by Nancy Moser
And what of the foundation? Although there were other doctors on staff, would the scandal of Sig’s guilt destroy what he’d so carefully formed?
What would happen when Patti was released?
What would happen if there was a new trial?
What would the papers and TV say?
She knew that one: the Kelly family would be bitten off, chewed up, and spit out. “We’ll lose everything.”
Karla came around the corner. “Morning. What did you lose?”
Everything. “Nothing.”
“Is Nelly up?”
“She’s not going to school today.”
Karla’s face showed concern. “Is she sick?”
“She had a hard night.”
“How come?”
Deidre shook her head. She couldn’t handle questions. “If you’ll excuse me, I have something I have to do.”
Karla looked sceptical, but totally oblivious to the crisis at hand, said she’d make coffee.
Deidre hurried upstairs, got out two suitcases, and began filling them with clothes. How odd to look through her closet of lovely outfits and have to choose only a few. Yet it was surprisingly easy. She wouldn’t need cocktail dresses on the run. Or silk suits. Or perky tennis clothes. She’d need simple clothes, clothes that would help her blend into a crowd and just be Dee-Dee again.
Halfway through her packing she remembered the wall safe behind the picture in the bedroom. Money and jewelry she could sell. She wouldn’t be able to go far without those. She grabbed an empty black purse and took a detour from the clothes. She opened the safe and removed a few stacks of money. It wasn’t neatly bound in counted packets, but by flipping through the fifties and hundreds, she figured there was nearly twenty thousand. She stuffed the money and the most valuable pieces of jewelry in the purse. Rubies, diamonds, pearls, all presents from her generous husband.
Deidre sped through the bathroom, dumping toiletries in a bag. She grabbed more clothes and stuffed them into the suitcase. Forget folding anything. Time was her enemy. They had to be gone before Sig went to the police and their world blew apart.
Knowing she’d missed plenty, she zipped the suitcase shut.
She took a piece of empty luggage into Nelly’s room and began packing her things.
Nelly awakened and sat up. “What are you doing?”
“We’re going on a little trip.”
“A trip where?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Her face brightened. “Is Daddy going with us?”
“He can’t. He told you—”
“I was hoping he’d change his mind.” She pointed at a green top. “Mom, don’t bring that.”
“Then you do it. And bring a few books and stuffed animals, along with some pens, notebooks, and hair things.”
“Are the police after us?” Nelly asked.
Deidre forced herself to slow down, to calm her child. “No, they’re not after us. We didn’t do any—” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She knelt beside her daughter’s bed. “I’m just afraid of what people will do and say when they find out about your dad. The press will probably come over and want us to talk about it.”
Is it true, Mrs. Kelly, that you were on the jury even though you knew the victim, Brett Lerner?
Suddenly Deidre realized that with Sig telling the truth, her own past would be revealed. And Nelly would find out that Brett was her father, and Deidre would get in trouble with the courts for lying about her previous connection with him.
“Faster, sweetie. We need to get going.”
“What about Nana?”
Deidre felt the air go out of her. Karla. She couldn’t leave Karla to deal with the aftermath of this mess.
“Nana will have to go with us.”
***
“What do you mean, Sig is turning himself in? In for…what did you say?”
Although Deidre understood Karla’s reaction to her initial, abbreviated explanation, she didn’t have time to go through it in more detail. Deidre had found Karla relaxing on the deck’s swing, a coffee mug in hand. “Karla, I have something to tell you.”
“I can’t go into it now,” Deidre said. “But by the end of the day our lives will be changed forever.”
Karla balanced the mug on her thigh. “And why was Sig being blackmailed?”
Deidre didn’t have time for this. They had to go. “I promise I’ll tell you everything after we get out of here. Please, Karla. We really have to leave right away.”
Karla patted the seat beside her on the swing. “I am not going anywhere until I hear a good explanation. You want to hem and haw about it, fine, but it will only take up more of this ticking clock you’re so concerned with. Hence, I suggest telling me the truth.”
Reluctantly, Deidre sat. “Sig was blackmailed by Brett because Brett had seen him with Audrey and thought they were having an affair. An affair would hurt Sig’s reputation in the community and hurt the foundation. Brett had done his homework. He knew this.”
“Brett was a maître d’, right?”
“At The Pines restaurant. As the host I’m sure he witnessed quite a few odd pairings of young women with older men. Although no one’s come forward, I wouldn’t be surprised if he blackmailed others before Sig. He could easily make it his business to find out who the men were and what they could offer him in return for his silence. Brett saw a picture of me and Sig in the paper that piqued his interest. And when I showed up at the resort after my big argument with Sig ...”
“It sounds like you did more than run into him. It sounds like you talked quite a bit.”
“Not any more than necessary, I assure you. I’d heard he moved away, but to find out he was back in town was unnerving. He asked way too many questions. Just the sight of him made my skin crawl. I didn’t stay around a moment longer than I had to. But apparently, it was long enough.”
“Did he act like he knew about—” Karla nodded toward the house where Nelly was finishing her packing.
