Stoney Beck

by Jean Houghton-Beatty

  She pulled at the rough spot on the nail she’d been toying with since she’d sat at the table. It came off right down to the quick. She winced and stared at the nail as blood oozed from the painful spot. “I never forgot that doctor,” she said. “Just last year, I got up enough nerve to send him your picture. Silly maybe, but he’d been so kind and I wanted to show you off. I still didn’t want to tell him where we lived so I didn’t put a return address. I asked Tim to mail it on one of his trips out west. Thought he might ask me why, but he didn’t. Guess he had his mind on his divorce.” She spread her arms on the table, palms upward. “So you see, you don’t need to worry about getting Huntington’s disease. There isn’t a drop of Robinson blood in your veins.”

  Jenny gathered up the thank you notes, trying to stop her hands from trembling, but it all became too much. She flung the notes across the room. “I honest to God don’t know how you could have put me through this.” She drank the rest of her Pepsi slaking her parched dry throat, then crushed the empty can between her hands. “For years I’ve been terrified I’d end up like Dad.”

  “I know, I know. I kept hoping you’d get tested. Then I was afraid. I thought I’d let it go too long. That if I told you, you might hate me.”

  “Is this why you never took me to see Gramps and Grandma?”

  Beverly nodded. She’d lied to them too, said she loved England and had taken a job in a bookshop. The last part was true. It helped to pay the rent and get her through. When she finally did come home, her strict high-and-mighty parents said they were ashamed of her. Thank God for Tim, who not only sent her money to come home but also even found Michael Robinson.

  Beverly’s eyes were huge in her ashen face. “Michael thought you were his, so I just went along. I couldn’t believe it when he asked me to marry him. We went to London on our honeymoon and applied to have your birth re-registered. Then when we got back to North Carolina, we moved from Asheville to the beach in Wilmington and then to Charlotte where nobody knew us.”

  Beverly stretched out her hand to Jenny but let it fall when Jenny kept her own hands in her lap. “Please, Jenny, try to understand for my sake. In my own way, I loved Michael dearly. I owe him my life, my very sanity. I couldn’t take a chance on him finding out. But most of all there was the—”

  The grandfather clock in the hall sounded out the hour. Jenny’s mother jumped, her hand covered her mouth. It was as if the chime sent a warning.

  “What is it? Why did you stop?”

  “There’s nothing else to tell. It’s just that—” There was an edge of something in Beverly’s voice that wasn’t there before.

  Jenny pushed back her chair and got to her feet. It was getting dark and she switched on the lights. She studied her mother’s face, saw the lipstick bleeding into the furrowed skin around her mouth. There were bags under her eyes and her hair, mostly gray now, was wild and unkempt. She was only forty-seven yet had the face of a woman in her late fifties, sixties even. Jenny compared her with the picture on the dresser behind her: a slender laughing girl in shorts and blouse, hamming it up for the camera, tennis racquet poised over her head. Jenny remembered happier times when her pretty mother laughed a lot, had friends. But the years of missing her first love, guilt over deceiving her daughter and husband, then the final strain of caring for him, had all taken their toll.

  Beverly sat very still, cradling her sore finger, her face wet with tears. “Please, Jenny, say something. I know I should have told you and I’m so sorry I didn’t. But I’ve always loved you. At least tell me you don’t hate me.”

  Jenny stared at her mother. “How could you do this to me. I’ve been haunted by this worry for years and all you can do is sit there and tell me you’re sorry.” She pushed her chair back and got to her feet. “I need time to think. I’m going out.”

  She went into the utility room and changed out of her ordinary shoes into her Reeboks. There was at least an hour of daylight left, more than enough for a jog. For a couple of minutes, she stood on the stoop, then went back into the kitchen. Her mother was still in the chair, her head in her hands. “You’d better put some salve on that finger. It could get infected.”

