Cheated By Death (26 page)

I knocked on the doorjamb. “Anybody
home?”

“Just me,” came the low reply from a mound
under the quilt on the bed.

“Can I come in?”

No answer.

“I hope you’re decent—because I’m coming
in.”

Still no answer.

“Brenda?”

The mound was silent.

I stood there for a moment, not knowing what
to do—or what to say. I tiptoed closer, and finally sat on the edge
of the bed. “Hey, friend. Where are you?”

“In a hole. A deep, dark hole.”

I swallowed, somehow managed to speak. “Can I
crawl in with you—keep you company?”

At last Brenda raised her head and looked
over her shoulder at me. “It’s not a place you want to be.” Her
eyes were puffy and bloodshot from crying.

“I don’t want you to be all alone.” I kicked
off my shoes, crawled across the large bed, lay beside her and put
my arm around her. It felt so natural—so right. As her dark hand
slid down to cover mine, all her sorrow and pain hit me like a
sledgehammer. I winced, bit my lip and tried to breathe evenly. I
deserved this. I’d
caused
this.

She noticed my reaction and pulled her hand
back. “Go away. I’ll drag you down—make you sick.”

“If I share what you feel, maybe it’ll be
easier for you.”

“You can’t. Nobody can. Not you, not Maggie,
not even Richard. This is
my
punishment.”

“Punishment?”

She took a ragged breath. “When I was married
to Willie . . . .” She paused, her voice catching, clearly pained
to remember. “It was no time to bring a baby into the relationship.
He never knew. I went to a clinic alone—killed my own child. Now
God is punishing me.”

Oh, dear Lord. “I don’t believe in a vengeful
God.”

“Then why did He take my son?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. I didn’t know
what else to say.

“As soon as I realized I was pregnant . . . I
guess I knew all along something bad would happen. Somehow I knew .
. . and so did you. Didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

“Jeffy? Didn’t you know?”

God, how I wanted to say no. How I wanted to
be anywhere else on Earth. But I was with her, in her pain, and I
couldn’t lie to her like I couldn’t lie to Richard.

“I didn’t know how or when . . . but, yeah, I
knew. Richard blames me.
I
blame me. If I hadn’t been so
rough with you that day at the clinic . . . .”

“You saved me that day. Richard knows that.
We both do.”

I shook my head. “He thinks if I told him
about my premonition we could’ve kept you safe. That we—”

She wouldn’t hear it. “No. This was
preordained. It’s my punishment.”

“How do you know it’s not mine?”

She looked at me, puzzled.

“I have to live knowing that if I’d said
something, you might’ve quit your job earlier. You’d both have been
safe.” Dear God, had I just accused her of being responsible?

She shook her head—she still wasn’t listening
to me. “No, no, no. You can’t take my punishment. It’s my pain. I
want it all to myself.” She closed her eyes and rubbed at them,
clearly exhausted. “That’s not right, either. I’m a nurse—a
rational person. And I believe in God. God sends us messages. Maybe
this is just another one.”

“What kind of cruel message?”

She pulled the quilt tighter. “Maybe . . . be
grateful for what you’ve got. I don’t know. I’m no philosopher. But
I can’t spend my days crying. I can’t do this to me, to Richard, or
to you.”

“But you have to grieve. Brenda, you’re
allowed
to feel bad about this.”

She frowned. “Well, maybe for just a little
while.”

I wanted to smile at that flash of the old
Brenda.

She was quiet for a long moment. When she
finally spoke, her voice cracked. “Richard called my sisters. They
wouldn’t come.”

Her sadness found new depths, dragging me
with it.

“Maybe . . . they couldn’t get away.
Maybe—”

“I’ve been cut off,” she said, her voice
calm. “According to my mother, I did a terrible thing. I married a
white man. So I’m punished again. But if loving Richard is
punishment, I’ll gladly take it. He’s the best thing that ever
happened to me.”

My throat constricted. “And you’re the best
thing that ever happened to him.”

A small smile crossed her lips. “Yeah. I am.”
She looked into my eyes, her own glistening.

Her sorrow eased, if ever so slightly. She
let out a shuddering breath, reached for a tissue, and wiped her
nose. Outside, snowflakes danced past the window. The branches of
the oak tree in the back yard moved gracefully in the cold
wind.

