Tommy left Pearl to her sorting and exited the post office. The rain had stopped and waves of scent—fresh earth, trees, and flowers—expanded in the humid air. Proud that he’d been able to gift Pearl with the book of fairy tales, excited to read his father’s letters, Tommy sprang down the stairs. He looked into the sky, a ray of sun washing over his face, warming it. He was certain the letters would bring good news. This released a swell of optimism inside him, like when winter thaw bloated the Des Moines River nearly above the banks. When the thought of the painting in McCrady’s came roaring back, he stomped it out. He’d worry about that later.
He tore into the first letter. Pearl was correct about the way she saw letters—they held mystery, adventure, secrets, hopes, joys, love of fathers to sons. Opening the ones from his father, Tommy felt like it was Christmas morning. He slid a thin piece of paper from its envelope. Before he read a word, an iron grip locked on his arm, squeezing so tight it numbed him down to his fingertips.
“Where’s your two buddies?” the man with the vice grip said. Tommy squinted into his suntanned mug. Who was he?
“Wipe that stupid look off your face.” The man clamped harder.
Tommy shook his head, struggling to pull away.
“Train station. You, that big lout, and the wiry, devilish one. One of you relieved me of my cash.”
Tommy tried to remember what the man was talking about. Hank and Bayard would pickpocket their own mothers, but Tommy didn’t do that type of stealing. He looked down.
Alligator shoes.
In an instant, he remembered the night as if he were back at the depot, hoping to help someone carry their luggage for a penny or a meal. Tommy hadn’t known that Hank and Bayard had planned to take anything from anyone. He had simply been near them at the time of the crime.
“I didn’t do anything.” Tommy’s mind ran through that evening. He looked at the man’s fine clothing and neat mustache and knew that it wouldn’t matter that Tommy hadn’t been the one who stole from him. Men like this had influence in Des Moines, and they lumped everyone “else” in the same leaky canoe.
Tommy’s throat closed and fear rose up. He tried to wrench free again, and when it was clear the man was holding tight, Tommy hauled back with his free hand and socked him in the belly. The man buckled, letting up on his grasp, giving Tommy the opportunity to wiggle away.
He leapt into the road and ran. One foot hit the muddy street, sinking in, while the other hit the top of a wagon rut, his ankle twisting as his body jerked upright. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the brick-like man in the dandy shoes had given chase. He should have been no match for Tommy’s speed, but the man’s girth seemed to make him faster, bearing down as he pumped his arms, cheeks full of forced air.
Tommy’s breath came short as he leapt onto the sidewalk. He rose up on his toes and turned sideways to make it through the space between two women out for fresh air.
“Sorry, ladies,” he said, doffing his cap as he kept moving. His feet pounded over the wood sidewalks, his thighs tightening as he picked up speed, moving straight ahead again.
“Vagrant! Stop!”
The wind rose up, stinging Tommy’s eyes. He pressed on, faster than he thought possible, images of jail tumbling through his mind, driving him forward. Not now. Not when things were going his way. He glanced back once more and saw that the man had tripped over a grocer’s apple cart, belly-down in the mud, spitting out a mouthful of dirt road.
Tommy broke east down the alley that ran between Carson’s Jewelry and Dillon’s Haberdashery then stopped. He peeked around the corner. Deliverymen unloading butter churns, wooden bread bowls, and stacks of fabric from a wagon into Martin’s Variety Store blocked Tommy’s view. He heaved for breath. No sign of alligator shoes. Tommy was satisfied he’d gotten away clean—for the moment anyway. He left the alley, heading down a lane that would lead home, practically abandoned compared to the street he’d just been on.
Moving slowly, sucking in as much air as his body would take, he looked at the letters he’d crumpled in his hand.
He removed his hat and wiped his brow with his forearm before unfolding the letter, hands quivering. His father wrote that he was impressed with Tommy’s plan to help pay off the debt Frank owed in Oklahoma, but that it wasn’t necessary, that he would pay that debt just as soon as he got some extra. His debt in Texas was really what he needed Tommy’s help with.
