Beryl wrapped an arm around him and squeezed as he murmured, “Maybe things really do work out for the best.”
* * *
The house was dark and all was quiet when Cory stole out of bed. The cold winter moon lit the foyer and staircase as she made her way to the upper floor. “Rest awhile,” the house seemed to breathe to Cory as she paused at the window on the landing to look at the winter landscape outside. “I will keep you safe.”
The animals, accustomed by now to her nocturnal visits, made no noise as she passed. In her room, she popped open the panel under the window seat and sat in her rocker.
“Oh, I wish you could be here to experience this,” she whispered. “The house is awake and alive again.”
She rocked, memories flooding in with the beams of moonlight.
Some time later, she blinked, disoriented. Where am I? she wondered, looking around in the darkness. I must have dozed off. Groggily, she tried to straighten up from where she had slumped a bit in her rocker. It was hard to move. Oh, I’m so stiff, she thought. Leaning forward, she reached out to push the panel shut, but found that her arm didn’t want to move. It must have fallen asleep.
Shifting further out on the rocker, she leaned toward the window seat again. The last thing she remembered was falling forward into nothingness.
Chapter 40
Aggie paced agitatedly in the hallway of the ER at OSU’s hospital, while Beryl leaned silently against the wall, staring at the floor. An intern emerged from the exam room.
“How is she?” Aggie asked immediately.
“She’s stable,” he said. “Do you have any idea how long she was unconscious before you found her?”
Aggie shook her head. “I didn’t even know she was upstairs until my dog woke me.” Guiltily, she remembered that Cory had stopped wearing her medical alert pendant back when Aggie moved into the mansion “and I thought it was okay, because I’d hear her if anything happened,” she would lament to Beryl later.
“We’re taking her for a CT of her head now,” he explained. “We’ll know more when we have those results, but it looks like it was a stroke.”
At that moment, Cory was wheeled out of the exam room. She reached for Aggie’s hand, trying to say something.
“What?” Aggie asked, leaning close.
Cory mumbled unintelligibly again. Aggie glanced questioningly toward Beryl, who shook her head.
“Don’t worry,” Aggie said soothingly. “We’ll be here when you get back from your scan.”
As they watched the gurney wheeling down the corridor, Beryl said, “She seems really agitated.”
Aggie bit her lip. “The lawyer,” she said. “I’ll bet that’s what she wants.”
Beryl wrapped her arm around Aggie and said, “She’s worried about what will happen with the house.”
Aggie nodded. “I think so,” she sniffed. “I hate to ask, but would you mind going home and trying to find his number?”
“Sure,” Beryl said. “Do you want me to call anyone else?”
Aggie’s face hardened. “No.”
* * *
“It was a lovely ceremony,” says a well-dressed woman in black crepe.
“Thank you,” Corinne says automatically. As I am expected to do, she thinks as she turns to receive the next person in line who offers the same meaningless condolences.
What she longs to scream, but cannot say out loud to anyone, is what a relief it will be not to have to care for Candace any longer.
“I can’t believe she’s lived for over ten years,” the doctor had said, listening to the fluid rattling in her chest. Candace was, by then, unconscious and the pneumonia was slowly filling her lungs. “She never would have lasted this long if you and your family hadn’t taken such good care of her,” he said kindly, meaning his words to be a comfort, but unaware of the irony Corinne finds in them.
“They all think I’m a wonderful sister and daughter,” she cannot say, watching people mouth words that she doesn’t even hear, standing beside Mary as they greet every last person. “But I know better. And Candace knew better. Though I tried never to show it, she knew how I resented my life. I could have taken lesser care of her and freed myself earlier…”
“But you didn’t,” Helen would have pointed out.
“I didn’t do it out of love,” Corinne argues – with whom? “I did it out of obligation, which isn’t the same at all, is it?”
