by Lauren Rico
“How bad am I?”
“The doctors say you have a fractured skull, a broken jaw and nose. You also have three broken ribs and one broken arm, incase you hadn’t noticed.”
I guess she hadn’t noticed, because she seems surprised to find a cast on her right arm.
“I won’t lie to you,” I explain softly, “you’re looking a little rough right now. You’re going to need some plastic surgery down the road. And the broken bones are going to be a challenge, especially with you being pregnant. They have to be careful about the heavy-duty pain meds.”
Her one good eye wells with tears.
“I tried, but he was just too strong …”
“I know, Julia. I know. You didn’t do anything wrong. You convinced him to not to take David, didn’t you?”
She looks away.
“Julia, look at me, Julia,” I command more sternly than I intend to, but I know she needs to hear this.
She turns her disfigured face toward me once again, and I lean in close so she won’t miss a single word I’m about to say.
“I know what you did. I know that you threw yourself at him so that he would fall down the stairs. You knew that he would take you down with him. You didn’t know if you would survive the fall. And, if you did survive, you didn’t know if you’d lose the baby.”
I use my thumb to gently wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“I know you, Julia. Through the haze of the pain and the fear, you realized the only way to protect David once and for all, was to make sure Jeremy was dead. And when the opportunity presented itself, you decided it was more important for Jeremy to die than it was for you to live.”
Even as I utter the words, the tears are slipping down my face again. I take her hand, already in mine, and press it to my damp cheek, holding it there against my face as I speak again.
“You were willing to give your life for our son. And now, thanks to you, this nightmare is over. Jeremy Corrigan will never hurt us – or our family – again.”
From underneath her bruised and swollen flesh I see the faintest flicker of the woman I have loved nearly every day of my life. It’s going to be a long, rough road back, but, in my heart, I know that we are going to be just fine.
****
Julia is sedated and resting comfortably when Tony pops his head into the room. He gives me a look that asks if she’s okay. I nod and smile, then get to my feet and follow him out into the hallway.
“You told her everything?”
“I did. But, she’s in pain and in shock. She’s got some processing to do when her head’s a little clearer.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Oh!” he says, suddenly remembering he’s holding a cup of coffee in his hand. “I almost forgot. This is for you. Hospital coffee sucks.”
“Thanks, man. How are things at the house?” It suddenly occurring to me that I have no clue what kind of a three-ringed circus is unfolding in my living room.
“The coroner took him away hours ago. The police stayed on for another hour taking pictures and asking a bunch of questions. It’s relatively quiet now, though you’ve got a houseful. Maggie came out from the city so she and Brett could be with Trudy and David.”
“How is Trudy?”
It’s not a question I’ve wanted to ponder, but I know I should. She has, after all, just lost a son. He may have been an evil fuck, but he was her child.
“She’s a rock, Matthew. She was serving coffee to the cops with one hand and shooing them off your oriental carpet with the other. David slept through everything. That kid is something else.”
That makes me smile. He’s always been a heavy sleeper, thankfully.
“Well, man, I can’t thank you enough …” I start to wrap-up our chat so I can get back in to Julia. But there’s something else on Tony’s mind. I can see it in his expression. “What is it?”
“I don’t quite know how to say this. It’s just that …”
“What, Tony? Please, just tell me,” I grumble, feeling the anxiety creep back into the pit of my stomach.
He looks down at his feet uncomfortably, then back up at me. “Matthew, I’m not going to give you too many details here, because the less you know, the better. But, there is something you really do need to be aware of.”
I realize I’m holding my breath as I wait for him to drop the other shoe.
“It’s Jeremy,” he continues slowly, softly. “It’s the way he died …”
“Wait, didn’t he fall down the stairs? With Julia?”
“Oh, he definitely fell down the stairs.”
“Okay, then what, Tony? You’re not making any sense.”
Tony’s eyes dart around the hallway to make certain there is no one close enough to overhear us.
“Okay, so, when I got to the house, Jeremy was at the bottom of the stairs. And he was dead.”
“And …?” I coax, trying not to be irritated by this long, drawn out complication, whatever the fuck it is.
“And he wasn’t dead when he hit the bottom of the stairs.”
“So, what? You think he bled out or something?”
“I think he would have survived the fall. I think he did survive the fall, but Trudy … helped him along. To the other side … if you know what I mean.”
I don’t. I just stare at him, perplexed, so he continues.
“She wanted to make sure Jeremy was good and dead before she called the police. She wanted to make sure there was no way he was going to get put back together by the doctors like some fucking Humpty Dumpty.”
I hear Julia’s hoarse whisper in my head.
“He was begging her to help him.”
The light bulb in my head finally goes on.
“Wait, wait, wait, you think that his own mother just let him die?”
He looks down at the floor again.
“Holy shit. You think … you think Trudy killed him?” I whisper, incredulously.
He leans in even closer to me and drops his voice.
