I Love You to Pieces

by Lori Flynn

  “He joined me this morning by the pool. He’s not a very good swimmer. I’m surprised you haven’t heard all the commotion. Of course, I’m thinking suicide. I can’t say I blame him, stuck with you.” Elizabeth laughed, enjoying the horror in her daughter’s eyes.

  “No, you’re wrong.” Olivia jumped from her bed, running toward the balcony overlooking the pool. “Domino would never do that. He hates the water.” As she raced, her mother’s laugh surrounded her.

  Olivia reached the balcony, part of the original construction of the house containing a narrow stone stairwell descending to the pool. She leaned over the railing, shading her eyes from the glare of the early morning sun. It was Nanny she first noticed, pacing with both hands over her heart, which made her head pound and stomach cramp. Swallowing to keep from vomiting, she focused on the water as one of the pool boys lifted a long skimmer from the deep end, setting it down on the deck. Nestled motionless within the recess of the netting lay a black ball of fur with white smudges.

  “Help him, someone help him, please!” Olivia yelled.

  She ran to the narrow stairwell. Her shaking hand touched the rail, but her eyes never left the poolside, waiting for some sign of life. Olivia could think only of Domino as her foot missed a step, sending her tumbling down the unforgiving stone staircase.

  *

  Paramedics permitted a parent to ride along. Alexander climbed in the back of the ambulance, instructing Elizabeth to follow behind in the car. He placed a hurried call, informing his mother, promising to keep her posted.

  They paced the spacious office of Dr. Jorge Santos. The wait seemed like days. When he joined them, he carried an envelope, thick with X-rays.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Harding, I’m Dr. Santos. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I’m relatively new in this part of the country. It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” he said, extending his hand.

  Before he could go on, the door in the back of the room opened abruptly.

  “I got here as fast as I could,” said Catherine, out of breath with her hand resting on her chest. “The traffic was just God-awful, and I stopped on the way to pick up Nanny, of course. Where did she go?” Leaning from the door, she pulled Nanny inside. “I’m sorry, Zander. I know you told me to stay home, but I just couldn’t. So, what did I miss?”

  Amusement lit Alexander’s eyes. “It’s all right, Mom. Dr. Santos was about to give us a report.”

  “Olivia has suffered a fracture to her left arm, which I placed in a cast. She also has a partially-torn tendon in her right ankle, requiring a splint and rest.” He paused uneasily before continuing. “Please indulge me for a moment. I’d like to ask you a few questions regarding Olivia’s history. Is she involved in contact sports?”

  “She plays sports at school and swims almost every day,” Nanny said.

  “Olivia often rides her horse with me,” Catherine contributed.

  Dr. Santos nodded. “Has she ever been thrown by a horse that you know of?”

  “Gracious no, the horses love her,” Catherine continued.

  “Does anyone else have anything to add?” Dr. Santos asked.

  “Let’s be honest,” Elizabeth chimed in. “The kid’s just not coordinated. You expect her to be an athlete when she can’t even manage a staircase?”

  The doctor’s mouth tightened as he tipped his head to the side. “When we admitted Olivia, we did the usual battery of tests to determine the extent of her injuries. We’re treating those injuries, and they’ll heal. The problem is the discrepancy between her history and her X-rays.”

  “You’re going to have to bottom line this for me,” Alexander said, his expression strained.

  Dr. Santos turned on the lightbox, illuminating Olivia’s small bones. With Alexander and Catherine silently flanking his sides, he began. “Bones are the body’s ultimate record keepers. As doctors, we can tell so much about a person: evidence of fractures, breakages, and skeletal abnormalities with a single X-ray.”

  Alexander scrubbed his hand over his face. “I know I’m away a lot, but how can this be right when Olivia hasn’t ever had a cast before today?”

  “Your daughter has an average build for a nine year old. What I’m seeing are small minor fractures and cracks that could be easily missed. Their most common cause is direct force trauma that occurs in falls and jerking movements. We call them Greenstick fractures, they occur only in children, and they don’t break completely through. You see, bones heal in overlapping stages by producing actual bone tissue. It’s an amazing process.”