At last, they are home, changed out of the stiff black required for public mourning into casual clothes. Terrence, who could only tolerate the actual funeral service, had escaped home hours earlier. The staff, as a kindness to the family, have taken the bed upstairs and put the den back as it used to be. Staying out of sight in the kitchen, they have laid out tea and sandwiches in the dining room.
“Just ring if you need anything, anything at all, ma’am,” Frances murmurs to Mrs. Bishop.
Seated quietly around the table, no one speaks for long minutes. The post is lying in a silver tray near Mary’s place. She leafs through the missives.
“Here’s a letter for you, Helen,” she says, passing an envelope over.
“Thank you,” Helen says, prying the flap open. “It’s from my parents. They’re hosting a fundraiser for John Kennedy’s presidential campaign,” she reads. “Next month, at their house in the Hamptons.” She looks up hopefully. “We could all go for a week,” she suggests. “It’s beautiful there in September.”
Corinne’s eyes light up. “Oh, it would be wonderful to get away,” she says. For all their wishes and intentions to spend their summers travelling, she and Helen have never again gotten farther away from Ohio than New York. “Mother?”
Mary also looks eager for a moment, but then her expression falls. “Terrence would never agree to travel,” she realizes. “But you should go.”
Corinne bites her lip. “If Helen and I go, then you must get away separately,” she says to her mother. “Perhaps you and Aunt Eunice could take a trip to New York?”
Mary’s face brightens. “It’s been so long, what with Terrence, and your father’s difficulties,” – she still will not admit that he embezzled funds – “and then Candace’s illness.” She reaches for Corinne’s hand. “Let’s make our plans.”
Helen’s parents are welcoming in a detached, distracted kind of way. “Just make yourselves at home,” they insist, as they busy themselves with the details of the upcoming gathering.
“They mean it,” Helen says, taking Corinne’s hand and leading her out the door toward the beach. “They don’t want to be bothered taking care of us. So it leaves us free to do whatever we wish.”
“Whatever we wish?” Corinne asks suggestively. She looks up at Helen, the streaks of grey beginning to show at her temples only serving to make her look more distinguished. It has been months since they have made love. They have both been so exhausted. This trip feels like an opportunity to turn back time.
Helen grins. “We can probably find a secluded dune,” she says. “Come on.” Taking Corinne by the hand, they jog along the beach. Before they have gone fifty yards, Helen slows, breathing raggedly.
“I hadn’t realized I was that out of shape,” she gasps. “Too much time behind a desk.”
“Let’s sit,” Corinne says, pulling Helen over to a dune where they are sheltered a bit from the cool wind blowing off the water.
Looking around and seeing no one, Helen pulls Corinne to her for a kiss. The kiss grows stronger and more passionate as Corinne’s hand slips under Helen’s sweater and caresses her breast, kneading the pliant tissue. Helen suddenly gasps and pulls away.
“What?” Corinne asks, startled.
“It… it hurt,” Helen says, reaching up and feeling the breast herself. Wincing, she sees the worry in Corinne’s eyes and says, “It’s nothing. I’ll see someone when we get back to Ohio.”
* * *
In a scene eerily reminiscent of her father’s death, Cory lay in a bed in the neuro unit surrounded by her attorney, A
gatha and Beryl, with Ridley and George as witnesses while the ownership of the house was transferred to Aggie’s new trust. Cory’s ability to communicate was hampered by her facial weakness, but, with difficulty, she could make herself understood enough to answer yes/no questions.
“Don’t worry, Miss Cory” said Mr. Hoffman, who had insisted to his unhappy wife that he must respond to this summons, Christmas Day or no. “We’ll get everything taken care of.”
After he had left, Cory lay, plucking anxiously at her sheets with her good hand as the others kept vigil.
“It’s all right now,” Aggie said repeatedly. “Everything is taken care of.”
But Cory shook her head in frustration, trying to mouth something that none of them could make out.