  As Jenny jogged past the local deli, she saw a couple of friends sitting by the window so went inside. She joined them for coffee but didn’t stay long. Even though they tried to hide it, Jenny saw the looks, felt the distance between them widen. It was all she could do not to scream. She didn’t need their pity. She was no more at risk than they were. But explaining what she’d just found out would take all night, and did it really matter any more?

  Two hours later she climbed the stairs to her mother’s room. The light shone under the closed door and Jenny could hear the TV. She had her hand on the knob then changed her mind and went back downstairs to her own room. That night, she lay in bed, hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling. All these years she’d had a death sentence hanging over her head. And now, even though she’d loved her father dearly, her heart began to dance. She couldn’t help it. She was free, free. Life was wonderful, fantastic, and with a bit of luck she could maybe live to be a hundred.

  Her thoughts drifted now across the Atlantic. If her real father was alive, he was probably married and had forgotten all about his American love. It was all a long time ago. Jenny could never be one of those kids who couldn’t rest until they’d found their biological parents. And besides, what proof did she have? She believed every word of her mother’s story, but Charles Woodleigh could very easily slam the door in her face. She sat up in bed and hugged her knees as one scenario after another trekked through her mind. What if he wasn’t married? What if he were a bachelor, or widowed even? What harm could there be in at least finding out that much?

  Earlier, Jenny had wanted to pay her mother back for all the hurt. Now, though, in the dark of her room, all Jenny saw was the anguish and hopelessness etched in every line of her mother’s tormented, weary face. She pushed back the covers to get out of bed and go to her, then hesitated. Surely her mother was asleep by now. Jenny lay back down. First thing tomorrow, she would tell her mother she still loved her.

  ***

  Beverly sat on the side of her bed and applied ointment to her finger then wrapped it with a Band-Aid. After all these years, she still thought of Charles Woodleigh. And tonight, even with Michael just gone, the memory sneaked in. She still remembered the color of Charles’s sweater. Loden green. When he had said he loved her, how insensitive she must have seemed when she’d laughed, patted his cheek, and then closed the cottage door for the last time. For the thousandth time Beverly speculated. Had Charles left the Lake District because he couldn’t bear it without her. Or, more likely, had he been afraid she would come back pregnant? Was this the reason he had vanished? And now, Michael, the second man Beverly had loved, had gone away. Dying was a form of desertion wasn’t it? And now she had at last told Jenny everything, she would be the next to leave. They all did in the end. Since the onset of Michael’s illness, Beverly had been hospitalized twice with clinical depression. Now she felt the onset of another one. Sleep was almost impossible, even with the medicine. If she did somehow fall into a jerky sleep, she woke early, anxious, and jittery. Concentration was impossible. Combing her hair or even putting on lipstick was turning into a monumental task. Once again she was sinking into the mire and just too sick of it all to pull herself out.

  Out of habit, Beverly switched on TV. With the volume turned down low, she watched a few minutes of the movie Casablanca, at the same time thinking of her confession to Jenny. She was sorry now she had mentioned the Lake District, even told Jenny the name of the village. If her daughter ever decided to search, she now knew where to start and there was more than a slim chance she would discover the one secret Beverly had still not been able to tell. Still, Jenny had been freed at last from the Robinson curse. She could now marry, have a husband and family. Surely this was something, some sort of restitution.

  Beverly bit her lip. Wouldn’t it be b
etter to tell Jenny the rest of the story, rather than risk her daughter finding out for herself? Beverly had sworn to herself that she would never tell anyone this side of the Atlantic. She would carry her secret with her into the hereafter. Her palms began to sweat. Maybe there wouldn’t be a hereafter if she didn’t tell Jenny everything.

  Even though she drank hardly at all, tonight Beverly brought a bottle of wine up to her room. The sleeping pills hadn’t worked for the last couple of nights and if she didn’t get some sleep tonight, she would be a basket case by tomorrow. She went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Her brand new bottle of fifty Xanax pills as well as her last four sleeping pills stood on the shelf. She filled a glass to the brim with wine and swallowed two of the sleeping pills along with five or six Xanax. With her hand on the light switch, she turned back and picked up the last of the sleeping pills. Surely this would be enough to give her a good night’s sleep. She gulped the glass of wine; then filled the glass again just to make sure.

