Millicent Glenn's Last Wish: A Novel

by Tori Whitaker

  She extended her hand to shake mine. It was cold, and I felt her bones.

  “Are you a friend from the hospital?” she said.

  No.

  Again that movie star smile, but now I saw the faintest puff of circles beneath her bloodshot eyes. A pinkness in her cheeks that seemed not from the sun or cosmetics.

  Her older daughter clung onto her legs. The younger one said, “Mommy, can we have a Popsicle?” while hopping on one foot and then the other.

  “I’m Millicent Glenn.” I could not help but notice my heartbeat picking up. Again I tried to exude the warm manner of a neighbor.

  But Mrs. Reynolds’s face shadowed. She glanced quickly across her shoulder to the door.

  “Girls, run along into the house. Nana will be waiting for you.”

  The younger one ran around the Radio Flyer wagon and on to the door. The older stayed latched to her mother’s thigh.

  Mrs. Reynolds took a deep breath. “Mrs. Glenn, I was going to send you a note.”

  She knew me?

  “It’s just, well, with Lawrence’s mother here, and with the children, I—” she said. “I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

  “What happened to me?” I said, anger spiking. “You must mean what happened to me and my daughter.”

  The child at the woman’s side twisted her head toward me. My tone had startled her. Yet I felt a snarl coming from somewhere deep inside me where my babies had grown.

  The woman shooed her daughter inside to Nana, keeping her eyes on me.

  “Nothing ‘happened’ to me,” I said. “Nothing ‘happened’ to my baby. Your arrogant, unethical drunkard of a husband killed my daughter. He destroyed my family in every way imaginable. That is what happened, Mrs. Reynolds.”

  She drew back. “I know,” she said softly with a slight shake of her head and her limp and upturned hands. “I know everything.”

  My lips parted, and my neck prickled with surprise. I saw her eyes fill with water.

  “I’m going back inside now, Mrs. Glenn. But first, please know that my husband was tormented by what he’d done. You see, he left me a letter. That was before he . . . went away. Your family has my sincerest apologies. And now I must make calls. I need to complete the funeral arrangements. And I’ve yet to tell the girls.”

  She turned and strode to the arched stone entry of her storybook home, the pleats of her skirt swaying, her shoulders squared, and her head held high.

  I heard the door’s latch from where I stood. I watched the doctor’s wife float from one window to the next to the next, drawing the draperies in the midafternoon light.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  October 1951

  The headlights from Dennis’s car beamed through the front picture window as he pulled into the drive. A wave of nausea overtook me. He was back from the Gunnison meeting in Indiana, where he was to have received a commendation. I lifted Janie out of her high chair. We would greet Daddy tonight, together, at the kitchen door. When he came in, he’d be enamored with her big smile and a new tooth she had just cut. That wouldn’t help smooth over his and my first encounter since our big fight—since I’d blamed him for hurting me. But it would give me a second to breathe. There was much to tell him. Dennis didn’t know of the doctor’s forgery. He didn’t know the doctor had committed suicide. And I was sick with the burden of having to admit to him my mistake, to repent for all the hateful words I’d said. There I was, lying helpless in a bed with morphine pumping into my veins, and you just had to scrawl your big old John Hancock all over the dotted line. Now I’m barren. It’s all your fault.

  How could the words I’m sorry ever mean enough?

  Were there things said in a marriage that could never be taken back? If I could take back the words I’d said, I’d cram them into my mouth with a shovel bite after bite until I gagged in the pit of my throat—but I’d swallow every last crumb. Yet would that be enough for me to be pardoned?

  When I’d returned home from berating Mrs. Reynolds—where I’d left a wounded woman who would raise her children alone—I in my selfishness thought only of myself. I thought only of my own devastation. My own lost family. Lashing out at her in my need for revenge hadn’t helped me. I still hated that doctor even in his death. He’d taken everything I had. He’d led me down the path to condemning my own husband.

  After old Dr. Welch had shown me the signed form in his office—and after Dennis proclaimed he’d not consented—how had I not considered my husband might be loyal? I’d lain awake all last night asking myself: What’d caused me to doubt him?

