He liked to play Dylan songs because they were generally three chords or less and you didn’t really have to sing perfectly either. Amber had demanded that her daddy play it again and again until all the sandwiches were gone and the sunset was flaming across the boardwalk.
She swiped a hand at the tears and screamed at the line of cars in front of her, stopped patiently at the red traffic light. She glanced over at the car beside her and a woman who looked as if she had just eaten a lemon glared at her. Contrary to her usually meek nature, Amber flipped the woman off just as the light went green. She could see the uptight woman mouth, “well, I never…” as she sped past.
The GPS said she was still eleven minutes away, but it surely hadn’t accounted for the insane amount of stops she was making on Pines Boulevard. She cursed the city designers and swore she would take it up with whoever programmed the intervals at which the lights stopped traffic.
“Not enough time,” she said, watching the minutes tick by on her phone. “I just need a few more minutes, God. Please, won’t you give me just a few more minutes.”
Without prompting or sufficient warning, the Marcario Morales case popped into her mind. She swore loudly and then asked forgiveness. She suddenly wished she had never heard of the case. Re-living the details of that awful episode had stressed her father so badly that he’d had a major stroke and now … she pushed the thought away. Three more minutes had passed and she hadn’t even traveled three miles.
When she finally made it to the hospital, she pulled up to the valet stand and jumped out of the car without bothering to turn it off, give her name, or tell the confused young man at the stand where she was going. She ran through the lobby, only slowing to push the elevator button, then think better of it, and jerk open the heavy steel door to race up the concrete stairs. Her footfalls echoed in the stairwell as she pulled herself along, holding a handrail that appeared to have more than a dozen coats of yellow paint on it. She broke through the door, slamming it open harder than she meant to and skidded to a stop in front of the nurse’s station.
The nurse behind the counter, a motherly black woman named Jenise, had seen Amber crash through the door, stood up, and held up a hand to stop her. She didn’t say a word. She just came out from behind the yellowing Formica counter, took Amber in her pillowy arms, and whispered in her ear.
“He fought the good fight, child,” she said. “He finished the race. He kept the faith. Today he will wear the crown of righteousness.”
Amber felt the dam inside her, full of tiny holes and cracks, break. The flood of sadness poured out of her, wracking her body with gasping sobs. She would’ve collapsed to the ground, but Jenise was stronger than she thought. The woman held her, rocked her, and hummed gently in her ear until she was able to calm down.
“Can I see him?” She asked, wiping her face with a blue cloth the nurse had brought her.
Jenise nodded and stretched out a hand toward her father’s room.
17
Tip Line
The service for Joseph Cross was held at the New Wine Ministries Church. There was no casket because her father had left behind a letter that clearly stated his desire to be cremated after every last bit of his body fit for it was donated. “It is only a vessel for my eternal soul. From dust I came and to dust I shall return,” he’d written. “May God use my body to heal that of another. That would be the greatest accomplishment I could hope for as I leave this earth.”
He was not to be buried in the ground either. He wanted his ashes to be spread, fittingly, in the water at Chapel Trail Nature Preserve. The wooden box holding him was placed on the altar at the front of the church and hundreds of people passed by to pay their respects to their pastor, their shepherd, and their friend.
Amber was in a daze, the events of the past few days pummeling her with uncertainties about what she would do when she returned to “real life” in Savannah. She had called Minter and Chief Decker to briefly explain what had happened and that she would be back in town in a couple of days.
“Take your time, Ber,” Decker had told her. “Take the rest of the week if you want.”
And with his blessing, she spent a few days boxing up the important things she’d found in the attic, tucking them into the hatchback of the Datsun, and visiting the nature preserve one last time.
Holding the box of ashes, she looked up at a gray, stormy sky. Big drops of rain were starting to peck at the surface of the water as she stood on the edge of the boardwalk.
“Daddy,” she said, her finger tracing the top of the simple urn, “I’m so sorry. I wish I had never come here. It’s all my fault that you’re gone.”
She flipped open the lid and opened the plastic bag holding her father’s ashes. “I just want you to know that I forgive you for what you did. I may never understand why … but I feel whole again, knowing what happened.”
She swung the bag around in a wide arc, the ashes blowing into the wind and settling on the surface of the pond. The rain picked up, so she tucked the bag back into the box and closed it. She pulled her jacket up
