Nostalgia

He started to speak, then paused. "A difficult thing, trying to put words to something so perfect and new. I mean, how do you describe snow the first time you feel it hit your cheek? How do you describe rain when all you've known is the dessert?"

I started to answer in some flippant way, but Felix cut me off. "The answer is, 'not well,'" he said, then smiled. "What Rose and I shared that night is special. I think I ought to leave it at that."

I nodded. "Maybe you should."

With a heavy, groaning sigh, the old man straightened in his stool, then pushed back and slid heavy, aged feet to the floor. He took the down-filled parka hanging off the back of his chair and slipped it on, in the process giving me a glimpse of a single red rose in the inside breast pocket. But it disappeared quickly enough as the thick lapels slapped to his chest.

"I feel like I need to round it out," Felix said, as if in afterthought. He hesitated by the bar, weathered old fingers tapping the rim of his glass in contemplation.

"Maybe you can tell me the rest Saturday night," I offered.

He shook his head beneath a cloud of dry, silvery hair. "We went for a drive around the lake in my car," he said, voice hollow and distant. "But that's a story for a different life, I think."

Leaving me with that last, cryptic phrase, Felix stepped from the bar and headed toward the door. The burst of algid air that accompanied his departure swept through the bar like the obnoxious breath of Old Man Winter. Even the inebriated, salacious blonde and her brunette girlfriend shivered through the shield of inebriation.

I caught their eye as I glanced away from the door. "Closing time," I announced.

* * * *

Half an hour later, the bar was empty as I went through it, switching off the lights. The speakers still played a medley of classic Christmas tunes intermingled with more contemporary ones. Bing Crosby bled into Elvis, Brian Adams into U2 and then more recent fare. The only lights that remained on where the green, gold and crimson orbs glowing in the front windows.

Leaving behind the strong aroma of cigarettes and cheap perfume, I stepped through the small kitchen, bidding Juan, the dishwasher, a good night before opening the door to the office. My great-uncle Jerry sat slumped in his chair before a glowing computer screen awash with multicolored ribbons of light. I gently nudged him awake with my hand on his shoulder.

"Wh-what? I wasn't gambling! It was just cards!"

I chuckled, stepping back. "Relax, Uncle Jerry," I said.

He blinked, coming awake. Passing a parchment-like hand over his face, he groaned and shook himself back to consciousness. "What time is it?"

"Two-thirty. Time to go home."

He nodded, smacking dry lips and grimacing. "We got any fresh coffee?"

I glanced back to the little white Coffee-Mate in the nook behind the office door. "Define 'fresh.'"

He grumbled, grey mustache twitching. "Just give it to me."

I poured him a cup, tossed in two creamers and a spoonful of sugar, then stirred the mixture before giving it to him. "That Felix is a hell of a story teller," I commented as I handed Jerry the cup.

His eyes looked tired and dark beneath a wiry brow. "Told you stories about the good old days, huh?" he quipped.

"I guess," I answered. "More like an old man basking in the glory of his youth."

"Is that what he called it."

My great-uncle's deadpan and grave reply made me rethink my earlier assessment of his relationship with Felix. I took a chance. "You know him, don't you?"

Jerry soured, saying nothing as he sipped his bitter, lukewarm coffee. In a flash, I went through all I knew about my grandfather's brother. He was the youngest of three, and being in his mid-seventies, was of the right age to have served in Korea . . . .

Christ, I thought as a revelation occurred to me.

"There's two ways you can know anyone," Jerry said before I had a chance to voice my suspicion. "By association, and by reputation. I never knew Felix personally."

"But you knew him by reputation," I said, prodding.

Jerry nodded. "Only once I came back home after the war," he confirmed tiredly. "Two days after the new year. I had a lot to look forward to. A clean life away from war, my family, a job . . . ."

"Rose?" I offered carefully.

His eyes flashed with suppressed anger mixed with regret. But like Felix, Jerry's eyes faded into reticence quickly. He nodded. "Yeah. Rose. My Rose."

I fell silent, not sure what to say. I felt like an unwitting mediator between a pair of crotchety old men too wrapped up in their own narrow views of the world to risk clashing them together.

"I guess he gave you a real nice story," Jerry went on. "All about true love and first times and all that bullshit."

I frowned. "'Bullshit?'"

Jerry showed crooked yellow teeth as he laughed mirthlessly. "I'm betting the way he painted things, it didn't come across that he raped my fiance."

