All That’s Left Behind
(Ó
2010)
Within an hour, Melonie, now seated in the large living room on the sofa, had composed herself. Her eldest daughter, Colleen, had come right over when Erica contacted her.
“I can’t believe it,” Melonie said for the fifth time, “after all this time, I just can’t believe this.” Colleen had just finished playing the news clip sent by her son for the third time. She then finally saved the news story to a file, shut the screen off, sat next to her mother and wrapped her arm around her shoulder.
“You remember me telling you about him, don’t you Col?” Melonie asked her daughter.
“Yeah Ma,” she answered, “but I was a teenager then. I told that story myself a few times myself over the years, but, I never thought, well, … you know?”
“And, it was just as my father told me.” Melonie said as she remembered, “Everything my Father said to me about it, it’s just as he said.”
“Well, how about filling us in on it?” Ruth blurted out. “You’ve had us in suspense now for over an hour Mel. C’mon! What the hell gives?”
“I’m sorry girls, please come sit. I’ll tell you everything.” Melonie told her friends.
“How well do you remember it Ma?” Colleen asked. “I mean it was what … Seventy years?!”
Melonie smiled at her daughter and replied, “I remember it like it was yesterday dear.” She then looked over to Erica and asked, “Erica dear. Would you please go into my large closet? In the large chest there on the floor, open it. Underneath most everything there you will find two books, they are my yearbooks from my high school days. Could you bring them both to me dear?”
“Sure Mrs. Church, as long as you don’t start without me.”
“I won’t honey.”
Erica quickly left the room, the others heard as she went to the closet and open the chest. They heard as she rummaged through the contents with some haste. Moments later she returned to the living room with two aged books, Melonie’s high school yearbooks from Ypsilanti High School. One from the class of 1968, the other 1969.
Melonie opened the book from 1968. She turned to a page filled with portraits of the students who where attending that year. She went to the section that showed the Junior class of that year and found the picture of Brent Michael Lyle. She laid the book down and pointed to it.
“That’s him.” She said. Everyone gathered around to look. As they did she opened the other yearbook to the section of the Senior class portraits. She turned to page that showed the Senior portrait of the young boy from so long ago and pointed to it. “And this is his senior picture.”
“Handsome guy.” Delores said.
“Yes,” Melonie agreed, “yes, he was.” She then reached for the 1968 yearbook, closed it, then reopened the cover. She pointed to a handwritten message there.
The ladies saw the note which said:
“Melly, one more year! And next year, PARIS! AND BEYOND! I Love You Baby! Brent.” Below that was a long line of X’s and O’s for kisses and hugs. Then a large scripted heart, with “B.L. + M.S. = True Love.”
“He never had the chance to sign my other one.” Melonie whispered to all of them.
Ruth then asked her friend in what was for her, an uncharacteristic calm tone, “So tell us Mel. Tell us what happened. Who was this guy?”
Melonie sighed, look to all her friends, and then began to tell her story.
“He was my first love, and my high school sweetheart. I met Brent on the first day of the eighth grade. We were new in town. Daddy worked at the auto plants and had moved us all out of Detroit when he got transferred to the factories around Ypsilanti, my hometown I guess you could call it. It wasn’t much of a town, but it was now home.
“When I started at my new school, my seat was right next to Brent. I noticed him right away, not because he was so handsome or anything like that, but because he looked so sad. It turned out that his mother had just passed away some months before. He looked so alone … so sad. So … I just started to talk to him. When I did, it seemed as if I was the first person to have spoken to him in a long time.
“We hit it off right away, we were practically inseparable. But, I also found out one reason why Brent was so sad. When his mother died, he was left alone with his father. His father was a vile man. A drunkard who beat on Brent a lot. When his mother died, Brent had to take on all her responsibilities that she had around the house. His father treated her just as bad. Brent would tell me that his father hated him.”
“What?” Ester asked, “How could a father hate his son?
“When that father has no reason to be a father.” Melonie answered. “You see Brent was a ‘surprise baby’, if it were not for the surprise of Brent, his father would never would have had been forced to marry his mother.”
“Oh, I see.” Ester said.
