Acre Under a Green Sky

We could see Liz pacing in front of the office long before we pulled into the drive.

"My God!" my father said, "What now?"

Liz grabbed hold of the car door before we had come to a full stop.

"Is your phone out of order? I've been trying to reach you for an hour," she said through the car window, "Thank God you made it before the reporters."

"Reporters?"

Liz opened the car door and took my father's hand. She was pulling him toward the office.

"Will Mosko's on the phone. I've had him on 'hold' for twenty minutes. I didn't dare cut him off. The phone hasn't stopped. Every paper in the state is calling."

We all followed Liz into the office. Danny and Baby Ruth were underfoot and my father nearly trampled them getting through the door and over to Liz's phone.

"Yeah Will, what is it?" my father said into the phone.

He stood there listening in silence for what seemed an eternity. Through the doorway, I could see my grandfather sitting at his desk reading. He had not made a move to greet us. He just sat there in his shirt-sleeves with his eyeglasses perched on the tip of his nose as if nothing were happening. Even the incessant ringing of the second phone didn't appear to faze him.

"But how?" my father finally said, "What happened?"

I began pacing in front of my father repeating, "What is it? What's going on?" My father was holding out his hand like a crossing guard; listening. He was pale and his eyes stared wide, seeing only what he was hearing. And still the other phone was ringing, ringing, ringing –– making me all the more agitated.

I turned on Liz, "What's going on?"

Liz just shook her head, but I could tell she knew.

My father took his first breath since picking up the phone, and said, "Thanks, Will. I'll get back to you later," and he hung up and fell back into Liz's chair in front of the typewriter.

"What happened?" I shouted over that damned ringing.

"Luka killed himself. He hung himself in his cell. With my belt."

No sooner did my father hang up the phone than it started ringing, too. Liz did some magic with the phones and they stopped ringing. The silence came as a shock. After a few blessed moments, Liz broke the silence:

"I thought they took all Luka's things before putting him in his cell?"

"It wasn't on the list. They took the suit, the shirt, the tie, but the belt wasn't on the list. They didn't know I gave it to him. He was keeping it from them all along."

"To kill himself?!" Liz said.

"To hold up his pants!", my father said.

It's shameful, but I started laughing. That got Liz started and then my father was seized and the three of us were laughing openly. It was painful.

Danny broke the spell.

"Is Luka dead?" he said.

"Yes. He's dead," my father said.

"Aren't you sad?" Danny said, crawling onto my father's lap.

No one said a word. We ached.

I don't know how long my grandfather had been standing in the doorway of his office watching us, but after a time he said, "I need to know when you're leaving the firm."

"What?"

"It's probably best you leave –– get out on your own."

Liz stood clutching her fake pearls –– her mouth agape.

"What are you talking about?" my father said, "Don't you get it? Luka's dead."

"Then bury him."

"Haven't we already buried him?"