Eventually, Cory fell into a restless sort of sleep, continuing to moan every now and then. Beryl felt as if she were hypnotized, watching the monitor above the bed. A life, a whole life, she thought, reduced to blips on a screen, little lines of color – how many blips does she have left? How do you measure that?
Aggie must have felt her consternation and reached over for her hand. “Why don’t you and the guys go back to the house?” she suggested. “It is Christmas Day.”
A nurse came in at that point. “She’s going to sleep now,” she said sympathetically. She gestured at the monitor. “Everything looks stable. I can call you if anything changes.”
“You need to eat,” Ridley said gently. “Let us make dinner for you, and then we’ll all come back later.”
Reluctantly, Aggie agreed, leaving hers and Beryl’s cell phone numbers with the nurse and eliciting one more promise to call if anything changed.
Back at the house, Ridley and George took charge in the kitchen, directing Aggie and Beryl who moved like automatons, doing as they were told. Before long, they were seated at the table with platters of ham, sweet potato casserole, sautéed green beans and steaming hot rolls.
“Aunt Cory was so looking forward to this,” Aggie said, blinking back tears.
“Here,” said Beryl, spooning a little of each dish onto Aggie’s plate. “Try and eat a bit.”
“Can you think of what she might have been so worried about?” Ridley asked.
Aggie shook her head. “I can’t. We didn’t have anything big pending around here that I know of. We got the legal stuff taken care of.” She poked at her food worriedly.
“Maybe, you could take a look around her room and see if there’s anything,” George suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” Aggie said.
As soon as she was done eating what little she could, she went to Cory’s room while Beryl and the guys cleaned up the kitchen. Beryl peeked in a short while later.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“No,” said Aggie from where she was replacing Cory’s clothes in a dresser drawer and sliding it back into position. “I’ve been through all the drawers. Nothing.”
“How about under her mattress?”
“I haven’t looked,” Aggie said, brightening hopefully. “Help me?”
Together, they lifted Cory’s mattress from different angles, feeling underneath for any papers, envelopes, books. There was nothing.
Beryl looked around. “There aren’t any hidden safes or compartments in here, are there?”
Aggie frowned. “Not that I know of. But that would be just like Cory.”
“This used to be her father’s den, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” Aggie said thoughtfully, going to the dark paneled walls and running her hands over the wood, pressing here and there, while Beryl paid attention to the places where paintings used to hang, looking for any signs of secret doors or cubbies.
They both jumped as they heard laughter behind them. Ridley and George were standing there.
“What are you doing?” Ridley asked.
“Looking for hiding places,” Beryl said. “Don’t just stand there. Help.”
So the men joined in, concentrating on the bookshelves.
“Hey!”
They all rushed over to where George had pulled some books down to reveal a sliding panel built into the back wall of the shelf. He stepped aside so Aggie could be the one to open it.
“There is something!” she said excitedly.
Pulling out some old papers, they hovered over her as she took them to the bedside lamp for better illumination.
“They’re not Aunt Cory’s,” Aggie said, leafing through them. “They’re my great-grandfather’s.” She ran a finger down one of the pages. “It’s a bunch of figures. Investments, from the descriptions.”
She frowned. “But I can’t see what this has to do with Cory.”
“Maybe you should show them to her anyway,” Beryl suggested with a shrug.
“All right,” Aggie sighed. Glancing at her watch. “I want to get back over there.” She turned to George and Ridley. “I’m sorry to leave you again. Please stay here and make yourselves at home. TV is upstairs. Why don’t you stay, too?” she said to Beryl.
“I’m going with you,” Beryl said firmly.
“We’re going, too,” Ridley insisted.
“We’re family,” George said with a shrug.
Chapter 41
Cory lay in a twilit place between sleep and wakefulness. She knew she was in a hospital and that she’d had a stroke.
“I would rather die,” she’d said more than once to Helen when they were caring for Candace. “To be trapped in a body that won’t obey commands… to know what has happened and that this is your fate, for as long as you last. I can’t think of anything worse.”