“Anyhow,” Melonie continued, “we were boyfriend/girlfriend through the eighth grade and all through high school. Brent and I even talked about getting married. He made plans for us. He was going to join the Marine Corps after high school and we would get married. He said that it would be hard in the beginning, but he would work on getting promoted, and I could get a job, we would live in the housing on the base, that he wanted to get us out of Ypsilanti, maybe we would be stationed in California or Florida, some place warm and beautiful.”
Ruth looked again to the note written in the yearbook and asked, “Mel, what does this mean? This ’next year, Paris’?”
“We were supposed to have gone to Europe together, on a trip with our senior class.” Melonie said bowing her head. “When we entered high school we learned about it. We made a pact that we were going to save all the money that we could throughout our high school years and go on that trip together.” A small smile came to her face, she raised her head, “We were going to have cheese, strawberries, and champagne at the Eiffel Tower.”
Melonie dropped her head again and stared at the floor, the room was silent for a moment. Then Delores asked, “So, what happened Melonie. Tell us, what’s behind this news story.”
Melonie raised her head, took a deep breath and continued.
“It was March of 1969. My school was on a spring break. My mother wanted to go visit her sister in Wisconsin, my Aunt Helen. We were going to drive to Milwaukee to Aunt Helen and Uncle Paul’s, spend the night, then drive up to a cabin further north. My father and Uncle Paul loved to go fishing, and they thought it would be nice to get some late winter, early spring fishing in.
“On the morning we left we met Brent for breakfast at a local waffle house in town. He couldn’t come with us. He had a job at a local gas station, plus the situation with his father.
“After breakfast, we went to the parking lot to say good-bye. You see, we were going to be gone for five days and I would not see Brent the entire time. He hugged me and kissed me good-bye. He told me he loved me and would see me soon, that ‘Wednesday will be here in no time’. I told him I loved him too, and that I would miss him and think about him the entire time. We then got into our car and left.
“That was the last time that I ever saw him or heard from him again, … until tonight.”
Quiet once again came to the room, then, everyone noticed when Ruth, who was always thought to be the toughest of “Hell’s Grannies”, was caught wiping a tear from her eye.
“Anyway,” Melonie continued, “Wednesday did come along. We left Milwaukee early that morning and got back home sometime past noon. I ran into the house, threw my suitcase on my bed, and ran to call Brent. I phoned his house, but there was no answer. I waited a few minutes and phoned again, but there was no answer. Daddy told me to wait a half hour, he might be in the shower or at the grocery store or something. So, I waited, called again … and still no answer.
“I tried one more time, this time I let the phone ring thirty five times … no answer. Daddy then said to try and call him at the gas station where he worked. So I did, and that’s where everything began to unravel. I spoke with his boss, a man named Gus, he told me that Brent had not showed up either Monday or Tuesday, he was off the weekend to work around his house. He was supposed to show up there today … but he didn’t.
“I asked Gus if he called Brent’s house. He told me he did, the day before, but there was no answer. I asked him if he ever thought of going over to Brent’s house to see why he didn’t show up to work. His answer summed it up. He said to me, ‘Aw honey, c’mon, you know what it’s like at that house … don’t cha?’
“Yes, I did. I knew exactly what it was like at that house. Brent’s father was a violent man whether he was drunk or not. He told me everything that went on there. I knew exactly what was going on, even though I had never been to his home. Brent would not let me ever come over there. ‘It’s no place for a lady,’ he said to me, ‘it was bad enough for Mama.’ Yes, I knew exactly what it was like in that house … and that’s when I started to get frightened.
“I went to Daddy, I told him that something’s wrong, and to please take me over to Brent’s. He tried to reassure me that everything is okay, that his father must have been on one of his usual binges. You see, Tom Lyle had a reputation in our town. Everyone knew about Tom Lyle, his drinking, his fighting, his car crashes, and above all, his bullying. He would become more violent with every drink he took. Daddy said he was just a coward, one of those ‘punks that become Superman after a few beers’. Brent had to live with that man … and his reputation.