  I was not myself these days, I reasoned. I had suffered the two greatest tragedies of my life.

  First, I’d lost a daughter at the hands of a drunkard. One noble nurse had stood up for me; another had caved to the power of her godlike superior. It wasn’t fair.

  Second, I’d lost my ability to bear children. The drunkard had struck again, snipping my insides with the blades of his scissors. It wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t fair what this man had done.

  And that’s when it came to me. I bolted upright in my bed, the light of the night’s sky slicing through a crack in the curtains. I hadn’t thought for a moment that Dennis didn’t sign the form because somewhere deep inside me—buried beneath the pain of my belly’s scar, the ache of my empty arms, the agony of hearing the words that my baby was dropped, the devastation of seeing a big letter D scrawled on the page, and the load of my buckets of tears—I remembered: I remembered a hint of how my husband had taken things away from me before, too. My work, my professional value, my sense of worth in the business. It wasn’t fair.

  Yet I was suffocating in this terrible time and blinded to all the good.

  Indeed, I was so utterly bereft I’d forgotten how Dennis had once held me blameless of the condition that started with an E. I’d dismissed how he’d said he’d forgive me if our loss was my fault for choosing the doctor—which he’d insisted it wasn’t. I’d ignored how he’d put me above all others on the day that we wed. He was an imperfect man; he’d made mistakes. But I, with my inner terrors and rabid drive to lash out, had overlooked his love.

  It was a Friday, but that morning I crawled out of bed and went to the Presbyterian church with Janie in my arms. While we’d never been an every-Sunday family, today I’d needed to be in a holy place. Janie and I had sat alone in the sanctuary with her little-girl voice rising to echoes as she looked up, pointing to the vast high ceiling. How would Dennis and I get through our problems? Over the course of time since we’d said “I do,” we’d known them all: diminishing the other’s value, retaliation, being closed off or unbearably open with our feelings, mistrust and spite, suffering loss and grief and fear and fury.

  How could we make our wedding vows last? “For better, for worse, till death do us part?” Was it too late?

  Even Mama couldn’t have warned me of how bad the worst parts would be. I had closed my eyes in the church, bowed my head, folded my hands, and prayed: Dear God, please help us through this. Help Dennis and me to heal. Help us to unite, face our losses together. Help him to accept my contrition. And, please, if You can, forgive me my sins. In Your holy name I pray, Amen.

  “Daddy, Daddy,” Janie called now as Dennis came through the kitchen door from the garage.

  “How’s my love bug,” Dennis said, his smile bright for his precious girl. Her arms stretched out to him and he took her—and he looked right through me. He didn’t kiss me. He didn’t say, “Something smells good,” like he usually did. He didn’t ask, “What’s for dinner?”

  His air was so cool that I shivered. He carried our daughter into the living room as though I were not present.

  “Janie got a new toothy?” he said. Janie let him rub his finger along her swollen gum, the way she hadn’t let me. Dennis had not needed me to point out her new tooth. Would he ever need me again?

  I retreated to the kitchen like a mechanical metal robot and tested the pasta on the stove. With a long-
tined fork I pulled a spaghetti noodle from boiling water, pinched it in half with my thumbnail, and studied the inside. Seeing no hard center, I tested the strand between my teeth. Perfect al dente. I had planned Italian night for my husband’s homecoming, complete with homemade marinara and meatballs I had stocked in the freezer. And Janie would get one of her favorites, too: garlic toast. Now I felt like throwing everything in the sink and washing it all down the drain. I was too late. I feared I’d lost everything dear to me.

  “How was the meeting at the factory?” I asked, desperate, grasping. I served Dennis his plate and took my place at the side of the table.

  “Fine,” he said as he twirled a bite of spaghetti onto his fork. Silence.

  I cut Janie’s pasta into bite-size bits while she tore her toast in two. “Here,” I said. “It’s going to be yummy.” I set the bowl on her high chair tray.

  “Was the traffic all right driving home from Indiana?”