How ironic, she thought now. Candace would find this fitting. The thought brought laughter deep in her chest that caused her to choke and gag. A nurse came rushing in, turning her on her side until her weak cough cleared the obstruction, and giving her some oxygen until her breathing evened out.
“Better now?” the nurse asked kindly. Cory nodded as the nurse repositioned her comfortably.
Only then did Cory notice the nurse was wearing a Santa hat. Is it still Christmas? she wondered.
Everything seemed a blur as she floated in and out of her fog and her dreams.
* * *
Helen grips Corinne’s hand tightly as they enter Sloan-Kettering’s reception area.
“You simply must come here,” Mrs. Abrams had insisted upon hearing of Helen’s diagnosis. It was clear that she considered Columbus physicians little more than country doctors, but “We should go,” Corinne had agreed. Anything, she thought. Anything but the dire prognosis they had been given.
“He’ll have something to offer,” Corinne insists as they ask for Dr. Heidelberg’s office, but “I’m sorry,” he says after reviewing Helen’s test results and updates from the Columbus doctors. He looks at them both through his thick glasses, overhung by bushy grey eyebrows. “There have been some clinical successes with treating lymphoma and leukemia with drugs, but none in treating breast cancer.” He glances back down at one report. “I see here that Dr. Westfall recommended a radical mastectomy. I’m afraid that would be my recommendation, also.”
Numb at having this last hope dashed, they leave the hospital and stand on the crowded New York City sidewalk, still holding tightly to each other’s hands as they are buffeted by passersby. “Let’s go home,” Helen says.
A couple of weeks later, Helen is back home at the Bishop house, recovering from a double mastectomy. Corinne has had a small bed from an unused staff bedroom on the third floor moved into her room so that she can be nearby without disturbing Helen’s fitful sleep.
Helen, who has only cried a handful of times in all the years that Corinne has known her, cries now in pain as she tries to move her arms. When the bandages are changed, Corinne winces and nearly cries herself. There, where Helen’s beautiful breasts used to be are angry red tracks, puckering and adhering as they begin to heal and scar. Just as she used to do with Candace, Corinne works at trying to move Helen’s arms, stretching the taut skin as gently as she c
an until Helen cries out.
Frances and some of the others decorate a small Christmas tree and place it and a menorah in the room to add some holiday cheer.
“What do you want for Christmas?” Helen asks one day, trying not to wince as Corinne stretches her.
Corinne pauses, looking down at Helen’s drawn face, still beautiful to her, and tries not to let her eyes well up. “I want Italy.”
“Italy?” Helen asks, puzzled.
“You told me once you could smell the sun in Italy,” Corinne reminds her.
Helen smiles. “That’s right. I did promise you Italy, didn’t I?”
Corinne leans over the bed and kisses Helen’s lips tenderly. “You’d better keep your promise.”
Helen reaches up, laying a hand lovingly on Corinne’s cheek. “I’ll try.”
* * *
Cory blinked rapidly as tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.
“Hey,” Aggie said softly, blotting the tears with a tissue. “I wish you could tell me what it is.”
Cory looked at her, noticing how like her own Aggie’s blue eyes were, and tried again to say what must be said. Somehow she had to tell them, make them understand… what if they never found it? What if Aggie sold the house and never knew? Why hadn’t she shown her before now?
Shaking her head in frustration at Cory’s guttural noises, Aggie said, “I’m sorry. I just don’t know what you’re trying to say.” She felt a small push against her arm as Beryl held out the papers they had found. “Oh, yes,” she said, taking the bundle. “We did find these hidden behind a secret panel in the den. Do you know anything about these?”
She elevated the head of Cory’s bed a bit more and put the papers into her good left hand. Cory, who even at ninety-three had never needed reading glasses, squinted a bit as she tried to get her eyes to focus on the minuscule figures held in her tremulous grasp. For long seconds, she looked at the papers blankly as Aggie steadied her hand while Beryl, Ridley and George watched hopefully.
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