by Cyndi Myers
“They’re gone. You don’t owe them anything.”
“Don’t I? Frannie, they were our parents, even if they weren’t very good ones. I always wonder if we couldn’t have done something different—”
“No. We did the only thing we could. It’s over now. I don’t want to talk about it, ever again.”
Always before, I had let her silence me, but I couldn’t stifle my feelings any longer. “Maybe we should talk, Frannie,” I said. “Maybe part of the problem is that we’ve kept silent for too many years.”
“It would be a waste of words.”
“I told Alice some of what happened.”
“You didn’t! How dare you!” I recoiled from the fury in her voice.
“I didn’t tell her everything,” I said. “Just some of it. I think it helped, getting it out in the open. Like airing a wound.”
“Those are my secrets, too.” Her voice shook with rage. “You didn’t have the right to share them with someone who’s little more than a stranger.”
“Alice is my friend,” I said. “And what I told her was about me.”
“It’s about me, too. It can’t help but be. You and I lived all that together. You can’t separate your part from my part.”
This was the problem with our relationship in a nutshell. I loved my sister dearly, but her feelings for me went beyond that kind of love. She couldn’t separate my life from her own. She wanted to own not only the day-to-day events, but my feelings and emotions and reactions, as well. And we’d been twined together for so many years, I wasn’t sure how I could ever untangle myself. “Alice won’t say anything,” I tried to reassure her. “You can trust her.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
Which was perfectly true. Frannie didn’t even trust me. Not really. Which was probably another reason she was so disturbed by my long absence. “I’ll talk to you again in a few days,” I said.
“Hurry home,” she pleaded. “I’ve been thinking we should plan a really nice trip somewhere this year. Maybe Mexico, or even Europe.”
This was her peace offering. If I was so eager to travel, she would go with me, so that she could look after me, as she’d always done.
And so she could keep an eye on me.
“What do you think about taking a trip out to see the Grand Canyon?” Alice asked the next morning as we loaded the truck and prepared to leave Las Vegas behind.
I studied her over the tops of my sunglasses. “I think it’s time we headed for Ojai. You’ve put it off long enough.”
“Wouldn’t you like to see the Grand Canyon first?” She busied herself arranging the cooler behind the seat and avoided looking at me.
“It’s going to be okay with your kids,” I said. I had no way of knowing this for certain, but it was the most comforting thing I could think of to say. “Maybe not right away, but eventually.”
“I wish I could be sure.”
“Putting it off longer won’t make it any easier,” I said gently.
“You’re right.” She swung up into the driver’s seat and reached for her seat belt. “I guess we’d better get going.”
The next five hours seemed like the longest of the trip. Alice fidgeted constantly, changing the radio station, adjusting the air-conditioner controls and shifting in her seat. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and hummed under her breath.
Her nervousness was contagious. My stomach fluttered and my skin felt clammy. I wanted things to work out well for her. I wanted her to reunite with her children and find the happiness and healing she needed.
Frannie would have told me I read too many novels—that nothing ever worked out that way in real life. But why shouldn’t happy endings be as real as tragic ones? Maybe it’s just that good times don’t get the press bad events do.
Much as I wanted good things for Alice, I couldn’t think of anything I could do to help her. I settled for praying, though my emotions were so raw the best I could come up with was please.
We pulled into Ojai that afternoon and found the apartment Alice had rented. “It’s got two bedrooms,” she said as we climbed the stairs to take a look. “Will you stay with me a few days longer?”
“What about Cocoa?” I looked at the little dog in my arms. Funny how she felt so much a part of my life after such a short time.
“What about her?”
“You said the apartment doesn’t allow dogs.”
“She’s little—no one will see her. And if they do, I’ll explain you’ll be here only a couple of days.”
That was one big difference between Alice and me. I’d spent so much of my life adhering strictly to every rule, while Alice looked at rules more as guidelines, to be followed when it was convenient to do so and overlooked when it suited her.
“I’ll stay a couple of days,” I said. “To help you get settled.” I wasn’t all that anxious to return to Frannie and my routine life, not when so much felt so unsettled between me and my sister and within myself.
After the furniture was unloaded and we’d returned the truck, we took a taxi back to the apartment. I followed Alice into the kitchen, where she opened a box and began unwrapping dishes. “Do you want me here when you call your children?” I asked. I knew it had to be on her mind, though she hadn’t said a word about it. I wanted to let her know I was there to help if she needed me.
“I can’t call yet. I don’t have my phone hooked up yet.” She unwrapped a plate and avoided looking at me.
“You have a cell phone.”
She nodded, then set aside the plate and faced me. “I’m scared.”
I moved closer and took her hand in mine. “I know you are. Just call. I think it will hurt worse if you don’t.”
She nodded and retrieved her purse from the living room. “Do you want me to leave?” I asked. “No, stay.”
Her hands shook so much she had to try three times before she could punch in the number. I waited, eyes fixed on her, scarcely breathing, silently counting the electronic rings. One…two…three…four…
“Hello!” Alice’s voice was strained, artificially cheerful. “Is this Bettina?”
