Fine Fruit, One Blemish

Cameron lifted the plastic menu to his face; I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew he was smiling big enough to make them shine. His bald head bobbed a little as he looked over the menu at his favorite breakfast spot. Most anyone else would just know what the menu said by now. We’d been coming here for three years. Every, single, day for those three years and eleven weeks. I snapped the Polaroid and pulled the picture of the back of the menu, his bald head and his fingers clutching the menu out and fanned it make it develop faster. I thought it would be an ok day. Today would be the last day, I just didn’t know it while I was sipping my coffee and blowing on that picture.

He laid the menu down and smoothed it out flat as though it was trying to roll up or fold back closed. What world does he live in, what does he see that I do not? He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease four years ago. Three years and four months ago my mother died. Her last words to me were, “He killed her. I know it. Find out!” Cameron was the ‘he’, her older sister was the ‘her’, and this had been an oft discussed topic. Every visit to her insane asylum, nowadays called “mental health facility”, led us to this topic.

Her older sister’s death at 18 in 1963 broke my mother. She was 15 and was keeping a terrible secret. My aunt caught on quickly. She coaxed the truth from my mother and then set about helping her heal. At some point though, my aunt, ever fierce in her protection of loved ones and always seeking justice for the wronged, went after the man she thought to be the perpetrator. Cameron. My aunt never made it home. Since no one had known where she went, and my mother was too scared to tell her story, he got away with it. That was another step in my mother’s transformation from woman to the wraith.

“What do you think I should get? It all looks so good.” He rubbed his smooth hands together with glee. Such simple pleasures to cause so much easy joy. He’s so happy. I don’t think I’ve ever been that happy about anything in my life. I didn’t want to be the one to burst his bubble.

“If I were you, I’d start at the beginning. Go with the number one. I think you’ll love it and it’ll make knowing what to have tomorrow that much easier”, I said to him. I closed my own menu and laid it down gently. The waitress appeared at my elbow at the signal.

“The usual, Kim. Thanks a heap.” She took both menus, folding Cameron’s as she stacked it with mine. “Two number one’s coming right up” she said perkily. She made her way to another table quite jauntily. She was always pleasant and upbeat. She might be a part of the reason I keep coming back. A very small part, as she’s married and has a pair of young boys to wrangle. Not my style, mama, I’ll leave you to it. But I’ve found that you should take what little joy you can.

Cameron scooched out of the booth and went to wash his hands. He learned to wash his hands before every meal in 1950 and he hasn’t eaten without washing his hands since.  That was when Kim came over to ask why I bring him here if he doesn’t remember being here. “You could go to a new place every day and he wouldn’t know the difference. Go on an adventure!” She said with a smile.

“Nah, yeah, I see your point. But on some level, I think he does remember this place. It’s familiar and comfortable. I think the first time he ever came here; he met my aunt here in 1963.”

“That is a lovely story! Did they have a long romance or was it a whirlwind quickie!?” She lifted a knee and sank into the booth behind ours allowing herself to sink into the story as well. She crossed her hands on the top of the booth that separated us. “Tell me they had a long relationship, I’m sick of today’s people flitting from one lover to the next. I can’t keep up anymore.” She gave a very brief frown; it looked wrong on her face.

“Well, if you have a minute…”

“Yes, definitely.” She waved the washcloth in her hand at the lady behind the register and pointed to her watch, then flashed all five fingers twice. I guess I had ten minutes to tell her the whole thing. Maybe she could help me with the question that my answer had uncovered. I’d rather have a positive person’s opinion to pair with my own than some stodgy, jaded character. So, I started the story, knowing that Cameron would be at least ten minutes. Between his morning bowel movement and washing his hands and then talking to everyone along the way back to the table, I probably had fifteen minutes, and by then, the food would be up anyway.

“Ok, as you know I moved here right after my mother died. She had spent her whole life raving about the man that killed her sister. It’s not just that they didn’t believe her, it seemed so far off base that she was seen as nuts.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that early on. I think it’s sad about your mom being in that kind of facility though. She wasn’t dangerous, right?” She asked with genuine sadness welling up in her eyes. Her mother and her are close. She probably can’t imagine having a lunatic mother. I’m glad that she doesn’t have that kind of darkness in her life. Not everyone is made to withstand that kind of challenge. I would hate to see her bubbliness and her easy-going nature take that kind of hit. “But wait, you don’t think...” and she looked off in the direction Cameron had gone and back at me… “No way. He’s been a big deal here. I’ve known him my whole life.”

