Cobblestone Road

Anne sighed -- well, she sighed as much as a sixty-five year old can sigh while feverishly adjusting every piece of furniture in a large banquet hall. She had never known someone 100 years old before, never mind been related to one. Yet, that was no excuse to be late to your own party.

Frederick Warren was the focus of the day although he might not notice. Anne would have to see once he arrived. Even after his retirement from The Daily Herald, FW’s mind had remained sharp for years, thanks to endless Sudoku and little network television. To this day, he still tried to read two newspapers a day — his own Herald and The New York Times — but lately, the Sunday Times was becoming too thick for him to manage. 

Some articles just didn't make sense anymore. Not that he did not agree with them. It was more of a subject-verb-object thing. The words on the page were a jumble. At first, he thought it was poor writing, insisting that journalistic standards were declining with every passing day since he had left the business. Over time, articles became unsolvable word search puzzles, sometimes with Cyrillic characters or other strange unknowable hieroglyphics. 

Anne, who had also spent her entire career at The Herald, would nod and smile but the old man saw through this daughter’s placation and that would aggravate him more and more. Anne had not mastered the art of subtle dismissal and Frederick eventually learned to keep his growing concerns to himself. The confusion was enough without the additional disrespect. 

And he had loved to read so much. The fury and isolation had had an extra tinge of sadness with it. Life had taken so much from him over the last few years old — his wife, his brother — and now it had taken the simplest of pleasures. 

But today was a celebration of his life. Anne, now a grandmother herself, had always remained in his shadow. She had followed him to the newspaper, as did her own son Johnny, and while, over her career, she had become known throughout the county, her father was always a legend. At home, she knew her father to be a kind, humble man, but stern, forever stern. In his younger days, FW had had a stare that could literally peel paint from the wall and that was the only enforcement tool that he had ever needed. He simply exuded control in every situation.

"Everyone is late, as always," she said aloud, this time with more of a huff than a sigh. Checking her watch she knew that everything kicked off in less than 15 minutes - and at minute 14, she knew people would descend. Just as Ann finished her thought, Johnny and FW blew through the banquet hall door. FW was in his wheelchair and looked dapper in his best blue suit and vibrant pink bowtie. Johnny too exemplified the nebbish newspaper man, complete with suit, circular glasses, and flat face. After twenty-five years, he had become the best muckraker in the county, ferreting out the real story wherever it happened to be.

"About time," Anne said softly through gritted teeth.

"I did the best I could," Johnny responded with as flat a tone as possible. "It's not exactly easy to get Papaw out these days." Anne knew it was not the time for this so she turned to return to her last-minute preparations for the room.

"I'm really sorry about Martha."

At first, neither Anne nor Johnny knew who was speaking. The voice was strong so when they turned and saw that FW was the culprit, Anne and Johnny struggled to hide the surprised look from their faces. The words were not directed at anyone but their volume was so high that it would have been more appropriate than a discotheque from the 1970s as opposed to the quiet banquet hall’s celebration of a centennial birthday.

"Are you okay?" Johnny placed his hand on his Papaw‘s forearm. As he leaned in, he quickly ran through his defusion techniques. He did not know who Martha was, but that was almost secondary. His grandfather had spent the last several years repeating the same stories over and over. The story of his bike being stolen when he was 10. The story of how kind old Mr. Foreman had approved the loan so he could build his first house. All of these were stories that Johnny had heard hundreds of times before but none of them involve a Martha.

"I didn't mean to hurt her."

"Hurt who? What are you talking about?" Johnny knew FW's stories would often seem disconnected from everything else, recognizing that the man he had spent his entire life admiring was starting to fade away. FW’s brother, the original John, could have provided some context, but he had died a few years back. Like FW, John had been a pillar of the community after serving on the police force for 30 years and then several terms on City Council. But now John was gone — all of FW’s peers were gone. Only Johnny and his mother Anne remained. There was no one else to ask. Whoever Martha was or had been, if she was even real, she had already faded into history.

"She was such a sweet girl. I never meant to hurt her."

Ann moved closer to her father. No one expected FW to fully participate in the ceremony, but that did not mean that it would be acceptable for him to be yelling at the top of his lungs about how he had hurt some random woman either.

"Hey Dad, I've never known you to hurt anyone so I'm sure that this woman …. Martha is …" Ann's words trailed off, their soothing tone doing little to decrease her father’s agitation.

"She was so young and so beautiful. Cobblestone Road. So dark."

Johnny’s head snapped at the reference to a remote part of the county. Cobblestone Road was part of a ranch about 15 miles east of town, a place where there has been little commercial development until recently. That delayed development was because of ghost stories, chiefly related to the death of Marcia Jameson. She had been found on Cobblestone Road, her neck broken, more than 70 years ago. Her murder was never solved. The police blamed Mexican transients, and that had satisfied the citizenry of that very different era. No one was ever arrested or charged, and, over time, people just stayed away from that part of the county. Even teenagers looking for a place to drink avoided Cobblestone Road’s bad karma. The recent commercial development led Johnny to write a new story on the long-unsolved crime.

As part of that effort, Johnny had reached out to FW as he often did for background. FW had lived here for his entire life and had seen all the growth firsthand. Johnny knew that he would have to ferret through some long exaggerated and perhaps hyperbolic stories, but usually FW found his way through the cloud and could provide useful insight related to the story Johnny was writing. 

Johnny remembered that when he had visited FW about Cobblestone Road, his grandfather knew little about Jameson or at least seemed very reluctant to go into any details. FW’s current state of mind made it difficult to tell whether he couldn't discuss something or he was merely refusing to discuss the topic. Eventually, Johnny dropped it and wrote the retrospective based upon newspaper articles written at the time, ironically by FW. The final version of Johnny’s Jameson story had appeared in today's Herald.

"You understand, she just wouldn't calm down. She wouldn't come back. It was dark and we couldn't help it. It was a mistake, an accident."

Anne could hear the first of the guests arriving outside, so she moved to the banquet hall doors so that she could facilitate and greet them as they arrived. Johnny remained behind with FW, straightening the old man’s tie. 

"Papaw, do you mean Marcia?"

"Oh yeah, Marcia. What was I thinking? Not Martha, Marcia. She was such a sweet girl. She and John were a thing, you know."

"Yes, of course." Johnny's question had calmed FW. The old man began to breathe more normally and while he wasn't completely aware of his surroundings, at least he was no longer screaming at the top of his lungs.

Anne returned, with the Johnsons and the Wilkersons who laughed with FW. FW smiled with them, their faces sparking some familiarity in his eyes.

"How did you do that?" she whispered to her son while keeping her eyes on her father.

"Not sure."

"Well, I'm glad but that's over at least for the moment. I wish I knew what he was talking about."

"Me too," he said forcing a smile. "But some things you will just never know.” Anne touched her son’s arm, smiled, and went to greet more of the guests.