Johnny (Part Five)

Joshua and Johnny drove back to the Cramblit house in silence. They got there to find an ambulance parked outside. Its lights weren't flashing. Johnny knew that meant that there was no hurry. There was nothing that could be done. The person they had come here for was dead.
Joshua parked his shuttlecar on the other side of the street and they both went to the house. Johnny had almost forgotten about the Bible and his brother's problems. He was only focused on one thing: Nanny's death, and when he saw two paramedics walking out of the front door with a covered stretcher, he could think of nothing but the body beneath that white sheet. Nanny was gone.
Mrs. Cramblit stood in the front hall with Steve and Kelly. They were all crying as they watched the paramedics load Nanny's body and prepare to leave. Johnny and Joshua joined them in silent observance. Once Nanny was inside and the doors secured, the ambulance flew away.
"What happened?" Johnny asked his mother.
"Nothing happened," Mrs. Cramblit said, "she just died. The paramedics said that her heart just gave out. After breakfast she went upstairs and laid on her bed. She never woke up."
"I can't believe it," Joshua said.
"She was old, Josh," Mrs. Cramblit said. "She didn't suffer."
"I know," Joshua said, "but still. I never thought she would die. She was always so stubborn. I thought that death would come for her and she would just start arguing with it until it gave up and left her alone."
Despite their tears, the Cramblits all chuckled at that image. It was something Nanny would have done if given the chance. It was a family joke that Nanny would out live them all, and despite her age, on some level they had all believed it.
"Did you call Dad?" Johnny asked his mother.
"He's on his way home," she told him. "I asked the paramedics to delay taking her away until he could get here but they wouldn't. Regulations."
"Yeah," Joshua said. Both he and Johnny were familiar with those rules, but it didn't seem right that Mr. Cramblit couldn't see his mother off.
The family assembled at the kitchen table to wait for Mr. Cramblit to come home. Though nobody really wanted any, Mrs. Cramblit made a pot of coffee. They sat there drinking the coffee and waiting in silence for about twenty minutes. Then Johnny's father arrived at the house and the Cramblit's began to mourn together.
It wasn't until about an hour after Joshua had gone home that Johnny remembered that he was going to confront him about the Bible. But even if he had remembered earlier, he wouldn't have done so. With Nanny's unexpected death, the Cramblit family had enough to deal with without Johnny revealing his brother's deviant religious leanings to them all. At this point he couldn't see any circumstance before leaving for Planet X when it would seem appropriate to talk to his brother about what he had found in his glove compartment. Indeed, even if Nanny hadn't died, it wouldn't have seemed appropriate.
He was in his bedroom staring blankly at a TV monitor, not even caring what was on. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. He wanted to mourn for his grandmother, but every time he began to dwell on those feelings he would remember the Bible and his brother's situation. Then, transversely, when he tried to think about that, he was overwhelmed with grief over Nanny's death and the conviction that he shouldn't compound this family tragedy with another. Then he would remind himself that Joshua being a Christian was a great tragedy and he needed to help him somehow, and the only person that he thought he could have discussed this with was lying on a cold slab in the morgue across town, which brought right back to where he started.
There was a knock at the door and he went to it. It was his father. His face was wet with tears and he stepped into Johnny's room without a word. He sat on Johnny's bed and looked up at his son. In his hand was a folded up piece of paper. Johnny sat beside him.
"I think she knew she was going to die today," Mr. Cramblit began. "We found this on her nightstand." He handed Johnny the paper. It was from his grandmother's diary. Paper was rare nowadays and most people kept all their records, both personal and official, on disc or in a computer database. Nanny had been old fashioned and insisted on writing her thoughts and all of her correspondence on paper. The diary this page had come from was a gift that Johnny had bought for her for the last holiday. It had been very expensive and hard to find, but Nanny had loved it.
"There was a note for each of us," Mr. Cramblit went on. "They were dated last night. All torn out of her diary and folded on the nightstand waiting for us."
"Have you read this?" Johnny asked.
"No, son," Mr. Cramblit said. "This is for you. My note was very personal and I know yours will be as well. Go ahead, son. I'll be downstairs if you need me."
