by Mary Carter
“Where is she?” Bailey said, taking a deep breath, already talking herself into going easy on Olivia. How dare the nurse not tell her sooner. What would Olivia think? Bailey had been here for over five hours, and she hadn’t even bothered to check on her? Which would be worse, that she didn’t know Olivia was here, or that she didn’t remember they were spending the afternoon together and didn’t think to ask?
“I’m so sorry,” the nurse said. “She didn’t make it. And we need you to identify the body.”
It felt so surreal. A cold hospital morgue. A steel gurney. Olivia’s body covered in a big sheet. The nurse who accompanied her relayed the details of the accident as she knew them. Olivia ran a red light. Accelerated, then tried to brake too fast at the sight of stalled traffic ahead. She swerved onto the sidewalk, and smashed her Cadillac head-on into Eddie’s Electronics. Miraculously, except for a glass storefront and slew of flat-screen televisions, nothing or nobody outside the car suffered any damage. Olivia was dead on impact, and Brad went through the windshield and landed on the sidewalk. He’d been sitting in the backseat. He loved to sit in the backseat and pretend Olivia was his chauffeur.
Bailey shut her eyes, wincing at the thought of her husband’s body flying through glass and landing on the sidewalk. It was a miracle he survived. When he recovered, she was going to kill him for not wearing his seat belt.
“Were you two close?” the nurse asked politely.
“She was my husband’s aunt,” Bailey said. Was that enough of a response? Should she say something else, something kind? After a moment, the nurse gently covered Olivia with the sheet. Bailey stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Say a little prayer? She and Brad weren’t religious. They considered themselves to be spiritual, though, so Bailey felt as if she should say something. Yet, nothing came except “You shouldn’t have been driving,” and what was the use of saying that now? Bailey touched the edge of the sheet.
“She hated me,” Bailey blurted out.
The nurse looked startled, but quickly recovered. “I’m sure she didn’t.”
“Oh, she did,” Bailey said. “But she loved Brad. So for that I loved her, you know?” Oh God, she was going to cry. But that was good, right? It meant her heart wasn’t made of stone. “I love Brad more than anything in the world.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“And I’m so glad it’s her lying there and not him!” Bailey slapped her hand over her mouth and stared wide-eyed at the nurse. “Oh God. You must think—”
“It’s been a very emotional day for you,” the nurse said. Bailey nodded. That was true.
“Olivia was . . . old,” Bailey said. “She had a gentle way of life.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yes,” Bailey said. It was a lie. The truth was, Olivia Jordan was one of the most generic people Bailey had ever met. She didn’t know how else to describe Olivia, she was just there, like a mass-market, bland version of the woman she could have been. And it didn’t have anything to do with age necessarily, although Bailey had never known Olivia young, exactly—Bailey just had this theory that people really didn’t change. Bailey didn’t feel any different at thirty-six than she had at six. She was a little smarter, maybe, and she didn’t carry her Easy-Bake Oven everywhere she went anymore, but otherwise she was basically the same. She still ate peanut butter with a spoon, and loved the color yellow, and twirled her hair when she was bored or nervous, and bit her nails to the nub, and she still laughed too loud at all the wrong times, in all the wrong places.
So, yes, older and wiser, but still, the same person she’d always been. Bailey had seen a picture of Olivia when she was around six years of age and she had that same vacant stare, the one that always made Bailey look eerily over her shoulder, as if an unseen spirit behind her and to the left had swiped Olivia’s personality out from under her.
“She lived in the Bronx,” Bailey said. “Riverdale.”
“How nice,” the nurse said.
“Yes,” Bailey said. The times Bailey spent at Olivia Jordan’s apartment were some of the most excruciating moments of her life. Filled with stale sugar cookies, and the sounds of her kitchen clock ticking, and the click click click of the burner when Olivia went to make tea because she no longer had the coordination to light it, but wouldn’t let anybody else near the stove. Bailey couldn’t make a move in that apartment without Olivia eyeing her. It was like IEDs were planted throughout and Olivia was just waiting for Bailey to step on one and blow them all to smithereens. Everything in her place made Bailey feel heavy and sad, from the doilies on her entrance table, to the brown rings in her chipped teacups, to the new year’s calendar hanging on her wall where a generic landscape shrouded in fog stared at you and all the little white boxes were empty.