  Dennis shrugged and handed a cup of milk to Janie. “Here, honey, have a sip,” he said. “That’s a good girl.”

  I hated being closed out. “And the Gunnison award?” I said. “You brought it home?”

  He nodded.

  Any shred of hope I’d had was sinking. My husband did not offer a word to me through the whole meal. He spoke only to our daughter. I felt like a leper at my own table.

  I was watching the good part of my life slip away. I might never enjoy a family dinner around our table again.

  After the meal Dennis wiped Janie’s face of the red, sticky sauce and carried her away, her voice gurgling in delight, her dimpled hand at his nape. Once she was down for the night, it would be just Dennis and me. Butterflies flew through my belly, flapping their wings.

  I heard water running in the bathtub. I heard Dennis playing with Janie’s tiny tugboat and her splashing as he bathed her. I heard him singing her his silly barbershop ditty as he vigorously dried her hair with a towel: “Go to the bobb-ie, get a massag-ie.” Janie squealed with joy. I cleared the dishes and wrestled with whether to take a pill. If I resisted, my anxiety would only worsen. If I gave in, there was some chance I’d get a little sleep. I’d limit it to one pill—to stay balanced, to give me a boost when I finally got Dennis’s attention. If I got it.

  Dennis was telling Janie a bedtime story when I padded down the hall without making a sound. “And he huffed, and he puffed,” Dennis said to her, “and he blewwww the house down.” She giggled as he tickled her ribs.

  I missed being part of their fun.

  I came out of the bathroom to find Dennis turning on the television. He squatted before it and rotated the channel knob to all three stations in turn. He landed on Man Against Crime, a program about private eyes.

  “Dennis,” I said, as he scuffed to the sofa. I turned the volume down on the television as he lit a cigarette. The corners of his lips were tucked in.

  “I shouldn’t have mistrusted you,” I said. His eyebrows rose.

  I had rehearsed what I’d say in my head so many times that even now, as tranquility set in from the pill, the words spilled out just the way I wanted them to. I had not started with what I had learned from the nurse nor from the doctor’s wife. I began with where I was wrong.

  “I accused you of doing something you’d never do,” I said, taking the chair opposite him with my fear settling inside like a brick. “You wouldn’t have gone behind my back and signed those papers.”

  “I’m glad you finally recognize that,” he said, his tone flat. I hung on his words, his voice aimed toward me, however monotone. I was that needy. I yearned to be relevant. To not be cast away.

  “I realize how badly I hurt you,” I said. “I know you were telling the truth. You hadn’t conspired to make me barren.”

  “Right,” he said. “I’ve made mistakes. Big ones.” His stare was penetrating, making me quiver. “But I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

  “I know. I’m very sorry.” I had turned on my ally. There was a buzz in my ears to fill the dead silence.

  He sighed and lit a cigarette.

  “I called Nurse Breck again,” I said, lowering my head in shame. Not because of calling her, but because I hadn’t come to her conclusion on my own: Dennis’s innocence. “She told me something she hadn’t revealed before. Dr. Reynolds forged the papers. He wrote your name on the authorization form after he’d carried out the procedure by mistake.”

  “Fuck,” Dennis said under his breath. With his cigarette pinched between two fingers of one hand, he rubbed his free fingers up and down his forehead as if he were in pain. Smoke swirled in front of his face and over his head. “Fuck,” he said again, jarring me.

  He took a drag. When he blew the smoke out, it came as a rumble from his throat. “I wish I felt vindicated,” he said. “But I feel like shit.”

  “There’s more,” I said, remembering the letter left to Mrs. Reynolds.

  He shook his head no, fervently. “No more. I can’t take it.”

  “But—”

  He rose. “Not tonight. I have to get some sleep.”

  What did this mean? Had he accepted my apology? Or did he need more time? Or was this the first step toward him walking out the door and my life forever? I didn’t want him to go. I wanted to save us.

  A glint of light on metal caught my eye. On the table beside him. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

  He snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “The Gunnison award.”

