Blood Secrets

by Jones, Craig

  “Don’t hurt him!” I screamed. “Don’t hurt him!”

  “They’re not going to hurt him,” said Vivian. “You’ve already done that quite sufficiently.” She got up and walked over to Frank. She planted her feet near his head and looked down at him. When she spoke, her voice was soft and caressing. “You don’t have to struggle anymore, Frank. I’m sorry it had to be this way, but you had to be shown. I told you once she would never understand. Her kind can’t. You can see Regina in a few minutes, but I have something to say first. Tom and Leo will let you go if you behave yourself. Will you promise?”

  “Let me go.” His voice was deep and miserable.

  “Promise me first. I told you you can see Regina soon. I always keep my word. You know that.”

  “Wait,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “You keep quiet,” she answered, still looking at Frank. “Do you promise?”

  “Yes,” he gasped.

  The men came up off him. For a minute he didn’t move. Then he pulled up onto his elbows, his knees, finally his feet, and dragged himself past Vivian and me to the archway steps.

  “Sit down,” Vivian said to me. “Over there next to your friend.”

  Gloria had been standing during the fracas. Now she was glowering at Vivian and not about to sit. “Irene, let’s get out of here and call the police.”

  “You’re not as smart as you look,” said Vivian. “There’s no need for the police. What would you tell them? You just sit down until I’m finished talking.”

  I sat, pulling Gloria down with me. I picked up my purse and put it back in my lap. Vivian stared at the two of us, grinning.

  “You snot-nosed middle-class bitches kill me,” she said. “You think the police can take care of your lives just because you pay your taxes. Virgil, get me a drink.”

  He took her glass to the bar. He hadn’t asked what she was drinking. He knew. I saw the expressway ramp before me, his car coming down it, Regina inside. My lungs shriveled.

  “I don’t want to hear anything,” I whispered. “I want Regina. I want her now.”

  “You’ll get Regina, but first you’ll hear me.” She sipped on the drink Virgil gave her, hesitated, then nodded approvingly. “Five minutes ago, you wanted the truth, so now you’re going to get it. First, I had to see how far you’d go, and you went far enough. Didn’t she, Frank?”

  He was sitting on the steps with his head in his arms. He did not look up or answer.

  “I had your number a long time ago,” she said, “that night before your wedding. I could tell you had your whole life set up like some goddam dance card. The first step was the big wedding, the big cake, the big degree from college sticking out all over your big smile. And you were big on manners too. You were so anxious to please, even when you saw how Frank felt about me. And later, when I came to see Regina when your friend here was with you—” Frank’s head snapped up and he looked at me with huge eyes that made me turn away. Vivian smiled at him. “That’s right, Frank, you didn’t know about that. Even back then, she was riding the fence.” She turned to me. “The truth is I am Frank’s mother. That night before your wedding I told him to tell you. And I told him again that day at the hospital when you took Regina home. But he’s always been stubborn and now he’s paying for it.”

  “You don’t need to say anything more.” My stomach was filling up with disgust for both her and myself.

  “Yes, I do, for your own benefit, so you’ll know what not to do when you get Regina back. You see, you’re going to have her for a very short time and I don’t want you tampering with her. She’s made her choice, the choice Frank should have made a long time ago. Instead, he chose to knock his head against a wall.” She turned to Frank. “And it hasn’t been worth it, has it, Frank? She doesn’t understand you, she never could understand you. You’re a different breed; it’s as simple as that. No matter how hard you try, no matter how many degrees you get, you’re still my son. You’re still one of us.”

  “I’m going to be sick,” I mumbled. Gloria slipped her arm around my shoulders.

  “You’re going to be sick? Well, go right ahead, because now you’ll know how I felt watching you and your little family at that wedding party dinner. You’ll know how you turned my stomach that night you let me in to see Regina and then again when we met at the restaurant. I know your kind, Irene. I grew up watching them. So smug in their position, so complacent with their dusted and simonized skeletons tucked away in their closets, so quick to point their fingers at someone else’s misfortunes. Stupidly, I was jealous of them until my father taught me not to be. He taught me they weren’t the only army in the world; we could make our own. And we have, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, we have,” said the redhead, and the brunette nodded.

  “It’s sick, it’s so sick,” I muttered.

  “Sick, is it? What would you know about it? When I was fifteen, three boys raped me behind a church. They were your kind and I was just a Mattison, so you can guess who would be believed and who wouldn’t. I told my mother and father. My mother looked down her nose at me and prayed at the same time. But my father did something about it. He took me into his bed and showed me it didn’t have to be that way. And my brothers showed me too.”

  “Please, no more.” I slumped against Gloria.

  “Too indelicate for you? Let me tell you something. This family has something you and Frank never had and never will have. There are no secrets between us. We take care of our own, we protect each other.”

  “The way you protected your daughter?”

