Lady Blues

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  Rebecca took a final sip of Keuka Overlook dry Riesling, draining the glass by tipping it high. “I thank you for such a delightful meal.” She nodded to Mrs. Pierce, who bowed her head and blushed pink. “I never eat home-cooking anymore. Usually it’s cafeteria fare, or a pizza.”

  Camille reached over and laid her hand on Rebecca’s arm. “You’re welcome to join us, anytime.”

  “Thanks.” A somber look crossed her face. “But now, I think Lily and I need some time together. Do you have somewhere private where we can talk?”

  Shelby shot her mother a questioning glance. Camille shushed her with her eyes, and we all rose.

  Siegfried pointed to the carriage house. “You can talk over there. I can make coffee, if you’d like.”

  “Thanks, Siegfried. But I think we should wait until later for coffee. Give us an hour, and we’ll come back over when we’re done.”

  Siegfried nodded. “Ja, okay. You just go through the green door. Lily knows how to go upstairs.”

  Lily and Rebecca chatted in Korean, linking arms. They headed toward Sig’s apartment.

  While they spoke, I decided to call Curtis’s cell and check on Kip. I settled into my favorite leather chair in the great room, kicked off my shoes, and dialed.

  “Dubois.” He answered as if he were in a business office.

  “Curtis, it’s Gus. Just calling to check on your father.”

  He didn’t answer right away. “He’s not doing too well, Gus. They’ve just transferred him to Rochester Memorial. I’m on my way up there, following the ambulance.”

  My heart sank. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. What’s going on?”

  A horn honked and the roar of traffic blasted through the phone. “His fever’s up to 104 and climbing. He’s unresponsive. They’re really worried.”

  I exchanged a nervous glance with Camille, who perched on the couch opposite me. “I’m worried, too. Do you want company? Should I come up?”

  “Thanks, but no. I’ll stay by his side tonight and call you in the morning with a progress report.”

  “Okay. When’s Bella coming back?”

  “Monday.”

  I visualized how crushed she’d be to find Kip in the hospital, and in his current state. “I hope he’s better by then. They’ve both waited so long for this.”

  “Gus, I’m afraid it’s hopeless. Dad’s reverted right back to the way he was before, according to Debbie.”

  I sighed and frowned. “But if we could get him back on the original formula Memorphyl?”

  He dismissed the idea. “Sure, but right now we have to get him over this flu.”

  “I know. Well, listen. Drive carefully. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  We hung up, and against the warning Doc had given me in the morning, I told Camille everything about Memorphyl and Novacom.

  ***

  It had been an hour and a half since Rebecca and Lily disappeared into the carriage house. Siegfried paced the porch, Mrs. Pierce and Shelby watched “American Idol” in the great room, and Camille and I swung on the glider, waiting.

  Crickets chirped in the field beyond the garden, early this year. The temperature had moderated, hanging in the high sixties, even as indigo stained the eastern sky. The glider creaked as we pushed back and forth, back and forth.

  Camille snuggled under my arm. “They’re taking an awfully long time.”

  I stared at the door of the carriage house and nodded. “I know.”

  Siegfried muttered in German, pushed back his long blond hair, and continued to pace.

  Five minutes later, Rebecca emerged—alone. Siegfried met her halfway and lowered his head to hers. Seconds later, he sprinted toward the carriage house. He bolted into the building, his loud footsteps echoing off the wooden stairs as he made his way to the second floor.

  Rebecca met us on the porch and sat on the railing. “I’m sorry it took so long. I had to share a very disturbing piece of news with her, and she took it badly. She’s asleep now, on Siegfried’s bed. I’m afraid she’ll need some watching.”

  Camille and I exchanged glances.

  “What exactly—” Camille began.

  Rebecca shook her head. “She’ll have to be the one to tell you. Right now, I don’t think she’d be comfortable sharing with anyone. She’s crushed.”

  With Lily’s limited English, she would have a hard time explaining anything of complexity unless it used the simple nouns and verbs she’d had in class.

  “If she recovers and wants to tell Siegfried, maybe you can help,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he’s about to propose to her, and he needs to know what’s troubling her.”

