FORGOTTEN CROSS by Morris Thyme 1945 -one- He looked in the mirror to check his suit: double-breasted, wide lapels, dark gray with pin stripes in a lighter gray. It would appear to be a top-of-the-line tailored suit from one of those plush Savile Row houses – actually it was a knock-off from a sweat shop in Prague. The matching hat, which he donned and took a couple of minutes to adjust to just the right angle, completed the picture of respectability. He considered the new him in the mirror, but thought to get a woman’s opinion. "Mary? What do you think?" The heavily practices English rolled easily off his tongue. No response. He turned from the mirror to the woman sitting across the small room. A 'suite' they had called it. "Mary!" She abruptly turned to him. "Yes?" He walked across the room, chiding her with a wagging finger. "You must get used to your new name. Stop your wool-gathering and pay attention." "Yes, Hein-… John." She took a deep breath. "It is very hard, and I am so nervous, but I will try and remember." He was disappointed to notice her English still showed traces of accent, unlike his perfect Manchestrian dialect. "Please see that you do! The training has been quite long enough that you should be better prepared. Your very life – our very lives – depend on your remembering every facet of your new identity. Our mission is of the utmost importance. You know this!" She sighed. "Yes, I do." She bowed her head and fidgeted with the handkerchief in her lap. "I will try harder to remain focused and do my duty." "Very good. See to it!" He went back to the mirror and continued admiring his reflection, adjusting the tie, tilting the hat a bit more. He was watching her in the mirror between adjustments. He wondered where they had ever come up with this one. And sourly wondered why he had been saddled with her rather than someone more efficient. She was certainly attractive enough. He had enjoyed thinking about their time alone together later. She was the type who could be quite a performer in the sack. But until then she was a constant bother. She needed such constant reminding! "Our training must not fail us, Mary. The purpose we undertake demands perfection as well as sacrifice on our parts." Satisfied at his image, thinking his impoverished upbringing and years in the army had never shown him this dashing, this refined. He went to the small table beside the door and sorted through a small pile of papers there. Selecting a few items, he slid them into his inside breast pocket. "Here we go, now. I am taking the passports and tickets, and you," he slipped the remaining items into her purse, "will carry the money and the other documents." He closed the purse and held it out to her. "We had best be going now." She rose and took her light coat off the bed. Nearing, she took the purse from his outstretched hand and draped the coat over her arm. "Remember! We are John and Mary Breckinridge of Manchester, England, returning from a business trip to Paris. Shall we, Mrs. Breckinridge?" He extended an elbow for her to take. Holding her steady, they descended to the lobby and out of the hotel. The traffic was light on the street and there were only a few military vehicles, he noted. The war was far to the east now and France was returning to normal. And the port of Le Havre flexed its commercial muscles once more. "Shall you require a car, monsieur?" the doorman asked. She tightened her grip on his arm. He looked at her enquiringly. "It is not a great distance, John, and the weather is horribly nice. Can we walk? I think it would calm my nerves." He patted her hand and thought, her English is quite passable when she concentrates. He turned to the doorman. "No, thank you. My wife would prefer to walk." "As you wish, monsieur." He bowed slightly. Still patting her hand lightly, he guided her down the sidewalk. The pier was less than a quarter mile and they had sent their bags on ahead earlier in the morning. And she was right: it was a perfectly glorious morning. The walk would do both of them some good. For her, it would calm her nerves. For him, a chance to perfect his characterization of the successful English businessman abroad. He walked erect, confident, nodding pleasantly to passers-by, touching the brim of his hat to women as they walked past. As they walked, he noticed Mary became more agitated with each passing person they encountered. Finally, she seemed to lose control and pulled him into an alleyway. He released her hand and looked quickly both directions down the alley. Then turned back to her and hissed quietly in a menacing tone. "What is the matter with you? We’ve been through this over and over. Are you getting cold feet?" "No," she shuddered, "I just need a few moments to pull myself together. I’m so tense!" He shook his head in disgust and wondered which imbecile had chosen her for this mission. Perhaps they had mixed up the psychological profiles, but this woman was not going to be able to pull this off as she was far too flighty. "Pull yourself together," he spoke with disgust. "Maybe you need to take a powder." "Yes," she seemed relieved, "that might help." She opened her purse, and began poking around in it. She turned away from him. He turned to look the short distance back toward the street. They would have to get going soon. They did not have that much time to waste. He looked at his watch, then back at her. "Come on, Mary, we cannot delay too long. They won’t hold the boat for us, you know." "There’s