“Let’s just say, the baseball bat you had in your garage? It’s now a pile of ashes in a drumfire that I lit on the other side of town. After I scrubbed it down with steel wool and pickled it in bleach, that is...”
I can only stare at him.
“She didn’t tell me what she did,” he continues, “and I didn’t ask. But there it was on the floor when I got there. All bloody. I got rid of it for her.”
“Jesus …” I murmur to myself. “So … what does that mean?”
He shrugs.
“I don’t think it means anything for you guys. My best guess is that Trudy had some unfinished business with Jeremy and she settled it tonight.”
I think about that for a second. Even Jeremy’s own mother knew that he had to die, or there would never be peace for any of us. Just as Julia sacrificed herself for her son, Trudy Corrigan sacrificed her son for the rest of us. Given the same set of circumstances, I don’t know that I would have – that I could have done either of those things.
What an extraordinary pair of women.
Epilogue: Julia
By the time their dark blue SUV crunches to a halt on our bluestone driveway, I’ve been standing nervously in front of the window for nearly a half hour. One by one they climb out, the two passengers and the driver.
“They’re here,” I call out to Matthew, who’s in the kitchen with David.
He joins me, holding our boy in his arms, as we go to the front door together. When it swings open, there is Kelly Randall. My mother. Her emerald eyes, identical to my own, move down to the little boy squirming in his father’s arms and I see the tears flood them and she puts a hand to her mouth.
Standing a little behind her are a teenaged girl with long dark hair and a tall, lean man with a dark beard and glasses. I recognize the girl as Corinne, my half-sister. She’s looking down at her feet, fidgeting nervously with the bracelets that line her wrist.
“Julia, you remember, Corinne,” Kelly says, and I offer the girl a reassuring smile.
Kelly reaches behind her and the man steps forward. “And this – this is my husband, Drew Randall. He … he’s the one who saved me, Julia. He got me off the streets …” her voice fades with the painful memory.
I consider the kind faced man in front of me and wonder what it was that he saw in her … what it was that gave him the courage to love a woman who was so deeply flawed.
“Drew …” I begin, but before I can do more than utter his name, he leans in and kisses my cheek. He looks as if he’s about to cry, too.
“Julia,” he breathes, “I’ve waited so very long to meet you.”
For a split second I want to point out that he could have met me decades ago, had the two of them taken me out of the North Fork Children’s Home. But I stop myself. That was then. This is now. And now, I understand.
I give my stepfather a shy smile of my own as I place a hand on Matthew’s shoulder.
“And this is my husband … my Matthew.”
Matthew shakes Drew’s hand and opts for a polite nod to the women. I’m stunned that throughout this entire exchange, David has sat perfectly still in his father’s arms, his intense, hazel eyes moving curiously from face to face. But now, all eyes are on him.
“David,” Matthew coaxes, “can you say hello to …” he stops suddenly, and I realize with growing horror that this is the one thing we have not discussed. What will David call this woman and her family? They’re all staring at me now, waiting for the answer.
“Grammy,” I reply after a thoughtful pause. “Sweetheart, this is your Grammy.”
Kelly opens her arms and moves forward. I step aside, assuming she’s headed for her grandson … but she isn’t, she’s headed for me. Before I can react, she pulls me into her arms and smothers my face with kisses, the salty dampness of her tears mixing with mine.
I don’t know how long we stand there, holding one another like that and crying, but when we finally separate, we are alone on the front porch. At some point, the others have gone inside to give us our privacy and for that I am grateful.
Kelly reaches out to put a hand on my immense belly, but stops short, looking to me for permission. I give it with a nod.
“How are you?” she asks, her eyes filled with concern as she rubs my baby bump gently.
“Better. Still tired, but much, much better,” I assure her.
It’s taken months, but the bruises have finally faded away, the fractures have healed and the cast has come off. Still, as much as I may look like my old self, I’m not yet feeling like myself. There are still nights when I wake up drenched in sweat, gasping … sometimes screaming. The doctors tell me that it’s PTSD and that, hopefully, with time … and lots of counseling … it, too, will fade.
With the baby due in another month, Matthew was terrified that I would be overwhelmed and has insisted on getting some live-in help to supplement Nat’s role. I resisted at first … until he cautiously suggested that we might ask Trudy to come and stay with us for a while. I realized at once that it would be more than having another nanny, it would be an opportunity for her and David to get to know one another.
And then, of course, there’s my own mother, so anxious to be of assistance, to make up for lost time and memories.
“Any decisions on a name?” she asks me now.
“Carol. Carol Samantha Ayers,” I smile.
“Oh, Julia, that’s beautiful! How did you choose it?”
“I wanted a musical name and Carol was the only one that Matthew and I could agree on.”
“And Samantha?”
“For an amazing man. A …” I consider whether to say this to her, but I do. “A father to me all of those years I was in the Children’s Home, and after. Dr. Sam. You’ll meet him soon, I’m sure.”
