Authors: Anne C. Petty
“That is putting it mildly, I’m afraid. The truth is I loathed him.”
This wasn’t quite what she’d expected to hear from her uncle, a man who, as far as she was aware, rarely spoke ill of anyone and never admitted aloud to hating someone. It was out of character.
“I don’t know what kind of image of him you must have fashioned in your mind,” he continued, “having nothing to go on, which I apologize for, but I hope you will understand that my reasons were to protect your mother. She was very dear to me, and I couldn’t abide the fact that she’d been taken in by him.”
“Taken in, how?” Alice’s defenses were up. Her idealized notions of her father were threatened, but still, she wanted to finally hear Hal’s whole story if he was willing to tell it.
“You mother would never admit it, before or after their disastrous trip abroad, but I remain convinced to this day that he was a con artist who married her as a way to get to Australia for whatever nefarious scheme he had going. Perhaps he was running from the law. I couldn’t find any direct evidence of that, but it is the only explanation that makes sense.”
Alice was silent, hurting inside as her father morphed from talented artist and world traveler to criminal low-life scum who preyed on wealthy women.
“Do you think he loved Suzanne?” she asked finally.
“I honestly cannot say. I believe he used her in numerous ways, not the least of which was to empty her entire savings account just before they took off for Sydney. I also know that he was a well-known pothead and that his roommate dealt drugs. It was an environment completely unsuited for Suzanne, and I think,” he paused again for breath, “had she not met him, she would have gone on to have a distinguished career as an interpreter or translator, possibly in the diplomatic field. That was her intention when I helped pay for her trip to Europe after college.”
Thinking back, Alice could almost imagine Suzanne having a career like that. Her mother had always been so precise in her own use of the language and took great delight in pouncing on anyone who misused or abused it.
“I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone,” Hal said. “I met with him, just once, and offered to pay him to leave town, no questions asked. He refused me, and took such offense that I thought he was going to strike me, but he controlled himself. I guess he supposed that a much larger amount was to be had by marrying my sister and taking everything she owned. I know they must have sold or pawned some of her jewelry when they were close to running out of money. Her wedding band was all she had with her when I flew out to Queensland to get her. Needless to say, she ceased to wear it after her recovery.”
Tears stung Alice’s eyes. This wasn’t the family history she wanted. She hated what Hal was telling her because it made them all sound so mean-spirited and deceitful. From the kitchen, Nik was watching, a concerned expression on his face.
“What were they doing over there?” Alice asked, when what she really meant was, how did my father die?
“No one is certain,” Hal answered. “You mother was fairly incoherent when she made it back to a civilized town with her Outback guide. For my part, I felt that it was a lucky stroke to be rid of Ned Waterston, and that I’d got my Suzanne back, but she carried on her mourning for him beyond all bounds of sanity and decency. When it became evident that she was pregnant, I began to hope that the child—you—would bring her out of it and give her something to focus her love and attention toward. But, as you know, that did not happen.”
“No,” said Alice in a small voice, “it didn’t.”
“I never thought she would push you away so terribly,” he said. She could hear conciliation and sympathy in Hal’s voice, but there was something else as well. A plea for forgiveness? It was too damned late for that, she was afraid. Instead of breaking into tears, which she’d been close to a moment ago, her mouth set itself into a hard line and she gripped the receiver. Anger was closing itself around her heart, condensing remorse and sorrow into a bitter fist. She bit back the hateful things she wanted to shout over the phone. You spiteful, selfish old man, how dare you judge my father and how dare you keep my mother all to yourself! What are you, some kind of pervert? Instead, she said, “I see.”
“She attempted suicide twice, barbiturate overdose and something a bit more violent, but she wasn’t fated to die, or perhaps to look at it another way, you were destined to live. I tried to fill the void for you while you were young, so you could have some taste of what a parent’s love might be like.”
Alice ground her teeth, recognizing that he might also have wondered what it would have been like to share a child with Suzanne. She suddenly felt used beyond repair. “What exactly was your relationship with my mother?” she asked bluntly.
There was a painful silence on the line. In the corner of her eye she saw Nik come over and stand beside the couch.
