THE FIGUREAT THE FOUNTAIN

byShirley Ann Parker

© Copyright 1999, 2001, 2011 Shirley Ann Parker All Rights Reserved

Cover Photo: Red Flower © Copyright 2009 Miles Tanner. Used by permission.

Short story is excerpted from Discoveries: A Journey Through Life

Published by:

Infinity Publishing.com1094 New Dehaven Street, Suite 100Conshohocken, PA 19428-2913

www.shirleyannparker.com

The author may be contacted at topazcove@pacbell.net

THE FIGURE AT THE FOUNTAIN

"Why did you come back now, Jim? What can you do?"

Last night's questions from his sister Elizabeth echoed in his mind as he paced nervously. Only dimly aware of the books and guns and Mexican artifacts in the study, he was totally unaware of breaking into tiny pieces the long stems of dry grass absently carried back from the summer-brown hills. His morning ride had provided neither answers nor inspiration, only questions.

Worse, now he was bewildered by a vision. His ten-year-old gelding had seen something, someone, that should not have been there, could not have been there, yet was. And Jim had seen her, too, though she was three years dead.

"I'm not crazy! Oro felt what I felt, saw what I saw," he assured himself. "But it's impossible.”

As Jim rode along the pathway near the flower garden, placid, imperturbable Oro had shied away. Something more than the mewing tabby cat had spooked the palomino; at a walk, Oro often allowed a cat to ride in front of the saddle, sometimes clinging to his white mane.

No, it was Jim's mother—his dead mother—who had startled Oro; she was there by the fountain. Jim had seen only her shimmer that time, but had he put out his hand, he would have touched her. Of that, he was sure. Her presence radiated a powerful aura there in her favorite place.

Oro balked a second time, sidestepping stiffly. Jim was forced to spur the horse past and out to the back road that ran east on the land, looking back, but at nothing, as he did so. Later, they both saw her, standing under the pepper tree, in a white embroidered blouse and a long, red, flowing skirt. Oro reared back, trembling, snorting. Staring in disbelief, Jim guided Oro in a wide circle around the pepper tree, unwilling this time to force the animal to deal with something he himself did not know how to handle.

From a distance, he called her. "Mother? Mother!"

She seemed to smile. He blinked, and she was gone.

They returned to the stables by way of the lemon grove and the southern creek. Agitated, Jim dismounted and stretched his stocky frame on the creek bank to splash cool water over his head while Oro drank.

Examining the flower garden closely afterward, Jim found no trace of anyone having been there but Emilio, the gardener, on his morning rounds. He lingered. Jim had often thought they should have buried his mother here, among her flowers and birds and sprinkling water. The courtyard was so much like the patios of the old Spanish missions along the coast; in all of them

a somnolence existed always that was rarely found elsewhere, except in peaceful country cemeteries on a drowsy afternoon.

Jim had been a withdrawn, solitary child for many years. A child who liked his daytime visits to graveyards, looked forward to them. He felt then as he did now, that the dead were not dead at all. They were neither moldering bodies nor dry bones. And why were they referred to in hushed tones—by adults, at least—as "the sleeping"? Poetry alone could not be sufficient reason.

More than once, as he lay staring up at the drifting puffs of clouds, Jim had heard the souls come awake to talk to each other. The voices floated over to him from different spots in the cemetery; they were soft and low but sprightly. No sonorous boomings, no shriekings, no rattlings of chains. Some had the merry resonance of children playing; others had the laughing assurance of youth; still more, many more, seemed caught in the pleasant throes of rocking back and forth in excited contemplation. Of what? He could never catch that last phrase, strain his ears as he might. And soon, they and he dozed.

But those beliefs left over from childhood were ideas that even all-tolerant Elizabeth would have difficulty not ridiculing, were he to voice them.

Now, a trail of grass fragments and drying mud from the creek bank littered the burnt orange carpet. Jim paused at sight of them, a flash of annoyance surfacing.

