Consequence (15 page)

Her husband paced the tiled floor, speaking
low and impatiently into his cell phone.

“I don’t care what you’ve got planned for
tonight. Your grandmother is in trouble. Christ’s sake, Diara, your
grandmother is in jail. Now you get your ass up here pronto.”

“Don’t swear,” Cerise mumbled. “Or take the
Lord’s name in vain.”

Guillaume hung up the cell phone, then ran a
frantic hand through his thick, silver hair. “This can’t be
happening,” he said. “Tell me again, what did the police say?
Murder? Who in God’s name did Granny murder and when? Did she stab
some old geezer with her knitting needles?”

Unlike her mother, Cerise suppressed most of
the memories of her tragic childhood. “No,” she said, her voice
flat and dull. “It happened a long time ago.”

Guillaume stopped pacing and stared at his
wife of thirty-five years. Her impeccable makeup had smeared and
smudged, leaving black streaks on her brown cheeks. “Are you
joking? Is this for real? Did you know about this?”

She nodded through silent tears. “I don’t
remember much. I was a little girl.”

Guillaume peered at his wife’s ashen color.
“Are you feeling alright? You don’t look well,” he said. He kneeled
at her side and lifted her chin. She cringed at the pressure his
hand put on her aching jaw line. She tried to swallow, but the knot
wouldn’t budge. She felt the sharp pain in her back move across her
chest and radiate down her left arm. She lifted a hand in
supplication, her eyes rolling back in her head.

He caught his wife as she slid out of the
chair. Calling over his shoulder to the police officer at the
window, he said, “Call an ambulance! Please, I think my wife is
dying!”

With mutinous eyes, Diara glanced at the cell
phone mounted on the dashboard of her Lexus. The ring tone alert
meant her father was calling. Again. She pressed the answer button
while she shifted her fast car into the left lane, passing slower
moving traffic on I-95.

“What, Dad? I’m on my way.”

Guillaume ignored the sulky tone of his only
child’s voice. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Your
mother has had a heart attack. We’re at the hospital now.”

Diara’s breath hitched in her chest. “Oh my
God! What the hell is going on up there?”

“I’ll tell you about it when you get here.
We’re going to need you to talk to the attorney about your
grandmother. I can’t leave your Mom. She’s being prepped for
surgery.”

“What!” Diara screamed and her foot pressed
harder on the gas pedal.

“She needs an emergency bypass and a stint. I
don’t know any more right now. Hurry,” he begged. “Go to the city
jail when you get here.”

“Forget that,” Diara said. “I need to see
Mom.”

“Well you won’t be able to. After surgery,
she’ll be in recovery. When they move her to ICU, then you can see
her. Right now, your granny needs you. If you can do that, then I
can be here for Mom when she wakes up. Now do as I say, for once in
your life, Diara.”

“Fine,” she spat, then pressed the “end”
button, hanging up abruptly.

She released an angry breath, blowing her
feathery dark bangs from her forehead. Her father had become
impossible ever since she went to college. Before that, she had
been Daddy’s little angel, and nothing was too good for her. Then,
for some reason, he changed. She couldn’t stand to listen to his
opinions on religion or politics, and he disliked her friends.
There was no pleasing him.

At least Mom no longer criticized her. She
used to harp on Diara’s clothes and her boyfriends.

Mom told her she was a classic example of the
Electra complex, but Diara knew that was a load of horse crap. She
didn’t hate her mother and love her father.

Well, maybe she had favored him when she was
younger, but when she turned twenty, he started obsessing about the
future, nagging her to spend more time studying. He even threatened
to withhold her allowance unless she brought up her GPA.

She shook her head in disgust as she recalled
the weekend she planned to spend in Aspen with her sorority. At the
last minute, her father insisted she stay on campus and cram for
her winter finals. She missed the trip and Vicki Hayden hooked up
with Skip Barton, her on-again, off-again boyfriend.

She sneered at the memory. Skip barely
graduated from college. He married Vicki and they had the requisite
two kids and a mortgage. The last she heard, he worked for his
father-in-law in New Jersey.