plenty of time," she seemed quite calm now. She turned to face him and he noticed a gun was in her hand, with a silencer. "What is…?" The sudden pain in his chest stopped the question in his throat. He pressed a hand to the pain and looked down. A red stain grew larger as he watched. He thought it was going to ruin his immaculate suit. He looked back at her face and wondered briefly at the cold look in her eyes. Where was the neurotic woman he had been speaking with only a moment before? And then he thought nothing more. It took her only a moment to retrieve the passport and ticket for Mary Breckinridge from his pocket, lean a wooden pallet over the corpse and leave the gory scene behind her. Once on the street, she walked at a moderate pace. Nothing too slow or too fast, nothing to draw attention. Nervously, she reviewed the plan, hoping she had everything properly dealt with. She had made sure he signed-in at the hotel in only his name – as pompous an ass as he was, that part was simple. Her nervousness had exempted her from being introduced to anyone as Mrs. Breckinridge. And she doubted he had admitted the fact to anyone as he was far too impressed with himself as Mr. Breckinridge to sully his image with a foolishly pathetic wife. She had written out the luggage tags this morning in his name alone. If anyone remembered him being with a woman, surely no one would be able to recognize her. In another alley closer to the pier, she shredded the passport for the Breckinridge persona into tiny pieces and distributed the fragments among several trash bins. She then continued along the length of the cramped passage until it let out on a street near the pier. She looked at her watch. There was plenty of time before she sailed. So she strolled past the area of the docks to stop at a small café in the direction away from the hotel, and the body. The was plenty of time for a light breakfast. She nibbled on a flaky croissant saturated with butter as a loud horn sounded. That would be he ship to Southampton, she thought, carrying their luggage out to sea. Her left hand pressed gently on her abdomen. She did not have the urge yet, but soon she would have to start eating for two, as the Americans said. Reaching deep into her purse again, she loosened the false bottom and retrieved the most valuable document hidden there. She smiled as she pulled out the passport. The gun would have to be tossed overboard somewhere across the Atlantic, but this valuable deed to her new life would be kept safe. It was all that separated her past from her future. The artisans at the ministry had created three sets of documents for the couple: the Breckinridges of Manchester, the Galloways of Ottawa, and the Wilsons of America. When word arrived at the safe house in Paris last week that the situation most advantageous would be afforded the Breckinridge identity, she had been instructed to destroy the other papers. She had burned all but this one, with which she caressed her cheek, lovingly. As Mary Breckinridge, she would have sailed to England. Now, as Mary Wilson, of Newark, New Jersey, she would sail to America and await her husband’s return from the front. It would be a long wait indeed. She sipped her coffee and caressed her stomach. A wait long enough to ensure that her child grew up in a free country. A smile came slowly as she thought of the time the two of them would have. 2003 -two- Frank Mayhew quietly dabbed at his eyes. Too many tragedies, one too soon following on the heels of another. The casket was sitting above the grave carved recently out of the frozen ground. He did not turn to see the priest but he knew he was spouting some litany or other. The words were indistinct, as if muttered with a mouthful of communion wafers. The small puffs of clouds emanating from his mouth showed he continued to drone on, but Frank's eyes remained on the metallic box before him. He had entirely cut off the audio portion of the show some time before. A lot the priest should know of loss, thought Frank, he did not have children. A condition, he realized with a sudden wave of bitterness, that was almost his own, now. He screamed silently at the unseen master of this ceremony: children should not die before their parents! There could be no pain greater to endure. Nothing to make you feel so damned worthless, empty, and useless. Bringing children into the world to have them ripped out before your eyes… ripped out like your eyes… And they had once had three wonderful children. Sharon was a beauty. Smart, kind, funny, and a crusader – Sophia Loren, Mother Theresa, rolled into one. Too busy with her causes to ever think of being something as mundane as a cheerleader. Ben was a son he could be proud of. Taller than himself and broad shouldered like his father, many had remarked how much they looked alike, which usually made both of them proud – he still had that heavy set frame, even though most of the heavy had set-tled elsewhere. Ben had been the athletic one, who shared his interest in watching football. Frankie was the quiet one, bookish, reclusive; hating anything to do with sports and physical activities like fishing and hiking. He would always be the one who wanted to remain back at camp – no wonder the family campouts had dwindled over the years. The indecisive one, the wishy-washy one. The one who – he remembered with a wave of embarrassment – had once asked if he was adopted, because he didn't seem to look like Ben at all. Frankie, the one who