Deidre’s memories took over…
Brett had sat down at her table as if he had a right to be there. He’d smiled his smarmy smile. “Why are you here, Dee-Dee? Alone at a resort? Trouble in paradise?”
“Of course not. Go away, Brett. Leave me alone.”
“Actually, I’m not surprised you have trouble. I saw your hubby in here once. And another time around town with a young woman who wasn’t as old as you, by any means. I wonder what the Kelly Foundation would think about that.”
She’d started to get up, but he’d taken her arm. “Sit. I’ve been wanting to talk with you. About other…things.”
Just the way he’d said it made her expect the worse. Which is exactly what she’d gotten: “I read in one of the ‘Dr. Kelly the saint’ articles that you have a daughter. How old is she now? Twelve? But you’ve only been married to the great doctor three years; isn’t that right?”
Deidre stood, toppling her chair. She hurried out of the restaurant, but not before Brett called after her, “I’ll be in touch, Dee-Dee. I can hardly wait to meet your lovely daughter.”
Deidre felt a hand on hers, drawing her back to the present. “Honey? Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right! That’s why I want to get away from here. I’ve had enough of all things Brett.” She stood, causing the swing to gyrate wildly. “I don’t understand why so many bad things have happened to me. I grow up with a lousy father who wants nothing to do with me, I fall for a man who rapes me, I get pregnant, and Nelly is born with a bad hip. No sooner do I find a good man and start to be happy than he gets sick and dies. I’m left with bills and no future. I have to struggle to survive. But I do it and once again find a way out through Sig. But just when I get my life turned around, Brett interferes and gets himself killed. By sheer chance I get called to that trial. I thought that piece of luck was the answer to everything. But now Sig is throwing it all away by confessing, leaving me alone. Again. The world is against me.” She let out a deep sigh, waiting for sympath
y. “There, there, everything will be all right.”
But Karla didn’t say anything. She just rocked, up and back.
Deidre was about to repeat her litany when Karla said, “There seem to be an awful lot of I’s and me’s in that list.”
Deidre didn’t understand.
Karla took a sip of her coffee, then said, “I know it’s been hard, but most of the things you listed did not happen to just you, Deidre. Your mother is the one who married badly. Nelly is the one who had the bum hip and had to undergo surgery. Don was the one who died, and then you married well and gained a grand life. And though this Brett was not exactly an upstanding citizen, he did not get himself killed. From what you’ve said, Sig is guilty of hitting him. Your husband turning himself in reveals his honorable core.”
“So I have no right to be upset and frustrated? Angry?”
Karla shrugged. “Feel what you want. But as far as the world being out to get you, it’s simply not so. I’ll admit that the scales of fair and unfair can seem pretty off-kilter at times, but when we start feeling all woe-is-me, we have to remember who wins.”
Deidre wanted to go inside and leave this discussion behind. She was open to hearing Karla’s practical advice about what to do next, but she didn’t want to hear a come-to-Jesus lecture. She took a step toward the door. “We have to go. Now.”
“Don’t run away, Deidre.”
“But we have to.”
Karla patted the swing. “Come on now. Come back here.”
Deidre felt completely trapped. Unable to leave. Unwilling to stay.
“One more minute,” Karla said. “That’s all I ask.”
Reluctantly, Deidre returned to her seat.
Karla patted her knee. “Don’t run from circumstances and don’t run from him, Deidre. He knows where you are. You can’t hide from God. You shouldn’t even try.”
There it was again. That hiding-from-God theme. There seemed to be no escaping it. “But I don’t know what to do.”
“And you think running ahead of God’s direction is the wisest choice?”
Actually, Deidre hadn’t thought much about God at all. She’d left God behind when Don died. Except for a few snippets of prayer, she’d buried the Almighty along with her husband.
The sliding glass door opened enough for Nelly to pop her head out. “I’m packed.” She took one look at her mother and grandmother and said, “Are we going or not?”
“We’ll be inside in a minute, sweetie.”
Nelly looked confused but closed the door.
Karla started the swing again. “As a parent you know what’s best for Nelly, right?”
Although it sounded like a trick question, Deidre answered, “Of course.”
“And as you’re walking her up life’s road, you’d like to show her the way. Lead her on the best pathways.”
Deidre nodded.
“But if she runs ahead of you, thinking she knows best, she’s going to make some whopper mistakes.”
Point taken.
Karla shrugged. “Don’t race ahead without getting directions, Dee-Dee. It only leads to a ton of unnecessary detours, potholes, and crashes.”
Yes indeed. She’d already experienced a few of those.
“Jesus said, ‘Follow me,’ not ‘Run on ahead and I’ll follow you.’”
“I know that.”
“Knowing ain’t doing.”
Touché.
“One more thing and then you can go or not go, as you choose. The trouble with being strong and capable is we start believing we know best. We forge ahead, glancing back at God when we think about it, checking to see if he’s going to stop us. Some of the time, we don’t even look back because we know—we know—he wouldn’t approve and we don’t want to be stopped.”
It was a disheartening image because it was completely true. Deidre had been doing just this—and worse—for years.
Karla stood. “So. That said, how about some lunch?”
“But we have to go.”
