Antonia's Choice

by Nancy Rue

  She was starting to cry, hard, dry sobs without tears. Even as Hale opened his mouth I put up my hand to him and leaned toward her.

  “Honey, I know you’re going to work hard, and I’m arranging for the very best people to work with you. They’re at a place called Trinity House.”

  “It’s here?” The hope in her eyes broke my heart.

  “Near here,” I said. “I’ll be able to visit you as often as they’ll let me.

  I watched as the realization dawned on her, and the fear gathered on her face.

  “You’re sending me away?”

  “No—don’t put it like that! I’m getting you the best help money can buy. And I’m going to be there for you. Hale says this place is wonderful.”

  But Wyndham was shaking her head. “Why can’t I just stay here and go to therapy? Why can’t I be with Lindsay and the kids from church? That’s all I need. Them and God and you.”

  I looked at Hale.

  Your turn, my eyes said to him. I can’t go there.

  “Your Aunt Toni and the kids at church aren’t therapists, Wyndham,” he said. “You need trained people around you twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Why?”

  Hale ran his fingers over the cross engraved into her arm. Wyndham pulled herself away, wrapping both arms around her torso and rocking back and forth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I know I’m just a huge burden to everybody.”

  “Wyndham, stop!” I said. “You are not a burden. I’m doing this for you because I love you. I want to get you through this.”

  “But you’re saying I’m too much for you to handle.”

  “She is ‘handling’ you,” Hale said. “The best way there is.”

  “I try not to be any trouble—”

  “Wyndham.”

  She looked up at Hale, the muscles in her neck so tight I was sure her throat would snap.

  “Your Aunt Toni has to think about Ben.”

  Wyndham’s eyes snapped to me, so wild they were almost without expression. “You are mad at me about him, aren’t you? I should never have told you!”

  “No, Wyndham. This isn’t your fault!”

  “Then why am I the one who’s being punished?”

  It was a question I couldn’t answer. I let all the lame responses I could think of die on my lips and shook my head.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Wyndham stared at me for a full thirty seconds before the fight drained out of her. Then she sat looking dully at the handle of Hale’s coffee mug.

  “When do I leave?”

  “In about a week,” I said. “That gives us time to get you ready. We can buy you some—”

  “I’m ready now. You should just send me now.”

  “There are things we have to do.”

  Wyndham stood up. “Can I just go to bed? I’m really tired.”

  I looked at Hale for a cue, but he had his eyes closed.

  “Sure,” I said. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

  She shrugged and left.

  A visible pall descended over the kitchen.

  “Gee,” I said to Hale. “That went well.”

  Hale folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t think we could have expected much more.”

  “I just feel like I’m letting her down.”

  “She thinks you are—but don’t let her take you with her. You’re doing the right thing. She’s going to get all of her confidence about this from you in the next week.”

  “Where is mine supposed to come from?” I said. “Right now I have about this much.” I held my thumb and index finger a quarter-inch apart.

  “God. At least, that’s where I get mine.” He raised an arm to reveal a dark spot the size of a dinner plate in the armpit of his T-shirt. “I was sweating bullets the whole time.”

  “Then I hope He tells me this is the right thing to do.” I got up, paced toward the coffee pot, turned my back on it. “I’m having second thoughts. Did you see the way she looked when she walked out of here? I might as well have been sending her to Auschwitz as far as she was concerned.”

  The words hung in the air between us just long enough for both of us to register them. I was already headed for the doorway when Hale said, “Maybe you’d better go check on her.”

  He was behind me as I took the steps two at a time and banged on Wyndham’s door.

  “Wyndham, let me in,” I said.

  There was no answer. The knob didn’t budge when I tried to turn it. Without a word I stepped out of the way, and Hale shoved his square self against the door. In a vignette frozen by horror realized, Hale and I stood in the doorway, and Wyndham looked up at us, bald guilt in her eyes, the razor poised over her wrist.