“She liked sugar cookies, and tea, and she never ever let me touch the stove or the calendar on her wall.” Once Bailey brought a black felt-tip pen, and in the little white box designated for the day they visited she wrote Brad and Bailey were here!! Then Bailey grinned at Olivia and added a smiley face in the box. Olivia just stared at Bailey and blinked very slowly. Bailey stepped out of the kitchen to use the restroom, and when she returned, the calendar had been dumped in the trash. A new one hung in its place, identical to the old, and the white empty boxes stared at Bailey reproachfully as she listened to the burner click click click.
Olivia kept the windows shut and the curtains drawn, and the bulbs in her lamps were way too bright, illuminating every sparse corner, and every chip, and every stain, and Bailey couldn’t breathe when she was there. There was nothing to distract herself with, not even razors in the bathtub. Olivia’s television only got one station, and that was if Brad could get the rabbit ears to work. It was where he spent most of his time when he was there, clutching and stretching the wire antennas while bending his body into strange angles like some kind of amateur contortionist.
When he would finally get the picture in, he’d shout at Bailey and Olivia. “Hurry! Hurry! Watch! Watch!” Those were the only times Bailey ever saw Olivia come to life. Like whoever reached the couch first had Brad’s undying love. It was a sight to see, Olivia, in tall white gym socks and worn brown sandals, sprinting for the living room. By the time Bailey arrived she’d be sitting up straight on the plastic-encased flowery couch, hands on knees, chin up and proud, smiling at Brad as if he’d just cured cancer.
So Bailey had to sit there next to Olivia and pretend to be interested in the program, more often than not involving God, weight loss, or fishing. Once they sat through an infomercial on Lubricant for Her, how to make your woman wet and wild in bed. Aunt Olivia slurped her tea and blinked very slowly like she was watching a manatee behind glass and not a half-naked vixen writhing on a king-sized bed, moaning for more. Bailey sat and stared, open-mouthed, at Brad, but he was too proud of the quality of the television reception to even notice that she was sitting next to his eighty-something-year-old aunt watching another woman have multiple orgasms. Bailey wanted to lift the plastic off the couch, crawl underneath it, and suffocate.
After that Bailey offered to get Olivia set up with cable and even foot the bill, but Olivia refused, adamantly stating that cable gave you brain cancer. Bailey figured Olivia was mixing cable up with cell phones, another technological advancement she neither owned nor wanted.
And try as they might to take her out to a nice restaurant, or a movie, or even a walk around the block, Aunt Olivia insisted on having a “nice evening at home.” As far as Bailey knew, Olivia didn’t have any friends, and Brad was her only remaining family. Besides them, she didn’t have visitors, or even a cat, and if she played bingo, or knitted, or joined a book club, Bailey never caught wind of it. It was ironic, then, that Olivia ended her life by crashing into an electronics store.
“We should go now,” the nurse said.
“I’m sorry, Olivia,” Bailey said. “Brad loved you.” She could have said “We loved you,” but if there was an afterlife, Olivia would know she was lyin
g.
“She would have made a fine grandmother,” Bailey said. She absentmindedly rubbed her stomach.
“Are you?” the nurse said.
“Not yet,” Bailey said. “But we’re going to start trying. As soon as he comes out of the coma. Well, not like the minute he comes out. Unless he wants to. And if the doctor says it’s okay. I certainly didn’t mean we’d start trying before he comes out of the coma. Unless the doctor thinks it would help him come around?” Oh God, what was she saying? She was talking a mile a minute, and the nurse looked as if she wanted to join Olivia on the table.
“Good-bye, Olivia,” Bailey said. The nurse gently took Bailey by the arm and guided her out of the room before she could say another word.
