Roses Are Red

but I was restless in my bedroom. I got up and hobbled downstairs around five. I was thinking about Christine and little Alex again.
    Nana’s latest refrigerator note was posted. It read: “Never once / did she wanna be white / to pass / dreamed only of being darker.” I opened the fridge and took out a Stewart’s root beer, then I wandered out of the kitchen. The poem from the refrigerator door drifted through my head.
    I flicked the television on, then off. I played the piano in the sunroom — “Crazy for You” and then some Debussy. I played “Moonglow,” which reminded me of the best times with Christine. I imagined ways that we might fix the relationship. I’d tried to be there for her every day since her return to Washington. She kept pushing me away. Tears finally welled in my eyes and I wiped them away.
She’s gone. You have to start over again.
But I wasn’t so sure that I could.
    The floorboards squeaked. “I heard you playing ‘Clair de Lune.’ Very nicely, I might add.” Nana was standing in the doorway with a tray in her hands. There were two steaming coffee mugs on it.
    She pushed one of them toward me and I took it. She then sat in the old wicker rocker near the piano, quietly sipping her brew.
    “This instant?” I kidded her.
    “You find any instant coffee in my kitchen, I’ll give you this house.”
    “I own the house,” I reminded her.
    “So you say, sonny boy. Sunrise concerto, Alex? What’s the occasion?”
    “Presunrise concerto. I couldn’t sleep. Bad night, bad dreams. Bad morning so far.” I sipped the delicious coffee, which was laced with chicory. “Good coffee, though.”
    Nana continued to sip hers. “Mmm-hmmm. Tell me something I don’t know. What else?”
    “You remember Maria’s stepbrother Errol? Sampson and I found his body in the First Avenue projects last night,” I told her.
    Nana made a low clucking sound, and she gently shook her head. “That’s so sad, such a shame, Alex. They’re a good family, nice people.”
    “I have to go and tell the family this morning. Maybe that’s why I’m up so early.”
    “What else?” Nana asked again. She knew me so well, and in a way that was comforting now. “Talk to me, Alex. Tell your Nana.”
    “It’s Christine,” I finally said. “I think it’s over between us. She doesn’t want to see me. She told me, made it official. I don’t know where that leaves little Alex. Nana, I have tried everything in my power. I swear I have.”
    She put down her coffee mug and slid one skinny arm around me. She still has a lot of strength in her body. She held me tight. “Well then, you’ve done what you can, haven’t you? What else can you do?”
    “She hasn’t gotten over what happened in Bermuda,” I whispered. “She doesn’t want to be with a homicide detective. She can’t do it. She doesn’t want to be with me.”
    Nana whispered back at me, “You’re taking too much on your shoulders. You’re taking on blame you shouldn’t. It’s bending you, Alex. You can break. You listen to Nana now.”
    “I’m listening. I always do.”
    “Do not.”
    “Do too.”
    “
Do not,
and I can keep this up longer than you,” she snapped. “Besides, it proves my point.”
    Nana always has the last word. She is the best psychologist in the house, or so she tells me constantly.

Chapter 15
    THE SECOND BANK ROBBERY went off like a time bomb early that morning in the town of Falls Church, Virginia, about nine miles outside Washington.
    The bank manager’s house was a well-maintained colonial in a sweet neighborhood where the people seemed to genuinely like one another. There was evidence of well-loved children everywhere: Tyco toys, bikes, a basketball net, dueling swings, a makeshift lemonade stand. There was a beautiful garden filled with flowering shrubs. Birds perched on a whimsical weathervane — a witch on a broom — up on the garage roof. That morning you could almost hear the witch’s cackle.
    The Mastermind had told his new crew
what they would find
and
how they should proceed.
Every move was carefully planned and rehearsed.
    The new crew was superior to the Parkers. It had taken half of the money from the Citibank job to interest them, but it was worth it. They called one another Mr. Red, Mr. White, Mr. Blue, and Ms. Green. They had long hair and looked like a heavy metal rock band, but they were an efficient team, very high-tech.
    Mr. Blue was at the First Union branch when it opened in downtown