Ahead of me, dressed-up ladies get out of an SUV to right the hems of their summer-night dresses. They look a bit too breezy for church, but maybe not the church parking lot. I wonder if today is a religious holiday. I wonder, too, if they’d let me join the party; I could be saved, with the right rib sauce.
Outside St. Claire’s, I buzz the gate.
“Yes?” I think it’s Robin Leone.
“Hi, this is Gina—I was Kay’s driver last week? I’m here to collect the fare.”
I get no response.
“Listen,” I say, “when I brought her back, I got the address mixed up. We were running behind, and I was afraid I’d lose my next job. It was my fault I didn’t collect.”
More silence.
“I have the receipt,” I say, and then I’m afraid I sound too reasonable, like a cop, so I say, really pissy, “I don’t expect a tip.”
The gate buzzes. I go inside.
When Robin opens the front door, her smile is shrewd. “You didn’t mix up the address.”
I don’t know if she’s accusing me of lying or of conspiring with Kay, but I’m pretty sure a real driver would say, “I still need to get paid.”
“Come in.” She steps aside to let me through. She is taller in bare feet than I am in my boots. She wears cutoff denim shorts with her scrub top, which makes her look more like a doctor’s girlfriend than a nurse. A Complete Care LLC logo is stitched on her shirt pocket. It’s hard to believe she and Lidia are from the same service; the company must have a contract with Sacred Heart.
When I get inside I’m struck by how much the place smells like mine: its dichotomy of old wood floors and fresh paint, baby powder and wet diapers. I hadn’t realized how distinctly new-life’s odors mirror those of old people. Must be their proximity on the circle of life. Or else the constant use of liquid soap.
There is a marked difference in appearance here, however: there is no clutter. No toys, no newspapers, nothing waiting to return to its cabinet or drawer or closet. In fact, this place is in such order that everything has, in its right top corner, a perfect inch-thick capital-lettered label.
The TELEVISION is off; a cuckoo CLOCK keeps time. Robin switches on a LAMP using the LIGHTSWITCH and says, “You can wait here,” about an easy CHAIR.
“Okay,” I say, but I don’t sit.
“How much is the bill? We like to keep questions to a minimum, to avoid stress.”
“Twenty-three.” That’s what the receipt says. I show her.
“I’ll be right back.”
I wait around. I look around. Family photos stand in wood frames over the FIREPLACE. It’s too bad the photos aren’t labeled, too: who and where and when. I recognize the triplets, younger and pudgier than they are. And I recognize Christina, much thinner than she is now, pictured in a cheerleading uniform. I don’t see the resemblance to me, even back then, though her young smile was dispirited. To that, I relate.
She wears the same smile in her wedding photo, next to her husband, who looks eternally grateful. Next to that is a pregnancy photo where the two stand facing each other, bellies exposed, near-equal bulges.
The most recent photo shows Christina and her husband at their heaviest, both sadness and gravity winning. The three boys really are identical, though I recognize Sammy, the sick one: he is the only one in the family whose smile is hopeful, rather than a result of cheese.
Down the line, past a fashion-dated dinner-party shot of Kay and somebody who looks like her brother, Johnny Marble sits for his studio graduation photo, class of 1977. His mortarboard is tipped right; he’s looking off to the left.
He isn’t looking at the camera in the next photo, either, because he’s smiling up at the dark-skinned black man who has him by the arm. The man, who must be his father, looks at the camera, no smile. He looks tired, eyes sunken, skeletal. He wears a worn white wife beater, the wire-tight muscles in his arms flexed as he holds on to Johnny, who must’ve been a handful.
Robin comes back and says, “Mrs. Kay wants to see you. She’s very particular about money, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
I follow Robin down the hall. Along the way, three old portraits hang in ornate oval frames. The first is black-and-white and shows a man and woman, each of them holding an infant. The next shows the same couple a decade later, a single child between them, a bow on top of her head. In the third, the woman is missing. It is color-touched, though the man is graying. The girl, older still, holds an infant. The blanket is blue. The baby is black.