Chapter 5
“It’s all my fault,” Brad said. Bailey took his hands in hers and gently squeezed. Survivor’s guilt. It was astounding, the grip it had on him. Her husband was a changed man; a tortured one. So, following the silent agreement of every happy marriage, what tormented Brad, tormented Bailey. She thought they’d be over it by now, but no. It wasn’t like Brad to stay stuck. But besides his mother, whom he hadn’t spoken to in five years, Olivia had been his closest living relative.
“It’s not your fault,” Bailey reminded him again. “She wanted to drive.” More like insisted on it, begged Brad to let her cruise around in that Cadillac. Wifely anger surged up in Bailey, but she shoved it down.
“I shouldn’t have let her. You said so yourself, you always said it. She wasn’t fit to drive.”
“Accidents don’t discriminate,” Bailey said. “They happen every day, whether people are fit or not. Baby, please. Look at me. It wasn’t your fault. She would say it herself if she were here. And at least she died doing something she loved—with the person she loved more than anything.”
“She hadn’t taken the car out all year,” Brad said. “She only did it because I was with her.”
It had been a month since the accident. Brad had been in a coma for two weeks, then spent another week in the hospital, and finally, this past week he was back in their two-bedroom condo on the Upper West Side. Secured by a down payment from Bailey’s first and only sale, it was a modest apartment, but it was theirs. It had a nice-sized kitchen and living room, arched entrances, dark wood floors, and crown molding. It was old-school Upper West Side, and Bailey absolutely loved it. So much so that she could ignore the tiny bedrooms.
But Bailey’s favorite thing about the condo was the working fireplace. It brought the feel of a cabin to Manhattan, and she made Brad promise they would use it every year. Nothing spelled home more than the smell and sound and sight of a crackling fire. When she was a kid, some of her fondest memories were building fires with her father. Gathering wood and kindling, bunching up newspapers, helping him light it. Then sitting in front of it for hours, roasting marshmallows or seeing who could sit the closest to it the longest, or simply sitting back and staring into it, mesmerized by its magic. Fire, Bailey told Brad, was as primitive as you could get. Something about a roaring fire made her feel connected to the entire human race.
The mantel was from the fireplace in her childhood home. When her parents moved into a new house a few years ago, her father took the mantel with them and stored it. Then, as a surprise, he and Brad installed it in the condo. It was a beautiful dark oak, with decorative etchings along the side and top. Bailey couldn’t imagine anything more special. And although she didn’t dare say it out loud, it just felt wrong to set Aunt Olivia’s urn on top of it. Brad couldn’t stop staring at it. Bailey was the one who’d made the decision to have Olivia cremated.
A colossal mistake. Brad was beside himself. Supposedly Olivia made him promise once that she would “never be fried.” Bailey didn’t know; how was she to know? Neither did she know how long Brad’s recovery was going to take, so of course she decided cremation was the best option. She and Brad wanted to be cremated, have their ashes spread somewhere beautiful. But Brad was staring at the urn as if Bailey had murdered Olivia in her sleep.
“She had nightmares about that,” Brad said, pointing to the urn. He sounded accusatory, and angry. Would it help if she told him she put a lot of thought into picking out the urn? It was a deep blue cloisonné urn with copper inlay, and six flying doves etched into the highly polished ceramic. It stood on a hand-carved wooden base and it was called “Flying Home.” Looped around the neck of the urn was a gold chain with a metal heart. Olivia’s name and birth and death dates were etched into the heart. Underneath, it read BELOVED AUNT. She really thought Brad would see how much thought she’d put into it.
It hadn’t been cheap either, although Bailey certainly wasn’t tacky enough to mention that. It was probably the most decadent and beautiful thing she had ever associated with Olivia. She was secretly proud of herself for finding exactly the right thing. But Brad didn’t seem to notice or appreciate its exquisite beauty.