She clamped the phone tighter to her ear, so that I was only able to hear one side of the conversation. I turned my back, feeling like an intruder, yet aching for a happy ending to all Alice’s years of pain.
“This is Alice MacCray…your mother… I…I know it’s been a long time since we talked, and I wanted you to know how sorry I am about that… Yes. I understand that. But I’m in Ojai now. I wondered if I could see you… Yes, but if I could just…”
There was a long silence, then I heard the phone clatter on the counter. Alice stood, slumped, head down, so still she might have been a mannequin.
My heart twisted, and I wanted to put my arms around her, but I was frozen in place by fear and uncertainty. “What did she say?” I asked.
“She said she didn’t want to see me. That…that she didn’t have a mother.” A dry sob ripped from her throat, and her knees buckled.
I rushed forward to catch her and half dragged her to the living room onto the sofa. “She’s hurt and angry right now,” I said. “That’s only natural. But now that she knows you’re here, that will change.”
“How can you say that?” Alice sobbed. “Why should she change her mind about me?”
I searched desperately for some word of comfort. Why should Alice’s daughter change her mind? Why did I believe she would?
“You remember the stuffed lamb?” I said after a moment. “The one my father gave me, that I carry in my suitcase?”
Alice didn’t look up or answer, but I kept talking. “In spite of all he did, I wanted so much to love him.” A lump rose in my throat at the memory of how much I had longed for even the smallest gesture of affection from my father. “Your children want that, too,” I continued. “They can’t help it. If you’ll keep trying, I know you’ll get through to them.”
“You can’t know that.” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m
going to die knowing my children hate me. And I don’t blame them. I deserve their hatred.”
“Don’t say that,” I protested. “It isn’t true. Everyone deserves forgiveness.”
Alice raised her head and stared at me, her eyes burning. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You never did anything in your life that needed forgiving. Not the way I do. You’d never abandon your own children.”
I laced my fingers together, so she wouldn’t see how badly my fingers were shaking. “You’re wrong,” I said. “I may never have abandoned children, but I’ve done bad things.” I swallowed hard. “Horrible things.”
“Name one.”
I stared at her, heart racing, unshed tears burning my eyes, a lifetime of denial a vise around my chest.
“You can’t think of anything, can you?” She turned away. “You don’t know anything about the awful things people can do to each other.”
Oh, but she was wrong. I took a deep breath, the truth crowding my throat until it was a physical pain that had to be relieved. “I’ve done bad things,” I repeated.
She didn’t raise her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it.” I wet my parched lips, and closed my eyes against the images that loomed up from my memory. A picture of Frannie, standing before the kitchen stove in the house on Amaranth Avenue, a small glass vial in her hand… Frannie smiling to herself as she stirred the pot of stew on the stove…. Me standing by the door, waiting for my father to come home…knowing what was happening but refusing to believe it…watching the scene unfold and doing nothing to stop it.
“I did the most horrible thing you can imagine,” I said.
Alice shook her head. “No. You couldn’t have.”
“Yes.” I took another deep breath, struggling for air, then let the words out with a rush, each one like a physical blow.
“I killed my father.”
14
I closed my eyes, terrified of the consequences now that I’d said the words out loud. Alice sat with her head buried in her hands, not looking at me.
“Did you hear me?” I said, my voice stronger now. “I killed my father.” As horrible as the words were, each time I said them I felt something loosen inside me.
Alice lifted her head and stared at me. “You’re not serious,” she said.
“Frannie killed him, actually.” I straightened my shoulders, as if shrugging off that terrible burden. “But I knew and I kept quiet. That makes me just as guilty.” A guilt I’d tried to deny for far too long.
“But…” Alice shook her head. “How?”
“Poison. Something she got from the pharmacy where she worked.” I sighed. “She put it in some stew she heated for his supper one night. She told me what she was going to do and I didn’t try to stop her.”
“And it killed him?”
I nodded, cold calm stealing over me. Even after all these years, the memory of that night was crystal clear. Standing in the hallway, peering around the doorway, watching my dad eat the stew… Numbing horror filling me as he grew pale and clutched at his chest…the sound of my mother’s screams turning into the wail of the ambulance…the pain of Frannie’s fingers digging into my arm as she dragged me to our room…the smell of onions on her breath as she put her face close to mine.
“Tell no one,” she whispered fiercely. “Not a word. Ever. Do you understand?” She squeezed harder, her fingernails cutting into my skin.
I nodded, more terrified of her wrath than of the consequences of silence.
“Good.” She straightened and smoothed my hair, the weight of her hand heavy on the top of my head. “Just remember, he can’t hurt you anymore.”
Oh, how wrong she’d been.
But now, talking to Alice, a different numbness settled over me—a weariness and profound relief. This is how criminals on the run must feel, I thought. When they finally surrender and are taken in. My voice was flat and calm as I continued my story. “All the men in his family died young of heart attacks. Everyone assumed that that was what had killed him. Ridgeway was a small town then, and the police force didn’t have much experience with murder.”
