Foxglove

by Mary Anne Kelly

  “You don’t have to look so smug and satisfied with your life,” Carmela said when they got up by the woods.

  “Carmela.” Claire held up her hand like a traffic cop in fair warning. “I don’t want to do this. Whatever it is, just stop. I understand you need a good fight, but I don’t have a shred of spunk left in me right now, so save it for the morning, all right? Just save it, or wait till your husband gets home and give it to him.”

  They continued along, Carmela on the sidewalk and Claire in the stiff, grassy dirt. How easy life is when you put your foot down, Claire congratulated herself, enjoying the silence. Here and there dog walkers stopped and went and stopped again, reassured by each other’s presence, people in pajamas and overcoats hoping the dogs would be quick about it. Claire looked sideways at Carmela, knowing she’d be steamed, and saw instead tears rolling down the side of her distorted, silent, wet, red face.

  “Melly!” Claire took her in her arms, reverting instantly to childhood and its deeper endearments.

  Carmela sagged into the embrace, no defenses. She sobbed and sobbed, not caring who heard, or who saw.

  Claire let her cry, then led her to the bench where usually just the gay fellows got acquainted. This was their territory here, and one or two of them, affronted, gave them peremptory looks. Claire scowled back at them. It seemed Carmela would never stop crying. Finally, she sniffed to a teeth-chattering end and wiped her face with a motion that reminded Claire of their mother, a motion that said: Lord oh Lord, the whole world is a-weary. Claire just hoped they wouldn’t get mugged sitting out there like that, unprotected. Who knew?

  “You don’t understand,” Carmela finally steadied herself enough to say.

  Me, again, Claire thought but didn’t say.

  “You have a normal life. A kid. Everything going along nicely. You own a nice house. Your husband loves you.” She went down the list. On and on she went. Claire blew compassionately on her poor hands. Floozie, pleased as Tuesday’s punch, roamed the mangy curb. They looked up Park Lane South toward the fairytale castle Carmela called home. “And don’t hand me that ‘I ought to be grateful’ shit,” she snapped.

  “Listen,” Claire whispered, “I understand you’re exhausted. You’ve been doing so much. Why don’t you just go home and get some sleep? I’ll come and pick you up in the morning and we’ll”—She raced silently through an unlikely range of possibilities—“we’ll drive somewhere together. Out to the beach! Just you and me. How about that?”

  “I can’t. I have to do the dress rehearsal over. It’s Zinnie’s day off. At least it better be.”

  Claire lowered her head so Carmela wouldn’t recognize her relief. “Carmela,” she said kindly, from a loving place, from where you were supposed to be able to say all sorts of otherwise forbidden things. “Maybe you and Stefan ought to think about starting a family. You could stop getting high, you know. And stop taking the pill.”

  Carmela stood up with a jerk and sat back down again. She looked up through the webwork of branches above them to the sky. Squirrels and raccoons and rats made last-minute adjustments just beside them in the woods. Carmela snorted. “I haven’t been on the pill for ages.”

  “But you said—”

  “I know what I said. I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. I didn’t want you to know, okay?” she sniffed into her ironed linen handkerchief. She spoke so softly that Claire had to lean over to hear her. “Last week I was feeling, you know, randy, and maybe thinking like just what you said. I knew he was home because the light was on in his room.” She laughed. “We’ve always had separate bedrooms. Anyway, I went down the hallway and Piece, his man, gives me this look, like this movement like, blocking me from going down the hall. I mean, I looked at him like he was wacky, but I know how strange Stefan’s servants all are. He moved back, of course, and I kept on going, but I didn’t like him acting like that. I guess I was feeling defensive, this-is-my-house and all that, so I just barged into Stefan’s room without knocking and there he was, down on his knees, in front of page after page of opened-up magazines, and he’s, he was—”

  “It’s all right,” Claire stopped her. “I understand.”

