Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [34]
Fay was seated in a wheelchair, at a card table, working on a letter. She was a small lady in her late sixties, with cloudy-white hair and vivid blue eyes. Like Frank, she seemed both old and young at the same time, and like Frank, she immediately came off as imperial as hell. Fay glanced at the man who had just walked into her room, took off her reading glasses, and said, with little apparent emotion: “Where the hell have you been these last eighteen years?”
Frank smiled and laid down the flowers and candy. “Oh, here and there,” he said.
Fay saw Bessie. “And who’s this? Your new wife?”
“She will be,” said Frank.
Frank made arrangements to get Fay out of the Ladies’ Cottage. He rented her a handsome Victorian house on P Avenue, not far from his hotel, and he told her that, in time, he and Bessie would come and live there with her. In the process of moving Fay into her new home, Bessie learned something Frank hadn’t told her: Fay was a practicing psychic and fortune-teller, and to hear her tell it, she was a damn good one. She could get spirits to materialize, make noise, show their forms, and communicate to the living a comforting knowledge of the afterlife. Also, she knew how to reach a troubled spirit and help resolve its pain, so it would no longer be earthbound. “Promise me,” said Bessie, “that you won’t ever do any of that around me. I’ve had bad experience with spirits. They give me the creeps.”
It turned out that Fay was also a licensed minister in the Spiritualist Church of California, which gave her the authority to perform marriages. She wanted to be the one to marry her son to his new bride. Bessie was a little uneasy with the idea. How would this look back home: bad Bess, married to a man twice her age by his witchy mother? Still, she didn’t want to hurt Fay’s feelings. She agreed to the idea and told herself that at the first opportunity she would get Frank to remarry her with a proper minister or justice of the peace. On Frank and Bessie’s second night in Sacramento, after settling Fay into her new residence, the old woman married her son and his new bride. Lit some candles, said a few words, offered an incantation, and that was it. No licenses, no blood tests, no papers. (I have never been able to find an official record of the marriage in Sacramento County, or any place else in California.)
The two hadn’t been married but a few minutes when Fay turned to Frank and said: “You know, Robert’s living not far from here. He tried to find you once or twice over the years. I thought you would have asked about him by now.”
Frank said nothing in reply. Instead, a bitter look crossed his face.
“Who is Robert?” my mother asked.
Frank and Fay exchanged a glare. After a moment, Frank said: “He’s my son.”
“Your son?”
“Yes, from an earlier marriage.” “How old is he?”
Frank turned to Fay. “I don’t know, how old is he?” “Robert is now nineteen,” said Fay, showing all her lovely teeth in a big smile.
“When did you last see him?” asked Bessie.
“Well, about eighteen years ago. I brought him here after my marriage was over. That woman wasn’t fit to raise him. I asked Fay to look after him for a while.”
“When it was obvious you weren’t coming back,” said Fay, “I adopted him. His name is now Robert Ingram.”
Frank signaled that he’d had enough of the discussion. “Tell Robert where I’m staying,” he told Fay. “Tell him to come by sometime.”
Then Frank took his new bride back to the Semoh Hotel. The marriage had begun.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER—AT ABOUT 4 A.M.—Frank and Bessie were enjoying the first sleep of their marriage when there was a knock at the door. Bessie felt Frank tense up beside her. “Who is it?” he said. “It’s Robert.”
Frank seemed relieved, but also annoyed. “Goddamn, what are you doing here this time of the night?”
Bessie said, “Oh, get up and let him in.”
Frank got up, opened the door, and looked at his son. Bessie, lying in bed, looked at him at the same time. Robert had dark brown, curly hair and, like Fay and Frank, bright blue eyes. She thought to herself: This is the best-looking