“But, I kept telling Daddy that no, something was wrong, he didn’t show up for work, and he never would do that, not show up and at least phone his boss. I started to plead with Daddy to take me over there. He must have seen something in my face, because he went quiet for a second, stroked my hair and said, ‘Okay Kitten,’ that was his nickname for me, ‘let me get our coats, we’ll go over there.’
“I told Daddy that I hope there would be no fight over there with Tom Lyle. Daddy just said, ‘Tom Lyle better hope there will be no fight over there.’ My Daddy was a big and stocky, but a gentle man.
“We arrived at Brent’s house in no time, and when the car pulled into the driveway, I felt it. I felt something was very wrong, it was the quiet all around, something was wrong.
“Daddy said, ‘Well, looks like Tom’s not here, his truck’s gone.’ Daddy must have felt it too though, he told me to stay in the car and that he would go knock on the door. He went up to the house and did so. No one came. Daddy tried again, but nothing. He looked to me and signaled that he was going around the back and that I was to stay put. I saw him go around the side of the house. Soon, I heard him calling Brent’s name in the back yard. Moments later he came around the other side, looked at me, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Daddy came back to the car and told me that he was going to try the front door one more time, that if there was no answer, that he and I would drive over to the gas station to talk to Gus, and maybe even call the police, if I wanted.
“I said ‘Thank you Daddy, that would be fine.’ He gave me a smile and returned to the front door, knocked on it a little harder, and called Brent’s name a couple times. Still … no answer. Daddy started to come back to the car when he noticed that the curtains to the living room window were parted just a little. He motioned to me that he was going to go take a peek inside to see if he could see anything. I nodded ‘okay’ to him Now, there were these bushes all along the front window, and like I said, Daddy was a pretty big guy, and he had to maneuver himself between the bushes to get to the window. I remember that the bushes were still brown and bare from the winter.
“Finally, Daddy got through to the window and looked over to me. He bent down and looked inside. I remember how he moved around to see inside, looking to one side then the other, his big body moving to better position himself. Then … he froze … he didn’t move a muscle. I knew right then, at that very second, that my suspicions were confirmed, I knew right then, everything I felt was true, I knew then something was indeed definitely wrong.
“I then saw Daddy slowly stand up straight, even though the house was a few inches in front of him, he seemed to stare right through it, like it wasn’t there. I watched as he slowly bent down again and peered through the opening through the curtain. He then slowly stood up and walked away from the house and through the bushes … backwards … still looking to the house. When he turned in my direction I saw the expression of shock and deep concern on his face. He was like in a trance. He suddenly seemed to come back to reality, saw me and began to come back to the car with a quick pace.
“He got in the car and slammed the door, he told me that we were going over to the gas station to talk to Gus. I asked him what was wrong, what did he see? He just said, ‘I don’t know Kitten, please, you’re going to have to be patient, we have to go see Gus.’
“Daddy went right to the gas station, the fact that he was speeding to get there just made me believe even more that something was wrong. Daddy never drove over the speed limit. When we arrived at the gas station, Gus was there at the service desk. When Gus looked up at saw Daddy coming through the front door I saw a big smile come to his face, and I heard him say, ‘Hiya Bill! How was the fishing trip?’ Daddy shut the door behind him, but I could see them both talking to each other through the large front window. I saw Daddy talking to Gus, and as he was talking, I saw the big smile on Gus’s face suddenly disappear, and when I saw that, my heart started sinking.
“I then saw as Gus reached for the telephone and make a call. He and Daddy both spoke to whomever it was one the other end, when they were finished I saw Gus then go over to the service bay and shut the sliding doors down and locked them. He then return to the desk area, grabbed his coat, shut the lights off, and turned the sign in the window that said ‘CLOSED’. Daddy and he both stepped outside, and Gus locked the door. I heard him say to Daddy, ‘I’ll meet you back over there’, and Gus went to his truck.
“Daddy then came back to the car, he got inside and told me that he was taking me back home, and then he was going back to Brent’s. I told him no, I told him to please tell me what he saw, that I was going back to Brent’s with him.
