The Shade of My Own Tree

by Sheila Williams

  Gloria looked up at me with tears streaming down her face.

  “I don’t know,” she said, choking. “I just don’t know.”

  I drained the tuna.

  “Nobody can answer that question for you,” I said, remembering how agonized I was standing at the same crossroads. “You have to do it for yourself.”

  Gloria didn’t say anything. She just sat there smoking her cigarette in the kitchen against my house rules. I chopped a little onion and some hard-boiled egg and mixed up a bowl of tuna salad. And it was quiet for a few seconds.

  Then Beni Douglas burst into the kitchen like a carny flying out of a cannon.

  “Hey!”

  Her exuberance was exhausting. I glanced at her while she leaned on the counter watching me as I mixed the salad greens together. Her pupils were like pinpoints. She was flyin’. She bounced around the room chattering excitedly about the new play she had auditioned for, the manager at the bistro where she worked, and P-Bo’s newest portfolio. My ears perked up at the mention of P-Bo’s name. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Gloria was watching Beni, too, instead of staring out the screen door.

  “He has four pieces on the short list for the show at the Marble Smith Gallery!” Beni exclaimed breathlessly. “If he gets even one piece in, he’s launched. Completely launched. Any snapper who gets their pics in the M-Smith goes sky-high. It’s inked.”

  “Snapper?” Gloria asked.

  Beni grabbed a stalk of celery and started munching. “Photographer. You know, snapping pictures. Snapper!” She chewed and talked at the same time. It was a wonder that she didn’t choke.

  “Are you staying here tonight?” I asked, not looking up.

  Beni wiped her hands on her jeans. “Nope. Just stopped by to get stuff that I left here. P-Bo and I are back together.”

  I looked at Gloria, who closed her eyes as she exhaled a huge cloud of smoke.

  “Hey! We can smoke in the house now?” Beni asked hopefully.

  “You’re back with P-Bo?” I asked.

  Beni’s shoulders tensed and her bright smile dimmed a bit in its wattage. “Yeah. We worked everything out. He’s talking to someone, a counselor at school, about taking an anger management seminar. We’re cool.”

  Gloria turned away. I looked at Beni.

  “Beni, why don’t you stay here for a few more days? Or stay here until P-Bo finishes his ‘anger management’ course? Maybe you two need some time apart.”

  Beni’s eyes flashed. “Forget that. P-Bo needs me. He’s going through some real dramatic shit right now and I need to be with him. He needs me to support him emotionally.”

  “Maybe he needs more emotional support than you are equipped to give him,” I said softly. Why was I trying to reason with someone who was high?

  Beni’s face hardened. “Please. I know what you want. You, LaDonna, even my best friend. You just want me to walk away. Just walk away and leave him.” Her words were coming so fast now that I could barely keep up. “I can’t do that. I can’t just walk away. Maybe that’s OK for you. You can just run away and be bitter and talk about how you’ve saved yourself and how independent you are. What a bunch of bullshit. I know what commitment is. I know what real love is. P-Bo loves me; he’s just going through a rough time right now. And he needs me. He needs me.”

  Gloria’s cigarette had burned low and the smoke filling the room had become thick and strong. She looked at Beni with an unreadable expression on her face, but she didn’t say anything.

  “I’m getting out of here. You don’t understand what the hell I’m talking about,” Beni said, pulling her backpack up on her shoulder. We listened to her clump up the backstairs and down the hall.

  “She’ll be back,” Gloria said. There was no hope in her voice or in her eyes when she looked at me.

  Despite the afternoon heat that had settled in the kitchen, I felt cold.

  I stirred the tuna salad around and around until it almost turned to mush.

  “Yes. She’ll be back,” I said. But I knew that both of us were wrong.

  The wind rustled the miniblinds in the open window. I glanced outside and noticed the steel gray color of the sky. I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel.

  “I’d better make sure my windows are closed up on the third floor,” I told Gloria. “It looks like it’s going to rain.”