  Carmela kept on. “That wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was that he looked up at me, just as cool as you please, he didn’t miss a beat,” she laughed. “And you know what he said? He looks at me and he goes, ‘Well, get out.’ Like, he lifts up his chin, dismissing me, and he goes, just like this, ‘Get out.’” She shook her head. “The stupid thing was that when I saw him like that, I wasn’t really upset yet. Just shocked. I would have gone over to him and, I mean, I didn’t even care that he was turned on … by pictures.… I would have just …” Here she hesitated. “… just been his wife. Only he said, ‘Well, get out,’ like that.”

  Claire’s heart went out to her. “Oh, Carmela,” she said. But what else could you say? It was so brutal.

  “Don’t tell Mommy.”

  “Tch. Of course not. I wouldn’t tell anyone. Not even Johnny. I swear.”

  “All right.” She blew her nose. “I feel better.”

  Claire knew she didn’t. But at least the secret wasn’t beating her up, nuts to get out.

  “Clairy,” Carmela sobbed, wretched again with a new burst of passion, “I’m out on the birch tree behind the blockade!”

  “I know, I know.” Claire held her carefully and they went up the lane together, stepping gingerly so they didn’t see that someone stood behind them and watched them, mouth agape and wondering just what to do here.

  So Claire, after she’d seen to it that Carmela was safely in the door of her home, went back down Richmond Hill, distracted with concern and unaware that she was being followed. Floozie, terrified, kept running, and Claire had all she could do to keep up with her. Finally, she did, and gave her a good whack on the tail to boot for running off, then stashed the dog inside her coat as they drew near her house. There was a light on in Iris’s kitchen. Good, Claire thought, and climbed the back steps, her fingers closing around the glamorous stone in her pocket. She knocked on the door. Lü, the cat, a sphinx on the porcelain breadbox, regarded her through the window.

  “Iris?” Claire rapped on the glass. She hated to ring the bell. Maybe Iris had gone to sleep and left the light on. Maybe, jeepers creepers, she was in there with Mr. Kinkaid. Of course she wasn’t, Claire checked herself. She leaned on the door to reach over to ring the bell, and the door swung open. “Iris?” she called again. How could she leave the door open like that, she thought angrily. Anyone could just walk in. Maybe Iris was finally losing it, she worried. But no, Iris was far from losing it. She’d been through wars and exile and the equally humbling phenomenon of years of long-unalleviated boredom, and she wasn’t going to lose it over one more uneventful autumn. Or wasn’t that just what one lost it over? On the other hand, she could have hit her head and fallen, or simply fallen and broken her hip.

  “Iris?” Claire called again. There was a funny smell. She didn’t like to just barge in. What if Iris was in the tub? She might scare her to death. “Iris?” She walked into the kitchen. The cat didn’t move. She felt Floozie stiffen and shiver. Where was Iris’s dog, Natasha? “Natasha?” she called. “Iris?” She walked across the kitchen. She wasn’t going to go looking all over the house, just through to the dining room. She switched on the light. If there was one thing that terrified Claire, it was a lonely house in the dark. She switched the whole row of lights on at once, peered through to the dining room, didn’t see the woman standing there in the pantry backed up against the shelves of labeled jars, turned back around into the kitchen, noticed a game of double solitaire spread out on the kitchen table, deliberated for a moment, moved a black card onto a red one, then thought, That’s where she is; walking Natasha. I probably would have bumped into her if I’d kept on walking. She smiled in expectation, turned, and looked into the pale open eyes of Mrs. Dixon, dead.

  The sound of screams reverberated through the white tile kitchen till
Claire realized they were her own. “Now, now,” a voice behind her said, “she’s dead. Stop screaming now, she’s dead.”

  It was Iris, behind her, patting her head with loose, old-lady hands. “Shh,” she kept saying from behind Claire, “Sshhh. Ist ja Alles in Ordnung. Ist ja Alles wieder Gut. It’s all right now. Everything’s all right.”

  You could hear the rattle of the wind outside and the insistent banging of the door against the can. It was so cold inside the kitchen. So cold and so dreary and white.

  A squad car from far away came closer and closer and then, instead of going on, it stopped. Claire could hear its whoop-whoop out on the corner. Red lights spun around the room from its reflection.