  Siegfried had shown me a small diamond ring two days earlier, giddy with excitement and nervous as a schoolboy. He’d decided to wait until the weekend, when Freddie and the children were home. If she accepted his proposal, he wanted the whole family to share the news.

  “Of course. Just give me a call when the time comes. Meanwhile, treat her gently. She’s pretty broken up. I can’t break her confidence, but I can say she’s been deeply disappointed by her family. It’s not something that will go away in a few days, I’m afraid. I’d suggest therapy, when her English has improved. I don’t know any good Korean therapists, I’m sorry to say.”

  We said good night to her and watched her car bump down the gravel driveway. Camille squeezed my hand, pulling away. “Lily might need me.”

  I drew her closer, folding her into my arms. “Maybe we should just let Siegfried take care of her, honey. It’s his job now. And if she’s still sleeping... ”

  She sighed, looking toward the carriage house. “You’re right. I guess he’ll call if he needs us.”

  “Of course he will. Come on, let’s go inside.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I slept fitfully, dreaming of chasing Kip and Arabella through cornfields. I was almost shocked awake when the Novacom rep’s shadowy face zoomed into my field of view after I rounded a corner, half-flying, half-running.

  The disturbing dream lingered when I rose early, before the rest of the family. I showered and was scrambling eggs when Siegfried burst through the kitchen door. His hair, normally pulled into a neat ponytail, hung loose on his shoulders. He wore his version of pajamas: a pair of swim trunks and an oversized ratty gray tee shirt. He’d stuffed his feet into his sneakers without doing up the laces. One heel pushed down the back of the shoe.

  “Professor,” he said, breathless. “She’s gone.”

  I slid the pan from the burner and shut off the stove. “Lily?”

  He nodded and held out a daffodil. It was from my garden, one of the white frilly varieties with the pink center. “I slept on my couch. Lily was on my bed all night. When I woke up, this was on my pillow.” He brandished the flower as if it were a Dear John letter.

  “Maybe she went for a walk?” I said, knowing deep in my heart that it was completely out of character. She only walked with Siegfried, and during the day. Not this early in the morning.

  “Did she take anything with her? Clothes? Documents?”

  “No.”

  His face started to crumble, but I touched his arm and he reined in his emotions.

  “We must find her, Professor.”

  “I know. Let’s check the house first, okay?”

  We looked in Mrs. Pierce’s room, apologizing for waking her. She rolled over and returned to sleep, unaware of our crisis. After checking the rest of the house, from attic to cellar, we regrouped in the kitchen.

  Fear and helplessness washed over Sig’s face. He grabbed my arm. “What should we do? Where would she go?”

  I stopped for a minute, trying to imagine where her inner thoughts had traveled.

  She’d discovered something horrible about her family. Something that upset her so much she’d cried herself to sleep and—possibly—slept through the night. She’d awakened in Siegfried’s room, had walked out to pick a daffodil, and had disappeared.

  Did she leave the flower as a symbol of her lov
e? A way to say thank you to the man who had rescued her? He’d saved her from the fire, and from a life of apparent abuse. He’d saved her from homelessness, had brought her into the fold of a loving family. And he’d given her hope for a future. With him.

  Did she feel unworthy now?

  I took the flower and examined it. The petals hadn’t faded, and a gooey substance coated the stem where she’d snapped it off. It looked like she’d picked it recently.

  Lily had no car, no way to get into town. Unless she called Dr. Kwon—and I didn’t think she had her phone number—I couldn’t imagine how she’d even get to the village.

  Is she distraught enough to hurt herself?

  Where would she go?

  I thought of the barn, but realized she wouldn’t want to leave a messy sight for the family to find. She wouldn’t hang or shoot herself. We didn’t keep guns on the property, anyway. And the last time she ran, when she’d seen the fire, it had been toward the woods.

  The woods. The gully. If she jumped off the highest point…

  Siegfried must have reached the same conclusion, because before I could share my theory, his face froze. “The woods, Professor.”

  Whether it was his sense of intuition, or whether he’d followed the same train of thought, I wasn’t sure. I raced out the door with Siegfried directly behind me. “Come on,” I said.

