“What?”
“I want her to stay with me, to live with me. It’s too dangerous here.”
Bertha let out her breath slowly. “You want to take her away from me?”
“I am her closest relative.”
Bertha shot her a hard look. Long, light ribbons of sun shone through the east window and splashed light between the two of them, across the coffee-stained island. “So you’re going to pull out that weapon,” Bertha said. She wanted to raise her voice, but although it took some energy, she refrained. “Toni chose this family. She wanted it for her and her daughter. I can’t let you just ride off into the sunset with Doree.”
Anne slid off her stool, reached for the coffee pot, filled her cup, and warmed Bertha’s up.
Bertha fought back tears. She didn’t want Anne treating her nicely. She understood at that moment how people went mad from missing ordinary things. She wanted Toni. “Tell me this,” she said. “Was this your intention when you came for the funeral?”
Anne ignored her question. “I have two teens. She will be alone here.”
“She’ll be with me,” Bertha said. “She has her friends at school. She’s not going to want to change schools for her senior year. Besides she’s a rolling sea of hormones. She’s not going to want to leave her boyfriend.”
Anne nodded. “Under normal circumstances, I’d agree. But things aren’t normal, are they?”
Bertha lowered her voice and leaned close to Toni’s sister. “I’m sure you’re doing what you think is right. But it isn’t right.”
Anne sighed. “I hope we don’t have to go to court about this.”
Bertha was unaware of picking up another muffin but found herself chewing. She swallowed and washed it down with coffee. “Are you threatening me? Did you forget that I have a law degree—that I’m a judge?”
“Keep in mind that I have Doree’s wellbeing at heart.”
“Women like your sister and I have all kinds of papers drawn up. We did it years ago. We own this house and our cars with right of survivorship. Our money is pooled under both of our names. There are lawyers who specialize in those kinds of things. We both have wills so some mean-spirited family member doesn’t come in and take things out of the house. Did you know the State of Illinois passed gay marriage?” Her voice gradually grew louder. “The last thing you want to do is threaten me.”
Anne folded her hands, and spoke in a composed manner. “Have you adopted Doree?”
Bertha picked up the platter and considered throwing it. Instead she grabbed the last two chocolate-chip muffins and stood. Of course there was no adoption, no marriage. They’d thought they had all the time in the world, or at least another twenty or thirty years. As a judge she knew that unexpected things happened all the time. As a lesbian in a good relationship with a happy life, she’d sort of put things off. When civil unions were passed and all their friends started having ceremonies and then the gay-marriage law passed, they’d told themselves that they’d marry, and they would have someday. Nevertheless, Bertha came up with a good answer. “Doree is old enough to choose.”
“Can’t you see I want what’s best for Doree, the same as you?”
“No, I can’t.” On her way out of the kitchen Bertha turned. “You do not have my permission to take her. You may not need it. But you’re going to get a fight from me.”
Doree stopped Bertha in the hallway. “What did she say?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, if it’s about me going to live with her, I’m not going.” Doree stomped her foot. “You can’t make me.”
Bertha didn’t respond but went into her bedroom. She walked to the front window and stared out at the morning. When she realized she was still holding the muffins, she shoved them into her mouth.
Aunt Lucy knocked. “Bertha, what’s wrong? Can I come in?” Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door. “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
“Oh, my God. Are you in on it too?”
“Doree is dealing with a lot right now.”
“Who the hell isn’t?”
Aunt Lucy lowered her voice as if she was worried someone else might hear. “Suck it up, honey. You have to be an adult for Doree. She has to know she can depend on you.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do by keeping her here. How can she depend on me to take care of her when I send her away from the only life she knows?”
Schooling her features into an expression of concern, Aunt Lucy pulled out the sewing-machine stool and, pointing at it, said, “Sit.”
“No. How in the hell did all of you put this plot together in such a short time? Or have you three been working on it all along?”