he was left with. God had an impossibly ironic twist of mind. In 2001, his daughter had died in the Twin Towers in New York. His older boy would have died in the Pentagon the same day but for a raging fever which had kept him confined to bed that fateful morning; only to die in Afghanistan within the year in that never-ending war in the Middle East. The double loss had been too much for his wife to bear. Laura had succumbed within six months, a curse on her lips as she died, railing at a President who had killed two of her own children by his ineptitude. Two months later, prostate cancer had taken his father, an oncologist unable to stem the tide of lethal cells in his own body. Looking much like a priest betrayed by his deity, he was powerless to force his own beliefs on his rapidly declining reality. And now his mother. Children should never die before their parents – that was a cardinal rule, almost. But parents eventually died as well, and before their own children. It was not an easy thing losing one's parent – extremely painful, indescribably painful – but nothing as devastating as losing a child. After burying two children, a wife, and a father, he was almost too numb to mourn his mother. Almost, but not quite, because they had been very close all his life. When he was young, as he grew, even in times of discord with his wife, his mother was always there for him, as he had been for her. They were each other's support probably because he was her only child, as she had been his only mother. Eyes clouding, vision blurring from a recurrence of the waves of grief, Frank looked down into the hole. The hole. What a crisp, concise concept. And what a marvelously clean, wonderfully symmetrical cold metal box it was that held the once vibrant, warm, expansive person who had been his mother. It puzzled him that such an insignificant thing could contain the likes of his mother. At times, it seemed the world was not large enough to contain her. And her… her 'vitalness', if there was such a word. But in the end, after Dad passed, she seemed to shrink, to draw within herself, until she was no more than a shadow of the vibrant being who had mesmerized him in childhood, molded him in adolescence, and guided him with a nominal velvet glove throughout his adult years. She had been the rock for his father as well as himself. A calm in the center of life’s many storms. And now: this. A hand rested lightly on his shoulder. He looked up to see the priest, lips moving again, closer, mouthing some private condolence. The words were mere murmurs, puffs of mist rising in small bursts from his lips as his jaw worked, incomprehensible – useless, worthless as the rest of his solace. Then, with a small squeeze, the hand left his shoulder and the priest moved thankfully away. Continuing to stare at the coffin, lost in thought, he was only vaguely aware of Frank, Jr. diverting the well-wishers away from his father, and speeding them on their departure. And soon, he was there alone with his mother, like in the far distant past when the two of them awaited his father’s return from the war. Now, again, the two of them were alone. "Susan Mayhew / 1927-2003" the silent stone proclaimed. Only seventy-five years, he thought. Not long enough. Not long enough by half! He stared across the dismal landscape, trying to envision the world with her still in it. She would be standing at the sink just now, washing up the breakfast dishes. She might have some ironing to do, or some sewing, or… He knew realistically the tragedy that occurred on September 11th could not be blamed for this death since she declined only after father's death. And that death was committed by terrorists on the microscopic scale. But in his mind the sequence was locked: Sharon, Ben, Laura, Dad, Mom. It was somehow logical, sequential, cold, inevitable. The dominoes leaning, clicking as they collide, and falling down, pushing another down as they fall; sequential. Inevitable. Cold. Turning away at last, he saw Frank, Jr. standing beside the limousine. He started making his way back to the car, lost in sad thoughts barely noticing the people offering support as he passed and seeing nothing of the figure across the road beside a tree, taking more interest in his movements than any gravesite on that side of the pavement. His son held the door open for him. "Thank you, Frankie," he said absently. The car pulled away after they settled in the back. "Who was your shy friend?" "Eh?" Frank came out of his reflections. "Shy friend?" "Yeah. The guy across the road who seemed too nervous to come over and join the rest of the group." "I don’t know… didn’t see… can’t imagine who it was." He patted his father’s arm. "Sorry. It’s not important, dad, just thought he might be someone…" He broke off when he realized his father was no longer listening. The remainder of the drive was sentenced to silence. -three- The reception was the last place on earth Frank wanted to be at the moment. All these well-wishing people, all the condolences, reminiscences, so much babble to wade through mentally. But his mind was elsewhere. He had quit on the church years ago. When 9/11 occurred, he had actually gotten down on his knees and prayed – amazed that he remembered how – but no solace came. After his son’s death, he tried again. Another futile effort. Now he simply limped through each funeral without support, wearing his chain of pain like a rosary around his throat, choking him tighter and tighter. It was no