Finally Hal spoke, his voice old and frail. “I loved Suzanne desperately, in every way the human heart can imagine, but our relationship was completely platonic. So, was all my dealing with her and the man she married totally self-serving? I don’t know anymore. At the time, I felt only righteous fury that her life had taken a wrong turn. I might add that I was not alone in that assessment; our parents felt that way as well.”
“Would he have loved me, I wonder,” Alice said, mostly to herself, “if he had lived?”
“I can’t answer that.” Hal fell silent, breathing heavily.
The sound was painful in Alice’s ear, and she held the receiver in her lap for a moment.
Nik touched her on the shoulder. “Is it okay?”
She nodded and put the receiver back to her ear. Hal still wasn’t talking, but she could hear Carlisle barking in the background.
Then Hal coughed lightly. “Excuse me, dear, if I’m permitted to still call you that. I need to go see what Carlisle’s making a fuss about. Will you please come tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I will. Count on it,” she said, thinking how she was going to enjoy a face-to-face confrontation in which she would ask all the questions she’d sat on for years until she got answers she could live with. She punched the phone off.
She reached up and took Nik’s hand, pulling him down beside her.
He adjusted his glasses. “What was that all about, or should I not ask?”
“You should ask, and if you’re really serious about marrying me, you deserve to know.”
He put his arm around her, and she settled against him, fitting into the curve of his side. Comforted, Alice told him word for word, as best she could remember, everything Hal had said, coloring the story with her growing resentment and anger.
“What do you think?” she said at last.
“I think this. It must have been as hard for your uncle to carry his secrets around with him so many years as it was for you not to know them.”
Alice chewed on that for a moment, knowing what he said was true. Suddenly she felt embarrassed at her selfishness. “Thanks for the reality check,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
“You cut right through the bullshit to that little grain of truth the rest of us are trying not to see. That’s exactly what I love about you.”
“Ah, so you do love me.”
She collapsed against his chest. “My secret is out!”
Nik held her with both arms. “You may confess your undying love for me again, if you like. I don’t mind.”
Alice burst out laughing, her evil mood dispelled. “IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou,” she said, and the best thing was, she really meant it.
* * *
Late that night, they lay on their sides like spoons, her back pressed against his front. His quiet breath rising and falling slowly just behind her ear let her know that he slept deeply. His left arm lay heavy across her ribcage. Alice dozed, completely relaxed and feeling like she might actually drop off to sleep with no difficulty. Random images floated across her mind, harmless eyelid movies of the day’s events and things she planned to do tomorrow in Gull Harbor. She thought about Margaret’s last day at camp and hoped she wouldn’t mind being picked up by just Nik while Alice went to take care of business with Hal. It sounded like she was having a wonderful time, making friends and going on field trips and such.
Alice yawned and snuggled against Nik. There was no place in the world she’d rather be at that moment. Images of her trip to Sweden glided idly by, and she slipped off into a dream of Stockholm covered in snow. Flakes fell in white powdery drifts, covering houses and streets, canals and ships at anchor, islands and ruins of castles. Everywhere, as far as she looked, was a vast expanse of featureless white.
And then the snow began to melt, turning to streams and rivers, flowing through deep canyon walls, becoming a torrent and eventually reaching the sea where it beat its breast against jagged rocks high as pointed cathedrals. It roared in her ears, and she realized the sound wasn’t water flowing, it had a hollow, crackling sound that wasn’t wet at all. Something was burning. A building of some sort was engulfed in flames, roaring and booming, with whistling cinders flying away from the conflagration like tiny Roman candles. She watched the wall as timbers fell, sending flames up into the sky twice as high as the roof would have been.
The heat on her face was becoming uncomfortable, and she floated back from the site of the burning, watching transfixed as flames ate the remaining outline of the building. And then, a movement near the edge of the fire caught her eye. Something was crawling away from the inferno. She tried to see what it was, but couldn’t. Was it an animal? Someone’s pet, perhaps, trapped in a burning house, or a man, blackened like charcoal? Alice screamed in her dream, and woke up.