  “Yes,” she snapped. “I protected her well until Frank polluted her mind with his filthy talk and drove her crazy. She was loved. My father loved her, Jack and Tom loved her, I loved her. How do you think the rest of the world would have treated her? I’ll tell you how—they would have turned her over to social services and stuck her in a home run by the state. All my mother could do was pray for her.” She grinned. “Those who can’t do, teach—or pray. I don’t teach or pray. I run a business and we all share in it. No one in this family has to go outside to make a living. And we all make a very good living. I’ve taken care of that.” She took a long swallow of her drink.

  “Who does he belong to?” I asked, pointing at Virgil.

  “I gave birth to him,” said the brunette, “but he belongs to all of us.”

  “If your husband is Jack, that makes Virgil Regina’s cousin,” I said.

  “Who her husband is has nothing to do with it,” said Vivian.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Virgil might be Jack’s. Or Tom’s. Or even Leo’s.”

  “Oh, Christ!” Gloria whispered.

  “There’s no ownership in this family,” said Vivian.

  “What do you call it, then?” I said. “The way you’ve got them all under your thumb?”

  “No one’s under anyone’s thumb. If anyone wants to leave, they’re perfectly free to do it.”

  “And then a few years later you go after their children.”

  “Only in Frank’s case. He owes me something. He took my daughter away and he took himself away. If he’d stayed, I could have forgiven him for what he did to Regina. Or maybe if I’d had another child. But I couldn’t. Cancer took care of that. So my only contribution to this family is my granddaughter, and I want her.”

  “You’ll never get her,” I said.

  “You’re wrong, Irene. We already have her. And you have no idea how easy it was. I was very skeptical when Virgil first brought her here last October. I thought I would have a losing battle on my hands, but as it turned out, Regina was very anxious to join us after she got to know us.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Regina is in love with Virgil. And Regina is pregnant.”

  Frank let out a sharp groan. I slip
ped my fingers under the flap of my purse.

  “I think you’d better get Regina now,” I said.

  “I hope you’re prepared for this.”

  “Just get her.”

  Vivian nodded at Virgil. He stood and went up the spiral staircase. Everyone was silent, and I thought: It’ll all be over in a few minutes. We’ll go away from here and never talk about it again. Regina will go to school tomorrow, I’ll go to work, Gloria can fly back to L.A.

  But these thoughts died with the next sound. Regina’s laugh, shrill and empty, came from upstairs. I had heard it before, the night she and Virgil returned from their supposed trip to Detroit. I had heard it when she talked on the telephone to Virgil. It was filled with mockery and arrogance, perfectly matched now with Vivian’s face.

  “You know, don’t you, that you can be prosecuted for what you’ve done.”

  Vivian chuckled. “There you go with the police again. This is a private family matter, even though you’ve dragged your Siamese twin here into it.”

  “I’ll make it public if I have to.”

  “Irene, please,” Frank moaned. “Don’t talk to her.”

  “I’ll drag you into court and show what you’ve done.”

  “And what have I done?”

  “You abducted her, you and that . . . offspring.”

  “You’re being silly. You sent Regina here. To get her away from her father. Even Miss McPhee knows that.”

  “Miss McPhee? What has she got to do with this?”

  “Miss McPhee has been quite concerned about Regina’s welfare. She’s taken a personal interest. And I’m sure she’ll take an even greater interest when she finds out Regina is pregnant.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a little do-good twit who I’m sure resembles you. You’re a teacher. How would you react if one of your students told you her father had . . . funny ideas? Miss McPhee had quite a reaction.”

  “No,” Frank was whispering, shaking his head. “No, you didn’t. You couldn’t do that.”

  “I haven’t done anything. I’ve never seen the woman. But Regina’s been very close to her.”

  “What are you getting at?” I said.

  “You want it straight and simple? Here it is. Regina has chosen to come to us. When the time comes, she wants to have her baby here. You’re not to stand in her way. If you do, you’ll get your police and your courtroom and your public testimony, only I’m afraid you and Frank will be on the receiving end. Just a few words to Miss McPhee about the possible paternity of the baby, a few tears from Regina. That should set a few wheels in motion.”

  “For God’s sake,” I screamed, “he’s your son! Are you going to sit there and tell me you would push your own filth off onto him?”

  “Call it whatever you like. Now aren’t you suddenly the loving and protective wife, once you’re sure of your facts!” She leaned forward in the chair, her eyes slitted. “He was my son and then he left and then you took him. I’m just taking back part of my own. We’ll keep Regina. You and Frank have each other, for whatever that’s worth now.”

  Another shrill laugh from above, approaching the stairs. I looked up and saw Virgil descend. Then came Regina, wearing a pink satin robe. Behind her was a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair. He held her hand all the way down the steps. I turned and looked at Frank. He was leaning forward, his mouth open and his eyes frozen.

  “Jack,” he whispered. His other brother.

  Jack smiled and rested his arms on Regina’s shoulders so that his long fingers dangled near her breasts. His face was flushed, Regina’s hair snarled and sweat-soaked. For some time, no one spoke. Then Jack gathered Regina’s hair in his hands, twisted it into a tail, and laid it over her shoulder. He moved to the bar for a drink. Regina sat down on the arm of Virgil’s chair.