  There was no longer any doubt in my mind.

  Eight

  WYNDHAM CRIED HERSELF TO SLEEP in my arms. Thankfully she was out of it before Reggie returned with Ben, who was asleep in her arms. By the time Reg got Ben tucked into his bed, Hale and I were finishing our debate in the hallway over whether to call the hospital and try to have Wyndham admitted, or deal with the situation ourselves.

  “I’m afraid if I put her in Vanderbilt or something, she’ll think I’m ready to wash my hands of her,” I said. “She already feels rejected enough.”

  “If you’re going to keep her here, it’s going to mean a twenty-four-hour suicide watch until you can get her into Trinity,” Hale said. “You can’t do it all. I can do some but even at that—”

  “Look, I can’t ask you to do any more,” I said. “You’re not even related to her. Heck, most of the people who are related to her won’t even help her.”

  “She’s a sister. If you decide you want to try to keep her here until next week, I’ll see if I can set up a schedule with some folks I know—and I’ll put a call in over at Trinity and see if Betty Stires can place her sooner.”

  “I guess I can swing that, too.”

  Hale looked at me closely. “What do you mean, ‘swing it’?”

  “Pay people to watch her.”

  “No, these will be volunteers.”

  “I don’t even know them!”

  “It’s what we do. We’re a Christian community.”

  “But I don’t belong to it—although I guess I could make a donation to the church. I’d have to. I couldn’t sleep if I didn’t.”

  That’s about the point where Reggie joined us. “You never sleep anyway, honey,” she said.

  “For tonight, I’ll take the first shift and you go in and try to rest some,” Hale said to me. “I mean, if you’re comfortable with me bein’ here.”

  “Comfortable? Try to leave and I’ll take your arm off.”

  Hale grinned, mouth square. “You sure keep your sense of humor, don’t you?”

  “What was humorous about that?”

  “You have a sleepin’ bag, honey?” Reggie said. “I’ll bunk in there with the little Angel Boy, and that way you can get some decent sleep before you take over for Hale.”

  “Angel Boy? You’re talking about my son?”

  “Yes, bless his heart.”

  Even with all the bases covered, I slept very little. When I did drift off, I awoke with my jaws clenched so tightly my teeth were aching. I finally gave up around midnight and joined Hale in Wyndham’s room. He was perched in the window seat, looking decidedly out of place among the satin envelope-pillows. I sat on the Oriental rug at his feet and leaned against the bed, digging my toes into the deep pile. Wyndham’s sleep-breathing was audible behind me.

  “I haven’t thanked you for handling telling her,” I said. “I would have really screwed it up.”

  I could see Hale’s eyebrows lifting. “And I didn’t? She came up here to slit her wrists!” He shook his head. “I think I was too hard on her.”

  “I don’t know. If it had been me, I’d still be sitting down there beating around the bush. Besides—” I glanced up at Wyndham’s sleeping form and lowered my voice. “She’s sicker than I thought.
I think this was going to happen sooner or later. You just got us there sooner.”

  “I hate it for her,” he said. “The fact that we caught her is a God-thing, I think.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to Wyndham breathe. I wondered how she could sleep with all that was doing battle inside her. It could only be an escape for her. I wished I could make one that easily.

  “The only reason I haven’t picked a church here is because I don’t have the time to be on committees and all that,” I said.

  Hale looked at me curiously. “Neither does God, I suspect.”

  “I believe in God, though.”

  “You wouldn’t be doing this for Wyndham if you didn’t.”

  “You keep saying that, but don’t give me too much credit. I’m not consciously asking God to show me what to do.”

  “You’re doing what you’re doing out of love.”

  “Am I? I feel like I’m sending Wyndham away so I don’t have to deal with her.”

  “But you will have to deal with her—or she won’t get better.”

  “And I can’t deal with her here, or my son won’t get better. As soon as she’s gone, I can start working on him.”