  Darkness covered the yard and fields beyond, but a faint glow of rose limned the horizon. The sun would be up soon. We swung by the barn and grabbed a coil of rope and a big flashlight. It might be dark in the woods.

  “Run,” he shouted, taking off like a giant greyhound. He tore across the alfalfa field with his long legs flying.

  ***

  Siegfried and I stumbled through the ankle-deep alfalfa. My leather-soled work shoes, not intended for careening over farmland, grew slick with dew, and I slipped several times when we climbed the hill.

  A dreadful feeling of déjà vu smothered me, with visions of Lily’s broken body at the bottom of the ravine. Images of my first wife’s twisted body flashed before me—her death had come at the foot of the Letchworth Gorge six years earlier. She’d been forced over the edge by my ex-son-in-law, now a lifer jailbird.

  Last time Lily slid down the ravine at a point fifty feet high. But there were areas where it rose over a hundred feet above the rocky streambed below, enough to kill someone if they jumped.

  I tried to keep up with Siegfried and poured on the steam. I caught him just as he reached the woods. It was dark beneath the trees.

  Siegfried skidded to a stop to catch his breath and get his bearings.

  “Which…way…should we…go?” I puffed. I hoped his sixth sense would roar into action.

  He closed his eyes and listened hard. Whether it was for Lily’s shriek of terror, or if he tuned into his special senses, I couldn’t tell. But he opened them quickly and pointed to the path we’d followed last time. “This way.” He flicked on the flashlight. The beam rode the ground, bouncing on the trail ahead of us.

  We plunged up the trail, perspiring in spite of the cool morning temperatures. A bizarre cacophony of birdsongs filled the air, loud twitters that sounded disconcerting and almost obscene.

  I kept up now, driven by fear and fortified with a new burst of adrenaline.

  Was she really in these woods? Or did she hitch a ride on the dirt road? What if she was wandering around the back yard, picking more flowers?

  I hoped we were off track, that we were completely nuts and she was safe. Elsewhere. Not here. Not ahead. Not twisted on the ground at the bottom of the gorge.

  That’s when I saw the torn yellow fabric on a black raspberry bush, near the trail to the cliffs. Memories of her yellow cotton dress at last night’s dinner floated before my mind’s eye.

  “Sig,” I pointed. “Is that—”

  He touched it. “Ja. Come. We must—”

  A shrill scream split the darkness.

  “Hurry!” Sig shouted.

  Thorns scraped our faces and arms, slowing our progress. We pushed through them and finally reached the top of the gorge.

  A faint glimmer of morning light rippled on the stream below. I strained to see, but couldn’t make out much in the predawn light. My eyes scanned the shore for a body, a spot of blacker darkness, something opaque and not of the natural landscape.

  Nothing.

  Siegfried’s hand shook as he played the light over the cliff. By the time it reached the bottom, the dispersed light had no effect.

  The faint sound of weeping startled us from below. Siegfried shone the light to our right.

  There. A bundle of yellow. A flash of reflection in her eyes.

  “Lily!” Siegfried shouted, stumbling toward the place where she’d either fallen or jumped. She was wedged behind a silver birch on an outcropping of brush.

  “Lily!” he cried again.

  I pulled on his arm. “Give me the rope,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t try to plunge over the edge in his haste to rescue her. I tied one end around a stout maple, and the other around his broad torso, looping it around his waist and legs. He checked the knots, pulling with all his weight, then scrambled over the ledge.

  I played the rope out and looped it around a second tree, bracing myself against it. “Careful. Take it slow.”

  Lily’s weeping turned to sobbing. She called to him, her voice filled with what I imagined was both fear and shame. Afraid she’d almost died. And ashamed she hadn’t pulled it off.

  I gritted my teeth and held tight to the rope, letting it go little by little as Siegfried made his way down the cliff. Perspiration stained my shirt, and beaded on my brow. I needed both hands to hold the rope, and tried to wipe the sweat with my shoulder. But it didn’t work, and the salty fluid burned my eyes.