  “Have you told them everything?” she said to Vivian.

  “Yes.”

  “Regina, don’t,” said Frank, his voice quivering. He put out his hands. “Come to me and we’ll take you home.” She looked at him blandly. “We’ll go home and forget all about this.”

  “We’re not forgetting about anything,” she said. “I’m going to have a baby.”

  “We’ll take care of that. We’ll get a good doctor. We’ll all go away if you want to.”

  I listened to him beg, and I remembered my thoughts about betrayals earlier that night. The betrayals here had come in threes. He had been betrayed by his mother, his daughter—and his wife.

  “We can go anywhere you want. We can go to California. You can rest on the beach. We’ll all feel better in the sun.”

  Regina’s eyes shifted to Gloria and she gave her a once-over smirk.

  “And later you can go away to school. It’ll be a new start. We’ll all start over again.”

  “I’ve already made a start.”

  “No, honey, they’ve tricked you. It’s not what you think it is.”

  “No one’s tricked me,” she said flatly, shaking the hair from her shoulders. “You’re just jealous.”

  “No, Regina, that’s not—” His voice broke.

  My fingers moved farther under the flap of my purse. “Don’t you talk to your father that way.” I was crying and hating myself for it. I wanted my rage to be firm and awesome. Where was the rock?

  “You don’t have to stay,” she said.

  “Go and get dressed. You’re coming home.”

  She looked questioningly at Vivian. Vivian nodded and said, “For the time being.”

  Regina stood up and started for the staircase. She grinned at Jack.

  “You weren’t raised this way!” I said, more to Jack than to her. “There’s no reason . . .”

  She stopped and turned. She gave me a long, leveling look, not like a defiant daughter, but like one woman assessing another.

  “You should be happy,” she said. “Now you can have him all to yourself. That’s what you’ve always wanted, anyway. Now I’m out of the way.”

  “That is not true and you know it!”

  “Yes, it is. It’s just the way you are.”

  “The way I am? And what is that, Regina?”

  “You’ve always gotten whatever you wanted. You’re pretty and you’re selfish—”

  “Regina, they can’t make you beautiful! That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? Like the time you were sick when you were little, and you wanted to punish people for something that couldn’t be helped. That’s what you’re doing now—punishing us.”

  “If that’s what you want to think.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing to your father! You did all this behind our backs, you lied to me! You made me think—”

  “You thought what you wanted to think. That’s not my fault. Besides, if you found out, you would have stopped me. Now you can’t. You’ve always gotten what you wanted; now I’m going to get what I want.”

  “Is this what you want? To be shuttled around from one to the other, to be used like—like an appliance!”

  “I like it here,” she declared. “We’re all the same here. No one’s any better than anyone else. You could never stand that. You have to be superior. You and her.” She sneered at Gloria.

  Gloria snatched the bait. “What you’ve just shown, Regina, is that she is superior to you.” She struck the spot. Regina made a slight movement forward before checking herself. “And I’ll tell you something else. It’s easy to please a crowd. But try it with one person; it takes guts and it takes work.”

  “Save your sermons,” she said, and went up the stairs.

  Through my tears, Vivian was a smiling blur slowly bending forward in her chair. “I’m glad you came tonight after all. Better than putting it off until the end of the week. Who knows”—she
chuckled—“you might have had Frank locked up by then. That would have been a little messy. I’d better go help her get her things together.”

  “You can’t have her,” I whispered. My fingers pushed forward under the flap until they found the metal.

  “She hasn’t decided whether she wants to finish out the semester at school. If she does, she’ll stay with you until June. When the warm weather comes, she can wear those Indian tops that hide everything.”

  “I won’t let you.” I won’t let you do this to Frank. I gripped the handle and dragged it toward me.

  “If she decides to quit, she can come here immediately. I’ve already gotten her a doctor, so that’s taken care of. That do-gooder Miss McPhee might try to poke her nose into this, but I think Regina can handle her. I’m sure the two of you will behave yourselves. You should know by now I don’t make idle threats.”

  She started up from the chair, smiling. Smiling. She was still smiling when she saw the gun. The smile stayed, giving a little twitch with each shot. Half sitting, half standing, she seemed to be waiting for me to finish. I dropped the gun even before she dropped into the chair.

  No one moved, perhaps because she was still smiling. Even with the low gurgling in her throat and the languid closing of her eyes, she smiled, drawing my breath away. The room turned inside out and there were only shadows. One of the shadows moved immediately to Vivian, bent over her, mumbled something to the other shadows, and then came to me. It was Frank. His arm went around me, and Gloria took my hand. Two figures appeared on the staircase. There was a scream, and the room went right again.

  “You crazy bitch! You killed her! You killed her!” Regina broke away from Virgil and started toward me. “You ruined everything—you always ruin everything! You killed her, you bitch!”

  Frank jumped up and held her away from me. She saw the gun at my feet and began kicking at Frank in her effort to get to it. My one hand stayed with Gloria while the other went forward to retrieve the gun. Gloria called my name, made a move for my other hand, but I slid away and held my arm up in warning.