Nik coughed in his sleep and rolled over. Alice sat up, shaking, her heart racing. She shook her head, trying to get the horrendous image out of her mind. Finally, she lay back down, but the nightmare had poisoned her sleep. She lay awake the rest of the night, watching for the first gray signs of sunrise through the bedroom window.
Chapter 23
May 1969
“Until death us do part,” said the minister of the Universal Love Church. With his thin beard and shoulder-length brown hair, he resembled a modern-day Jesus in love beads.
“Until death us do part,” repeated Suzanne.
“Mr. Waterston, you may kiss your bride.” The minister, clad in a flax-colored gauze shirt and loose-fitting Yoga pants, folded up his printed copy of the wedding ceremony and beamed at Suzanne, Ned, Bailey, and Daniel, his job completed. Ned didn’t particularly care for the way this so-called hippie minister looked him over; he’d seen that look too many times not to recognize it for what it was.
Ignoring the self-appointed Reverend Lotus Blossom, Ned took Suzanne in his arms and kissed her deeply. The Italian Renaissance shell-lined grotto, one of the best photo-op spots on the grounds of Miami’s Vizcaya Museum, had been her choice for the wedding. She wore a white Mexican wedding dress, ankle length and embroidered with flowers. Her flame-red hair falling over her shoulders and across the lace bodice of the dress was possibly the most beautiful thing Ned had ever seen.
He wore his best clothes, consisting of the same shirt and pants he’d worn when he’d met Grant, an encounter that had turned out to be incredibly fortunate for him. He hoped this thing he’d just done would be equally lucky.
“Let me see,” Bailey was saying, taking Suzanne’s hand and reaching for Ned’s. They both now wore slim gold wedding bands.
“Eighteen-karat red gold,” said Suzanne. “I got the date engraved on the inside. Almost a year to the day since we first met.”
Ned allowed himself a brief smile. In the formal gardens just beyond the hill where the shell grotto lay in cool shade, the sunlight was bright and unrelenting, exposing to the world that Ned and Suzanne had joined their lives, for better or worse.
Ned held Suzanne close, contemplating the enormity of the moment and, at the same time, its utter artificiality. But rituals carried their own energy wave that could influence events, or so his mother had said. He hoped in this case it was true. The wedding ceremony had been for Suzanne, but it was also his private plea for good luck. In any case, he liked the way she looked in her lace dress. Her hair smelled like strawberries.
Suzanne had been living with him for the past six months, as the struggle with her family over her “hippie boyfriend” became increasingly heated. He knew Hal had done some checking up on him because Suzanne let it slip that Hal was concerned about Ned not having a birth certificate or a driver’s license on record anywhere. Although he did have a Social Security number, apparently that was not enough to satisfy Hal, who disliked him intensely.
The need for documentation was another way in which Ned’s acquaintance with Grant had turned to his advantage. Before Ned took off across the country, Grant had helped him obtain a California ID card using a baptismal certificate from a church in San Francisco who’d taken Ned’s statement of his birth date at face value.
How many strings Grant had pulled to make it happen, Ned didn’t ask. His instinct told him the less he knew about Grant the better. It had required more than a single visit to Grant’s hotel room, but Ned judged the benefit to have been more than worth it. The California ID card and baptismal record had been enough to get him a Social Security number, which he hoped would be enough to get him a passport. By Thanksgiving at the very latest he hoped to have it in hand, and the fact that Suzanne insisted on making the journey with him was the thing that enabled him to make it at all.
“Fantastic!” Bailey exclaimed, staring at Ned. “What a total gas!”
“Yeah, far out. Australia, man, that’s like on the other side of the world.” Daniel looked from Ned to Suzanne with pot-glazed eyes.
Suzanne was laughing. “The landscape should be a trip all by itself.”
“Wow, when are you going?” Bailey seemed more amazed by their honeymoon plans than anyone.
Ned shrugged. “As soon as we have enough money saved.” A shadow crossed Suzanne’s face but to Ned’s relief she kept her mouth shut. He’d not wanted it made common knowledge that they were bankrolling the trip with her money. “I think we’re done here,” he said, guiding her away from the grotto and toward the parking lot.