"Rosaria hasn't vacuumed in here this week?"

As he realized where the mess had come from, he dropped the final pieces of grass deliberately, ruefully shaking his head.

"If I were Rosaria, I'd mash me to a pulp!"

Like a child, he waved his hands through the dancing dust motes of the sunbeam pouring boldly through the east-facing window. Jim knew it gave his collar-length brown hair an unworldly glow but also knew he was too out-of-step with the rules and regulations of the present world to ever qualify as an angel in the next.

Through the open sliding door of the study, he heard the phone ring within the house. Without thinking, he reached for the extension that had never been there. One of the old man's idiosyncrasies, he remembered; Dad could never stand to be jangled out of his concentration while working or reading.

"That's the first thing I'll change," said Jim, "if I'm going to stay."

If he was going to stay? Had he arrived home to claim what was his? To claim what he had no use for? The old man would never know he had even made the effort to see him and would wonder why, if he did know. And had anyone actually seen a copy of the Will, except the lawyer? Dad was a peculiar old goat, he thought. He might, just might, have done something unimaginable, like leaving everything to charity after being quite a miser all his life.

Jim had gone straight to the nursing home from the airport yesterday. He had placed three red carnations in his unconscious father's hand, thinking vaguely that maybe he could enjoy the fragrance, anyway. His father loved flowers, especially carnations. Probably that was the only characteristic Jim was absolutely certain of, outside of the old man's sternness.

He turned his head as the sandals of a still-slender Rosaria slapped lightly across the tiled lobby. The family had known Rosaria since she was a young woman, newly arrived from Baja.

She had worked part-time, then full-time for the household for thirty years, her husband for twenty-five. Their three children had grown up here.

Jim opened the inner door before she knocked. "For me, is it?" he asked.

"Sí, señor. Your sister says muy importante, señor."

"Thanks, Rosaria. I'm sorry about the mess I made."

She looked past him. "¡Ay, señor! Indeed! Well, no matter, señor."

She went energetically down the hall toward the closet where the vacuum cleaner was stored, practicing an imprecation under her breath.

Jim strode quickly down the hall and grabbed the black receiver. Another of Dad's eccentricities.

"Liz? What's up?"

"Jim, Dad's conscious. He actually asked to see you!"

"I don't believe it. OK, I'll get over there."

He dropped the receiver clumsily into its cradle, felt in his pocket for car keys, and hurried outside into the rapidly warming day. Emilio, grabbing at his battered hat, jumped quickly behind a Royal palm, snaking the garden hose with him, as the rented blue Buick hurtled down the winding driveway past him. Looking through a window, Rosaria clapped roughened hands to her honey-colored cheeks.

"¡Ay, señor! Two funerals we have, for cierto. And you still smelling like your horse!"

How many years had it been? Jim's thoughts were outstripping the irritated stop-and-go of tourist traffic. Not that he objected to their being tourists. They might not all be, anyway. If he had brought his own Chevy, he would have been considered a tourist, too, instead of the native Californian that he was. License tags do not always a true tale tell, he thought, screeching to a sickening stop behind a carload of jumping, wriggling kids from Missouri. But was this one reason he had fled, to get away from huge crowds?

Seven years had slipped by since he had left home in a rush of youthful defiance and independence and frustration. Three years had ticked away since he had stopped in for a two-week visit, although he had kept in touch as well as the average man does with no wife to write letters for him. Most poignantly, his mother had died during that visit. It had shocked Jim, for he had not remembered anyone telling him she was that ill from her diabetes. And he had the disease himself.

Had he come home to exorcise the ghosts? To deal with the memory of his mother sitting hour upon hour with her embroidery and her books, while her beloved dogs and cats stalked each other around the aging stone fountain or retreated into the deliciously-secret, rustling shade of shrubs and flowers?