“Daddy told me that he didn’t know what he saw. But I knew he was fibbing. He told me he and Gus called the police, that something strange was at the Lyle house, but I saw right through him, he was trying to protect me from what was really going on. I calmly pleaded with him to take me back to Brent’s with him. He finally gave in and told me that he would do so only if I promised to stay in the car. So … I promised him that I would.
“Soon, we were back at Brent’s house. Gus was there too, he got there a few minutes before we did and he was standing in the front yard. Daddy went to get out of the car to go wait for the police with him, before he got out he turned to me and said, ’Remember, your promise, stay right here.’ I told him I would and he went over to Gus and waited.
“It wasn’t a long wait, the first squad car was there in a matter of moments, soon followed by another. The officers got out of their cars and began talking to Daddy and Gus. Daddy led them up to the house and to the window where he was looking through before. The officers both took turns looking where Daddy told them too. Next thing I knew they all went to the front door. The top half if the door had small windows. One of the policemen took out his flashlight and broke one of the windows. He reached in and unlocked the door, motioned to Daddy and Gus to stay where they were. The police then opened the door and stepped inside.
“I watched as all four men reached up to cover the mouths and noses at the same time. I started crying. The two officers came back outside in a few seconds and called the others over, and that, was the beginning of all the chaos that was to follow.
“Daddy spoke with the officers for a second, he then turned to me and saw me, the look on his face, the look of having to tell your daughter terrible news. He started coming over to the car, he opened my door and knelt down beside me. He looked at me and I asked, ‘Daddy? Is it Brent? Is he okay?’ He looked at me and said, ‘It’s not Brent Kitten … no … but … it’s not good … in fact … it’s terrible.’
“I asked what it was then, and Daddy said, ‘It’s Tom Lyle … Kitten … he’s dead. It’s seems he’s been dead awhile … and it looks like there was a big fight in there … and …no one seems to know where Brent is.’
“I looked at Daddy in disbelief, I asked him, ‘They don’t think that … that Brent … that he … Daddy! No!’ I buried my face in my Daddy’s chest, I was screaming, and I was crying, Not Brent, not him, he couldn’t possibly have done such a horrible thing. Daddy held me until cried and screamed myself into exhaustion.
“The police interviewed Daddy and myself. They interviewed Gus as well. It turned out later that Gus was the last known person to ever see Brent. He had given him a ride home from work on the evening of the day we all left for Wisconsin.
“Daddy took me home and when we got there everyone we knew were there waiting for us. My best girlfriends were there trying to comfort me. My mother was crying, and Daddy? Well … he would go into their bedroom and cry. Mother and Daddy were very fond of Brent. Daddy and he grew very close, in fact the suit jacket and tie you see him wearing in his senior picture, Daddy lent that to him. Poor Brent, he had to pay for those portraits himself, and he had to have them taken in secret. We had ours both done the same day by the same photographer. Brent had to constantly hide any money that he made from his father, and hide any proof that he had any extra money to spend.
“The police looked for him everywhere, they had bulletins up for him at all the other police departments in Michigan. They even contacted his mother’s family on the reservation in South Dakota.”
“Excuse me? The reservation?” Erica asked inquisitively. “What do you mean by the reservation?”
“Brent’s mother,” Melonie answered, “she was, what was terribly referred to back in those days, a ‘half-breed’. She was half white, half Indian; American Indian, from the Sioux Nations. Her father was white, and her mother was a Sioux, a Lakota Sioux. She grew up on the reservation there in South Dakota. I remember, Brent, he was so proud of his Sioux heritage, it was the only heritage he would speak of. He completely disavowed any heritage that came from his fathers side.
“Some time later, I got in contact with his grandparents out there. They hadn’t seen him for some years, his father wouldn’t allow it after his mother died. They also had not heard a word from him, he never came to them for help. Brent had just …vanished.
“I remember though, of how he missed going to the ‘rez’ as he called it. He always told me of how beautiful it was, ‘a beautiful land that is occupied by a beautiful people’ he would always say. He would tell me that when we got married of how his first leave from the Marines would be spent by taking me there, of how his family there would just love me. He even planned further into the future by saying when he would retire from the Corps, of how we would both move there to live.”