  The storm rolled in from the west a little after midnight, bringing brilliant lightning and earth-shaking thunder. I was still awake when the telephone call I had been dreading came at about 3:00 A.M.

  “Ms. Sullivan? This is Amy at the emergency room at St. Catherine’s. Do you know Benetia Douglas?”

  I closed my eyes and said a prayer. I had only one question.

  “Is she alive?” I whispered.

  “Just barely,” the nurse replied grimly. “I haven’t been able to reach her parents. Can you come down here?”

  The emergency room on a busy night is like a three-ring circus without the laughter. It is loud, colorful, and crowded. There is something going on in every corner. No one does anything in unison. The sirens pierce your eardrums and the doors slam open and closed. Gurneys fly by at forty miles an hour. The doctors are the ringmasters, the nurses and aides are the performers. They move quickly past in blurs of white, blue, pink, and green. Patients are only the props. The deep red of blood is the accent color. The chatter is constant; the phones are always ringing. But unlike a circus, the audience does not clap with appreciation or smile with delight. The waiting room is filled with sad, silent faces. Hands that form clenched fists or wring tissues into shredded, wrinkled pieces of paper. Eyes that fill with tears or are red with sleep denied. Seating is general admission. There aren’t any luxury boxes.

  The nurse walked me toward a door where a policeman was standing.

  “You can go in.”

  I glanced at the police officer.

  “Have they picked him up yet?” I asked, referring to P-Bo.

  The nurse shook her head. She didn’t ask how I knew what had happened.

  “Not yet. That’s why he’s here.” She motioned toward the police officer.

  “How—how badly is she hurt?”

  The nurse’s face was solemn. This was her business, but I could tell that it never got easy.

  “She’s nearly comatose. Stabbed ten times; one wound missed her heart by inches. I can tell by her driver’s license that she is a pretty girl.…” She paused as if searching for the right thing to say. I read between the pauses. “She’ll need a lot of reconstructive surgery. And …” The nurse looked down at her white shoes. “She had some internal bleeding. Dr. Rau is waiting for her condition to stabilize before he takes her to surgery. I … She may need a hysterectomy.”

  I squeezed the tears out of my eyes.

  “Is she conscious?” was all I could manage to croak out.

  “She’s in and out. But she needs a hand to hold and soft voice of encouragement in her ear,” the nurse replied, her brown eyes holding mine. “It would help a lot.”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. I tried to keep the horror and pity out of my face in case, miracle of miracles, Beni could see anything from beneath her swollen eyelids. Her face was a red-and-black pulpy mess wrapped in gauze, with braces encircling her forehead and neck. One arm was in a cast; the other was, remarkably, unmarked and resting limply on her stomach. My chest filled up and I did everything I could to stifle a gasp. It was horrible. I wanted to curl up in the corner and cry.

  I sank into the chair next to the gurney and put her hand into mine. It was so small and cold. I hadn’t expected it to be cold. I glanced at the monitor. The blip-blip sound was still there. She was alive. I looked at Beni. Her eyes were closed.

  “Beni, it’s me; it’s Opal. I’m here, sweetie. You’ll be fine. I’ll stay here with you.” I took a deep breath. I
t was so hard to keep from crying.

  “Beni, can you hear me? You’re safe now,” I put her hand up to my cheek. Oh, God, I hope that she can hear me.

  She squeezed my hand.

  Startled, I looked up. Her swollen eyelids were still closed.

  “Beni, can you hear my voice? Squeeze my hand if you can.”

  She squeezed it again. She tried to move her lips but grimaced.

  “Don’t try to talk. Just rest. You’re safe now.”

  “Thank you.” It was a whisper that sounded like tissue paper floating on the wind.

  I laughed and rubbed my hands over her ice-cold fingers.

  “Don’t talk. I want you to rest. I want you to listen to the sound of my voice. I’m going to try to bore you with a story so that you’ll go to sleep. And you’re going to be fine. You are.” I had to say that as if I believed it with all my heart and soul. Because if I could believe it, then she could believe it. And maybe she’d come through this.