Johnny's father left the room and Johnny stared down at the folded paper in his hands. His name was written on it with unique and very familiar handwriting that would never again be used. He flipped off the TV and opened the note.
Dear, Johnny
I wanted to tell you that I am proud of you. While I don't agree with everything that the government or the police do nowadays, I still think that you made a good choice in becoming an officer of the law. You've always made good choices. Ever since you were a little boy you have had a sense of justice and fairness. We all knew that you would be a cop years before you ever voiced the desire and the uniform looks right on you.
It's those good choices that will keep you grounded in your life. In your future you will probably be faced with many difficult problems where right and wrong don't seem to be as clear as you would want. Sometimes what the law says and what you know to be just and fair may not be the same. You may have to choose between what your duty requires and what your conscious tells you. In those times don't ask yourself what the law books or rules say. Ask yourself what's right. You're a good man, Johnny, and if you simply go with your heart, you won't go wrong.
I am sorry that I will not be able to see the fine man you will become, but seeing you now, in that uniform, I know what you will be.
I have been praying for you for years, and I hope that someday we will meet again. Until then, may God bless you. Not the Cosmic Parent or Joshua Lewis, but God. Now that I'm gone, I guess I can say that without fearing that Peter Neason will lock me up.
Trust your heart, Johnny. Good-bye.
Nanny.
Johnny had expected something like this. Nanny had always had old-fashioned views on politics and religion, and her final statement about God came as no surprise. But her other words, while meant to give him clarity and help him in difficult times, only served to further complicate things. Not only had Nanny somehow known she was going to die, she also seemed to know that Johnny would be faced with this sort of crisis. He wondered if she knew that it would involve his brother, but even if it hadn't, her last words to him seemed to be speaking to his exact situation.
Then he remembered that his father had said that Nanny had left a note for everyone. That included Joshua. Since Joshua had left before the notes were found, his would still be at the Cramblit house, maybe even still on Nanny's nightstand. Johnny got up and quietly went to Nanny's bedroom. He could hear his parents talking downstairs and he knew that the two younger children were down in the cellar trying to get their minds off of their grief so he was alone on the second floor of the house. He went into Nanny's room undisturbed and undetected, feeling strangely guilty even though he had nothing to hide.
The lights were off but the glow of the street lamp outside Nanny's bedroom window provided just enough light for Johnny. The bed had been made, probably by Johnny's mother. She had always dealt with grief or stress by finding some busy work. He went to the bed and looked down at the antique nightstand that had stood by the beds of three generations of grandmothers. Nanny's diary lay on the top with her old fashioned bic pen resting on its leather cover. Next to it sat a folded piece of paper with his brother's name lovingly written on it.
Johnny stared down at the note for a long moment. His grandmother's final good-bye to her oldest grandchild was written there and Johnny was reluctant even to pick it up. He felt like he would be violating something sacred. But Nanny had hinted strongly about some deviant religious beliefs many times and Johnny knew his brother well enough to know that if he had begun to lean towards Christianity, he would have most likely confided in her. Maybe she and her outspoken views had something to do with Joshua's current situation.
He picked the paper up and slowly unfolded it. He didn't realize it yet but he had shifted from a man concerned about his brother to a police officer conducting an investigation. What he held in his hand was not a letter of farewell from a dying woman, but evidence in a case of religious deviancy and when he read the note his worst fears were confirmed. He wanted to tear the thing into a thousand pieces and forget the whole thing, but instead he carefully folded it back up and put it on the table where he had found it.
He turned and left the room. He went downstairs to the kitchen and asked his father if he could borrow the keys to his shuttlecar. He told his parents that he just needed to get away for a while and would be back in a few hours. His dad handed him the keys without question.
Johnny went out the front door to find Aimee Neason walking up the stairs of the front stoop. They met half way and stood there looking at each other for a moment.
"Hey, Johnny," she said somberly. "Kelly called me about an hour ago. I'm sorry about your grandmother."
"Yeah," he said. "Thanks."