I recoiled, feeling a distinct tightness in my chest. "What?"

"You're a bright kid, but you're still naive about some things," my great-uncle said blandly. "Did he tell you what happened when they went for a drive around the lake?"

I blinked, feeling numb. "No."

"The car went off the road, ended up in the lake," Jerry informed with a hard edge to his voice. "I figure they'd been fighting. Maybe she tried to jump out. Nobody knows for certain . . . except that Felix swam out, and she didn't. They found her the next day, still in the car."

I swallowed thickly, shivering as a chill ran down my spine.

Uncle Jerry suddenly turned away, alertness compelling him to finish the day's books. "Ah, who the fuck knows anymore? After fifty-six years--"

"Was there an investigation?" I managed to ask.

He paused, half looking over his shoulder at me. "Yeah. No fault. That's what they found."

"So . . . maybe it was just an accident."

"Depends what you call an accident," Jerry said in an acidic voice. "Was it an accident that I got assigned to a patrol that kept me in Korea three months longer than my tour? Was it an accident that some goddamn supply clerk comes home in time to seduce my Rose away from me? Or was it just a fucking accident that I fell in love with her in the first place? You tell me, because you got about as much insight into the works of God as I do."

To say that I felt Jerry's pain – vicariously at best, I admit – would be an understatement. "I wish I could," I said at last.

"Yeah," he scratched out through a dry throat. "Me, too."

* * * *

Only three hours into Christmas day, and I felt like I was carrying the weight of two different worlds upon my shoulders. On one side was balanced that of the strange old man, Felix, and on the other, the supposed betrothed of his lover, my great-uncle Jerry. Two men, two worlds, and not a satisfactory conclusion for either.

I made an effort to push those worlds behind me as I exited the service door of the bar. A new blanket of snow had filtered down from the heavens, riding the slightest of breezes so as to land like a gentle blanket upon the land. I managed to shed a smile at the simple pleasure of catching a few flakes of snow on my tongue, and told myself that the heaviness of the evening would be gone by the time I awoke in the morning.

I suppose it will ever be a question of chance or providence that I happened to glance to the front door through which the patrons came and went. Perhaps I'll never know.

But there, just to the side of the doorway, away from traffic, lay a single red rose, partially covered with the fresh, pure flakes of Christmas snow, petals glowing gently with an innate crimson radiance. My immediate thought was that it had somehow fallen from Felix' coat, but how could that be, unless he had taken it out upon exiting. My eyes searched the myriad tracks leading to the parking lot, where they degenerated into greasy sludge. If the old man's feet had gone that way, I had no chance of following.

So I bent and took up the rose and carried it to my car. I set it upon the passenger seat and drove home, whereupon fatigue bade me forget about it as I stumbled into my parents' house on the edge of town. Once inside, I delved carefully through darkness so as to avoid awakening the others, and made my way quietly to bed.

That night, I dreamed of snow and iced-over lakes, of passionate gasps and cries, of forlorn groans and painful wails.

* * * *

The little television in my room at my parents' house flickered as I came awake. Apparently, I had left the device on a local station, which was broadcasting the noon news as I awoke.

". . . city workers this morning discovered the frozen body of an elderly man, tentatively identified as Felix Lautner, 77 on the southern shore of Lake Shannon, in Old Tree Park. Cause of death is as yet unconfirmed, but suicide is not being ruled out since the body was found sitting up and there was no evidence of foul play. Results of a toxicology screen are pending."

I blinked my foggy eyes awake, the reality of the news anchor's words slicing through the miasma like a woodsman's saw. The camera angle changed, showing a black and white photograph obviously taken a good half century before floating on the screen beside the anchor's head. It depicted uniformed men from the era standing amid snow-laden banks, looking toward a car being dragged out from the waters of the lake.

"The discovery of the body, and the apparent name of the deceased, comes on the fifty-sixth anniversary of the death of Rosemarie Anne Carter, who, along with a then twenty-one-year-old Felix Lautner, drove into Shannon Lake on Christmas Eve. Miss Carter drowned, but Lautner survived, giving rise to a flurry of rumors surrounding the tragedy. Despite being absolved of any wrongdoing in the death of Miss Carter, Felix Lautner's innocence was never completely accepted by the community--"

I jumped out of bed, needing not to hear anymore. I rushed to pull on my clothes and dashed to the bathroom down the hall, ignoring the intoxicating scents of gingerbread and roasting turkey, the excited laughter and squeals of my sister's and cousins' kids. I didn't bother shaving, just brushed my teeth and fixed my clothes. I rambled down the stairs, pausing briefly as I caught my mother's eye as she stood in the kitchen along with my grandfather and great uncle Jerry.

