Missing Pieces

By Rosabelle Glover

/ Flash /      

Mr. Ryerson, the private detective, doesn’t tell me what I want to know. The information he imparts is polite, like a proper Englishman, he skirts around the details considered best for private moments.

But the folder is open, the details handwritten in fine blue ink that darkens as Mr. Ryerson lowers the blinds behind his desk to block the afternoon sun. The office feels smaller with the blinds lowered. Egg-shell-white walls press against the rim of my chair and the ceiling fan clicks too close to my head. 

Is it warm in here, I ask. I pull the collar of my dress and clear my throat. I’ll give you a moment, says Mr. Ryerson before leaving the room. 

On the paper is a log of time. The dates on the paper, skeletal. An arrival date: England, June 1948. An address in Shepherds Bush from 1948 to 1962. An address in Brixton from 1962 to 1976. Died 1981. There’s an asterisk beside that year and at the bottom of the page the letters: GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency).

I extend my arms, press my hands against the wall, pushing them away from me. Giving myself space to fill in the omitted, to craft together details of what I knew of my father. Orville Lawrence came to London when he was twelve years old. He was tall for his age and passed for eighteen. He rented a room from a man who another man on the Windrush told him had space for a decent man to lay his head after a long day’s work and to lime on weekends. Orville, having no skill other than the ability to recite every Psalm in the Bible, took odd jobs, was paid poorly, sent two-thirds of everything he earned back to Trinidad. He met his future wife, Eulene Davis, at one of those weekend limes. Eulene was not pretty, but she had other admirable qualities. She knew her Bible, was even-tempered, worked hard, cooked well, loved Orville, gave him two children, kept a clean home. But then Orville left. Disappeared.

In the office, with enough air for me to take one deep breath and then another, I open the second folder. The one for the other investigation I requested after finding letters in my father’s old suitcase, the one from Trinidad. The name on the folder—Asquith Campbell. I knew him by his home name, Delroy. He was an uncle, not by blood, but by community. Uncle Delroy was the son of the man who shared his house with my father when my father set foot on England’s port. Uncle Delroy was the one who introduced his cousin, Eulene Davis, to my father at one of those weekend limes. Uncle Delroy was the man who made my father laugh in ways my mother never could. 

I imagine them in love, holding hands on long strolls through Hyde Park or Regents Park. I imagine them enjoying long meals, stuffing their faces with peas and rice, curry goat, sweet plantains. I imagine my father happier than he ever was with my mother, laughing with his mouth open wide, slapping his knee with his hat, a button about to burst on his waistcoat. 

And then…

I remember my father’s words to me as a child, I hope you’re able to love who you want, Sherry, that is all anybody want, yuh understand?

I did and I do.