  I stroked the small section of her forehead that wasn’t bandaged. And I saw a small tear roll down her cheek.

  A dark cloud settled over the yellow house for the next few days. Beni’s condition stabilized enough for her to have surgery. I spent a lot of time at the hospital. Beni’s parents had finally been contacted and were driving in. When I was home, the only thing we could talk about was Beni. Every telephone call I got was about Beni. By Sunday night, we were all exhausted and depressed.

  “Why don’t you let me take you all out for dinner?” Jack suggested. He had stopped by to check on me, he said, because my telephone line was constantly busy. “You need to get out of the house.”

  I shook my head.

  “I wouldn’t be good company. All I can think about is Beni and how I’d like to get my hands on P-Bo.” Just the thought of P-Bo sent me into a homicidal rage.

  “You’re too late. P-Bo’s been picked up. My boy called me. He’ll be arraigned tomorrow. The charges are heavy and plentiful. He made the mistake of beating her up with other people around. There are a lot of witnesses.”

  I held up my hand.

  “Please. I can’t hear this. I was at the hospital. I saw her. Jack, he practically beat her to clay.”

  “I wouldn’t think he’ll have much of a chance of bond. He pulled Judge Stevens. My friend tells me she doesn’t have much of a sense of humor when it comes to domestic violence.”

  I shook my head.

  “I can’t talk about this anymore. I’m done. I need something to laugh at. A little bit of nonsense to take my mind off things. I need—”

  “I’m offering to take you out to dinner!” Jack said, exasperated.

  I smiled at him. He really was a nice man. If only …

  “I know. But I look like that mouse that CW dragged around for a week. And … I’m too lazy to get dressed and go anywhere. Tell you what. I’ll call Dominic’s and order pizza. You up for that?”

  Jack grinned. “With onions, green peppers, and black olives.”

  I scrunched up my face.

  “OK. I’ll order two pizzas. I can’t stand green peppers.” I stood up. “Let me see if Gloria and Troy want anything. I think Tia went out.” Tia was a respite “guest.”

  I didn’t have to move an inch. Troy came barreling out of the front door like the Devil was chasing him.

  “Opal! I found a hidden secret picture!” He was jumping up and down and screaming at the top of his voice. “I found it in the dining room!” He waved his hands around. They looked as if they’d been dipped in flour.

  Gloria came out of the house behind him.

  “I didn’t know you were out here,” she said. “I thought you were still at the hospital. Hi, Jack.” She sounded as if she was out of breath. “Troy, stop jumping!”

  “What’s going on? What’s he talking about?” I asked.

  Troy answered.

  “There’s a picture! And I found it!”

  I looked from Troy to Gloria. Her expression was solemn.

  “I think you need to see this,” she said.

  The chandelier in the dining room was lit and Jack clicked on Rodney’s work lamps. The plastic sheeting had been pulled away from the wall and lay in a heap on the floor.

  I gasped. Jack’s eyes widened.

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “See! I told you there was a picture!”

  It was not just a picture. It looked like a mural, and only the middle third of it was visible behind the dark brownish-greenish sludge color that I had thought was mildew. It was a landscape that depicted hills, valleys, two riverbanks, and a wide, dark river. The colors were muted earth tones, with a myriad of shades of green, brown, burnt orange, and gold. The sky was, as Troy tried to describe it (much to Gloria’s chagrin), a pinkish orange like his mother’s salmon cakes, with blue highlights and thin white clouds. The sun peeked out from midway down the horizon.

  The mural depicted a river scene, but when I got closer I realized that there was more going on here than just a serene landscape. Three men on the left stood on the banks with rifles in their hands, their tan and black hats nearly covering their creamy-colored, expressionless faces. And on the right side, a man sat in a tiny boat that had just washed up on the shore. Five people stood looking back across the river. Two men, one woman holding a baby, and a small child. They weren’t waving at the men with the guns. They weren’t running, either. They merely stood there with their faces raised up toward the sun. Beautiful.