He laughed now as the image of the surprised priest's face appeared before him, to vanish next like a raindrop before fire. Jim had boldly suggested that they bury mother in her garden. Finally, the stiff old churchman regained his composure, showing appreciation for this latest of Jim's wild ideas, as he had the others.

"A most commendable suggestion, young sir," he said, "but I'm afraid it would be against

local zoning laws. You are not far enough removed from other residences now."

So much for development and the supposed rights of private property owners.

He had made Liz promise to tell him if Dad's health ever started deteriorating and promised always to provide her with a current phone number and address. But by the time it happened, his situation had changed again. He no longer had airfare for traveling anywhere, having invested all that mother had willed him into an old adobe building outside of Albuquerque that he had turned into an art studio and gallery.

"Why did you come back now, Jim?" came Elizabeth's voice again from last evening's dinner. "It could be months yet. What can you do?"

"Not that we wouldn't enjoy having you live closer," interjected jolly Oliver heartily, reaching for his fourth dinner roll. "Albuquerque's so far from San Diego, even in the jet age."

Jim had nodded indulgently at his establishment brother-in-law. Liz could not have found a kinder, more sincere man if she had spent her entire life looking for one.

"But I am curious," continued Liz, pushing a black curl back into place. She tugged playfully at Jim's short, silky beard. "I know I'm being nosey, but you can't help Dad now. You know that." She passed the salad bowl to him. "Not that he'd let you if you could. And your business…you surely can't leave it for long?"

No, I can't help Dad now. Why, then? He'd had no answers for them last night, didn't have any now. But no one else could help Dad either. Liz had been the one to telephone him with the news of Dad's most recent stroke.

"They said he might be in a coma for weeks before he dies," she said, failing to keep a detached tone in her voice. "Or in and out of one, maybe. It might be months, Jim. No one can do anything but wait."

Olly had offered to loan him airfare several times, give it to him if he would only accept. But Jim hated debt, or any obligation, no matter how sincerely devoid of strings it might be. It galled him enough that he had been forced to take out a loan from First National Bank in Albuquerque to get through that first year.

To the surprise of all three of them, this time Jim had asked if Olly's standing offer of airfare and a rental car at the airport was still open. It was. And Jim cemented his plan to visit San Diego.

Maybe he would put the gallery up for sale now and move back here. Liz did not want the place, had said so last night. Furthermore, she did not need it; Olly had put their ocean-view property in Del Mar in her name when he first became successful as a broker. Liz already had everything she wanted of Mother's belongings—the delicate china that was only for show, the leather bound poetry volumes, the clothing, the jewelry.

"No!" Jim pulled into the hospital parking lot, finally shaking a growling eighteen-wheeler off his tail. "I don't want to sell. Can't stay away too long, though. Pablo Whitetail's a good man to watch the place but he has his family."

He shut off the ignition and sat, pondering the fact that there really was nothing else of their parents' that held any sentimental meaning for poor Liz: the last sheltie had died of old age; the cocker spaniel had been put to sleep because of tumors; the remaining Persian and silver tabby

cats would not adjust to new surroundings; and they had no room for the horses, which mattered not at all because Olly was afraid of them.

"Too many heavy memories in Dad's house," he muttered, locking the car. "His spirit will never leave it—never—no matter where he's buried. No more than mother's did. She was there, this morning. We saw her."

In spite of the sultry heat, he paused in front of the double glass doors of the convalescent home, bracing himself for the twin onslaughts of disinfectant and urine odors. Even the best and most expensive establishments for old people seemed to have a difficult time winning that battle. He held the door open while other visitors left, then stepped inside, prepared to hold his breath again. With some relief, he noticed that the air filtration system seemed to have won the latest skirmish, at least for the time being.

He nodded politely at a few walker or wheelchair patients whose failing eyes stared hopefully at him as he threaded through the halls to the west wing, trying not to stomp his feet.

"You my boy come from the farm?" demanded one wispy-haired old man, extending a palsied hand to grab his cotton shirt.