  “I’ll go,” Iris said. “I’ve got to go. I called nine-one-one.”

  In horror, Claire watched her go.

  “Don’t leave me here, alone,” she called out in a whimper, but Iris was gone and she looked again into the eyes of Mrs. Dixon. She covered her own face with her hands. She’d hanged herself. Claire just couldn’t look at her.

  Iris came back in with a pair of moustachioed policemen. They took one look at Mrs. Dixon and one of them whistled. Things started to happen quickly then. The other one went back outside, and before Claire knew it the room was filled up with cops, both uniforms and undercovers.

  “I just went to bring a dish a few blocks away. I was only gone for fifteen minutes!” Iris insisted over and over. “She was fine when I left her. She was just staying here for safekeeping. She wouldn’t have hurt nobody else. Dot was over. All dot was over.”

  Mary and Stan came from across the street. Mary put a blanket over Claire and then Johnny was there. He picked her up like she was one of the kids and carried her down the stairs and into the car. Claire looked around for Floozie, and the little dog jumped into her still-trembling arms before he slammed the door. She wanted to go home. “Just get me home,” was all she thought, “and let me hold my little boy and go to sleep.”

  Johnny was very tender with Claire when they got home. He picked her up and carried her across the threshold like a newly-wed. Then he put her down on the couch and went in to make her a cup of tea. “Claire, there is no more of your oolong,” he called in. “Do you want plain Lipton?”

  “Yes. Yes, fine, anything,” she said, astonished that life went on, that normal things like drinking tea and putting on your slippers kept on. What she wanted was a good stiff bourbon, not tea, but even with this ordeal, she knew she’d better not ask for it. Just the smell could start him off on a binge. She got up and went up the stairs to check on Anthony. He was in his bed, so little, so young. She walked over and pulled his blanket up an inch. His fist flew by his lips in some warrior dream episode. She smiled down at him kindly, full of love. He was safe now. No matter what happened, as long as he was all right, she would be, too. She pulled herself together standing there and went down the hallway to check on the others. Swamiji, at the nursery doorway, was sitting upright in lotus position and sound asleep. She knew if she were someone else, his spirit would return and he would jump up with a frightening jolt. She stepped carefully over him. Michaelaen was not in bed. Neither, she realized fearfully, was Dharma. How could they have gotten past Swamiji, she wondered, how? He was worse than a guard dog, and the only thing that would disturb him was what he’d programmed himself for: a threat to the children’s safety. In the closet. She walked over stealthily and opened the door a crack.

  “Shh!” Michaelaen said.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Where’s Dharma?”

  “She’s in here, Aunt Claire. She’s asleep.”

  “Well, come out.”

  Michaelaen sighed the sigh of the weary. “Aunt Claire,” he explained patiently, “if I make her come out, she’ll get scared again. And I just got her to sleep. She just cries and cries. Please don’t tell, Aunt Claire.”

  Claire went into the giant closet with her nephew. Sure enough, Dharma lay, asleep and peaceful, on a pile of coats and quilts and pillows. Claire’s parents were right, she realized. Dharma was a precious child and very, very beautiful there in the flickering waver of flashlight.

  “Where is my mother?” Michaelaen demanded suddenly.

  “Shh,” Claire signalled him out of the closet. “Your mother is fine. They’re held up in overtime,” she lied, worried now again about Zinnie. “I’m supposed to kiss you once for her and tuck you in good.”

  Michaelaen scratched his neck. “Aunt Claire?”

  “Yes. Come. Hop into bed.” She went and got the bottle of holy water she kept on the nightstand and sprinkled it onto his and Dharma’s heads. They were always half annoyed at the cold shock before sleep, but they were pleased by the love in the gesture. She screwed the cap back on and blessed herself as well.

  “Aunt Claire, please can’t I stay here with Dharma? If she wakes up she’ll be real scared if I’m not here.”

  “Of course you can. Your mother will be proud of you,” she added, “taking such good care of someone in need.”

  “Well, don’t go tellin’ nobody.” Michaelaen narrowed his eyes nastily at her.

