The Unwelcomed Child (30 page)

Then, as suddenly to me as a curtain being pulled open, the future began to reveal itself. I would go to school. I would have a boyfriend. I would get better at art. I would find a purpose. I would know my name.

Was that curtain still opened?

Grandfather Prescott was up early in the morning, earlier than I was. I leaped out of bed when I heard him moving around in the kitchen. I was glad of that. Part of what had kept me tossing and turning all night was my fear that something would now happen to him, that when he had gone upstairs the night before so tired and depressed, he would also have a stroke or maybe just die in his sleep. When I came out, he did look very tired.

“Why did you get up so early, Grandpa?” I asked when I entered the kitchen.

“Doctors make their rounds early in the hospital,” he said. “I want to get there right after they examine her.”

“You want me to make some oatmeal? You can’t just have toast and coffee.”

“It’s enough for now. Make yourself what you want,” he said.

I poured myself some orange juice and had a little cold cereal, eating quickly to keep up with him. I was afraid he would tell me to stay home, but he looked as if he wanted me along. We were out of the house and on our way less than fifteen minutes later.

On the way to the hospital, I was tempted to tell him, to confess, that I had gone in the forbidden bedroom and had seen how heartbroken Grandmother Myra was about my mother, how much she had wanted to cling to a happier time. I was torn between assuring him that I didn’t hate her as much as I suspected he believed I did and keeping quiet about my mother’s room so as not to admit to violating one of Grandmother Myra’s sacred commands. I decided for now to say nothing.

When we arrived at the hospital, we went to the intensive-care unit because Grandmother Myra was still there. Grandpa Prescott went in to speak with the doctors while I waited in the small lobby just outside. There was only one other person there, an elderly lady who looked very frightened. She had been crying softly to herself when I sat across from her. I thought she didn’t even know I was there, but she suddenly turned and asked, “Who is here for you?”

“My grandmother,” I said. “She had a stroke.”

She nodded. “I’m waiting for my son. My husband had a heart attack this morning. They let me ride with him in the ambulance.”

“I hope he gets better,” I said.

“Thank you. We’ve been married fifty-two years. He always says he wants to be the first to go, but when you’re married more than fifty years, you should go together. My son says that’s silly talk.”

I just smiled at her and wondered what enabled some couples to stay together so long. Whatever it was, my mother lacked it. Maybe golden-anniversary couples were a thing of the past. Maybe the only commitment anyone made today was to himself or herself. They should probably add
until I get bored
to the vow
to have and to hold,
I thought.

The woman turned away, but when Grandpa Prescott came out, she stopped dabbing at her eyes and turned back to listen.

“She’s not improved,” he said. “The doctors want to continue to evaluate her condition before they’ll tell me any more.”

“I’m sorry for your trouble,” the elderly lady said. Grandpa looked at her as if he hadn’t seen her and nodded.

“Can you talk to her?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “but she’s so angry about what happened to her that she won’t look at me.”

“Should I try to speak to her, too?”

He thought a moment. I knew he was wondering if my presence would make her even angrier. When you’re married as long as my grandparents were, you probably could anticipate what your wife or husband is feeling and thinking. You almost could go through the entire day without speaking.

“Okay,” he said. “Maybe that will work. Maybe hearing your voice will get her to stop pouting and cooperate with the doctors and nurses.”

“It’s good to be angry. It keeps you alive,” the elderly lady said. We both looked at her.

“Or it eats you up alive,” Grandpa replied. He nodded at me, and I got up and followed him into the ICU. We passed other patients, two of whom were elderly men, both hooked up to monitors and breathing through oxygen leads. I wondered which was the woman’s husband. At the very end of the row, we walked around a curtain to see Grandmother Myra lying there, doing just what Grandpa Prescott had said, staring up at the ceiling as if she was staring down God.

Her face was thinner. Her mouth was twisted, and her eyes were bulging. They looked more like two small egg yolks. I didn’t touch her hand. I stepped up closer, first waiting to see if she realized I was there. I looked at Grandpa Prescott. He nodded, and I started to speak.

“I’m sorry you’re ill, Grandmother,” I began. “I hope you get better soon. I’ll take care of the house until you get better and come home. Don’t worry about Grandpa,” I added.

When I said “Grandpa,” she turned and looked at me. It was impossible for me to tell what she was thinking. Her face appeared to have lost its ability to show any new emotions. It was frozen in a distorted visage, locked by her inner rage as much as by the condition caused by the stroke. Her eyes were inflamed with the same fury she had been directing toward the ceiling. It was as if she blamed everyone and everything, even the doctors, whom she had often accused of making up illnesses to make money.

“She made a good dinner for us last night, Myra,” Grandpa Prescott told her. “She’s learned a lot from you. She’s a good girl.”

Grandmother Myra opened her mouth to speak and, after making a little effort and some difficult-to-understand sounds, closed it and turned away.

“I’ll stay close to the house and take care of things,” I added.

She shook her head.

One of the nurses came up beside us. “I think it’s better if you let her rest for now,” she said.

Grandmother Myra made another distorted sound.

My grandfather patted her hand and then leaned over to kiss her cheek. “We’ll return to see you late this afternoon, Myra. We’ll both pray for you.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes. Grandpa Prescott tapped me on the shoulder, and we walked out of the ICU. In the lobby, the elderly lady was talking to her son. He looked as if he had been yelling at her. She held her hands over her eyes, maybe hoping that when she opened them, she’d be home and all this was just a bad dream.