  “Sounds like love to me,” Hale said. “There’s a lady at Trinity you might want to look up when you go over there. Her name’s Dominica Marquez.”

  “Can she help me with Wyndham, you think?”

  Hale nodded, slowly. “Yeah. I think you’ll be surprised what she can do.”

  “I don’t know if I can handle any more surprises.”

  Hale and I took turns sleeping during the night. Wyndham woke up only once, long enough to murmur that she was sorry she was doing this to me. That did nothing to assuage the guilt I was already feeling.

  Reggie took over for me while Hale went off to gather the troops for the rest of the day and I got Ben to school. My son was in an unusually good mood—at least he didn’t overturn his Fruit Loops or scream that he hated me before we got into the car.

  “Did you have fun last night?” I asked him as we headed for Hillsboro.

  “I like that Reggie lady,” he said.

  “She’s pretty cool, huh?”

  “She wasn’t taking care of me.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. “What do you mean she wasn’t taking care of you?”

  “She said she wasn’t taking care of me, she was just being my friend, so that was okay.” He scowled. “I told her I don’t like people taking care of me.”

  “I take care of you.”

  “No, you give me to other people to take care of me. I don’t like that.”

  A switch went on in my head. “You mean like Aunt Bobbi?” I said.

  Immediately, both hands went over his ears. “I don’t want to talk about it!” His voice rose dangerously.

  “Okay, Pal. Subject’s closed. Done. Over.”

  He kept his hands plastered to the sides of his head, but he didn’t say any more.

  I waited until I’d gotten him out of the car in front of the school before I bent down and said to him, “I just want you to know that Wyndham is going to be moving out of our house in just a few days—after the weekend.”

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. “How many wake-ups is that?”

  I counted. “Six.”

  “No, that’s too many.”

  “She isn’t going to hurt you, Pal.”

  He wasn’t buying it. He hitched his backpack up and turned and ran for the building. I just stood there, eyes burning.

  “Dear God,” I whispered. This time I added, “Tell me what in the Sam Hill to do.”

  When I got home, Reggie was gone and Hale was back. Wyndham was still asleep, and Hale was on the phone, adding a name to a list of four he’d already scrawled on a piece of my notepaper, engraved in gold letters, FROM THE DESK OF ANTONIA WELLS. When he hung up, he gave me a grin.

  “You’re set until eleven-thirty tonight, and then I’ll be back. Oh—and Betty Stires says the sooner you can get the paperwork to her the faster she can expedite Wyndham’s admission. Until then, I’ll keep you staffed so Wyndham has somebody with her all the time.”

  “I owe you—in a major way,” I said.

  He waved me off with one of his big, squared-off hands. “You’ll be okay until ten this morning? Sherry Gibbons will be here then.”

  “I can deal with Wyndham during the day.”

  “Don’t you have to go to work?”

  “Oh.” I pressed my fingers to my eyelids, which were stinging from being open for too long at a stretch. “Yeah, I guess I do. If I still have a job.”

  “Reggie says you’re pretty indispensable over there.”

  “Yeah.” It was odd how, for a fleeting moment, that seemed utterly unimportant.

  When Sherry Gibbons arrived, I made sure Wyndham looked okay with her and then went down to the study to call Jeffrey. Even as I was dialing his number, I knew I should have been calling Chris. But I still couldn’t do it.

  Get yourself totally together first, I told myself. That’s the only way to talk to Chris.

  So Jeffrey it was right now, and I knew I was going to have to take charge of the conversation. I was pretty sure even God didn’t expect me to handle Jeffrey Faustman “with love.”

  “Good morning, stranger,” Jeffrey said. His voice was cool. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

  Actually I would mind, I thought. I so do not want you in my personal business—especially this personal business.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that these unavoidable circumstances have arisen,” I said.

  “What unavoidable circumstances?”

  “But I have everything under control now. In fact, I’ll be in around one o’clock. Anything I should know about before then, in case I need to get my thoughts together?”

