Fletch, Too

“Your father died in childbirth.”

“Whose?”

“Yours.”

They stood inside the door of Josephine Fletcher’s room at the Hanley Motor Court. She had changed into slacks, blouse, and open sweater. He was dripping wet.

He clutched the muddy envelope to his side.

“That’s what you’ve always said.”

“You need a hot shower.”

“You’ve always said that, too.”

“Mostly, for you, I’ve recommended cold showers.” Josie turned on the light in the bathroom. “You’re muddy, soaked, disheveled, and, my son, you look more exhausted than Hilary at the top of Mount Everest. What have you been doing to yourself?”

“Working. Getting married. Normal things.”

“They don’t seem to agree with you. But I will correct myself: for that particular wedding, you were indeed dressed appropriately. If I had known what was to happen, I would have worn a swimsuit.”

“Your silk dress got watered,”

Josie crossed the room to him. She put her hand out for the envelope under his arm. “Do you think you had some communication from your father? On your wedding day?”

“Yes. I think so.” He put the muddy envelope on the bureau.

“That would be interesting,” Josie said. “Exciting. To both of us. First, let me ask you: is your wedding over?”

“Not the marriage.”

“That was it? So much milling about and shouting on a stormy bluff over the ocean?”

“We didn’t have a backup plan.”

“Only an hour ago you married a nice girl named Barbara,” Josie said patiently. “You have, or you think you have, some communication from beyond the grave. However interesting and exciting it might be possibly to hear from your father, don’t you think this is one of those particularly special times you really ought to be with your wife, no matter what?”

“She’ll understand.”

“Don’t be too sure, sonny.” Josie’s face saddened. She turned toward the rain-streaked window. “Love and understanding have nothing to do with each other. I loved your father. I did not understand him. Why not? Was he too masculine, and I too feminine? Maybe the modern expectation that men and women really can understand each other is so false that it destroys marriages. As a woman, however, I will report to you that having a man present in a marriage means rather a lot to a woman.” She turned to Fletcher again. “Like on your wedding day. And other notable occasions.”

Fletch put his finger on the envelope. “This appears to be from my father. You’ve always given me this stupid line, ‘Your father died in childbirth.’ Never anything more, no matter how I’ve asked. I’ve always let you have the literary conceit of this stupid line. But the humor of it has worn as thin as my skin at the moment.”

“You’re curious?”

Fletch took a deep breath. “Mildly.”

“What I’m saying, sonny, is that I see your possibly hearing from your father causes you to do exactly as he would have done.”

“What’s that?”

“Leave your bride alone on your wedding day.”

“Did he do that to you?”

“He spent the entire wedding reception at the other end of the hangar removing, repairing and replacing the engine in the airplane we were about to use for our honeymoon.”

“You were married in an airplane hangar?”

“By now you know how wind and rain on a bluff exposed to the sea can drown out the sweetest words a woman should ever hear. Consider how much of the wedding ceremony is heard in an airport aluminum hangar, with thirty seconds between scheduled takeoffs and landings.”

Fletch smiled. “Are you sure you were married?”

“Are you sure you were married?”

“He wanted to be sure of the engine before he took his bride up in the plane.”

“That was my kind thought, too, back when I expected to understand because I loved.”

“What do you think now?”

“I think he was avoiding the reception, the congratulations, the handshakes, the slaps on the back, the jokes, and the reasonable questions obliging him to speak of our future with responsibility.” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”

“My editor, Frank Jaffe, says I may have a talent for investigative reporting.”

“This is your wedding day.”

Fletch shrugged. “I’ve spent most of it working.”

“Why is it considered the height of masculinity for a man to avoid the biggest emotional moments of his life by burying his head, and his body, in work?”

“Trickcyclists say a man’s urge to work is as great as his sexual urge.”

She smiled. “I haven’t heard that slang for the mental health brigade in decades.”

“I read that lately.”

“Wouldn’t you say work can also be man’s way of avoiding emotional responsibility?”

“Okay. Super. You should know. But you’re not going to evade my question now.”

Josephine Fletcher colored. She said, “Your ‘mild curiosity,’ the mystery about your father, is not worth your taking two minutes from your wedding day.”

Fletch shivered. “I don’t know that for a fact.”

“Get into the shower,” his mother said. “Barbara won’t want you sneezing all over her during your honeymoon. This traveler’s court, or whatever it is, must have a washer-dryer for those Americans who choose to live all their lives entirely behind windshields. There are towels in the bathroom.”

When he handed his clothes to her through the bathroom door, she said, “You know, I’m ‘mildly curious,’ too. Would you show me what you think you got from your father?”

Wrapped in a towel he crossed the room to the envelope. “Some tickets to Nairobi, Kenya, and some cash and a letter.”

“Yes,” she said. “If he’s alive, he probably would be in Africa. I’ve thought that. May I see the letter?”

Between index finger and thumb, Fletch pulled the drenched, blued piece of paper out of the envelope and handed it to her.

Josie held it in two hands. As she looked at the washed-out, blank page, her face crinkled. “Oh, Irwin. Don’t you see? There’s nothing there.”