tell her to call the police?”

“She’d already called them.”

“What happened then?”

“I searched the house for you.”

“And?”

“I didn’t find you. I was worried, but I knew the man I saw ru

“Did you wake Mom up?”

“No, I knew Gwen would panic. But she soon woke up on her own. She didn’t believe Luke was dead, so I walked her out to look at his body.”

“Did she ask where I was?”

“The truth? Not at first. She wasn’t in very good shape. She’d taken a sedative. I think she assumed you were asleep in your bed.”

How many mothers would assume that under those circumstances? “Was there a lot of blood around Daddy’s body?”

Grandpapa tilts his head from side to side, as though filtering his memory of my father’s corpse through decades of surgical experience. “Enough. The bullet clipped the pulmonary artery, and there was a good-sized exit wound.”

“Enough for what?”

“For someone to track blood into your room, I suppose.” My grandfather’s face gives away nothing.

“When did I turn up?”

“Right after the police arrived. I was telling them what happened when you walked up out of the dark.”

“From the direction of our house?”

“I didn’t see where you came from. But I remember the eastern slave quarters behind you, so I guess so.”

“Was I wearing shoes?”

“I have no idea. I wouldn’t think so.”

“Did I get close to Daddy’s body?”

“You were practically on top of him before anyone noticed you.”

I close my eyes, willing my memory of that image back into the dark where I keep it. “Was the prowler you saw ru

“Black.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“What kind of shoes were you wearing that night?” I didn’t mean to ask this aloud, but it’s too late to take it back.

“I wore boots during the day back then, but that nightI don’t recall.”

“Did you go into my room after the murder?”

“I did. To help your mother calm you down.”

“Was I upset?”

“Not that a stranger could tell. You didn’t make a sound. But I could see it. Pearlie was the only one you’d let hold you. She had to rock you in the chair like she did when you were a baby. That’s the only way we got you to sleep.”

I remember that feeling, if not that specific night. Pearlie rocked me to sleep on many nights, and long after I was a baby.

“Well.” He takes a conclusive breath. “Have I told you what you needed to know?”

I haven’t begun to get the answers I want, but at this point I’m not sure what the right questions are. “Who do you think the prowler was, Grandpapa?”

“No idea.”

“Pearlie thinks it might have been a friend of Daddy’s, looking for drugs.”

Grandpapa appears to debate with himself about whether to comment on this. Then he says, “That’s a fair assumption. Luke took a lot of prescription drugs. And I caught him growing marijuana down on the island more than once.”

“I never knew that.”

“Of course you didn’t. Anyway, I worried at times that he might be selling the stuff. When he was killed, I thought of telling the police to explore that avenue, but in the end I decided against it.”

“Why?”

“What could it do but bring calumny on the family name?”

Of course. The family name matters more than anything, even justice. I want to ask him the final question I put to Pearlie. But Grandpapa always saw my father as weak, and if he’d believed that fatal rifle shot had been self-inflicted, he wouldn’t have concealed from anyone this vindication of his instincts-not even to protect the family name. Because he didn’t really see my father as part of the family. And yetthere could be factors I know nothing about. My mother, for example.

“Did you really see a prowler that night, Grandpapa?”

His eyes widen, and for a moment I’m certain my blind shot has struck home. Before he speaks, he reaches out and drains the last of his Scotch. “Exactly what are you asking me, Catherine?”

“Did Daddy shoot himself that night? Did he commit suicide?”

Grandpapa raises a hand to his chin and massages the flesh beneath it. His eyes are unreadable, but I see a shadow of conflict in them. “If you’re asking me whether I think Luke was capable of suicide, my answer is yes. He was severely depressed a good deal of the time. But that nighteverything happened just as I said. He died trying to protect his home and family. I’ll give the boy that.”

Only when I exhale do I realize how long I’ve been holding my breath. I feel such relief that it takes a supreme act of will not to get up and take a slug of vodka from the bottle on the sideboard. Instead, I stand and gather my fax pages from the table.

“You hardly draw anything from your trust fund nowadays,” Grandpapa remarks. “You don’t spend money anymore?”

I shrug. “I like earning my own.”

“I wish the rest of the family would take a page from your book.”

I take this for what it is, a thinly veiled insult to my mother and aunt, but most of all to my father. “You really didn’t like him, did you? Daddy, I mean. Tell the truth.”

Grandpapa’s eyes don’t waver. “I don’t think I made a secret of that. Perhaps I should have, but I’m no hypocrite.”

“Why didn’t you like him? Was it just oil and water?”

“A lot of it was the war, Catherine. Luke’s war. Vietnam. His mental problems, I guess.”

“He was wounded, too, you know.” I still recall the line of holes in Daddy’s back, caused by shrapnel from a booby-trapped artillery round. I always got chills when he removed his shirt.

“Luke’s physical wound wasn’t his problem.”

“You don’t know what he went through over there!” I cry defensively, though I don’t really know either.

“That’s true,” Grandpapa admits. “I don’t.”

“I heard some of the things you used to say to him. How Vietnam wasn’t a real war. How it wasn’t nearly as tough as Iwo or Guadalcanal.”

He stares curiously at me, as though wondering how an eight-year-old child could remember something like that. “I did say those things, Catherine. And in the time since, I’ve realized I might have been wrong. To an extent, anyway. Vietnam was a different kind of war, and I didn’t understand that then. But by God, I saw things in the Pacific that were about as bad as a man can see, and I didn’t let it paralyze me. A few men did-good men, some of them-and I guess maybe Luke was like them. Shell shock, the doctors called it then. Or battle fatigue. I’m afraid we just called it, well-”