  A golden pink glow bathed the sky, giving branches and leaves the appearance of fire. Time was suspended, and the world became only rope and bark and blisters and sweat.

  After what seemed like hours, the rope slackened. Siegfried called from below. “I have her, Professor.”

  Looping the slack around a low branch, I tied a strong knot, and made my way to the edge of the cliff. The dark had retreated, revealing the familiar steep hillside. Shrub brush grew in patches, alternating with small saplings and boulders.

  I saw them almost two-thirds of the way down the embankment. Siegfried waved to me. I waved back. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted. “I think…her leg…is broken.”

  She lay beside him, flopped on the ground as if spent of all emotion. I would have thought she was unconscious if I hadn’t heard an occasional whimper.

  I shouted back. “Is it easier to climb down? Can you tie the rope to a tree and carry her down from there?”

  I barely made out his head nodding. “Ja. Throw the rope.”

  I untied the rope. By the time I returned to the edge, Siegfried had already tied Lily to him in a makeshift harness. He pulled the loose rope down the hill, and fastened it around the birch.

  “Okay. Auf gehts,” he called. “I will meet you in the field.”

  He cradled her and propped her across one shoulder, then carefully edged down the hill.

  I watched until he made it to the bottom. He laid her down to untangle the ropes, and after picking her up again, waved to me. I headed back the way we’d come.

  I called Doc first, and filled him in. As much as I hated hospitals, I knew he was right when he said Lily needed to be seen in the ER. He arranged an ambulance to meet us in the field by the woods. After calling Camille to explain what had happened, I tried Dr. Kwon.

  Surprised I reached her at such an early hour, I quickly explained the situation.

  “Oh my God,” she said with a rush of emotion. “I knew she was upset, but I didn’t think she’d go this far.”

  “We’re taking her to your hospital. Could you meet us and help her through it? She’ll need someone to translate.”

  “She’ll need more than that, Gus. We’ll probably have t
o keep her in the psych ward for evaluation for a few days. That is, if she’s well enough to be moved out of the ER and doesn’t need surgery or anything.”

  “The psych ward?” I repeated. Dread coated my throat. I’d had enough of that place to last a lifetime, with Elsbeth’s own bouts of depression when the tumor had impacted her temporal lobe.

  “Yeah. Anyone who attempts suicide needs to be evaluated, Gus. It’s the safest place for her right now.”

  We hung up and I ran down the hill to meet them.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The ambulance arrived by the time we reached the dirt track edging the woods. Two EMTs carefully loaded Lily onto a stretcher. As Siegfried hovered, his face pale and lips compressed in worry, the attendants took a few minutes to take her vitals and insert an IV. They whisked her into the vehicle and backed down the lane, lights flashing and siren muted. Siegfried rode with them.

  Camille hailed me from her VW at the bottom of the hill, ready to go. I jogged down the lane, crossing into the field to branch off toward our house. Before I got in, I noticed my soaking shoes and pant legs. “Oh, crap.”

  “Maybe you’d better change, honey. We might be there for a while.”

  I hopped into the passenger side and she turned the car back to the house. “While I'm changing, why don’t you throw together a few things for Sig? He’s still in his swim trunks and that old tattered tee shirt.”

  “Okay. Good idea.” She stopped and pulled the parking brake. With the engine still running, we darted in different directions. I felt like I needed not only a change of clothes, but a nice hot shower. I swiped some Old Spice under my arms and splashed water on my face. After donning jeans and sneakers, I grabbed our books and my reading glasses from the night stand, a practice borne from years of experience in hospital waiting rooms. Mrs. Pierce and Shelby fretted side by side in the kitchen with the dogs circling their feet. Max and Boris knew something was up.

  “Will Lily be okay? What’s wrong with her? Can I come?” Shelby blurted out.

  I gave her a hug, smelled Camille’s perfume, and reached down to reassure the dogs, too. “I think she might have broken her leg, and maybe hit her head. But she was awake when we found her, so I think she’ll be okay. They’ll sort all that out in the hospital, honey.” I smiled at Mrs. Pierce, whose eyes shimmered with worry. “Could you stay here, Shelby, and help Mrs. Pierce hold down the fort?”