Brenda nestled against me and sighed.
Eventually her breathing slowed as she drifted into sleep. Her
sadness ebbed, leaving a hollow space inside me. I held her,
stroked her hair, thinking about what she’d said.

Punishment. Blame. Death. Sadness. Guilt.
We’d certainly had enough of them. Was happiness an illusion, a
Disney dream that never happened in real life? It didn’t often
happen to me. Did the black cloud that followed me extend to those
I cared about?

My father was gone, taking with him any
chance of understanding why he’d abandoned my mother and me.

Suddenly the sadness I felt wasn’t only
Brenda’s. I hadn’t acknowledged my own loss. I didn’t want to admit
it
was
a loss. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how
much I’d wanted to care about the old man.

The bedroom door brushed across the deep pile
carpet. I looked up as Richard stepped inside and stopped dead at
the sight of me on his bed with his sleeping wife.

I motioned him closer. “Take off your shoes,”
I whispered.

He looked at me, confused.

“Take off your shoes,” I repeated, and
watched as he complied. Then slowly, I extricated myself from the
bed, pulled back the quilt and gestured for him to take my place.
His expression was a mix of embarrassment and irritation, but he
complied, getting under the covers beside his wife. Brenda snuggled
close to him. Even in sleep she knew the difference. Richard’s
angry expression melted as he gently placed an arm around her,
resting his chin on the top of her head.

I grabbed my shoes, tiptoed across the room,
and silently closed the door.

The kitchen
table was set for three,
with a lunch tray waiting on the counter. Maggie sipped her coffee,
and looked up as I came into the kitchen. “Well?” she asked, unable
to hide her concern.

“Rich is with her. She’s sleeping.”

Her gaze strayed to my ski jacket. “I thought
you hung up your coat?”

“I did. I have to go out.”

“Where?”

“There’s someone I have to see.”

She looked at the sandwich on the plate
before her, and pushed it away. “I guess I wasn’t hungry anyway.
When will you be back?” Her voice was quiet, disappointed.

“An hour or so. It won’t take long.”

She nodded. I was glad she didn’t ask me
where I was going. I couldn’t have explained.

The drive took fifteen minutes. The radio was
background noise. Christmas songs had already joined the regular
soft-rock rotation. I parked, headed for the door, and rang the
bell. The storm door’s thermal glass reflected the gray December
sky—reflected my somber face. I pushed the bell again, and heard
the thump of footsteps.

Aunt Ruby opened the door, a smile of delight
greeting me. “Jeffrey, it’s so good to see you. Come in, come
in.”

“Sorry to drop in without calling,” I said,
wiping my feet on the little throw rug.

“Why should family need to call? Would you
like some tea? I was just going to make a pot.”

“Sure. Thanks.” I followed her to the kitchen
and took a seat at the Formica table.

“Take off your coat, stay a while,” she said
and filled a kettle at the sink. She switched on the gas burner,
and put it on the stove. “What brings you out this way?”

“I need to talk about my—”

“I’ll be glad to tell you all about your
father,” she interrupted me, her smile widening with a blush of
pride. “Oh, he was a wonderful man, and such a good brother. I wish
you could’ve known him better.”

“Me, too. But I really need to know about my
mother.”

Startled, she stared at me for a long moment,
and then glanced away, busying herself getting out china teacups
and saucers. “That was a long time ago, Jeffrey,” she said at last.
“I didn’t know her all that well.”

Ruby wasn’t a good liar.

“I made pound cake yesterday. Would you like
a slice?”

“Aunt Ruby, you’re probably the only one left
alive who knew my mother. Please, I have to know.”

She turned suddenly, her anger hitting me
like napalm. “Why now? Why after all these years?”

“I’m remembering things that don’t make
sense. All I know is what my mother told me. I don’t think she told
me the whole truth.”

Ruby pursed her lips, and came to a decision.
“Jeffrey, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. I never knew your
mother before she married Chet. Of course, he’d known her for
years. He always said she was a different person before she got
sick.”

He knew her for years? “I thought they met at
the dry cleaning store?”