It must be Kay and Johnny, as well as an illustrated version of why Kay’s father moved her out of the city in 1959. She was a baby. She had a baby. In 1959, Kay was in big trouble.
In the KITCHEN, Kay is seated at the table flanked by a pill dispenser and a stack of mail on one side and some type of hospital-grade monitor on the other. The adjacent chair is pushed out, supporting her legs, the one still in a cast. She has a teacup in front of her, and she’s staring at it like it fell from the sky.
“This is Gina,” Robin says. “Your driver from last week.”
“Hello, Kay.” My smile is careful; I’m not sure what she’ll remember about me.
She looks at me and says, “It’s cold.”
Robin takes her teacup. “It isn’t cold. I told you: you’ve burned your tongue.”
“I’d like milk.”
“We need to write Gina a check.”
We. Again, I don’t get it. Someone suggests we write a check, I hope it’s not my money.
“I can do it,” Kay says. “Hand me a pen.”
“How about I write it and you sign it? We don’t want to get confused.”
“I can do it. Just tell me how much.”
“I told you. Twenty-five dollars.”
Wow. Some tip.
“Please, CeCe,” Kay says to me, “I’ll give you the money, but I want to talk to you. Sit down.”
“She is Gina,” Robin says, “and she doesn’t have time.”
“I have a few minutes.” I pull out an empty chair and move it close, and then I sit and place a delicate hand on Kay’s knee, above the cast. “What happened?”
She looks at her leg, the cast registering. “Oh, I’ll be fine.”
“That’s not what you said two minutes ago.” Robin puts the teacup in the microwave.
“I think I said I was feeling sick,” Kay says to her. “Sick is not the same.” She puts her hand on mine. “I’m glad you came back. I hate to see you so mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“You and daddy—”
“She thinks you’re her daughter,” Robin interrupts.
“Christina,” I say, validating the fact Kay has a daughter with that name—and also, if Kay thinks I’m her now, I’m not invalidating the idea—
“Bad subject,” Robin says, calling me off in either case.
But there’s one other case. “What about Johnny?” I ask. “How is he doing?”
Robin’s glare doubles for Shut the fuck up. “The worst subject.”
“I’m sorry,” I say to Kay, like I don’t get it. “During the ride, you spoke so fondly of him—”
“They put him in jail,” Kay says, and slaps the vinyl tablecloth with both hands, the stack of mail listing, an envelope sliding off the table. “They put my husband in jail.”
What?
“Her son,” Robin clarifies.
“In jail,” Kay repeats.
I don’t know what to say. I pick up the mail from the floor and stare at the return address from Bridgeview Bank.
“They’re both called Johnny,” Robin tells me. “Her ex and her son. She gets mixed up. Her son is in jail.”
“If you’d just let him stay, he wouldn’t be in trouble—”
“You’re right,” Robin says, and then, under her breath, “and you’d be dead.”
Kay looks at me. “CeCe, tell her Johnny would be better off here.”
Robin steps between us. “Christina isn’t here.
”
Kay’s eyes clear, and her lips curl. “Stop interrupting, you bitch.”
Robin looks away, Kay’s words hitting a few bumps as they roll off. “Let’s calm down now, Mrs. Kay. I know you’re upset about Johnny, and Christina, too, but let’s not take it out on Gina.”
“Who’s Gina?”
I reset the stack of mail. I feel guilty. I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here to ask about Christina’s lawsuit—no matter who Kay thinks I am. “I’m sorry.” I mean it when I say it this time, but neither woman acknowledges me.
Robin takes the tea out of the microwave without ever pressing START. It’s a funny way to heat something.
Funny, too, that the microwave is labeled the SINK.
And the sink is called the STOVE.
The stove is the REFRIGERATOR.
The fridge: the MICROWAVE.
A mess, indeed.
I shouldn’t judge—it’s easy to understand how things could get confused here. It could have been a grandkid who switched the labels—one of the triplets who, like Isabel, has to get her hands on everything. Could have been a cleaning lady who was in a hurry, or who doesn’t speak English. Or it very well could have been Kay.
