The Fair Exchange - Finale

When I groggily awakened the next morning in the hotel bed, I opened the business directory to look for somewhere to eat, but instead found an advertisement for Madam Marguerite’s Palm and Tarot Card readings. My skin flushed with surprise, surely the business was Rita’s, a sudden desire to see her again reawakening the feelings revived the night before. When I arrived at her place of business, a teenage girl had me sign the guest register and took the $30 payment in cash. Something in the sparkle of her eyes when she smiled reminded me of someone, but I could not bring her to mind before the girl led me to a darkened room for the reading.

“Madam Marguerite will be with you shortly.”

When Rita stepped into the room, I stood and smiled, wondering how differently I looked after fifty-five years. When she reached out with her bracelet covered arms in recognition we embraced. But when she sat with a sigh, I felt the tension in the room like a living thing. “You should not have returned, Jamie,” she whispered with hoarse emotion.

“I wanted to see you again, Rita.”

“It would be better if you left now. Staying will only hurt us both.”

“I’ve never spoken about what happened in the cemetery with anyone but you. Who can I ask for answers now if not you?”

Rita sighed again. “Answers to what?”

“What really happened that night.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I think you used Zombie medicine to deceive me.”

“And where would a teenage girl have procured that in the ‘60s? This is Minnesota, not Haiti.”

“You can buy Puffer fish anywhere – even in Minnesota.”

“Ahh…. You read the Serpent and the Rainbow. So now you think you know something about Vodou sorcery?”

“Maybe. The secret to all great magic is misdirection. We weren’t the only ones in the cemetery that night, were we? You and some friends played dress up and a little Zombie medicine made the impossible seem real. Did you arrange the events that followed as well? At the end of the fight with Joey you yelled “You’re killing him” and he ran into that car. Coincidence?”

“Do you really believe I arranged for Joey to run into its pathway? How exactly would I do that? Sprinkle a little Zombie powder on him and tell him when and where to run?”

“But you knew that’s what he would do just the same.”

Even in the gloom I saw her eyes opening wide in surprise. “Why do you think that?”

“Because I knew it too. I saw a vision of that car hitting him before the fight. Was that the drug as well? I don’t believe Vodou magic caused Joey’s accident.”

“Easier to blame me instead?”

“After Joey’s accident the entire school thought I was responsible for it. Do you have any idea how that made me feel? The accident somehow made the bully the victim and me his would-be killer. But I wasn’t responsible for his accident. I didn’t yell –‘You’re killing him.’ I warned him. Why didn’t you?”

“I think you should go, Jamie.”

“Why? I’m entitled to the truth even if you don’t think I can handle it.”

She sat silently for several moments, the pain in her expression visible even in the surrounding shadow.

“Still feeling sorry for yourself, Jamie?” she asked disparagingly. “Joey lost his legs and then died far younger than he was fated. What did you lose other than your innocence?”

Her words stabbed hard, the thought of all I have lost momentarily silenced. “Many friends.” I muttered angrily. “Both here and in ‘Nam it seems.”

“I guess you didn’t really mean it when you said you would do anything.”

“I was seventeen, Rita. I didn’t realize what I was saying. A kid makes a careless remark, turns right when he should have turned left, and then is haunted by it the rest of his life? Is life really that cruel?”

“You must think I am,” she answered, a tear gliding down her cheek. “I did not make Joey run into the path of that car.”

Leaning forward, she continued –“You weren’t the only one to see visions in the cemetery, Jamie. Would you like to know what I saw?”

Her eyes wet with unshed tears, she waited quietly for me to reply. “What did you see?” I finally whispered.

“Who I was fated to marry. Do you know who?”

Even as I replied “Joey?” I could see the answer in the tenderness of her gaze.

“You were my fate, Jamie Faust. But you loved Gretchen.”

“I never chose this life,” I answered huskily.

“Why did you fight Joey if not for her?” she asked mildly. “Joey wasn’t the only one who made a choice that day.”

“That’s not why I fought.”

“Are you sure? Would you have fought him if you had not already seen a vision of it and knew the result?”

“I don’t know,” I answered hollowly.

“Your fate was to run away that day, Jamie, just like every other confrontation with him. But this time you would have run into that car.”

My body began to tremble at her words, my breathing so shallow that I began to hyperventilate. Fight or run away. Was that really the choice?

“Where was Gretchen when Joey’s life hung in the balance at the hospital? Where was I when you returned from Vietnam? I told you that pathway would exact a price.”

“And what price did you pay?”

Her eyes, still brightly passionate stared wetly into my own without blinking for moments that seemed to drift into eternity.

“Did you feel nothing that morning when I lay with you, Jamie?”

I only realized in that moment that I had returned to Glenville because of those remembered feelings. I had sought her out in the hope of her warm embrace.

She was right. I should not have returned.

“I loved you, Jamie. I would have loved you as a cripple. Would Gretchen?”

“I don’t know,” I answered weakly, a distant figure slowly coming into focus as I belatedly realized who the young woman reminded me of as she led me to the room.

The shape of her eyes were the same as my daughter’s.

I asked weakly, “Did you and Joey have children?”

“Joey was paralyzed from the waist down.”

“Then who is the girl at the front desk?” I whispered, my voice almost breaking with suppressed emotion.

She stared at me in horror.

“Is she … is she” I stuttered … “my granddaughter?”

Half standing, she gaped at me, her face a mask of rage. “Yours? Where have ye been for the last fifty-five years? Go home to Gretchen where you belong.”

Tears began streaming helplessly down my face as I weakly gestured at her and then myself – “Daughter or son” I half whispered, half sobbed.

Leaning angrily on the table she bellowed “Mine!” before covering her face and silently weeping, her shoulders beginning to helplessly shake. “Mine,” she repeated.

But once her tears were spent, she stood sluggishly, gazing at me sadly for a few moments before slowly turning to leave. “It was a fair exchange, Jamie,” she said flatly. “She doesn’t need a grandfather and her mother doesn’t need a father. They already had both.”

Following her as she walked to the door, I reached apologetically for her hand and she paused. “I’m so sorry, Rita.” But she did not answer or face me, my hand lightly clinging to her fingertips.

“I was just a kid, Rita.”

“I know,” she answered as she reached for the doorknob with her free hand, all but her pinkie slipping from my grasp. “Please don’t come back again.” As she opened the door, I lost my grip on her last remaining finger and she stopped briefly to face me, the light from the other room momentarily illuminating her features. Her face wet with tears, the green in her eyes sparkled with unspoken hope. “If only,” she whispered, and then turned and left me and the room behind.