Who needed a husband, a house and kids? She
now worked at a high-profile Fortune 500 company, had a nice
apartment in Manhattan, could afford to keep her Lexus in a
downtown garage, wore designer clothes, dated hot guys, including a
couple athletes, and took wonderful European vacations. Take that,
Skip Barton.

On the dark and frightening drive to Lowell,
heaviness settled in her chest. As the hours passed, she berated
herself for the past ten years. Despite the wealth and popularity
she enjoyed, she felt hollow, lonely and sad.

Four hours later, she stood in the police
station, speaking through the window to the officer on duty.

“You’re kidding me, right?” she drawled.
“You’re going to keep a little old lady in jail. Overnight?”
Sarcasm and restrained anger colored her voice.

“Yes ma’am,” the police woman said, nodding.
“She has been processed and will be arraigned in the morning. She
spoke briefly with your parent’s attorney, who informed us she will
not be using his services.”

Diara cocked her head to the side? “Wait a
minute,” she sputtered. “You say she’s refused an attorney? And
what does ‘processed’ mean?”

“Yes, but a public defender will stop by in
the morning. At that point, she will go before a magistrate and if
bail is set, she’ll be released. What happens when a person is
processed is their photo is taken and they are fingerprinted.”

“My 82-year-old Granny has a mug shot? For
the love of God!”

“That’s all I can tell you at this point,”
the officer said sympathetically, adding, “But I can let you speak
with her for a few minutes. I’ll need you to sign in.”

Diara signed the release form, showed her
driver’s license and followed the officer down the green corridor
and through several thick, metal doors. She came to a stop in front
of a small holding room. Through a thick window impregnated with
wire screen, she could see Ethel sitting on a cot. The room was
dim, allowing the prisoner to sleep, if she wished. The officer
opened the door, stood aside and let Diara enter the room. “Thirty
minutes,” she said.

Diara stepped inside and the door clanged
shut behind her. She hurried to her tiny, bent grandmother and
wrapped her arms around her. The familiar scent of lemon drops
washed her senses. Tears pricked her eyes.

“Granny, oh no. What have they done to you?”
She rocked the woman.

But Ethel didn’t need comforting. With the
gentle, maternal gestures known only by mothers, she slid out of
crying Diara’s clasp and instead, embraced her. She stroked Diara’s
hair and crooned. “There, there. No need to worry, I’m fine.”

Diara protested, her voice muffled against
the small woman’s iron shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here. Why did
you send the lawyer away? We need to get you out of here
tonight.”

“I’m fine where I am.”

Diara pulled away, confusion twisting her
delicate features. She swiped at her tears, streaking mascara
across her smooth skin. “What you mean, ‘you’re fine’? That’s
crazy. This is jail and we need to get out of here right now.”
Diara looked around the room in disgust.

“I’m right where I’m supposed to be. You go
on home to your Mom’s house and I’ll see everyone tomorrow.”

Diara froze. “Oh my God, Granny! You don’t
know! Mom’s had a heart attack!”

She couldn’t help herself, blurting the news
without regard. “I’m so sorry,” she said as Ethel’s eyes widened.
“I shouldn’t have told you.”

Ethel blinked slowly, then her back became
rigid. Her head lifted even higher. “She will be fine, too. I know,
in my heart, everything will work out. He will guide us.”

Diara bowed her head when her grandmother
clasped her bony hands together and whispered a prayer. Not that
she believed in God, but Ethel and Crise did, and she knew better
than to speak otherwise in their presence.

“Granny,” she said, breaking Ethel’s
meditative pose. “What did you do?”

The old woman tilted her head and smiled.
“Why honey, I killed a bad man.”

Guillaume stood when his daughter strode into
the hospital waiting room. “Where’s Ethel? Did you take her back to
the nursing home or our house?”

Diara shook her head. “Neither. She’s still
in jail. She dismissed the attorney. Dad, she’s waived legal
counsel and says she’ll plead guilty in the morning. She said she’s
killed a man.”

Guillaume reeled, sitting awkwardly back in
the chair. “What! She’s not! That’s insane. We can’t let her do
that.”

Diara sat across from him and placed her
purse on the floor. “That’s what I told her, but she’s determined
to do this. She said she’s not afraid and it’s time for her to do
the right thing. Gah!” she exclaimed in a frustrated grunt. “How’s
Mom? Did the surgery go well? When can I see her?”