He appealed to Tommy to keep saving for himself as well, that one never knew when luck might turn for the worse. He also indicated he planned to arrive in Des Moines by midsummer. Reading this made Tommy stop right there. He glanced over his shoulder.
Still no alligator shoes.
He pushed his hand through his hair, relief and joy at his father’s pending arrival coursing through him. He reread that part again, then looked at the wording near a drawing at the bottom—an orb, shaded gray and black.
Black Pearl—the treasure a fella gave me in exchange for my assistance on a personal matter. He harvested it in the deep South Pacific, and I think it’s good luck. Tahiti. Remember when I mentioned it? This pearl sits deep in my pocket, like the penny I gave you that sits in yours. I think it might be the source of riches and good lives for all of us someday. If only I had a faster way to get to the oyster beds. Will fill you in when I arrive this summer. We’ll be knee-deep in clover as well as fine jewels sooner than I can say. Maybe you and I will combine finances, forces, and intellect and head to harvest black pearls together. Always looking forward, Tommy. Both of us. Dreaming of better times.
A grin spread across Tommy’s face at the thought of it—his father returning to Des Moines and the two of them heading off to harvest pearls. He’d seen plenty of creamy-white pearls from the Orient. The Des Moines River had its share of mussels that produced pink and blue and creamy pearls. So did the Raccoon River. But black? Tommy didn’t quite believe there were black pearls, and he’d never thought much about reaping pearls of any type. He finished reading:
If you’d like me to keep a hold of your earnings, save them for when I arrive and I can invest them for you.
Tommy found himself nodding at the last sentence, but then something crept into his mind.
No.
Thinking the word shook him.
No.
Oklahoma, Texas, heading out to harvest black pearls? What would make this Frank G. Arthur venture any different? Hell, could his father even get to Tahiti? Bitter disappointment turned his stomach. He would help his father with debt, but Tommy would invest his own funds, alone. Alone. There it was again. The word, the feeling, the promise?
He no longer trusted his father completely, but until he’d had that thought, until that no crept into his mind, he hadn’t fully realized it. And that broke his heart.
Mama. Katherine. Yale.
No.
He couldn’t believe how clear his opposition to his father’s plans hit him all of a sudden.
He didn’t trust his father to provide for the female Arthurs. The feeling was so strong he wondered if the sense had been growing for some time and he’d just ignored it. Tahiti? Black pearls? It all sounded wonderful and ridiculous at once, like the fairy tales he’d just given Pearl.
Midsummer.
He scoffed then scolded himself. It was disrespectful to lose faith in family.
Tommy walked on. He folded the letter and reassured himself with the excuses he’d provided his father for years by then. One more chance? Why did the sense that his father deserved it return to him again and again? He supposed it was meant to be, to keep believing. So, he’d save money for the both of them. He’d raise enough to help relieve his father’s debts, and he’d save enough to buy Mama the little cottage with the lush garden she’d been yearning for.
He tucked the letter into its envelope. No return address. Marked Katy, Texas. Tommy imagined his father on the move, headed to Des Moines, wondering where exactly he must be. He wondered if he should give the Indian Head penny back to his father when he arrived. It sounded like he might need it more than Tommy did.
He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and sighed, ignoring the realization he’d just had that his father was not the man he wanted him to be.
He envisioned his parents seeing each other for the first time in years, feeling the joy that would erupt, that would shock them to find it readily there, between them, making everything forgiven and forgotten.
Tommy knew how that felt when he’d seen his mother and sisters after years apart, how being together filled a large part of his emptiness, how it soothed a particular aching he’d not even noticed until they were all hugging again, creating a life all over.
He didn’t trust his father anymore, but he still wanted him with them, needed him close.
Surely his parents would recall the reasons they fell in love when they were young. Together they were better. Their lives were strung together by their children, connecting them over time and place. They just needed to remember that.
Tommy hit Main Street and zigzagged into the lunchtime crowd, hoping that perhaps just the fact that he had a plan would please his mother enough, that having the foresight and will to put their family back together, Frank Arthur and all, would be enough to make his mother think him as great as his brother, James, had actually been.