  “The only thing I’m finding amazing at the moment is why Olivia didn’t say something, why she didn’t tell me.” His voice deepened as tears filled his eyes.

  “I suggest you ask your daughter,” the doctor answered, clicking off the light before collecting the X-rays. “They tell me Harding Enterprises is a major donor. I’m not to report this.”

  Alexander dropped his head in his hands.

  The family sat in silence following Dr. Santos’s exit from the room. The guilt was overwhelming for most, inconsequential for one.

  “Elizabeth, would you and Mother mind finding us some coffee? I’d like to talk with Nanny.”

  “Of course,” Elizabeth grinned.

  The moment the door swung shut, Nanny’s sobs erupted. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Harding.” Wringing her hands in her lap, her head hung deep between her shoulder blades.

  “Tell me what you know about my daughter,” Alexander said, pointing to where the X-rays had hung moments before. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.”

  “When she was younger, I’d be washing her in the tub, and she’d wince, or I’d find a bruise. She’d just shrug and say she didn’t remember where it came from. I made it worse for the child by confronting her mother. I know I should’ve said something, shouted it from the rafters, no matter how many times that woman threatened to have me deported.”

  “You’re here legally, Nanny. She can’t do that.”

  “I can tell you that child shakes like she’s seen the devil himself when her mother’s around. But she never says a word about it. I’ve tried my best to protect her, but I’m no match for evil.”

  “You’re not to blame, Nanny. I am. And I’m the one who’ll put a stop to it.”

  The door opened, and the pungent aroma of coffee preceded the two women into the room. Catherine placed a Styrofoam cup before her son with one hand, patting his shoulder with the other.

  “Dr. Santos informed me Olivia should be well enough to be released sometime tomorrow,” Alexander said when the women had settled around the table. “Unfortunately, I’m expected at our annual corporate meeting. Poor timing, but I assure you I won’t be gone long.”

  “You take as long as you need. How can I help?” Catherine asked.

  “I would like Olivia to recuperate with you at Casa Nonna until I return. You’ll have the help of a visiting nurse, and Nanny, of course. Can you do that?”

  “You know you don’t have to ask, Zander. If you don’t mind, I’d like to spend some time with her. Join me, Nanny?”

  Alexander caught his wife before she reached for the door. “Stay, Elizabeth. I want to speak to you.”

  She wrenched her arm from his grip and then distanced herself to the farthest part of the room. He felt as if he was seeing her for the first time. She reminded him of a caged animal—keeping one eye on her only exit and the other on him. On the face he once considered beautiful, he saw anger slowly churning to rage.

  “You said you wanted to talk. Well, talk,” she said.

  “I want to know why, Elizabeth? Bringing a child into the world was your idea. You’ve had Nanny and an entire staff at your disposal. If you needed anything, anything at all, you just had to ask.” His voice was cold and severe, sparking her rage.

  “You think this is my fault? Is that what that blubbering brown woman told you? I’m shocked you’d take a servant’s word over mine. It’s not like you’d be able to prove anything, anyway.”

/>   Her comment, the final proof, gave him cause to remove Elizabeth from Olivia’s life—from all their lives. He pushed open the door, turning in time to catch her smirk.

  “Wipe that look off your face. Your reign here is over, Queen Elizabeth. As soon as I return, you’ll answer for what you’ve done.” He ground out each word.

  His long brisk strides brought him to his daughter’s room, where he leaned against the door frame to regain his composure. From there, he witnessed his mother holding Olivia’s hand while Nanny fluffed the pillows under her bubblegum-pink cast. A tray of food sat, barely touched, and balloons Catherine had ordered from the gift shop bobbed about the window. The cheerful expression on Olivia’s face gave him the courage to enter. With everything she’d endured, her smile remained intact.

  When he was alone with his daughter, Alexander sat on the side of her bed pulling the cumbersome cast to his lap. From inside his jacket, he took a black marker. “Can I be first to sign your cast?”