“Your grandmother is just very angry right now,” Grandpa Prescott told me as we walked to the elevator. “I know she thinks God deserted her. Or she thinks she’s made some sort of mistake with you, and now she’s being punished for it. That’s the way she thinks. Don’t blame yourself for anything,” he concluded before I could say anything.

We got into the elevator, and except for relating to me what the doctor had told him they would do before they even considered therapy, he said very little.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” he said as soon as we entered the house. “I’m going to take a little nap. Don’t worry about my lunch or anything. Just enjoy the day, Elle. I know what,” he added with a smile. “After we visit her late this afternoon, we’ll go to another restaurant for dinner. It’s a little depressing right now eating in our house, so don’t worry about making anything.”

“Okay, Grandpa.”

I watched him start up the stairs. “Grandpa?”

He paused.

“Do you want to call my mother to tell her? Because if you do, she gave me a phone number.”

He shook his head. “It won’t matter to either of them, I’m afraid,” he said, and continued up the stairs.

I didn’t want to just run into the woods and wait for Mason or Claudine to see me on the shore. I felt I needed to be alone for a while and think, so instead, I walked out the front door and followed the route my mother and I had taken that day.

Was Grandpa Prescott right? Wouldn’t it make any difference to either my mother or my grandmother if my mother was told about what had happened? Was it really my mother’s surprise appearance that drove Grandmother Myra into her stroke? If that was true, she was still hurting both her parents, and me, for that matter. It was as though all the things she had done to disappoint them echoed for years and years.

So much anger had swirled around this house for so long, I thought, when I looked back at it. It was an unhealthy garden that grew only dark, ugly weeds. I could almost see a tornado-like cloud of rage circling the roof. If people who had most of what was necessary to love each other ended up hating each other, what hope was there for love in this world? What bond could possibly be stronger than the bond between a child and her parents? Whom could two adults love more than their only child? What adult out there could care for my mother as much as her own father and mother? How could she trust anyone? In the end, all three of them had their hearts torn. Defiance hadn’t brought my mother real happiness, and refusing to forgive her for it hadn’t brought my grandparents any real satisfaction or contentment. None of them was any better off.

I had read enough and seen enough to know that children grew up with a sense of security and optimism when they saw and felt how much their parents loved them. If their parents loved each other dearly, then they could believe they would find someone to love just as dearly. Your family was either heaven or hell. You either believed there were angels, or you believed there was only darkness, selfishness, and hate. In the end, you were what you believed you were.

Was my mother as bad as my grandmother came to believe she was? Was she a victim, or did she victimize them with her poor behavior and promiscuity? Would anything have made any difference, or did God just pass by some houses and families and not touch them with his grace? Was Grandmother Myra so angry in that hospital because she realized she had been praying to closed divine ears, or was she angry at herself for somehow bringing all this to their family doorstep? I feared I would never know the answers to any of these questions. They were the kinds of questions you took with you to the grave.

I knew I was too young and too inexperienced to fathom what was out there in the world. Soon I would make my own discoveries and turn out either more like my mother or like someone in between her and my grandmother. Maybe I would turn out to be something new but not necessarily something better. I was both afraid and excited about the day I would walk out the door and start my own journey.

I didn’t realize how far I had walked right now until I heard Mason yell, “Hey!” I looked up to see him leaning out of the driver’s side of their BMW convertible. I had reached the turnoff in the road that led to their summerhouse. Claudine was in the passenger’s seat. Both looked surprised but happy at the sight of me. I was just as surprised to see them and didn’t move. He pulled over to the side of the street, and both of them got out of the car.

“Were you coming to see us?” Claudine asked after she hurried over.

“No. I just went for a walk. I didn’t realize where I was until you shouted.”

“What’s going on? How is your grandmother?” Mason asked.

“I was there this morning with my grandfather. She still can’t talk. No change at all from yesterday,” I said. “She’s still in the intensive-care unit. Her face looks all twisted.”

“Oh,” Claudine said. “Tough.”

“She can’t move the right side of her body.”

“You mean she can only move the wrong side?” Claudine quipped.

“Shut up,” Mason told her. “You’re not funny. How’s your grandfather?”

“He’s tired, upset. I feel bad for him.”

“Sure. Anything we can do for you?”

“No.”

“If she dies, you’ll still be able to live with him, won’t you?” Claudine asked.

I looked at her sharply. That question haunted me. “Yes, I guess so,” I said.

“Maybe she won’t die, Claudine. People have strokes and live,” Mason told her.

“Yeah, but they can be paralyzed or something for the rest of their lives. You’ll really become a slave in that house,” she told me, “not only taking care of it but taking care of her. They’ll turn you into a nurse’s assistant or something, emptying bedpans.”

“You’re a great help, Claudine. Can’t you see she’s very upset? Why tell her that stuff now?”

“Sorry,” Claudine said. “I’m just thinking of you. I never met your grandmother, but from what you’ve told us about her, I have a hard time feeling sorry for her.”

Now that my grandmother was very ill, I felt guilty for revealing all that I had. The betrayal seemed that much greater. “I told you that I didn’t hate her.”

“But look how mean she’s been to you.”

“She’s the way she is because she believes she did something wrong, brought up my mother wrong.”

“If it’s the way they’re bringing you up, it’s wrong,” Claudine insisted. Mason gave her another dirty look. “Well, isn’t it? You don’t assume someone, your own grandchild, is definitely going to be bad and keep her from living a normal life, Mason. She didn’t cause her mother’s rape. We both decided that. Don’t pretend something different now that Elle is standing in front of us.”

“I’m not.” He looked at me. “She’s just very sad right now, and it’s better if we don’t make her any sadder.”