Aunt Lucy tried to approach Bertha with an embrace, but Bertha turned away and dropped her arms to her sides. Finally, with little else to do, Bertha sat on the corner of the bed and waited.
“This isn’t how I saw things going,” Bertha said. “In my heart I wanted to be the mother to Doree that Grandma was to me. I guess I saw it as paying it forward or some such cliché.”
“Remember Grandma had help.”
“Sally?”
“Your mother.” Aunt Lucy corrected her, as she usually did.
Bertha shot her a severe look. “An alley cat would have been a better mother.”
Aunt Lucy raised her index finger. “Shush.”
“But—”
“I have something to say and you’re going to listen. I’m sorry you never had a relationship with your mother, but you don’t know what that woman went through. She was there any time you needed money, and not only money for you. The only one you’re thinking about right now is you and what you want.”
“That’s not true.” But was it?
“And while we’re on the subject of Sally, remember she saw to it that you got a college education. Where would you be without that?”
Bertha remembered the annuity that she and Toni had been putting money in for Doree’s college. They’d managed to get a good interest rate in the days when they were above 5 percent. It was close to forty-two thousand now. Not enough for a whole four years, but if she used it wisely and got some scholarships, she could do it. With that money, she could still help Doree—if the kid was still in her life. Bertha had sometimes wished she and Toni were rid of Doree, free to go out without finding a babysitter, or have wild sex on the kitchen table, or any of the thousand other things she imagined her childless friends were doing. Now here she was fighting to keep the kid with her, afraid she’d be lost without her.
“Come here, baby.” Aunt Lucy stood and pulled Bertha up to her soft bosom. “We can figure this out later. Just promise me you’ll think about it—about what’s best for Doree.”
*
Visiting hours were strict in intensive care. Bertha waited over forty minutes until she could go in for a short time. By then she’d grown used to the antiseptic odor and the old magazines. She’d played Angry Birds on her cell for a while. At the top of the hour she could visit for ten minutes. She watched the second hand crawl the last few minutes. Finally it was time to go in. Hesitating outside the door for a moment, she knocked lightly, then touched the door with her shoulder and pushed her way through it.
Scottie lay in the hospital bed with tubes going in and coming out everywhere. One of the machines made a soft, repetitive beep. Flat on her back, her chest rising and falling, Scottie seemed to be asleep. Her hair was slicked back and a spot on her right temple shaved, several dark stitches crisscrossing the area in a crazy pattern. The left half of her face was covered with gauze and tape, and her right eye was swollen and discolored. Only after Bertha found a chair and sat did she notice the cast on Scottie’s right arm. Was it possible that whoever beat her had wanted her alive? There were certainly easier ways to murder someone. Beatings took a lot of energy. Bertha could see it if this were something personal, but she suspected it wasn’t—that it was related to Toni’s death. That’s why she’d come; she needed to know if Scottie’s condi
tion had anything to do with their talk at Rita’s Pizza. But Scottie was in no condition to tell her.
A nurse came in and started messing with the IV. She smiled at Bertha.
Bertha spoke softly. “Has Miss Scott had any other visitors?”
The nurse shrugged. “Not while I was here. You’re the first. Are you family?”
Bertha shrugged. How could the woman ask that when Bertha was black and Scottie was Scandinavian white, but in case only relatives could visit, she said, “Cousins.”
The nurse nodded and turned to leave. Over her shoulder she said, “There’s coffee at the nurses’ station. If you need some, help yourself.”
Bertha put her feet on a vinyl-covered footrest. The sound of the beeping machine lulled her. She’d have to go back to the waiting room in a few minutes. She’d get some coffee then and read one of the two- or three-year-old Woman’s Day magazines, pass the time, and come in for a second visit later. Scottie needed a friend, and Bertha had time to be that friend—today anyway.