Or it was Robin. Losing ground. Losing patience. Losing her mind, too.
Robin puts Kay’s cup on the table. “It’s warm now.”
“Would you like some tea?” Kay asks me, her eyes cloudy again, anger lost somewhere behind them.
“No thank you.”
Robin shows Kay her checkbook. “Are you going to pay her, or am I?”
Kay looks at the book, doesn’t recognize it, says, “Get my checkbook from the vanity.”
Robin shoots me a look, asks, “Who does this go to, Gina?”
“Blue Cab Company.”
Kay says, “I like blue.”
“I know you do.” Robin writes the check and then, like a grade school teacher, stands over Kay’s shoulder to help guide her hand so she can sign her name.
I push my chair back and look at my feet. I can’t fathom what it must be like to care for someone who will never get better. To help someone who will not learn what you teach. To watch a person forget you.
I check my phone. There are no calls. I pray Isabel is okay.
As they’re dotting the i, the pill dispenser chimes. Robin depresses a button, and then another, both to unfavorable result.
“This thing is useless.” She picks it up and shakes it. “It does everything except give pills.” Shaking it doesn’t work.
“You broke it,” Kay says.
“I did not,” Robin says.
I wonder who did.
“I’ll get them from the bathroom,” Robin says. “Right back.”
Kay watches Robin go, then looks down at the check she wrote. “I don’t know what this says.” She looks up at me. “Is this yours?”
“It’s yours, mom,” I say, figuring this is the time to take the chance.
Kay’s eyes refocus. “Oh, CeCe, I’m sorry. You have to believe me when I say I can’t afford to help anymore. And I’m so embarrassed to say that.”
Christina must have asked Kay to fund the lawsuit. If she asked for money, it doesn’t make sense she’d also be taking it. So, “I don’t understand what happened to your money.”
“I know you’re upset. I know you wanted it for your boys. But honey, they’ll grow up to take care of themselves. Johnny never will.”
“You gave money to Johnny?”
Kay glances in Robin’s direction. “Please, be quiet. You know how she is.”
“And you know how I am.” I lean in, look at her. “Please, Mom. Let me help you.” I reach for the checkbook. Underneath the check they wrote to Blue Cab, carbon copies show Robin’s handwriting and Kay’s signature, all following similar grooves. Not much variety in the amounts or the recipient, either: I can make out a hundred dollars for Robin pressed through again and again.
So Christina isn’t writing herself checks. But Robin is.
I ask, “Why doesn’t Robin want Johnny here?”
“She doesn’t understand about Johnny, honey. She’s never loved anybody. Been in love, maybe, but that’s not the same thing.”
“No it isn’t.” Don’t I know it.
“Johnny and me, we tried. And it was more than love. The years, you know, the years, and the struggles, they bind you. I don’t say that to upset you. We’re family, too, and we’ve had our struggles.”
“I guess we have.”
“I feel so helpless, CeCe. I’ll admit I can’t remember when to take what pill or what time it is, for that matter, but I still know how to love. Nobody will let me do that. My Johnny…” she says, and trails off.
I still don’t know which Johnny she’s talking about, but her inability to distinguish the two might not be dementia so much as it is the graying of her memory against her love for her family, still all wild red and deep blue.
I get it, though—the way love can make you exploitable. Boy, I get it. That’s why I pick up the letter atop the mail from Bridgeview Bank that says Statement Enclosed, fold it in half, and put it in my pocket.
“What are you doing?” Kay asks.
“Just taking the check you wrote to me.” I tear the check out of the book to prove it. I show her: “Blue Cab.”
“You aren’t Christina,” she says.
“No, I’m not,” I say. “But I am going to help you.”
“You—you—” is all she can manage.
“Gina Simonetti,” I say. “That’s who I am.”
“Mrs. Kay, what’s wrong?” Robin comes in, high alert.
“She’s a police officer,” Kay says, her eyes on me: she knows.