Jim's heart came up in his throat. "No. No, sir, I'm not. I´m sorry. I guess he—your boy's still on his way."

Reluctantly, the old man released his grip, his mouth working wordlessly. Jim turned away, trying to swallow a lump that would not go down.

"Damn!" he said. "Damn, damn, damn. Why can't people just go quickly in their sleep? Why do they have to suffer so much?"

Liz said that even Mother had suffered, in spite of being able to stay at home. His thoughts kept whirling. If he sold the house, where would Rosaria and Emilio go, at age fifty plus? Could they stay on? He had to talk to them. Hah, where would he find a buyer, nowadays? What about the horses? Could he afford to ship them to Albuquerque? Stupid! Where would he board them? In the front window of the gallery? Would Mother be angry if he sold? Was she worried that he would? Was that why she had stayed? Or come back?

He heard Liz's quiet voice, forced cheerfulness evident, as he pushed open the door to his father's room.

"Jim's on his way, Dad. Really, he is! Oh, wait for him, Dad! Don't slip away again. Wait for him! …He's here, Dad!"

He barely saw the IV tube hooked up to the patient, for the relief in Liz's face and voice shook him. She looked ready to collapse. The vein that had always stood out on her forehead when she was upset, throbbed through her sweat-soaked bangs.

"Liz," he whispered in alarm. "Are you…."

"Ssh, I'm OK."

But she was not OK and he knew it. Reddened eyes betrayed that she had been crying, something Liz had seldom done since Dad had beaten her for stealing fifty cents when she was eleven years old. Dad, a near-millionaire, had never given them an allowance of any kind. He said he would buy all that they needed, and he did. Working after school had been forbidden

them. It was beneath their father's dignity for his wife and children to work while they lived under his roof.

As a young woman, Mother had inherited a small but regular annuity income of her own. Whenever Dad went out of town, she would give them both a few dollars to keep or spend as they wanted. Then were their shopping trips glorious! Then and only then could they choose their own purchases and make their own mistakes.

There had been no sign of recognition from the near-skeleton in the bed. The almost colorless eyes in the chalk white face stared somewhere past Jim. Then the voice came as a harsh whisper but unmistakable in its tone.

"That is you, Jim. You always did…smell like a horse. Never did like to bathe, did you?"

Behind him, Jim heard Liz gasp and sob in dismay and resignation.

"I didn't have time, Dad!" His temper rose and the old fire began to burn. "I'd been out riding on Oro when Liz called."

"Oro? Why didn't you…come sooner?"

"I was here yesterday. I came straight from the airport. You were…well, sound asleep, I guess. They couldn't wake you for me."

"Jim brought the carnations, Dad," said Liz. "Did you see them there? The nurse put them in water."

"I smelled…carnations…are they…there?"

He was fading but tried feebly to raise one hand. Jim took the flowers out of the vase and wrapped the old man's fingers around them, moving the bony arm so the flowers lay on the old man's cheek. A tear slid from the pale grey eyes and lay in the grey mustache.

"You…hippie…still?"

"Dad, I never—no, I'm not a hippie. I own an art studio. I have twelve students now. They all pay me—money. And I have a gallery, too. A lot of people seem to like my work."

He had not mentioned his own major sales at dinner. The look on Liz's face warmed him now. He squirmed as she hugged his shoulders.

"Oh, Jim, I knew they'd recognize your talent! I always knew you'd make it."

"Aw, Liz." But he knew she meant it.

"You…married?" Another tear slid crookedly down the wrinkles.

"Not yet, Dad."

"Find…like…Alicia."

He trailed off. Now spent with exhaustion, his dad had spoken his mother's name. Maybe he is more than tired, thought Jim. Maybe that was it, as far as talking and hearing went.

Liz rose, stiff as a mannequin, and went to get a nurse. She had been through so much, he reflected, while he hid out in New Mexico. It showed far more today than it had last evening, or he was more aware of it.