  I touched the edge of the exposed painting. The wall was sticky and dirty in places where the old layers of wallpaper had been attached. But the paint on the mural was still intact, the colors rich.

  I peered at a little boat settled in the murky water where “Duncanson, 1847” was scrawled.

  “Rodney said that he had something to show me,” I murmured, trying to remember why the artist’s name was familiar.

  “Oh, you knew this was here?” Gloria asked.

  “Um, no. Well, yes. I was kinda in a bad mood the last time I saw him,” I confessed sheepishly. “I told Rodney that we’d talk another time.” Actually, I think I barely answered poor Rodney. I went to the telephone.

  Jack was still frowning and talking to himself. “Who was Duncanson?”

  “Good question,” I said, going into the kitchen to get my notebook with Rodney’s card in it. “The first thing I’m going to do is track down Rodney. Then we’ll find out about Mr. Duncanson.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The house was in an uproar for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Pam dropped in with her boys and was enthralled by the mural and the mystery behind it. The ruckus even attracted Dana Drew’s curiosity. Once again, I was surprised to see her in the daylight. She was returning the WD-40 and a rope that she had borrowed from me a while ago.

  Her dark eyebrows raised above her sunglasses as she looked at the mural. She pulled up the glasses for a split second when she read the artist’s name scribbled beneath the little boat that floated on the dark water.

  “Duncanson … hmmm …”

  I tried to get a peek at her eyes, but she was too quick for me. The sunglasses were replaced in a split second. Darn!

  “Are you familiar with the artist?” I asked.

  Dana’s shiny black brows knit together.

  “No … yes. Yes, I’ve heard the name before, but I can’t remember where I heard it. You could check with the art department at the university.” She paused for a moment, then looked at me.

  Do you know how hard it is to look someone in the eye when she is looking at you through smoky black lenses?

  I watched her float back across the cobblestones in her black six-inch stilettos. She didn’t wobble once. Aside from Bette, Dana is the only person I know who can walk like a fashion model in high heels.

  I walked back into the dining room to cover up the mural. With all the people runn
ing around the house, not to mention Pam’s little ones, the mural would be too much of a temptation to leave uncovered. I could just see the fingerprints and hand marks all over the house from curious little ones and big ones alike.

  “Opal, the pizza man’s here!” Jack’s voice carried in from the porch. “Bear! No!”

  Uh-oh. As I headed quickly toward the front door, I thought about what Dana had said. Her suggestion about calling the university was one I had thought of myself. I also intended to hit the Internet, but I wouldn’t get the chance to do that until everyone left and the house settled down.

  Then something occurred to me. Something about Dana was different. It wasn’t the clothes; they were still black and expensive. It wasn’t the hair; she still wore it long like Morticia Adams. Today the sunglasses were Versace instead of Chanel, but who’s quibbling about logos?

  The moment I opened the front door, I remembered. But I only had a quarter second to record the thought, because I had to rescue the pizza deliveryman from Bear, who loves pizza crust. Jack held the huge barking ball of fur while I paid for the pizzas and apologized. I’ll probably have to find another pizza place. My intuition tells me that Dominic’s won’t deliver to 1010 Burning Church Road anymore.

  Dana’s voice was different. The Garboesque Transylvanian accent was completely gone. In its place, for a few sentences anyway, was the voice of a midwesterner, probably from Ohio or Indiana. Interesting.

  “Bear! Quit!”

  The mystery of the mural was the only topic of conversation over pizza, salad, and sodas that night.

  “I think Rodney was going to steal it!” exclaimed Troy, talking and chewing at the same time. His eyes gleamed with excitement. “And sell it to art pirates!” The tomato sauce that now circled his mouth made him look like a little clown with his wide bright blue eyes and freckles.

  “Too many mystery stories before bed,” Gloria said under her breath as she handed her son a paper towel. “Troy, wipe your mouth.”

  I shook my head. “Good theory, Sherlock, but it doesn’t hold up. Rodney told me there was something to show me, remember? He wouldn’t do that if he was going to steal anything.”