Beyond them, the small television on the kitchen counter flickered quietly, showing the same newscast I had been watching.

"Honey?" my mother asked tentatively, smiling crookedly. "Are you all right? I'm sorry if the kids woke you, but it is Christmas--"

"It's fine," I said, trying to appear calm. I shot Jerry a brief look. His features were like the face of David, as always. Stoic and unreadable. But I could see a quiet storm swirling behind his eyes, a tumult of conflicted thoughts.

"Well, you want some breakfast? You're a little late for pancakes, and too early for turkey, but I could make you an omelet, I guess."

"I can feed myself, mom," I said, touching her arm. I leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for letting me sleep in."

She smiled, the way only a mother can, conveying a sort of chastising forgiveness. Then she looked past me toward her uncle. "I have a feeling you two have something to do," she said sagely, then touched my cheek. "Dinner's at three."

I nodded. "Thanks, mom."

* * * *

I had expected yellow crime scene tape stretched across stakes hammered into the ground, perhaps surrounding some kind of tape outline in the snow. But the only things that marked where Felix' body had been discovered were trampled snow and a vague depression wherein, I figured, had been found the old man's body.

The scene was eerily tranquil. A few boats bobbed lazily on the surface of the lake; joggers in their best winter workout garb circumnavigated the edge of the lake. Less than a hundred feet away, a happy young couple held hands as they stared out over the still winter waters, faces rosy and noses red, eyes aglow with love.

I looked down at where Felix had been found, imagining him seated as he slowly froze to death, staring out at the lake in which, more than half a century before, Rose Carter had drowned. What had he felt as he died? Remorse? Regret? Or maybe just the simple pain of survivor's guilt mingled with the sense of acceptance?

I'll never know, I thought, holding the single red rose in my hands. In my periphery, Uncle Jerry appeared, stone-faced as always, narrow eyes staring out across the lake. "You think Felix would appreciate a gesture like that?"

A weary sigh escaped me. "Yeah, I do," I answered, then looked sidelong to my great uncle. "You still think he raped her?"

Jerry didn't speak, but I could see his jaw muscles working beneath leathery old skin.

"You ever think, all this time, he was telling the truth?"

"I considered it. But, like I said, what does it matter anymore? It's been fifty-six years, now."

"Then maybe it's time two old men finally came to terms with their grief," I said in a tone I had never used with my grandfather's brother before.

He gave me a look that would normally have been a prelude to some condescending diatribe about age and experience and "knowing the ways of the world." But it didn't come. Instead, it seemed, an old man who had always lived his life alone, who had always been the dour old curmudgeon throughout my entire life . . . for a moment, he appeared to become human.

"I hated the man," he said in a strangled voice, forcing the words out. His eyes reddened, then watered. "I thought I always would."

"I know."

He sniffled once, making a supreme effort to hold back tears which had been welling inside for more than five decades. "Jesus, what the hell am I supposed to do? I'm too old to change my mind now."

I fidgeted. This was new territory between my stony old great uncle and I. "I don't know what to tell you," I said. "I don't have another fifty years of experience and life wisdom under my belt to even qualify to tell you what to do. But, maybe it's just me being young and stupid and not knowing squat about anything . . . it just seems to me that there's no use being angry anymore. Felix is dead, Uncle Jerry."

He nodded sagely. "Yeah, he's gone, and so is my Rose, and I still don't know what the hell happened between them. For the longest time, I just wanted to believe he took advantage of her, abused her, even killed her. It was a hell of a lot easier than to think the woman I wanted to be my wife had fallen in love with someone else. Easier to use that as an excuse to stay miserable for the rest of my life."

I was quiet for a moment, looking down at the rose in my hands, when an epiphany fell upon me. A smile pulled at the edges of my mouth as I held up the rose before Jerry. "Tell me if I'm wrong, but you're life isn't over yet."

Jerry frowned, looking first to the rose, then to me. I didn't know what was going behind his eyes at that moment, but I could have sworn I saw at least a flicker of life in there somewhere. Hesitantly, he accepted the rose, holding it like Arthur when presented with the Holy Grail.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" he asked as I stepped away.

"I don't know," I called back as I made my way up the bank. "It's your rose, not mine."

~finis~

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