wonder, now, that he steered clear of the priest. His mother's church was longer a part of his life. Religious comforting was the very last thing he needed at the moment. "Frank," a face from the crowd came into focus, "we need to talk." It was Aaron Levey, the family attorney. "Not just now, of course, but when you are feeling better, over the shock and all. Come by the office anytime, okay?" He patted Frank on the arm and left. Noticing the priest working his way toward him, Frank turned and went into the next room over, what had been his mother’s sewing room. Mrs. Whittaker, mother’s closest friend over the years, was holding court with tales of a much younger Susan Mayhew and some of the more humorous anecdotes of her life. Frank’s heart felt lighter. This was what he needed more than the sympathy: a celebration of his mother’s life, reveling in her humor and her gutsy personality. He stayed and listened, forgetting about the priest. "And there was that time when the milkman shorted her two bottles on a Friday morning. Her with a baby and a long weekend." She stopped and laughed to herself. "I forget that you younger folk may not know that milk used to be delivered to our doorsteps in bottles by the milk man. Every day! None of this running down to Safeway for milk, butter, and eggs. They brought it to the door! Landsakes!" She laughed again. "Anyway, the man had shorted her on milk that day and she got right on the phone and got him back over there. He said, ‘Mrs. Mayhew, I had five bottles out for you.’ ‘Well, I only got three,’ she says. He went right out to his truck and got two more bottles for her and scratched his head as to what could have happened to them bottles. And no sooner than he gets back in his truck, that she calls out to him to come back. After he left, she heard some rustling in the bushes by the porch and, well she didn’t know if it was a skunk or what." She turned to one of the younger people present. "They sometimes came into town in those days and made a frightful stink, I tell you! Anyhow, she gets him back up to the porch to check out the noises for her." Her voice went softer. "So he sneaks slowly into the bushes, ready to break for it if it be a skunk, and what do you think he finds? An empty milk bottle! And a homeless cat trying to get the cardboard stopper out of a second bottle!" She threw up her hands. "Mystery solved!" Everyone laughed, though most people had heard the story more than once. Frank’s heart softened to hear the tale. Reminding him of younger and happier days with the one person no one could replace. His real father – whom he had never met – never made it back from the war in Europe and Doctor Mayhew did take his place. But no one would ever take the place of Susan Carlton Mayhew, not in his heart or in the world. She was definitely one of a kind. And Mrs. Whittaker was starting another story. His attention was drawn outside his thoughts again, which was the elixir he needed most. Soon, the tales were over and the last of the guests left, leaving him in his thoughts again, in the house of his history. Memories grasped at him from every corner, every room. Over the mantel were the traditional family pictures. Sharon, Benjamin, mom, dad, him when just a toddler, his high school graduation as well as Ben’s and Frankie’s. The memories captured for all time. Happier times. He was having a rough time with her death because it was so personal and so deep. Sharon’s death, as well as Ben’s too, were so very public, he doubted he had ever really gotten a chance to mourn for them properly. Dying in the World Trade Center disaster was not something one got to think of as personal. It was too universal, too political and horrific, watched by millions on television, live, while it collapsed on the head of his lovely daughter. She had been so proud of her degree and the wonderfully important job it had gotten her. He wondered idly if that had been any solace to her at the end. And Benjamin’s death, though not as public, happened in the war following. He died with so many other young men that it was hard to separate that grief as well. His father died in a war. His son died in a war. During Viet Nam, his mother had so fretted that his number might be called up on the lottery, but it never happen. He had never been to war, but it had taken both his father and a son. And though he was close to his dad, he had shared too much of his mother's grief when the cancer came to claim him. That was another death not completely mourned. But his mother’s passing was for him alone. No one else was as close to him, or to her. He noticed most of the place had been straightened up already. He chuckled to himself. Ben had always been the organized one – no wonder he wound up in the military. And Sharon had been the 'people person' of the family, like her grandmother. And here was the happy-go-lucky Frankie taking up the slack that was rightly theirs. Frankie was so empathetic, so organized, during this entire affair. Where had he gotten the skills, he wondered idly. Had he inherited them from Ben and Sharon somehow? Had it crossed over from them to their one remaining sibling? And how? And now there was little else for him to do here. No more humorous tales of his mother and all her adventures, however mundane, for she was not much of a globe trotter. And most of the adventures she had were of a domestic nature. No more sense of belonging, though the house beckoned him to remember and become lost in