The nurse sent for a doctor, who confirmed that Dad was comatose again. Liz insisted she was all right and could drive her car home. He felt her shoulders shake beneath his arm and said, "Let's get a couple of decent hamburgers somewhere Liz, before you take off."

"OK," she quavered.

Liz did look better after lunch, so he did not argue with her when she asked to be driven back to her car at the nursing home.

"I'll call you this evening," she promised. "After I take a long nap."

He nodded. "Oh, Liz, one more thing. Has anyone seen The Will?"

She rubbed a hand across her forehead. "A copy's in our safe-deposit box. There's some money for me. And the whole place is yours, Jim."

"Why, Liz? Why did he do it? He thinks I'm a no-good bum."

She offered him a straw. "Maybe he knew it would be a big headache for you, Jim."

"That I can believe! Sheer, cussed contrariness on his part!"

Swinging into the driveway of the family home, Jim decided he was closer now to a decision, but still wondered how to go about it. He had no idea of how to dispose of property in bad economic times. Maybe he could rent it out, instead. How would he find classy-enough tenants, though?

"I don't want anyone stinking up the place. And no use renting or selling to some ninth-grade dropout who's just won an armful of money in a magazine sweepstakes. What would he understand of the work and the love that went into it?"

The waves of red tile on the house roof pleased the artist in Jim. And he stood staring at the building for a while. Heat waves increased the visual effect. But instead of going inside, he clumped toward the flower garden with its quietly chirping birds and whirring cicadas, all somewhat parched and subdued from the winds that had sprung up since morning. They might blow for days at this time of year. The fountain spouted crookedly in the wind, splashing all around. Jim stopped abruptly at the edge of the broken tile path.

"It's her again!" He felt himself breaking out in a sweat.

Removing his sunglasses, he wiped his forehead with his sleeve, pressed his eyelids down to clear his vision, then replaced his glasses.

"Mother?" he whispered. "It is Mother!"

She was standing across the courtyard from him. He turned to call for Liz, Rosaria, Emilio, anyone. But the names would not pass his lips. Mumbling to himself, he started toward the smiling, standing figure, dressed in a white, embroidered blouse, and a long, red, flowing skirt.

"I know she's not alive! She's not! We buried her three years ago! But I felt her here this morning. I did! Oro knew, too. If—if she touches me, will I be struck dead? No one ever walked around in the cemeteries, not when I was there. They just talked a lot."

The figure was still smiling, but it did not beckon or make any other movement. He stopped a few feet away.

"Is—what's wrong, Mother? Am—am I supposed to keep the house—live here myself?"

"Señor, señor…," called Rosaria from a cautious distance. "You are OK, ¿eh? "

The interruption startled him and he turned his head slightly. When he looked back, the figure had moved. He tried to follow the whisk of red cloth through the oleanders, but the ground was suddenly pitching in front of him. It rolled as it had with the gentler of the many earthquakes he had experienced as a youngster.

"Mother? Did—you see her, too, Rosaria?"

"Señor, you come in the house now…please," urged Rosaria. "You have too much the strain on you, yes? Too much of the heat? Is not good all together, and your condition, señor. You have quizás forget your medicine?"

He did not remember passing out inside the front door, only that something felt cool, so cool on his right cheek and ear and arm. The world was roaring in his ears as he opened his eyes reluctantly upon the tiled floor. Spinning rushed at him when he tried to raise himself on his elbow. He closed his eyes again and lay still.

In a few minutes, he heard footsteps, felt someone lift him at one side, someone else at the other. Totally sapped of strength, he felt nauseated, and was unable to help as they dragged him to his room. Somehow, he was maneuvered on to his bed. His boots were tugged off, his socks peeled from him. For an instant before blacking out, his eyes flickered open and he saw a white, embroidered blouse and a long, red, flowing skirt.

"I can't stay, Mother, I can't stay," he mumbled. "But I'll keep the house. I understand—you don't want strangers here, but I can't stay. Can I, Mother?”