Patience, Bailey reminded herself. The doctor warned Bailey that Brad might be on edge. Brain injuries were mysterious things. He told Bailey that her husband might not ever be exactly the same man he was before the accident. Luckily, the only changes Bailey noticed, besides his survivor’s guilt, was that he was a little quicker to say hurtful things—as if he no longer had a filter between his thoughts and his mouth. Childlike at times. She wasn’t going to take it personally.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Bailey said. She slid down to the floor and put her head in Brad’s lap. After a few seconds, he began to stroke her hair. “Olivia’s executor called again this morning,” Bailey said. “He wants to meet with you for a reading of the will.”
“I know,” Brad said. That was hours ago. Brad hadn’t gone near his phone.
“Do you want me to call him back?”
“No,” Brad said.
“Is there any reason you don’t want to call him back?”
Brad sighed. “The Cadillac is totaled, and her apartment was a rental,” he said. “Besides her furniture, what’s there to discuss?”
“Social Security? Teacher’s pension?” Bailey guessed.
“God. It’s so, so sad.”
“I know.” Bailey squeezed Brad’s hands again and tried not to take it personally when he pulled them away. She got up from the floor and looked around for something to tidy. Everything was neat and clean, so she headed for the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway and leaned against the frame. Personally she loved the fact that their place was so small that she could talk to him from any room. If they had a bigger place, she would just be some crazy lady shouting down a hallway. “She loved you, Brad. You were her only family.”
“I wouldn’t have been if my mother hadn’t flipped out on us.”
“I know.”
“I tried to call her, you know. She hasn’t even bothered to call back.”
Ah, that’s why he was mad at the phone. “I know.”
“Her only sister is dead and she doesn’t call.”
Not to mention her only son had been thrown from the car, died, come back to life, and had been in a coma. But even now, it wasn’t himself Brad was feeling sorry for. “I know,” Bailey said. “I’m sorry.”
“I should leave her another message. Hint that Olivia left her millions. See how fast the phone rings then.”
Bailey wanted to tell Brad to calm down, but that would just upset him even more. As much as Olivia Jordan’s life had saddened Bailey, Elizabeth Jordan’s infuriated her. How could such an amazing man come from such an awful mother? Beautiful, and selfish, a drug addict, alcoholic, and magnet for abusive men, including Brad’s father—that was Brad’s mother. Brad’s entire childhood revolved around trying to keep his mother safe, and Bailey hated the woman for it. Bailey hated to admit it, but she saw some of the same impulsiveness and selfishness in Brad. Had he not spent his entire childhood taking care of her, maybe he wouldn’t be so afraid to settle down and have a family. Instead, they were always on the move, always scouting out the next “adventure.” At least n
ow they were finally in a stable home.
“Speaking of Olivia,” Bailey said, “the landlord also called. He wants to know if we’ll be clearing her stuff out or paying for another month.”
Brad threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t want any of her stuff,” he said. “And I know you don’t.”
I want the calendar, Bailey thought. I’m going to write all over it. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll donate it. I can contact Goodwill and go over and pack her things. She might have some pictures or something you might want to keep.”
“I hate lying around,” Brad said. “I want to help.” And that was another reason Brad was so irritable. He was a man on the move. Whereas Bailey would have convalesced with a jar of peanut butter, chocolate, paperback thrillers, and a constant stream of shows off Netflix, Brad hated lounging around.
“You need rest. Doctor’s orders. Jesse said she’d help me.” Jesse was Bailey’s closest New York friend. They met in a book club. It still thrilled Bailey that she actually had been in a place long enough to make a friend. Before that they’d always been on the move as Brad tried one start-up business after another.
Surfs Up in Santa Monica, Sweaters in Seattle, and the Coffee Clutch in Colorado, where Brad spent their entire three-month stint whistling “Rocky Mountain High.” All of his business ventures failed. It didn’t stop until Bailey put her foot down, said that’s it—they both had aunts in New York City, and Faye had offered to train her in real estate. Bailey said they were moving to Manhattan, and she didn’t know about Brad, but Bailey for one wasn’t moving again for at least a decade. To her enormous relief, Brad agreed. He still hadn’t found a job, but Bailey was making enough to support them both. They were settled. They were happy. At least, they were before the accident. Weren’t they?