Melonie stopped for a few moments, she was lost in her memories, she then came back from her thoughts, looked at the ladies, then continued.
“School for the rest of the that year was hell. I’m surprised I made it through, I was so sad, depressed, worried and lonely for Brent. My girlfriends convinced me to go on the senior trip with them anyway. My mother and Daddy insisted that I go too. Daddy said it would be good for me, he also said, ‘don’t let this chance go Kitten, look at me, I’ve never even seen the ocean.’ So, I went. My friends did their best to keep me cheerful. England was nice, so was Italy, but it was in France that I was depressed.
“Part of the pact I made with Brent was that he had to take French classes through high school with me, so he did. We were, as I said before, going to have a special time at the Eiffel Tower together, walk around Paris, and speak with the locals in their language. But … that dream was shattered.
“I remember the whole time though in France, I kept looking around, I felt like Brent would be there to surprise me. I kept looking around for him. Now it turns out … those feelings were not so far fetched.
“I did go to the Tower though, during some free time, by myself. I went up to the restaurant there one afternoon, and I ordered the cheeses with strawberries along with the champagne, and I spent the afternoon there, by myself looking out at the scenery, wishing he would appear somewhere.’
Melonie again drifted off in her memories for a moment, then snapped back.
“Then, we returned home,” she said as she went on, “and later that summer most of my friends were starting to leave Ypsilanti, for college, jobs, or even the military. Me? I got a job as a cashier at the local grocery store. I worked … then I came home … then went to work … then I came home. That’s how my life was for the next year and a half. I only went out with some girlfriends, and that was just to the movies or something like that. I never dated anyone. Stayed home most Friday and Saturday nights.
“Then, one Saturday night, I came home from working the late shift. It was around 10:30 and there was Daddy, sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. Just the lights from the kitchen were on, not the TV or anything else.
“I said hello to him and he just raised his hand in a little wave. I asked him where Mother was, he told me that she was at the movies with a couple of her friends, he said that he told her to go for a ‘girls night out’ and that she should be home in about an hour.
“I looked at his face, he had a strange expression, and I asked if there was anything wrong. He said, ‘You tell me Kitten’. He stood up and went to the refrigerator, he reached up on top of it and pulled down a large manila envelope and handed it to me. ‘This came for you in the mail today.’ He said to me. I looked at it, it was from the Department of the Navy. I looked at the envelope, and then I looked at Daddy, he then asked ‘Are you planning on leaving us sweetie?’
“I just sighed, ‘Oh Daddy, I don’t know what to do. I’m so confused, I’m so mixed up, ever since it happened, I just … well … oh I don’t know. I saw this ad in on of the magazines at work, it was about the WAVES, so I sent the card in for the information, that’s all.’
“Daddy told me then to open up the envelope and sit down so that we can take a look at what they sent. Inside was an information magazine about the WAVES, along with the business card from a local recruiter. ‘Looks pretty interesting,’ Daddy kept saying.
“I agreed that it did, but I told Daddy that if it weren’t for the possibility of Brent coming back, that the thought of leaving always was pushed aside in my mind. I told him that ‘it seems like I’m looking for him all the time. I look down the street to see if he’s about to come around the corner, or at work to see if he’s standing in the parking lot. Every time that the phone rings, I think it might be him. I check the mail every day to see if he wrote. I keep writing his grandparents in South Dakota, they’ve heard nothing either.
“Then Daddy took my hands in his. I can still feel those big, strong, calloused hands of his around mine. The tone in his voice when he spoke was so sincere when he said to me, ‘Kitten, look at me. There are times when the hardest thing that a father has to do for his kids, is to tell them things that they just don’t want to hear.’
“I asked him what that would be. He looked into my eyes, and I saw his begin to fill with tears, his voice was slightly broken when he said, ‘Sweetie … he’s not ever coming back.’