  I went to retrieve the walnut plaque with its engraved metal inset. Gunnison manufacturing headquarters had honored him:

  FASTEST GROWING DEALERSHIP IN A FIVE-STATE REGION

  GUNNISON HOMES BY GLENN

  DENNIS GLENN, PROPRIETOR AND AUTHORIZED DEALER

  I couldn’t help a genuine smile. I wished I’d have been there, but wives never attended those meetings. My hard work would go unrecognized. And my resentment for that—for Dennis keeping my contribution contained—had blinded me to his virtue when our family crisis struck.

  But he’d worked hard to build the business. He deserved this. “I’m proud of you.”

  There was an ever so faint, reluctant dip of one dimple. “They’ve asked me to do a new dealer training in the spring. Imagine, this old country boy in front of recruits.”

  A rush of hope surged. He’d spoken in future terms. Might we survive, Dennis and me?

  “Don’t teach them too well,” I said, risking a small smile.

  “I won’t give away all my secrets,” he said.

  The obituary appeared in the morning’s paper. I seldom read the Cincinnati Enquirer before Dennis scanned it over breakfast. But now I had reason. I ran warm water over my fingertips to erase the paper’s black print. I’d left the page turned up for when Dennis came out of the bedroom. We’d slept the whole night without touching. But he hadn’t slept with his back facing me. He’d wished me good night.

  “Good morning,” I said. Our eyes connected.

  “Morning.” He wasn’t as cold as he’d been the night before, but he was still on edge. He sat down to his scrambled eggs and toast. “Thank you.”

  “Remember last night, after I explained about the forged papers, I told you there was something else, but you wanted to wait?” I said. “May I tell you now?”

  “What is it?” He spread a pat of butter on his toast.

  I gestured to the newspaper. “Dr. Reynolds committed suicide. Authorities found him in the ravine below Grandin Bridge.”

  Blood rushed to Dennis’s face as if he’d been hanging upside down on the swing set with Janie for a long time. I expected to hear him say that the man—the one who had killed our baby, sterilized me, and forged his name—had gotten what he deserved.

  I slid the newspaper closer. He picked it up and scanned the obit.

  He said nothing. Had I ruined a reconciliation before it was cemented?

  “His poor family,” Dennis said then, sounding strangled. “He had kids.”

  That’s all he had to say?
The man who killed our child was dead.

  “Have you anything else to say?” I tried to keep my tone contained. Our marriage was balancing on a tightrope.

  “How do you know he killed himself?” he said. The obit hadn’t indicated that, had it? “Did you call your nurse friend again?”

  “No.”

  I didn’t want to tell Dennis of the two beautiful girls in twin smocked dresses, one older, one younger. I didn’t want to tell him of their beautiful mother, who revealed to me her grief on the flagstone steps after I’d badgered her. But I had to.

  So I told him.

  Dennis’s lips tightened. This was it. He’d leave me. He’d take all his worldly goods and go. Mama’s sad, weathered face came to me, frightening with its picture of destitution and loneliness. And unlike her, I had contributed to my own marriage’s downfall.

  He pushed away from the table and stood. I could see from his eyes—by the way the blackness of his pupils had overtaken the blue—he had but one thing to say, so I’d better listen.

  “I might have done the same thing if I were in your shoes,” Dennis said, and I felt relief. “Now forget about it. Forget about what the doctor did, too. What you don’t seem to get is that his being gone doesn’t fix a damn thing. Nothing we do will bring Kathy back. Just take care of Janie. Take care of yourself. And take care of us.” He kissed my cheek and left the room.

  The greatest danger had passed—there was hope we’d survive. I closed my eyes and rejoiced.

  But unlike Dennis, I couldn’t forget the doctor so easily. And I was troubled by this helpless feeling I got when my husband gave a directive and ended our conversation before I was through.

  I heard Dennis in the bathroom lathering his face with cream, letting Janie watch him shave. Daddy-daughter time couldn’t be forgotten, no matter how shocking the news I’d given him.

  When he came out, I was still sitting at the table, my coffee cup empty. Dennis had his old jeans on and said, “I have to mow the grass one more time before winter.” That man had always loved the smell of fresh-cut grass. It reminded him of the country.