“Did your mother know?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” No one knew but me and Frannie, and we’ve kept the secret all these years.
“That’s why you left town right after the funeral?” Alice asked.
I nodded. “Frannie was scared. She wanted to get as far from Ridgeway as possible before anyone got suspicious.”
Alice looked at me, her eyes soft with compassion. “He was a horrible man. He made your life hell.”
“That doesn’t mean he deserved to die. Or that we had the right to sentence him to death.” Or to sentence ourselves to living with the knowledge of what we’d done.
“What a terrible secret to keep all these years.”
It was terrible, and I had paid a heavy price for my guilt, afraid to get too close to anyone who might learn the truth, hiding behind a shield of fat and trusting no one. Only when I’d lost the weight and moved out of the familiar confines of the small world I’d built in Bakersfield could I confront what I’d done all those years ago.
“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” Alice said.
I nodded. “Frannie and I never talk about it. It’s a relief to have it out in the open, really.”
“Will you tell her you told me?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know.” Would it make any difference? If Frannie knew our secret wasn’t so secret anymore, would it shake her out of her denial? Would it help her see all that was wrong with the way we’d been hiding ourselves from the world? “But I don’t know if I can go back to her—not to live. I…I don’t want a life like that anymore, always hiding, always holding back.” I could see now how pathetic we’d both been, cutting ourselves off from everyone and everything, nursing our guilt. I couldn’t go back to that.
Alice put her arm around me. “Oh God, we’re a pair, aren’t we?”
I nodded. “The question is, a pair of what?”
She took a deep, watery breath. “A pair of women who’ve made mistakes.” She looked at me. “Big ones. And we’ve suffered for our crimes.”
I nodded again.
“Will you tell Frannie you told me about your father?” Alice asked again.
“I just don’t know. All these years, we’ve never talked about it at all. Not a single word. It’s as if we’ve been pretending it never happened. That the first sixteen and nineteen years of our lives never happened.”
Alice sighed. “If only we could go back in time and do things differently.”
“I wish I knew for sure that given the chance I would act differently,” I said. “That’s maybe the worst part—I don’t know that I would. I was afraid of my father and part of me hated him. In a lot of ways my life was easier once he was gone.”
“If I had another chance, I wouldn’t leave Bobby,” she said. “No man was worth what I gave up.”
“You can still have a relationship with your children,” I said. “Not the one that could have been, but a relationship. It’s not too late.”
“Maybe it is.” She sighed. “I’ll try again, I promise, but not today. Maybe in a few days. I thought I was prepared, but when I heard the hate in her voice…” She shook her head. “God, it hurt. It hurt worse than anything in my life.”
We held each other and cried for a while. “It’ll be all right,” I whispered over and over. A stupid, foolish promise, but the only one I knew to make. If I said the words often enough, maybe I could make them true, like an incantation to ward off evil, to erase the bad things we’d both already done.
Martin called that afternoon, but when I saw his number on the screen I let the call roll over to voice mail. I couldn’t face him right now, not with my confession to Alice still ringing in my ears. I wasn’t ready to reveal that much of myself to Martin, yet to talk about inconsequential things with him right now would feel like a lie. I needed more time to sort out
my feelings—about myself and about Martin.
Alice and I didn’t talk any more about that afternoon, though we were both more kind and considerate of each other in the days that passed. Alice bought a used car and I moved into the tiny spare bedroom of the apartment. I ran the flower shop long distance, as I’d been doing for weeks now, and I didn’t call Frannie or answer her calls to me. I didn’t want to talk to her again until I had my feelings sorted out in my mind.
At the end of my first week in Ojai, Alice asked me if I would drive down to Santa Barbara and pick up a part for the dishwasher. “The landlord says he can fix it right away if we pick up the part,” she said. “Otherwise, we have to wait a week for them to ship it. You can use my car. I’d go, but I’ve got a job interview that afternoon.”
“Sure. No problem.”
The next morning, I wished Alice luck with her interview and headed to Santa Barbara. I picked up the part at the supply house, then treated myself to lunch and some shopping. Traffic was heavy and it was late afternoon before I made it back to find the house silent and deserted.
Cocoa greeted me at the door, beside herself with joy to see me and unwilling to leave my side as I unloaded the car and went into the kitchen to make tea. “Have you been by yourself all day?” I asked, rubbing behind the pup’s soft ears. “Maybe Alice had errands to run, or they asked her to start right away.”
But when six o’clock rolled around and I still hadn’t heard from Alice, I began to worry. Surely she could have called and left me a message. Then again, I was only her houseguest. Maybe she didn’t feel she needed to explain her whereabouts to me.
“I hope she’s not at some bar drinking,” I told Cocoa as I gathered her into my lap. “She hasn’t said anything, but I know she’s depressed about the situation with her children. Who wouldn’t be?”
A chill went through me as I thought of what a terribly depressed person might do. One who thought she had nothing to live for…