  “I won’t. You don’t have to worry about that,” she lied again easily. She brought the sleeping bag over from the bed and placed it on top of their great cozy pile. “Just in case it gets colder,” she said.

  Michaelaen nodded, important and world-weary now.

  “Michaelaen? May I ask you something?”

  “What? Just whisper. What?”

  “What is it that Dharma is afraid of?”

  Michaelaen shrugged.

  “Because,” Claire said gently, “if nobody helps her find a way outside, you know, out of her dreams, well, maybe she’ll always have to have them. I mean, if someone could help her work them out, maybe she could be free of them. Like you, when you went and talked about things to the therapist. See what I mean?”

  Michaelaen shrugged again. He knew what she meant. It used to be himself inside the closet for safety, never wanting to come out. Claire sighed and patted his head and got up to go. By tomorrow the news about Mrs. Dixon would be all over school. What he needed most right now was a good night’s sleep. She wondered if she ought to tell him herself. No, she guessed, it was Zinnie’s business. On the other hand, she realized, if Zinnie wasn’t about when he woke up tomorrow morning—and she most probably wouldn’t be—he would hear that she herself had come across Mrs. Dixon hanged, and he’d know Claire hadn’t told him. What would he think about then?

  “Michaelaen?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got to tell you something. Something terrible. No, don’t worry, not about your mommy. It’s this. Tonight, Mrs. Dixon was found dead. She was here in Queens all along. She was staying in Iris von Lillienfeld’s house. She hanged herself to death. I guess the guilt just finally got to her and she couldn’t live with it anymore.”

  Michaelaen, eyes round with this news, came over and stood beside her. She had changed all of their lives for the worse, that terrible woman. Uneasily, Claire realized that she was relieved that Mrs. Dixon was dead. Delighted, even.

  “So you never have to be afraid of her. Not ever again.”

  “Oh, I was never really afraid of her,” Michaelaen said, scratching Floozie affectionately.

  “Well, I was. Michaelaen, there’s no shame to admitting that someone as monstrous as she was frightened you. You don’t have to be macho here. She really was evil.”

  “She never hurt me or nuthin’. I mean, she just took our pitchas.”

  “Michaelaen, she murdered those children.”

  “I know she did, Aunt Claire.”

  “And she locked you in her refrigerator.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “All right,” Claire sighed. She didn’t want to make things worse. Michaelaen was doing so well now.

  Michaelaen shut his lips tight. He knew he’d gone into that refrigerator on his own. To hide. They kept trying to make him say he hadn’t. Boy.
r />   “Did you brush your teeth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You want me to sit here a while?”

  “Aunt Claire? Did she kill Miss von Lillienfeld?”

  “No, honey, she’s fine. Just sad and sorry she hadn’t told somebody that she was hiding her.” She remembered the day she had gone over there. Iris’s unease. Now she knew why. And she had thought it was because she was waiting for Mr. Kinkaid.

  “Maybe she was blackmailing her,” Michaelaen suggested with all the knowledgable sophistication of the seasoned television viewer.

  “I don’t think so. They were friends for so many years, you know. I don’t think she was afraid of Mrs. Dixon. Miss von Lillienfeld doesn’t scare that easily. When the police were questioning her, she let them have it pretty good. She’s a pretty tough old cookie.”

  “Are they gonna put her in jail?”

  “I don’t know. She’s very old. I hope not. Grandma was with her when I left. They were drinking vodka.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yes.”

  He yawned.

  “I’ll let you be. Give me Floozie, now. Give me a kiss … Good night.”

  “Good night. Aunt Claire?”

  “Yes?”

  “That dream. The one Dharma always has again and again?”

  “Uh huh?”

  “It’s about that big flower in front of the house. When it’s summer.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you know. That flower so pretty, like gorgeous. With the dots and all. That’s what Dharma’s afraid of. She always dreams she cuts it down.”

  “The foxglove?”

  “That’s it. Foxglove. She told me if she told you it would hurt you.”

  “No, it doesn’t hurt me.” She smiled, stunned with pleasure that Dharma should care what she felt. “Thank you for telling me.”