“I just broke down and cried when I heard him say that. I cried out ‘Daddy!’ and buried my face in his chest. He put his arms around me and started to rock me back and forth like I was a little girl again. He said to me, “It’s okay Kitten, it’s okay, go ahead and cry. Listen to me sweetie, I got to know that boy pretty well over the years, and I miss him too. I was really fond of that boy. But sweetie, what he did … even though his father was lower than dirt … it was a terrible thing he did. But, that doesn’t make him evil. I would swear on a stack of Bibles that he did not do what he did on purpose, it was an accident or something. But he did what he did, and honey, if I know that boy at all, he didn’t run away because he was scared.’
“My head was still on his chest when I asked him what he meant. He said, ‘He didn’t run away because he was scared about what he had done sweetie. I believe, with all my heart, that he left … so that he could let you go.’
“I lifted my head up and looked at my father, he was nodding ‘yes’. He said, ‘Don’t you see Kitten, if he stayed, where would he be right now? In prison, that’s where. Could you live with that? What if he got a life sentence? Could you live your life driving down to Jackson once a month to visit him for just a few hours? Then there’s the worst case, what if he was on death row? Would you be able to handle it when the day came when they had to carry that out? If it weren’t that you were a fact in his life, he would have stayed. But he couldn’t bear seeing you like that, so … he left … and he let you go … and let go of all that’s left behind. He wants you to have a life, something that he would have taken from you if he stayed. He wants you to be happy … and … to find someone else who will give you what he can’t anymore. He wants you to live … and to go on with your life.
“I asked, ‘What should I do Daddy? What should I do?’ He reached over and picked up the Navy magazine, looked at it and said, ‘Kitten, come Monday, I think you should give these people a call.’
“I asked him if he were serious, and he said, ‘ Kitten, look at me, look at this place, the town we live in. Do you know where you will be ten years from now if you stay here? You’ll still be at that grocery store, only as the head cashier … maybe. There’s nothing here for you, and I want the best for you. I kick myself everyday for not doing better in school, I could have done better for myself and done a lot more for you and your brothers, had money for college, things like that. My job? Yeah, the pay is good and so are the benefits, but would you really want to work not knowing when the next layoff is from the company, or the next strike from the union is going to be? I love you very much too Kitten, and that means that I too have to let you go. Go on Melonie, call these people, get yourself out of here. Go out there and meet other people your age from other places. See if you can travel a little more. Go out there and live your life.’
“I looked at him for a moment, then a thought came to me, and I asked him, ‘But what if I go … and Brent does come back?’
“Daddy put his arms around me again and held my head to his chest and said, ‘If that happens honey, then I’ll send him to you, no matter what, I promise.’
“That night, I realized just how much I loved my father, it was our night, the one time with him that I always remember. I did what he said, I called the recruiter that Monday and I went down there that day. Next thing I know, I joined the Navy and I became a WAVE. I learned all my office and administration skills there. I got stationed for a couple of years in Japan, then Australia, and the last place I had duty was in New York.
“I remained somewhat in contact with Brent’s grandparents in those years. I remember one letter from his grandmother telling me of how she, every day, would go to the open fields, face in every direction, and ‘sing’ to the great spirits for her grandson. I understand that she did it until the day she died.
“While I was in New York, I met John, and he was the best thing that ever happened to me. I told him everything that happened, and he helped me to love again.” Melonie then wiped more tears from her eyes. “My God, do I miss him.”
The quiet returned to the room, no one had anything to say.
Melonie broke the silence by asking, “Well? Now what? I feel as if I have to do something.”
Ruth was quick with an answer, “I got it. Why don’t you go to France?”
“What?” Melonie exclaimed.
“You heard me, go to France. The news report said he died six months ago. Find out where he’s buried, and go visit his grave.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?” asked Colleen. “I think that’s a wonderful idea Mom. We can all go as a family. It would be good for you … a closure. You carried this with you for seven decades. Seven decades! You have a chance to bring it to an end.”
“I’d feel sort of guilty though,” Melonie said, “I mean, think of you father. Me? Going all the way to France to see the grave of an old boyfriend?”
“Dad would make you go,” Colleen asked, “this boy, man, was a part of your life. Dad would be getting the arrangements done now.”
“Do you really think we should?”
“Yes mom, we should. In fact, I’m going to go on line right now to see if I can get a copy of the book he wrote.”