“At least here’s some good news,” he said.
“The procedure went well and she’s resting in recovery.
Unbelievable as it sounds, he said she could be well enough to go
home in a few days. We’ll be able to see her soon, once they get
her settled in ICU.”

It was one o’clock and Diara was drained,
emotionally and physically. Any other night, she would still be
partying at a club in New York, flirting and dancing.

They both looked up when the wooden door
separating them from the recovery room opened. A nurse in dark pink
scrubs entered the lobby. “Mr. Larouche? Your wife is awake and
asking for you.”

She pinned questioning eyes on Diara, coolly
assessing the beautiful young woman. Guillaume stood up. “This is
our daughter.”

The nurse inclined her head in welcome.
“Please, both of you, follow me and I’ll take you to Mrs.
Larouche.”

When Diara reached her mother’s bed, she
gasped. “Mom!”

Cerise lay still except for the labored rise
and fall of her chest. Tubes snaked along the bed connecting a
liquid drip to the needle in her arm. Her ashen face was bruised
and there were more along her neck and on her tethered arm. Diara
spied white gauze and tape beneath the surgical gown, and wires
wove through the bedding to an EKG positioned against the
gurney.

Cerise’s eyes opened and rested first on her
husband, then her daughter. She tried to lift her arm, but the
slight weight of the blood gas monitor on her fingertip prevented
her from reaching far.

Guillaume slid a strong, warm hand beneath
hers, cradling it. “My love,” he whispered huskily. “Don’t you ever
do that to me again.”

The light-hearted chide brought a faint smile
to Cerise’s face. Her dark eyes, glazed from morphine, crinkled at
the corners. She opened dry, cracked lips and formed the word,
“Mother,” but no sound emerged. She swallowed painfully.

Guillaume glanced at his daughter in warning,
but none was needed.

“She’s fine, Mom. I saw her. She’s tucked in
bed and sleeping peacefully,” Diara lied.

Cerise inhaled, her eyes closing in
gratitude. Guillaume reached out and held his daughter’s hand. She
squeezed it. Together, they sat through the night at Cerise’s
bedside, first in the recovery room and then after her transfer to
the intensive care ward. As dawn approached, Diara opened her eyes.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but apparently the chairs in the
ICU were designed to lull restless visitors to sleep. A thoughtful
nurse draped a cotton blanket over her shoulders, as well as her
father, who slumped in his chair.

Diara felt helpless watching the machines
attached to her mother quietly beep, whir and drip. She studied her
mother’s lovely face, awed by the strength and intellect she read
there. Cerise had never faltered, in her memory. Her mother was
loyal and encouraging. She worked non-stop, supporting the family.
As a struggling young writer, Guillaume kept an office in the
attic, and he oversaw the house and the ferrying of his little girl
to her various activities, while Cerise taught college classes,
gave lectures and attended conferences. A noted sociologist, Cerise
was a tenured full professor who earned her place as one of the
first women of African-American descent to chair a department at
her prestigious university.

Guillaume’s writing career soared and his
mystery novels graced bookstores throughout the United States. He
was a visiting instructor of special writing projects at SUNY and
on his occasional trips to New York City, he met Diara for lunch.
The two would explore the streets of Greenwich together, ducking
into galleries and shops.

Diara, the beloved only child, couldn’t help
but be a beautiful and bright star in their universe. They doted on
her, gave her anything her heart desired and capitulated to her
every whim.

Diara was spoiled but, thanks to the wise and
gentle intervention of Ethel, she realized it. She knew, in her
heart, she had been taking her parents and their generosity for
granted all her life. Now, studying them in repose, both hurting
and fearful, she experienced an epiphany. She watched the dawn
rise, its rosy glow bathing her mother’s serene face, and she vowed
to change. No longer would she accept all gifts as her due. Her
car, her clothes, her jewelry, her friends – none of it mattered.
Not compared to the loss of her family. She felt an overwhelming
rush of love for her parents and her grandmother. When Ethel
confessed last night, Diara witnessed immense inner strength. She
saw determination and regret in Ethel’s aging eyes.