  Olivia smiled, nodding her head. “Of course, Daddy, put it where I can see it.”

  “You’ve been such a brave and strong girl. I didn’t know, but I should have. If only you’d told me.” He paused to rub her fingers. “I have to leave in the morning. But as soon as I return, I’ll take care of the problem. I’m so sorry, Olivia. Please forgive me.”

  Alexander watched Olivia’s stoic face while he made his confession. He wondered what it was that burdened her grey eyes: confusion, fear, or something more. When they closed, he prayed never to see her so deeply troubled again.

  Chapter Six

  Olivia

  Olivia woke alone in her hospital room. Night had set in, and the hours she’d spent fidgeting in her unforgiving bed had made her body ache. Returning to sleep was proving difficult.

  In the muted light, she read the words her father had scripted in bold black letters across her pink cast: ‘I LOVE YOU TO PIECES.’ It pained her to remember all he’d said during their talk. She prayed he understood what he was up against.

  She dozed, and when she again opened her eyes, Nanny offered her a wide smile from the chair beside her bed. Her grandmother seemed distracted, inspecting a tray of food resting on the bedside table.

  “Good, you’re awake. How are you feeling, sweetheart?” her grandmother asked.

  “I’m all right, I guess.”

  “I spoke with your daddy very early this morning before he left on his trip. He told me the two of you talked.”

  Olivia nodded, looking away.

  “On the way in today, I tracked down your doctor to speed up this discharge process. He has quite a list of orders for you. It seems his favorite is that you need to keep your cast dry since he repeated it. He did say we could remove the splint from your ankle once a day for a short time. This way you can wade in the water and collect your shells. I thought you’d like that.”

  The beginning of a smile tipped the corners of Olivia’s mouth. “I do like that.”

  “Your nurses made it clear that before they can let you out of here, you’ll need to eat something. Let’s see, this oatmeal could double as wallpaper paste, but there is buttered toast and orange juice,” her grandmother said.

  “I’m not hungry, and it smells disgusting.” Olivia wrinkled her nose.

  Nanny rose, taking the toast from Catherine and pressing it into Olivia’s open hand. “Just try, baby, your daddy would want you to try.”

  Olivia scowled as she nibbled the toast and sipped her juice. When she’d had enough, Nanny helped her into a dress they’d brought with them from home. It easily slipped over her head and cast. Her grandmother, meanwhile, badgered the nurses for a wheelchair. Nanny explained it was hospital policy. Every patient got to ride to the front door in one.

  As arranged by her father, they drove directly to Casa Nonna. Olivia settled in nicely, and by the week’s end, she sat on the veranda, soaking up the morning sun under the sometimes staring eyes of her grandmother. Her mind overflowed with thoughts. She shifted in her seat, thinking about her grandmother’s worrying.

  “Your face is so serious,” her grandmother said. “Tell me what’s on your mind, Olivia.”

  “I’ve been thinking about my kitten. Domino’s in heaven with Zander and Miley, isn’t he?”

  Catherine answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Of course, he is.” It was the first time Olivia had mentioned Domino since his death.

  That afternoon, they filed into the backseat of the spacious sedan for a follow-up visit with Dr. Santos.

  “Why are we taking the big car today, Grandma Catherine? I can get in and out of the other car just fine with my splint.”

  “I thought we could do a little shopping after your appointment. Perhaps you could find a new dress for when your daddy gets home tonight.”

  “I just hope the glue dries in time on the banner I made him.”

  Olivia smiled brightly when the doctor permanently removed her splint and promised the cast would soon follow. But she grew anxious watching the color drain from her grandmother’s face as the nurse offered the business card of an abuse counselor.

  They shopped as planned, and then after a quick stop at Casa Nonna to retrieve Olivia’s all-important welcome home banner, continued to the main house. James, the trusted butler, greeted them, assuring the banner’s proper positioning. Olivia ambled toward the spiral staircase, hesitating as her fingers grazed the polished banister.

  “Let me help you, sweetheart. The stairs could give you trouble without your splint.” Catherine managed a soft tone and reassuring smile.