  Beverly opened the drawer in the nightstand and took out her notepad and pen. She would explain everything in a note and perhaps sometime tomorrow she would put the note on Jenny’s pillow. Dear Jenny, she began, and hummed along while Sam played “As Time Goes By,” for Ilsa in Rick’s Café.

  ***

  There was no elaborate funeral for Beverly Robinson. A graveside service, family only. Jenny felt the warm Southern sun on her arms and held on tight to Uncle Tim’s hand. While Reverend Lancing intoned let not your heart be troubled, a wren sang at full throat in the ligustrum bushes nearby. Afterwards, she and Uncle Tim went back to the house and sat on the back porch, drinking cup after cup of coffee.

  Jenny rubbed her burning dry eyes, then brought her fist down hard on the arm of the Adirondack chair. “This is all my fault. Why couldn’t I see how desperate she was.”

  Tim Pender leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Jenny, for God’s sake. You’d just had one hell of a shock yourself. Your mother understood. She probably expected a lot worse. And we’ve gone over this a hundred times. What about that salve she’d put on her finger? She even bandaged it? You don’t do that if you plan on killing yourself. And you swallow all the pills, not just a few. It was an accident, the combination of wine and pills.”

  Jenny looked up at the ceiling, saw the huge cobweb in the corner, the spider waiting while the little bug struggled in vain to escape. She had this insane urge to get on a chair and sweep the cobweb away, letting the bug loose. That very morning she had made a halfhearted attempt to dust the furniture. There was dust on everything. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

  She took the sheet of folded notepaper she’d found on her mother’s bed and handed it to her Uncle. The writing was shaky, uncertain, as if written by a very old person.

  My Dearest Jenny,

  Even though I’ve freed you from the Robinson curse, I haven’t told you everything about your birth. For years I’ve wanted to tell you the whole story but it was too hard. After you’ve read this letter, I pray you won’t hate me. But you have a right to know and I’d give the world—

  The unfinished sentence trailed away down the center of the page. Tim’s brows drew together as he read the note, then he stared out the window at the cluster of red and white azaleas in the far corner of the yard. “I don’t have any idea what she was trying to say. Don’t guess we’ll ever know now.”

  He turned back to his niece, her eyes wide in her pale, anxious face. “Just remember, Jen, in spite of everything, your mother loved you. She didn’t mean to kill herself. All she was trying to do was get a good night’s sleep. So for God’s sake get yourself off this guilt trip.”

  At the inquest ten days later, a verdict of accidental death was recorded.

  Chapter Two

  Two months after her mother’s funeral, Jenny stood with her Uncle Tim, waiting her turn at the ticket counter of Charlotte’s International Airport. After she had sold the house for more than expected, she placed the furniture she wanted to keep in storage, and sold the rest in a yard sale. Her mother’s one hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy came as a surprise. After Jenny had paid off all the family debts there was enough left over to buy a decent condo when she returned from Europe.

  “Promise you’ll call often,” Uncle Tim said, his hands stuck in his pockets. “I don’t like the idea of you traipsing around England alone. It’s too soon after all you’ve been through.”

  Jenny stuck her arm through his. “I’ve got to get away, Uncle Tim. Can’t you see that?”

  “Yes, but do you have to go so far and especially there? Why couldn’t you have picked somewhere closer? Myrtle Beach or Charleston.”

  “It was Dr. Bissell’s idea. And you’re the one who said he was the best shrink in town.”

  Uncle Tim rolled his eyes. “I must have been out of my mind.”

  “No, you were right. He’s been good for me. He said this trip might help to come to terms with Mom’s—with Mom doing what she did. He said to keep telling myself over and over that it wasn’t my fault. Guilt can kill you if you let it, he said. It’ll give you phobias or make you depressed.”

  Uncle Tim moved forward a couple of steps. “He’s exaggerating. These guys all do this. It’s their way of keeping you coming back.”