“Yeah, well… you tell me…” I told her the whole story. How Cameron had met my mother when she was 15, near the start of 1963. He was 18 and about to go off to college. Spring semester found him in attendance at Southern Methodist University. My mother, Maddy (short for Madeleine) wound up a basket case. Crying all the time, hiding in her room, and getting a bit plump. My aunt was gearing up for the second half of senior year in high school, but she noticed her little sis being secretive and cranky. Turns out little sister was pregnant by that handsome young man she met at the diner. Was it rape? Did he force her? Or was his only crime not sticking around?

“My aunt, Tilda (short for Matilda) couldn’t get the truth out of my mother, but she was determined to speak to Cameron about it. So, when he came into town to see his parents for spring break ’63, Tilda made it her business to run into him and confront him. She never made it home that night. Police asked around but no one knew anything about the secret pregnancy or the tryst at the first of the year. No one could place Cameron and Tilda together after a tense scene outside the post office where they split up and walked different ways. Him toward the mountain pass that led to his family’s property just across the ravine, and her toward this restaurant. Til never turned up and Maddy went Mad. She spent 17 years in Green Oaks. Was out on her own for about four years and then back to Green Oaks of her own volition because she couldn’t integrate into society. She had me eight months later. No known father, but I have my suspicions.”

“God, girl, you got a lot of stuff bubbling under the surface, don’t you? What happened when you came here? Did you tell him about what your mom said? Or did you keep it a secret until you were sure, until you cleared him?” She asked after a quick glance at her watch. Kim shifted in the seat to be more comfortable for the remaining few minutes of not being on her feet.

“Oh, but I didn’t clear him. He did it. One night about nine months in, he confessed to me… or … as much as he could.” I said quietly, but matter-of-factly.

“Giiiiiirl, what,” Kim’s mouth hung open, her horrified eyes in the direction Cameron had gone.

I barreled headlong into the crux of my situation. “Yeah, one day we had breakfast here as usual, and when we left it was raining. We ran to the next building over and huddled under the roof at the Post Office. With rain pouring down my face and my hair stuck to my cheeks, and me looking just like my plump mother in Spring of ’63. (Too many chocolate croissants with this guy waiting for him to remember something.) Rain mixing with tears that ran down his face, he looks me in the eye and says, ‘Maddy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she followed me. She grabbed my jacket in the dark! I just freaked and threw my arm up. She just lost her off balance and fell off the track. Down into the ravine. I went down there to help her, but she was already dead. I just freaked. I didn’t know what to do!’ The tears dried in his eyes even as they dimmed. ‘Why are we at the post office,’ he asked, his voice totally normal, if a little confused. He almost sounded suspicious of me for the first time.

           “How do you prove that?”  asked Kim, totally wrapped up in the story and this new revelation about a beloved town figure she’s known her whole life… didn’t even look at her watch or see the lady at the register waving a menu in her direction. “What do you do now? This seems too big. She looked at the police officers having their usual breakfast about six tables away and then in the direction of the bathrooms.

           “Yeah, I mean that’s been my question now for nearly two and a half years. Do I tell someone? Who? What does it matter? Should he be punished now, after all this time and all his lifetime of achievements and giving back? Is he already in a natural prison of his own gray matter?”

           “Shit.” Kim looked surprised at herself and covered her mouth. Quickly looking around to see if anyone had been listening to us, she noticed the waving menu and slowly got up to go see what Susan, the hostess, wanted. I noticed a few other people moving around and two people waiting by the men’s room. Susan looked worriedly between Kim, me, and the bathrooms.

           After a lot of commotion, we determined that Cameron wouldn’t leave the bathroom because he couldn’t. He had stroked out during his morning constitutional. Everyone in the restaurant had been given leave to take their breakfasts to go, free of charge. No one complained, but everyone looked shiftily at the bathroom door. Kim just sat in the booth. We watched the coroner pronounce him dead and wheel him out. Did the secret just slip out the door unnoticed?