Later in the waiting room again, she phoned Alvin at the county-court building. The call went to voice mail and she left a message. She tossed the magazines aside one after the other, found an old Sports Illustrated, and read an article about Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame. A wire rack near the door held untouched pamphlets about God and grief. One lay between magazines. Someone had made a list of the local funeral homes on the back. The minutes crawled by, and then she went back into Scottie’s room and kept her company. When she was settled, she heard a familiar soft stammer.
“Cousin Bertha?”
Bertha squinted. A slender figure was outlined in the doorway. “Billie?”
Billie Little, one of the bartenders (and according to Scottie, now owner) from the Crones Nest, extended her hand, and they shook.
“How’s our cousin doing?” Billie cut her eyes toward the patient.
“Sleeping.”
Billie shook her head. “Doesn’t look like much has changed since I was here yesterday morning. Doctor has her in a drug-induced coma until some of the brain swelling has gone down.”
“God.”
“I been checking on her whenever I could. She really didn’t have nobody around here. Her family is from Minnesota. Parents divorced or something,” Billie said. “Helluva note, sixty years old and your best friend is your barmaid.”
Bertha stood. “You want to sit down? I’ve been sitting for hours.”
Billie shook her head. “No thanks.” So they both stood.
Bertha moved closer to her. Billie was probably in her seventies. She’d been tending bar at the Crones Nest since Bertha’d been young and new to the gay scene. For years she’d worn her hair long and straight, kind of a broad-faced Mary from Peter-Paul-and. Now her hair barely reached her shoulders. It was swept back and held with a clippie thing, like femmes sometimes wore, at the nape of her neck. The platinum blond, now silver, was much thinner than the old days, but she remained attractive without really trying.
Billie said, “I was sorry to hear about Toni.”
“Thanks.”
“I was at the graveside with a few others. You probably didn’t see us. You were so distraught, plus, your Aunt Lucy was as protective as a bear with a cub. So we stayed for the service and then left.”
“Thanks. That means a lot.”
“I just wanted you to know we were there. Me and Whisper and Dinah Brand.”
Bertha nodded. She hadn’t seen the drag queens for ages, but she’d been so upset that day she wasn’t sure if she’d remember them. Still, she wished she’d known. “Aunt Lucy,” she said, “should have known y’all were important to me.”
They stared at Scottie for a moment, and then Billie said, “We haven’t had anyone assaulted like this since the early days of AIDs—the Reagan administration. There’s been some harassment, but no attempted murder.”
“This wasn’t a hate crime,” Bertha said.
“No?”
“It has something to do with Toni’s death. That’s what I asked her about earlier that night when we talked. What she’d seen.”
“So you were there? Scottie told me, but given her level of intoxication, I had my doubts.”
“I was. I walked her across the street from Rita’s to the bar. I should have insisted on driving her home. She drank quite a bit and was feeling it. She told me that you’d call her a cab later. So I left.” Bertha repeated herself. “I wish I’d driven her home myself.”
“She come in and had a few beers, then I did call a cab for her. We talked a few minutes before she went out front to wait. I should’ve known something was wrong when the cab driver came in a little later and asked where his fare was. I thought she must’ve gotten into her own car and tried to drive it home. I found her two hours later when I closed. She was lying in the alley between the bar and the income-tax place next door. I wasn’t even sure she was alive, she was beat up so bad. Blood everywhere—”
“Do you think she’ll pull out of this?”
Billie shrugged. “Nobody seems to know.”
They stood in silence until a nurse came in and told them visiting time was over. As they left Scottie’s room, Bertha asked if Billie wanted to get some lunch in the hospital cafeteria.
“I need to get on to work soon,” Billie said, heading toward the elevator. “Plus I’m dying for a smoke.”
When the doors opened Bertha stepped into the elevator with her.
Billie said, “You still smoke?”
“Naw. Quit years ago.”
“Thought so. Everybody civilized and a bunch not so civilized has quit.”
The doors whooshed open, and the sunlight streaming through the front glass made Bertha squint. Seeing spots, she stepped forward.