  “Maybe, but I think I’ve already got a phobia.”

  Her uncle turned to look at her. “What do you mean? You’re not afraid to fly are you?”

  Jenny gave a brittle laugh. “No, I love flying. But all of a sudden I’ve got this awful weird fear of hospitals. A friend from college was having her appendix out in Presbyterian. It was just the other week. I went to see her, or at least I tried to. I know you’ll think this is nuts, but I couldn’t even drive into the parking lot. I even drove down Elizabeth Avenue and back up to the hospital, trying to get myself together. In the end, though I just drove off. It was real strange and I can’t explain it. Now I can’t even drive past the place without being afraid I’ll get sucked in. And it’s not just Presbyterian. I feel just as bad when I pass any hospital.”

  Uncle Tim pushed her suitcase along with his foot as they moved closer to the counter. “This has come on with you spending so much time in places like that. All the time Michael was sick, your mom’s been in and out of clinics. But what you’ve got isn’t a real phobia. Nobody likes visiting hospitals, Jen. Maybe Bissell’s right. Three or four weeks away from everything should do you good.”

  “I’ll be safe enough with the tour group in London. Then it’s on to the Lake District. Stoney Beck’s sounds nice, a quiet little place.” She gave him a playful tap on the shoulder. “Now don’t you be worrying about me. I’ll call you soon as I get there.”

  “You’d better. And be careful, for God’s sake. Stay in good safe places. You can afford it.”

  “Next please,” the man behind the counter said. Uncle Tim lugged Jenny’s suitcase onto the scale, while she handed over her passport and ticket.

  As they walked toward security, she linked her arm through his. “You think I’ll be searching for my real father, don’t you, but you’re wrong. Oh, I might look for his name in phone books here and there, but that’s as far as I’d go.” She hitched her carry-on luggage higher on her shoulder. “Still, I have a right to see where I was born. Ever since Mom told me, I’ve felt this tug. And we both know she didn’t tell either of us everything.”

  “You’re thinking about that note aren’t you?”

  Jenny reached up to kiss him. “You’d better be giving me my hug. I need to go on through to the gate and for cryin’ out loud, will you quit worrying about me.”

  “What. Me worry? Are you crazy?”

  His face suddenly cracked into a smile. “Watch out for the English, Jen. They’ve got no sense of humor, none at all. They drink warm beer for God’s sake, and they’re the world’s worst cooks. They eat kidneys, and there’s this blood sausage as well as some sort of smoked fish they call a kipper. And you can forget about grits or corn
bread. On top of that, it never stops raining. If the sun does come out, all the English raise their faces toward it trying to get a suntan.”

  Jenny laughed her first good laugh in ages. “You’re just an old tease and I’m really going to miss you.”

  Her Uncle wrapped his arms around her. “Goodbye, honey. Forget what I said. It’s just that you’re all I’ve got and I worry, you know? Call me when you get settled and have yourself a real good time. You deserve it.”

  Chapter Three

  Jenny watched the English countryside whiz by as the train raced north. The week in London had worked wonders. The tour group was made up of people from several European countries and she had met two or three other women traveling alone. As usual, she’d put on her happy face until finally it wasn’t just for show. There’d been no time for grieving. After a sightseeing trip every day and a show every night, she had fallen exhausted into bed. London was a wonderful city. She could have stayed six months without getting bored.

  Eventually the train slowed at her stop and with the help of a couple of uniformed schoolboys, she yanked her brand new suitcase onto the platform. The boys tipped their school caps and stepped back inside the train. She dusted off her jacket and slacks then looked about her. Climbing red roses grew in patches along the stonewall which ran the length of the platform, and the ancient little building looked more like a medieval house than a railway station.

  A young man in soiled white overalls strolled toward her. His name, Andy Ferguson, was stitched in red thread on his breast pocket. Dark blue eyes gazed into hers, and unruly brown hair flopped across his forehead.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so. Is there anywhere around here I can get a taxi?”

  “Yes but you’ll have to ring for one. Where are you going?”