a guilty conscience that had persistently made his life miserable. Tonight, he felt his circle of life beginning to complete itself. He could feel it. The end was near.
Two miles down the road, he set the 4-wheel drive and turned onto a narrow unplowed gravel road that led up a slight hill to the cemetery. He passed through the arched entryway and stopped. Rows of snow-covered headstones laced the hillside without a trace of any visitor’s footsteps. The misfortune of losing a loved one could not be measured by an outsider, and he felt a twinge of guilt for not having more reverence for all the others that lay near his family. Only those who had experienced the loss of a loved one could truly feel the tragedy of their own mortality. He was no exception.
Strong winds slammed snow hard into his face as walked up the hillside toward his parent’s graves. After offering his prayers, he stood and trained his eyes further up the hill. A crooked and barren oak tree about forty paces away swayed as the wind gusts grew even stronger. Two tombstones, an arms-length from the tree, were barely visible through the falling snow. Plodding and kicking, he slowly made his way toward them and gently brushed the snow from the face of each headstone until both inscriptions were legible.
Mary Olsen Trent, a loving wife and mother
John William Trent
A familiar, stinging pain ran through his heart. He brushed back the near-freezing tears from his eyes and sat on a snow-laden bench between the two tombstones. It was the word mother in the inscription that he couldn’t bear. He had accepted his wife’s premature death as a natural life event, but failing her in her time of need was, for him, an egregious sin for which he prayed that God would grant him grace. Even with grace, he knew there could be no penance that would ever appease the guilt he carried in his heart.
He never blamed the war for preventing him from ever seeing his son again. Even though Mary kept her sorrow to herself, he was sure that his own unwavering rejection of having another child after John’s death had broken his wife’s heart. Only the years eventually convinced him that his unilateral decision not to father another child was unconscionable. He never confessed to Mary why he refused to father another child. The truth would have been too cruel. He kneeled, placing his hand on his son’s headstone. Asking his forgiveness seemed selfish but, for now, it was all he could offer.
Later that night Trent sat by the fire in his parlor. A self-imposed guilt he had subconsciously buried since 1927 was surfacing and it wasn’t going away. For the first time in his life, he realized that attempting to correct a wrong for which he believed he may have been directly or indirectly responsible was no longer optional and feared he may have waited too long to start the process of self-redemption. Every bone in his body was finally beginning to hurt. At ninety years of age, time was running out.
Chapter 17
March 1, 1992
Angels Camp, California
Gently placing the phone back in its cradle, Crockett sat back in his den chair and stared at the ceiling. His spirit had just been torpedoed for only the second time in his seventy-two years. He looked down to the framed photo on his desk and read the inscription. It was a ritual he had followed every morning for the last twelve years…With love, Shirley. His wife had not only been his partner for life, she was his best friend. After her death, he eventually worked through some of the pain but it had taken years. While he managed to regain much of his lust for life, there was an emptiness inside that never went away. Today, more than any time since she passed, he wished she were still alive. There was battle to fight and he needed her help.
The call he just received from Elena had punched a large hole is his lifeboat and he was sinking fast. His grandson just had been diagnosed with an affliction that he thought only other people contracted and he had no words of comfort to offer his daughter. He needed help. He yelled downstairs. “Anna! Are you around?”
A voice filtered up the stairwell. “Yes!”
Crockett sighed deeply. “Come on up. I’m afraid I need a little help.”
Anna Johnson had worked for the Crockett family ever since she graduated from high school thirty-four years earlier. Initially hired to assist Shirley after Elena’s birth, the family somehow always found solid excuses to keep her on the payroll. During that time, Anna simultaneously raised her own family while expertly managing the entire Crockett household. Since Shirley’s death, she served a dual role, managing both the house and virtually every aspect of his life. When Anna’s husband was killed in an auto accident three years earlier, they were both alone. He was delighted that she accepted his suggestion to sell her house and move into the Crockett home. When Shirley died, Anna pulled him through the saddest time of his life. He returned the favor a few years later when Anna lost her husband. Now, they were like brother and sister, sharing an unspoken bond of trust that could never be broken.
When Anna reached the top of the stairs, Crockett made no attempt to hide the tears in his eyes as she sat down on the small sofa in front of his desk. Anna had become his crutch in a time of need, and he needed her now. He watched as Anna nervously fidgeted with her hair and marveled at his friend’s strengths. Fifty-two years old and barely over five feet tall, Anna was barely a hundred pounds. From the time they first met, he never had any doubt that every single ounce of her was tough as nails.
Crockett forced a smile, rubbing his eyes. “Anna, you know I’ve always tried to joke my way out of a sticky situation by saying something clever or silly but, right now, I am afraid I am at a total loss for words.”
Anna smiled. “I remember you once said something about enduring diversity was never difficult as long as it belonged to someone else. Well, you can forget about that. It’s not going to work, at least not today.”
“You listened in didn’t you?”
“Well, I did answer Elena’s call. I could tell from her voice that something was wrong. So, yes, I listened in a bit.”
Anna’s eavesdropping was nothing new for Crockett. She had been doing it for years. At times, he even encouraged it because forgetting small details, particularly those he heard over the phone, had over the years become all too common. Today, she listened on instinct, not because he asked, and he was grateful. “Good, then I don’t have to try and explain something to you that I know absolutely nothing about! I am not even sure I can spell it.”
Anna smiled. “It’s not so hard… A-U-T-I-S-M.”
Chapter 18
April 17, 1992
Angels Camp, California
Watching the early morning edition of CBS news at the kitchen table had become a habit since his retirement. For Crockett, today’s featured story was political, making it a bit more interesting than the usual trivia. It covered the upcoming forty-seventh anniversary of President Harry Truman’s first briefing of the Manhattan Project, outlining the imminent completion of the world’s first atomic bomb. Even though Truman was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fourth-term Vice President at the time the bomb was developed, the project had been so secret that Truman had never been informed of its existence. It was only after Roosevelt died and Truman was sworn in that he was told the bomb was in its final stages of development somewhere in New Mexico. In his diary that night, Truman noted only that he had been informed that the U.S. was perfecting an explosive great enough to destroy the whole world.
Crockett turned away from the television, reflecting what must have been a very traumatic day for Truman. In President Truman’s case, it is what he knew that caused him grave concern.