the memory. Now the house seemed the reflect it's new owner: empty, cold, devoid of life, hope and love. His footsteps echoed hollowly through the rooms as he shut off lights, closed doors, and moved toward the exit. It was no longer home, just a house. He stepped onto the porch and closed the door, checking the knob to make certain it had locked. Down the three short steps and onto the sidewalk, going home. -four- He was racing up the stairs in the thickening smoke. Voices seemed to come at him from all directions; panicked voices incoherent to his ears. He achieved the next landing and paused at the door to hear if the South Tower was collapsing. Nothing. There was still time! He tore open the door and shouted, "Sharon! Sharon!" He heard only the continual cacophony of voice-noise and nothing of Sharon's clear voice in answer. He released the door and raced up the next flight. Pausing again on the landing, he listened. Was that a muffled explosion? Is that the sound of the Tower collapsing? His heart fell. Time was almost up! He wrenched the door open. "Sharon! Sharon! Are you there?" The sound of the bedroom door opening forced him out of the dream – nightmare! – and back into the real world. He was sweaty and shaking, trying to figure out where he was. "Dad?" Frankie stuck his head in the room. "Dad, you up?" Reality returned slowly. "Yeah, I'm getting there." He looked at the clock beside the bed. "It's only eight-thirty. Where's the fire?" "Well, you said you wanted to get an early start." He shrugged. "Eight o'clock was your idea, not mine. If you'd rather put it off…" He shrugged again. "We do have that luncheon thing at eleven-thirty, though, and I'll have to start taking people to the airport after that." "Yeah, I remember. Give me a minute to get dressed and I'll be right down." The door quietly closed. Frank shook his head. Frankie was not normally so focused, so dependable. He's really risen to the occasion for a change. Hopefully, it would rub off on his school work. And hopefully it would rub off on Frank himself. He had agreed with his son to get such an early start because otherwise his lethargic nature would take over. He had promised his mother to come over and help clear dad's stuff out of the house several months ago after THAT funeral but had difficulty getting to that task. He could not come to accept the finality of such an action. He sighed. The inability to confront his own demons had not brought his father back from the grave even with all his things still in the house. Frankie knew he would probably put this chore off as well. So, might as well face the task and do his duty. Even though it was now going to be twice the chore getting everything out of the house, rather than merely just his father's things. A couple of minutes later, he met his son at the front door. "No coat? It's going to be cold over there. We turned the heater 'way down, remember?" He grabbed his own from the coat rack. "Well, dad, I figure we'll be working hard enough to keep warm." He winked. "At least until the heater gets cranking." "I hope you're right." And right he was. Though demons and memories called to him from every corner, Frank did not have a chance to get lost in their embrace under his son's constant banter. Every time he paused to reminisce about something he came across, Frankie would interrupt him. "Aren't we going to toss that old thing?" "I think that could find a good home at Mrs. Nickleby's." "Off to Salvation Army with that thing, I would say." Discussions on what went where, and why, and to who continued throughout. And they had only started in the kitchen. There were some painful moments. When they came across a set of dishes boxed and labeled 'Sharon', Frankie had to hold him for a while until the grief had passed. And another box – this one filled with monogrammed crystal – set aside for Benjamin saw the same brief struggle. Other than such moments, Frankie was a steady taskmaster keeping the sorting and cleaning moving forward and into the dining room. Frank was beginning to think they would finish the house in only one day when Frankie stopped and stretched, arching backward with hands on his lower back. "Whew! That takes care of almost two rooms. Great work, Dad." He smiled broadly. "I figure it'll only take a couple of more days to finish." Frank's back began to ache at that pronouncement. "Can't finish it today, huh?" "I'd like to, I really would, but grandma had too much stuff to go through. We could just let a salvage company come in…" "No. I've said before I won't have that. There may be things we… or that I want to keep." He choked momentarily. Ben and Sharon would no longer have any use for anything here. "And there may be something here you might want." Frankie half-smiled. "Nothing here high-tech enough for my tastes, but you're right. There might be something. Anyhow, since this is a job you want to do, I'm game." He looked at his watch. "But it's time to get ready for the luncheon." Frank sighed feeling more tired by the minute. "Do we have to?" "They're the closest thing we have to family, you know. And they did want to see us one more time before they left." Frank nodded and rubbed his lower back too. "Then we'd best get to it." If you would like to read more of this tale it can be purchased as a Kindle edition readable on a digital device or computer. Read more. Comments can be sent to me: morris (dot) thyme (at) verbotham (dot) com. All content Copyright © 2012 by Morris Thyme