  “I’m all right, just going to my room.” She turned back to smile.

  “What did I do to deserve the great honor of this visit?” Elizabeth’s unmistakable high-pitched voice sounded as she entered the sizeable foyer. “I was beginning to think y’all moved out and took my kid with you.”

  Olivia’s stomach clenched with her mother’s entrance, freezing her on the staircase while scattering the staff like roaches in the daylight. The bikini she wore reminded her more of black pieces of yarn. From the corner of her eye, she noticed her grandmother straighten her spine.

  Nanny moved closer to Catherine and spoke near her ear. “Be calm now, remember your blood pressure.”

  Catherine nodded before answering. “Knocking her to the ground and pummeling her until my fists go numb would bring me great pleasure. But I’m a lady, a Harding. I’ll fight the old-fashioned way—with lawyers.”

  Olivia had a perfect view of her grandmother and Nanny with their heads together but couldn’t make out everything they were saying.

  “Elizabeth, this home is part of Harding Enterprises,” her grandmother said. “To put it in words you can understand, this is my house. I’m not paying you a little visit, just coming home, as is my son, today.”

  Olivia swallowed hard but managed a smile when her favorite housemaid, Maria Garcia, swept into the room balancing a silver tray that held a single glass of white wine. “I thought you’d enjoy this, Mrs. Harding. Welcome home.”

  “Thank you, Maria,” Catherine said, accepting the glass. “I trust you and your husband are well? I miss you both when I’m not here.”

  “Christian and I are fine, thanks. We’re glad you’re here and that Mr. Harding will be home later this evening. The kitchen has been preparing all afternoon.”

  Olivia managed the remainder of the staircase, escaping to her room. She perched on the edge of her bed while rays of afternoon sun peeked through the drapes lighting her feet. Muffled voices drifted through the closed door.

  After a time, she worked up the courage to fish her hand inside her pillowcase, removing the ceramic black cat with the crystal eyes. She’d found ways to keep it safe since the night her father had brought it home to her. Carefully, she rolled it in her heaviest sweater, securing it in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

  Olivia’s eyes narrowed when the muted conversations from the bottom of the stairs became altered, the voices turning male and un
familiar. Peering from the top of the landing, she spotted police officers and strangers in suits, mulling around the foyer, speaking in hushed tones. She gasped for air when Grandma Catherine crumbled to the floor without uttering as much as a sound.

  Olivia’s breaths came short and fast as a crowd gathered around her grandmother, patting her face and calling her name. She held tight to the banister, watching as Nanny followed a few steps behind a policeman who was climbing the stairs toward her.

  “You must be Olivia. My name is Sergeant Mitchell. Can I get you to come downstairs with me?”

  “No, my daddy is flying home from a business trip in the Bahamas, and I need to wait for Nanny to bring me my new dress to put on for him.” Her eyes traveled from Nanny to Sergeant Mitchell and back to Nanny. “What happened to Grandma Catherine? Is she sick?”

  “Come here, baby,” Nanny said, pushing by Sergeant Mitchell. Taking hold of Olivia, she held her to her breast.

  “It isn’t true. He can’t be gone. Not my son!” her grandmother cried from a sitting position on the foyer floor. Maria held a cooled cloth by her forehead.

  “Nanny, what’s she saying about Daddy?” Olivia pushed away.

  “I’m so sorry, child. Your daddy’s plane had trouble. It went down in the ocean.”

  Olivia’s heartbeat felt like a freight train through her head. She clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. “No, no, no,” she said in a small breathless voice. Nanny’s sobs brought her back.

  Lowering her eyes, she studied her mother. Newly widowed, her head tipped back, face beaming; a radiant smile softened her lips.

  Chapter Seven

  Catherine

  The caravan proceeded to the cemetery on its way to bury Catherine’s only child, Olivia’s beloved father, as the murky sky opened, lashing rain over the windshields of the mourners. Men dressed in black held generous umbrellas high over their heads while they trudged to the Harding family burial plot. A tarp protected Alexander’s casket.