“Heavens, no! They worked at the Statler
Hotel, across from City Hall. She was a waitress in the restaurant.
Chet worked in the hotel laundry. That’s where he got the
experience to open his own shop.”

My world wobbled. “They knew each other all
those years ago?”

“Of course. He was sweet on Betty for ages.
But Chet was Jewish and she was a good Catholic. And then she met
that Alpert fellow. He was rich and a Catholic. You know the rest
of the story.”

“They got married and had Richard,” I
recounted.

Ruby nodded. “She loved that man and she
loved his baby, poor thing. She fell apart when her husband
died.”

“Her nervous breakdown,” I said.

“Chet said Betty’s mother-in-law drove her
crazy when the old lady took her child.” The kettle began to
whistle. Ruby made the tea and sliced the pound cake. She put it on
a dainty little platter and set it on the table before taking a
seat across from me.

“Chet had a thing for your mother,” she
continued. “He was so in love he even converted for her. That
didn’t sit well with Papa. Mama was disappointed, but somehow she
knew it wouldn’t last.”

“They married in the Catholic church?” I
asked, astounded.

She nodded. “None of the relatives went. It
just wasn’t done in our family.” She shook her head sadly. “And we
knew something wasn’t right. Chet was ashamed to come around. He
told me most of this years later.”

Ruby spoke in riddles. “Most of what?”

She frowned. “It started soon after they
married. Betty was obsessed with getting her baby back. Chet
thought they should start a family right away. So naturally when
Betty became pregnant he thought she’d get over it. Of course, she
never did. How could any mother get over the loss of her
child?”

Her words cut me as I thought of Brenda. She
poured the tea, and pushed the milk pitcher toward me.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“After Papa died, Chet brought you and Betty
around. You were such a cutie-pie, but oh, so solemn. We knew
something wasn’t right, but Chet wouldn’t say—not at the time.”

Her refusal to come right out and say what
was on her mind was maddening.

“Patty told me about the kidnapping
stuff.”

Ruby stiffened in her chair. “Chet wouldn’t
go along with it. And Betty—she wouldn’t accept that. Then she lost
the baby—”

“Baby?” I interrupted her.

“Stillborn. You must have been . . . oh,
nearly four. Poor Betty was irrational. She and Chet had some
terrible arguments. Chet didn’t know what to do. Betty wouldn’t see
the psychiatrist; she just kept going to church every day. Chet
couldn’t live with her anymore. We thought he was wrong to leave
you. He said she needed you more.”

“That wasn’t the only reason he left. There’s
more, isn’t there?”

Ruby took a sip of her tea, and then primly
put the cup back on the saucer.

“Aunt Ruby,” I pressed.

“It’s not something a man could ever talk
about.”

“She hit him, didn’t she?”

Ruby said nothing for a long moment. She
wouldn’t look at me. “Is that what you remember?”

“I remember screaming matches. Dishes
breaking, yelling and . . . I wasn’t sure if I remembered
right.”

“Betty was different after they took her
child away from her. It changed her. She may have loved Chet, but I
think she loved her little boy more than anything or anyone else on
Earth.”

“Me included?”

Ruby continued to stare into her teacup.

I let out a shaky breath. She didn’t have to
say it. I’d always known who came first in my mother’s heart.

“Chet sent money, but all the envelopes came
back marked refused. She didn’t want anything to do with him. She
thought he’d betrayed her.” Ruby shook her head sadly.

“Patty said Joan didn’t want me to live with
them. That after my mother died—”

“Joan was a good woman, but that wasn’t
right. You were his son, his first born. He never even married
her.”

That was a discussion I didn’t want to enter.
But there were other things.

“After Dad’s funeral, Patty and Richard were
looking at a photo album. Tell me about Chet’s mother—my
grandmother.”

She smiled, relieved to change the subject.
“I wish you could remember her. She loved you so. You were her
favorite. It broke her heart when Chet didn’t bring you around any
more.”

“When did she die?”

“Oh, over twenty years ago.” Her eyes
darkened with repressed pain, like the loss was still an unhealed
wound. “It was stupid. Mama did things her own way—you couldn’t
tell her anything. If she’d only listened. How many times did I
move that hot plate? How many times did we all tell her? But no,
she knew best.”