  “I don’t think so.” The temperature had gone down several degrees. “Ginny seems to be doing very well, keeping things in order in your office.”

  You jerk, I thought. But I said, “She’s a gem,” though I didn’t add that she was somewhere in the zircon category. “I’ll let her know I’ll be coming in.”

  “No need. I’ll tell her. I’m having lunch with her shortly.”

  “How lovely.” I hope you both get acid reflux.

  But as I hung up, I couldn’t hold onto a wish for heartburn, at least not for Jeffrey. After all, he was trying to run a business, and I wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information to explain my mysterious absences. Ginny was another story, the little opportunist.

  But even harboring hope for indigestion for her wasn’t as delicious as it had been two weeks ago. If only Ginny’s licking her chops over my job was all I had to worry about.

  I was in a suit and panty hose by twelve-thirty and welcoming the next shift on the Wyndham watch at 12:50, a pudgy little woman named Bunny who walked like a rugby player. I figured she could handle Wyndham, and I actually had my foot out the door when Hale called.

  “Betty Stires says that if you can get the guardianship papers faxed to her by 5 P.M. today, you can bring Wyndham on Thursday. How perfect is that?”

  “You must have some kind of pull out there.”

  “You want to go see Trinity tomorrow?” he said. “I’ll drive you if you want. It might not be a bad idea for you to visit the place before you take Wyndham there.”

  “You’re probably right. She might feel less like I was dumping her off if I actually bothered to go check it out. What time?”

  We set it up for one o’clock, and then I hurried off to Faustman. I got there before Jeffrey and Ginny were back from lunch, and it looked like Ginny did have everything in order. I was glancing over the neatly fanned files on my desk with the typed pink phone messages clipped to each one when Reggie came in. She’d been away from her desk when I passed through the reception area, but she must have smelled me in the building because she was carrying a cup of chicken-and-dumpling soup, which she tucked into my hand.

  “I know
you haven’t eaten all day,” she said. She groaned as she sank into one of my client chairs and put a hand to her forehead. Her nails were magenta today, and the Power Puff Girls were gone. “Honey, you have got one hard floor. My backside is killin’ me. Tonight I’m bringin’ a cot.”

  I looked up from the dumplings. “Tonight?”

  “Somebody’s got to watch little Angel Boy while you watch Wyndham, and so far I’m his favorite—or didn’t he tell you?”

  Reggie’s eyes were dancing. I couldn’t help grinning at her.

  “You and Hale. You’re the only reason I still find it possible to smile at this point.”

  “Honey, I think you’re amazing.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Maybe a little too amazing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Means I’m waiting for you to start running around tearin’ your hair out. That’s what I’d be doin’.”

  I set the half-empty mug on the desk. “I had my little breakdown Sunday night. What good would it do to keep that up? Besides, it’s coming together. Wyndham’s getting into Trinity Thursday. Once she’s gone I can convince Ben that all the bad guys are now locked up, and we can get on with our lives.”

  The phone rang, and Reggie reached for it, but I shook my head and picked it up myself.

  “Speaking of getting on with my life,” I said, hand over the mouthpiece. I uncovered it and put on my professional voice. “This is Toni Wells.”

  “Oh,” said a male voice on the other end. “It is?”

  “Ye-es,” I said, patiently. “May I help you?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Your assistant told me you had left town for the rest of the week and wouldn’t be able to get back to me.”

  “I’m sorry. My assistant must have gotten some mistaken information. Who am I speaking to?”

  “This is Charles R. Marshall.”

  He said it as if the initial alone should have brought me to attention, but the name meant nothing to me. I flipped through the files on the desk but there was no “Charles R. Marshall” typed on a tab. I scribbled the name on a pad and shoved it toward Reggie, but she shook her head and hurried out. I whipped the chair toward my computer and typed in his name. Through it all, he remained silent on the line.