Billie caught her arm. “No smoking out there. We got to go to the entrance of the parking garage. No bench, but we can sit on the curb.”
Bertha followed her in the opposite direction, and soon they were outside in an alley that was cracked and full of potholes. The place wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t the worst Bertha’d seen. A bucket of sand overflowed with butts. A couple of empty soda cans sat on the ledge beside the door to the parking ramp. Although a larger trash can stood near a dying bush, candy and chip wrappers were strewn at its base.
Billie sucked in her gut, pulled a crumpled generic pack from her jeans pocket, set fire to the slightly bent cigarette, and blew out smoke that curled upward. As she stood fixed with her hands on her hips and her feet apart on the dirty cement walk that led to a dumpster, the early afternoon light cast her diminutive shadow. At length she said, “How could you think Scottie’s trouble has something to do with Toni’s death?”
“In and of itself, it wouldn’t. But other things have happened. I don’t understand what’s going on, but Toni’s death is only part of it.”
“What other things?”
Bertha sighed. She was growing tired, and the smoke that’d smelled good at first was creating distress in her throat as postnasal drip built up. She needed to spit or she needed some water or both. Her cell phone in her pocket buzzed, so she pulled it out and ran her finger across the telephone icon. Alvin. She noticed Billie was watching her expectantly. “Alvin,” she said. “My secretary. I’ve got to take it.” As she put the phone to her ear, Billie reached to shake her hand, then jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Got to get to work. Nice seeing you.”
Bertha nodded. Into the phone she said, “Alvin?”
“You rang, Boss?”
“I want to get back to work. Sitting at home is making me nuts.”
“Folks down here will be happy to hear that.”
“Good. I’ll come in on Monday if I have cases on my docket.”
“You sure do. I haven’t reassigned a single case I didn’t have to.”
“Thanks. So, what’s new with you?”
“Nothing I can talk about right now. How about you?”
“Lots. I’ll fill you in when I see you. By the way, I ran i
n to one of your exes a couple of nights ago.”
Alvin’s voice was flat. “Which one?”
“Randy.”
“You were at the bar?”
“He came to my home. I’ll explain more when I see you.”
“You can’t just say something like that and hang up.”
“Watch me.”
She ended the call and pocketed the phone. When she turned toward the parking garage, she saw Billie rounding the drive and heading for the exit in a turquoise and white hand-painted Dodge truck that probably had been new in the last century. She remembered Scottie, lying in ICU, barely alive. Whatever was going on, it was serious. She thought about Doree. The girl would be safer in Indiana than here. It wasn’t so far that they couldn’t visit. Bertha was surprised to find herself warming to the idea. She remembered the threatening voice from the night before. The guy had included Doree in the threat. She had to keep Doree safe.
Bertha cleared her throat and spit a glop of stuff into a pothole. As she made her way to the Wrangler, she found herself relieved that she didn’t have to come up with a way to keep Doree safe on her own. Compared to here, Indiana and Anne’s would be like Ward and June Cleaver’s house. She’d have time later to bring Doree home.
Chapter Five
In the day room, several residents slept in wheel chairs as Judge Judy blared on the flat-screen TV mounted above a fake fireplace. Grandma, also asleep, had her back to the TV, her chin resting on her chest. She didn’t care much about TV these days, unless it was a slasher film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the Thirteenth, or any one of the Halloweens. Recently even Alfred Hitchcock, Supernatural, and most of the teenage vampire shows were too tame for her.
Doree rushed to her side, then turned to Bertha. “Should I wake her?”
“Gently.”
Doree placed her hand over Grandma’s and netted a loud snore. “Grandma,” she whispered.
Grandma raised her chin, saw Doree, and looked from side to side, finally locating Bertha. “Well, my two favorite people.”
Doree blurted, “Grandma, I’m leaving for a little while. I’m going to visit my Aunt Anne in Indiana.”
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