“She’s confused,” I say to Robin. “She kept calling me CeCe. She accused me of stealing. Then she threatened to call the cops, and now, apparently, I am the cops—”
“She’s lying—” Kay leans back and swings her legs off the chair. She means to come after me.
Robin lunges, pills skittering on the floor as she catches Kay’s feet before they hit the hardwood. She looks up at me. “You should go.”
Kay looks up at me, too, like I’ve betrayed her.
I put the check for Blue Cab on the table. I say, “You’re crazy.” And then I go.
* * *
“Gina,” Robin calls as I’m opening the front gate. She comes down the steps, the check scissored in her fingers. “Please take this. And don’t feel bad. She’ll have forgotten the whole thing by dinnertime.”
“Maybe, but I won’t.”
“Listen. Mrs. Kay is paranoid. She thinks the police are extorting money from her to keep her son out of jail. She thinks the doctors are trying to kill her—or that the medication they’ve prescribed is killing her. And don’t feel special: she thinks everyone is stealing from her. She doesn’t understand how the world works anymore, let alone how expensive it is to be old and sick.”
I try real hard to sound compassionate when I say, “I’m sure it’s no cakewalk for you.”
“Well, I understand she isn’t herself. Who she was yesterday, even, is gone. Some people resent that. Her daughter. But Mrs. Kay hired me to deal with who she is, day by day. Whoever she is. It changes. By the moment, these days.”
“You couldn’t pay me enough to do what you do.”
She shrugs. “I’d say the same thing to you. But we don’t get to pick who needs us, do we?”
She hands me the check and I take it, to keep her talking. I say, “My job involves spending an hour with someone I’ll never see again.”
“So does mine.” Her smile fades. “Sometimes, honestly, I’m glad she’s gone.”
I can’t believe she could say that about someone she is supposed to care for. But, while she’s being so candid, I may as well dig a little: “Is it her son or her husband, who hurt her?”
“Her son. Her ex-husband lives in Los Angeles. She hasn’t spoken to him in years, probably twenty years, I’d guess.”
“She still loves them both.”
“Yeah, well, as far as Mrs. Kay knows, it is twenty years ago. That’s the excuse I make for her, anyway. Because if she had a single rational thought in her head, she would be glad they aren’t here now. Her ex was a deadbeat and her son is no different. Johnny Junior is mentally ill, though, so her guilt about that gives him a pass. Still, he has done physical and emotional damage. And I know, given the chance, he would kill her.”
“Jesus,” I say, because I want to believe her. Shit, I’d be convinced if I didn’t know the truth about Johnny—that he wasn’t here when she said he was. That he didn’t do what she says he did. “I guess you’re the one who takes the blame for keeping her safe.”
“Part of the job.”
My phone buzzes and I check the message, a text from H964212:
Dialup here. Calling from a disposable in five.
“I’ve got to run,” I say. “A fare.”
“Duty calls.”
“Sorry, again, if I made things difficult in there.”
Robin smiles. “That wasn’t so difficult.”
21
I hustle back to my car and I’ve got it in DRIVE when Walter calls.
Please, oh please: “You found my brother.”
“Maybe. Someone used his phone. Pinged a tower up off West Peterson in Sauganash—”
“It’s him.” Because it’s Sauganash, on the far north side of the city, where we lived in high school, when we lived with the Metzler’s.
“Did you get an address?”
“Just an area. He made a call, but only talked for a minute before powering off again, so I couldn’t use his GPS. I tried refreshing, but all I could get was the tower.”
“Where’s the tower?”
“The north side of Sauganash Park.”
Sauganash Park, where we played long before we lived with the Metzler’s. When we would visit for dinner. Before we had any idea about divorce.
“When did he make the call?”
“About fifteen minutes ago.”
“Do you know who he called?”
“I have the number.” Walter gives it to me. It’s Metzler’s.
“I’ll call you back,” I say, and I am crying by the time I hang up. Sobbing, really. Because there’s no way Soleil would have agreed to let sane grown-ups into her world. That means high or not, George put his best two brain cells together and did something good for Isabel.
The Lies We Tell Page 22