Karla looked down at her. “Do we?”
She went inside, leaving Deidre alone.
Deidre was not good company. Too bad she couldn’t run and hide from herself.
She pulled her knees to her chest, and after a few quick moments the swing adjusted and was still.
But Deidre wasn’t. Not her heart, her mind, or her tears.
The tears surprised her. Why was she crying?
Let me count the ways.
Because her world had flipped upside down.
Because things hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped.
Because Sig was going to jail.
Because he didn’t deserve to go.
Not really.
She did.
Yes, her husband had hit Brett over the head with the wine bottle. Yes, Sig had dazed him. And yes, Sig had even run away.
But it was Deidre’s secrets that had set everything in motion. Everything would have been different if she hadn’t kept Brett a secret all these years, and if she’d told the truth to Nelly and Don and Sig and Karla. And then, after seeing Brett again, realizing he was up to no good, if only she’d come home from The Pines and talked to Sig, warned him that this awful man from her past might be making another appearance. Her honesty could have saved Brett’s life and Sig’s freedom.
She thought back to that night, to the moment when Sig had come in the back door after his meeting at Brett’s house. She hadn’t known about the meeting. If only she’d known ahead of time she could have stopped it.
Sig had collapsed to his knees and started to sob. He was ashen. His head shook no, no, no.
Deidre ran to him. “Sig? What happened?”
He raised his chin, capturing her eyes with his. “I killed a man.”
With her help he got to his feet and Deidre led him to the couch in the family room. “Sit. I’ll get you some water.”
When she returned to the couch, she found him clutching a pillow to his chest. He ignored the water. She pushed the newest issue of Vogue out of the way and sat on the coffee table, facing him.
He did not look up but stared into the space around his knees.
She touched one of those knees. “You said you killed a man? Tell me what happened.”
“I didn’t mean to. I mean, I never intended for it to happen.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.” She had no idea what he was talking about. Had he botched an operation? Had he been involved in a car accident and driven away before the police arrived? She quickly ran out of options. “Tell me what happened.”
He nodded, as though only then realizing he needed to explain himself. “I got a call from a man who threatened me, who was going to spread rumors about me that would hurt the foundation unless I paid him.”
“Someone was blackmailing you?”
“He called me late yesterday and said he had some information that could ruin the foundation. I didn’t believe him at first; I thought he was a crank, but then he mentioned Audrey’s name.” He looked away from her, as if ashamed.
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know his last name, but his first name was Brett. He said we’d never met but he’d seen me in the papers.” Sig stopped talking and stared at Deidre. “What’s wrong?”
Brett? He was being blackmailed by Brett? Deidre managed to answer her husband by saying, “Go on.”
“I met him, to pay him. At his house—which seemed incredibly strange. But stranger still I found him sitting in his hot tub. It was so odd it was almost surreal. He was unbelievably arrogant and cocky. And then we argued and he turned nasty, baiting me, making me feel trapped, and I... I hit him over the head with a wine bottle.”
Her mind raced. She could easily imagine Brett Lerner’s cocky smoothness turning bad, pushing her husband to a breaking point. Brett was the king of manipulation and meanness. “Maybe you didn’t kill him, maybe he’s not dead.”
Sig’s eyes flashed with hope. “He was alive when I ran, though he was cut and dazed .�
� Sig’s right arm came alive and re-enacted the hitting motion of wine bottle against head. But then the imaginary bottle was gone and Sig’s hands found his own head. “I’m a doctor. I should have tried to save him. I took an oath.” Suddenly he sprang to his feet. “We have to call 911. We have to save him!”
But I don’t want him saved!
The thought of having Brett Lerner back in their lives where he might find out he was Nelly’s father—or press the point if he already knew—to create a scenario where Sig might find out about all the lies she had told all these years was unacceptable.
Deidre had put calming hands on her husband’s shoulders, pushing him back to sitting. “If you call the authorities, they’ll have this number. They’ll come talk to you. Ask questions.” She was shocked by her own words. So cold. So calculating.
So necessary.
She couldn’t let Sig talk to the police. If they knew he was involved, everything would be lost.
“I left him there.” Sig started to stand. “I need to get him help. I need to call the police, turn myself in.”
Deidre thought of a trump card—the one thing even more important to Sig than his work. “If you call the police, it will ruin everything you’ve worked for. Do you want our daughter to think her father is a killer?”
His eyes were pathetic. “I am a killer.”
She took his hands in hers, peering into his eyes. “You are a healer. You are a great man who has helped hundreds of people. Don’t you want to keep being that man? If you go to the police, all that will end and hundreds of people will suffer.”
He blinked as if letting the idea settle.
“Come on.” Deidre led him toward the stairs. “Let’s get you to bed.”
She’d been relieved when he didn’t argue. There was no more talk of calling 911. There was no more talk of killing.
Though, if the truth were known, Deidre had clung to a hope of her own: that there had been a killing. For it was an undeniable fact that her life would be better if Brett Lerner were dead.
Deidre didn’t like what it said about her character, but she’d slept well that night, eerily free from nightmares or what-ifs or even questions of what to do.
She should have been worried.