"I thought I'd come over and try to cheer her up," Aimee said. "Or maybe just sit with her for a while."
"She'll like that," Johnny said.
"Where are you going?" she asked him.
"Out," he said. "I'm just gonna drive around for a while."
"Oh," she said. "Well, if I'm still here when you get back and you think you need someone to talk to... well, you know."
"Yeah," he said. "Thanks."
She took a step towards the door, then stopped and looked up at Johnny again. Then she did something that he had always hoped she would do. She gave him a hug, held him for a moment, and then kissed him gently on the cheek. Under any other circumstances Johnny would have been thrilled, but all thoughts of his attraction for Aimee were lost in his need for comfort and he hugged her back, grateful for her presence. She went inside and he went to the shuttlecar..
He didn't think he was going anywhere specific, but without even thinking about it he found himself driving right up to Joshua's house. He parked the car across the street and stopped the engine. Then he sat there for nearly an hour staring at the modest one story home where his brother lived and trying to decide his next move.
I have been praying for our family for years and I was so happy to find that you finally turned your life over to the Lord. Now I know that when I am gone, you will be there to continue praying for them and trying to win them over. It won't be easy and the path you've chosen is a hard one, but your reward will be great. I go to mine soon. We will meet again.
The last paragraph of Nanny's letter to Joshua kept going through his head and he knew that he had to put a stop to his brother's deviance before it was too late. Nanny was old and stubborn and her deviant views had been something the family had tolerated knowing that she wasn't really hurting anybody and was too old fashioned and possibly even too senile to know better. Joshua was none of those things. And if Nanny had converted Joshua, she had hurt somebody.
Johnny wasn't even concerned that Joshua could possibly spread the deviant beliefs to others. He was more worried about his brother and his future. He had to help Joshua and somehow he knew that turning him in wouldn't help much. If Joshua was arrested, he would most likely see himself as a martyr and consider his persecution some sort of blessing and encouragement. Johnny had seen it before. But if he could reach his brother and turn him around before the law even got involved, maybe his life wouldn't have to be ruined.
Johnny opened the car door and got out, determined to deal with this once and for all no matter what happened. If he was forced to turn Joshua in, so be it. If he could help him, all the better. But as he walked towards his brother's front door he knew that one way or the other, this would end tonight.
He got to the door. The doorbell was probably working just fine but this felt like more of a knocking moment. He raised his hand to bring it down onto the wood of the door and froze. He couldn't do it. All of his police training, his newfound courage and maturity, and his determination to help Joshua vanished in a moment of complete panic. He had always respected his brother, almost worshipped him, and he didn't feel like a cop or even a man at that point. He felt like a little boy about to tattle on his big brother.
He turned and left Joshua's house and as far as he knew, his brother never even knew he was there. He got in the car and drove back home, no more sure of what to do about Joshua then when he had left. The only lights on in the Cramblit house were those showing through the cellar windows. That meant that at least one of his siblings was still awake. Maybe he could distract himself with a quick game of pool with Steve.
As he reached the door, Aimee was coming out.
"We've got to stop meeting like this," she said smiling. He tried to smile back but instead just broke down in uncontrollable sobs. In an instant he was back in Aimee's arms and crying on her shoulder as she held him and told him that it was going to be okay. It was strange that he would find comfort her. In spite of the crush he had secretly had on her for a while, she had always been just one of his little sister's friends. He had teased her and played pranks on her and traded insults with her, but he never imagined he would cry with her.
They found themselves sitting on the porch steps, both crying.
"I know you miss your grandmother," she said. She sounded like she was fishing for words, not sure what to say but feeling the need to say something. "She was a good woman. We're all going to miss her."
Johnny looked at Aimee. He wasn't even sure what he was doing or why, but he found that he couldn't help himself. The words were out of his mouth before he had even thought them through and he knew that there was no taking them back. He didn't know how she would react, but he found himself hoping that she was a little more open minded then her father. But even if she wasn't, he had to tell somebody. He hated being the only one responsible for his brother's future.
"It's not just Nanny," he said. "It's Joshua. He's... I think he's... a Christian."
To be concluded...