She smiles at the idea that I’m including her in my future, that there is a place for her in my life. And she’s right. There is a place for her, because I have made one.
That night on the stairs, Trudy’s words came to me. They gave me the courage to do what I did. Almost as importantly, they gave me a unique insight into my mother’s mind. Standing there, facing Jeremy, I could only think about my perfect little boy. The helpless little creature with whom I am so wholly and completely in love.
It was just as Trudy had said it would be. I knew that Jeremy had to die to ensure my son’s safety. And if that meant I had to die in the process, then so be it. Nothing else mattered in that one perfect second of illumination – not that David would grow up without a mother, or how hard it would be for Matthew to go on without me. The difficulty of their lives was less important than the fact that they would be alive.
And, it was there, on those stairs that night that I had a flash of insight into the mind of Kelly Randall. I understood, suddenly, that she had made the best decision she could at the moment she left me. She hadn’t thrown me out like a piece of trash. She’d left me with my father and his wicked temper in favor of taking me with her into the dark underbelly of the horrific world she was entering. A world where she might have, in a moment of sheer, drug-induced desperation, traded her five-year-old for her next fix.
My childhood was tragic, no doubt. But now I can make the distinction between tragedy and hell. And I’ll take the former over the latter every time … though, God willing, that’s not a choice I’ll ever need to make again while I walk this earth.
From somewhere in the house, I can hear David squealing with delight, while Matthew, Corinne and Drew laugh.
“Let’s go … Mom,” I whisper, taking her hand in mine. “They’re waiting for us.”
She clutches my hand tightly as we step across the threshold and into my home. Once we’re safely inside, I shut the front door behind us against the chill and the dark.
Epilogue: Trudy
Satan is not a cartoon devil with horns and a pointy tale. He is a soulless menace that takes human form so that he may walk among us, wreaking havoc and destroying lives, virtually undetected.
The first time I came face to face with pure evil was when I saw it in my father’s eyes. He was cruel and abusive, taking delight in every moment of pain and anguish that he caused his wife and four children. Perpetually bored, he created increasingly more devastating ways to torture us.
Oh, he could play the role of devoted husband and father when he wanted to. No one noticed the desperation so clearly etched on our little faces or the haunted, vacant expression worn by my mother. No one questioned why rarely a month went by without one of the Purdy children ending up in the emergency room. At least, I like to think that no one noticed. Because, to consider the alternative, that people knew and did nothing to rescue us from the hell that we were mired in, is just too unbearable to contemplate.
Watching my father die wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought it would be. Once he fell through that rickety wooden step leading down to the basement – and his liquor – it was a twenty-foot drop straight down to the concrete floor below. Later, I learned that he’d broken his pelvis and his left leg. He cracked open his head and bled into his cranium. It was a miracle he didn’t break his neck and, had someone actually bothered to call for an ambulance, he would have lived on to torment us for years to come. But no one made that call.
My father lay unconscious for the first hour. After that, there was some moaning. Within a few hours he was lucid, in horrific pain, and furious. We ate dinner at the kitchen table in silence, his seat empty as he screamed obscenities at us from the ground below. My mother sent my brother and sisters to bed while I sat up with her. She could have turned on the television set or the radio, but she chose to sit on the couch and knit our winter scarves. My father raged on, though, with less verve as he bled into his brain.
“Will we go to hell, Mama?” I asked, breaking the silence of our vigil.
She considered me for a long moment before speaking.
“Trudy,” she
began, looking at me as her hands continued their work unwatched. “In the Book of Genesis, God tells us that He will hold us accountable for the reckoning of a man who sheds the blood of another man. You see, God made us in His own image. We are, in a sense, a part of God. So when one person attacks another, he is attacking God. And the Lord Almighty is quite clear on the subject when He says ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.’”
She paused for a moment, trying to gauge whether or not I was grasping what she was telling me.
“You and I and your brother and sisters are devout children of God,” she continued after a moment, “and when your father attacks us, he is attacking God. That is unacceptable in the eyes of our Lord, and in my eyes as well. So, no, my love, I do not believe we will go to hell … though I do believe your father will be there before the first morning light.”
And she was right. My father died in the early hours of the morning. She called the sheriff just after dawn and reported that her husband had fallen through a rotten stair tread in the middle of the night and she’d found him when she woke up to make breakfast.
My father had sown the wind and he reaped the whirlwind, with a little help from me and a handsaw. It was God’s will and I was his instrument.
Now, all of these years later, I sit in a rocking chair, holding that man’s great-grandson. The sweet little redheaded boy rests his head against my chest, one hand clutching a button on my sweater while he sucks on the thumb of the other. He tries, unsuccessfully, to fend off the sleep that is tugging at his eyelids.
I’ve decided to take Julia and Matthew up on their offer, and I will relocate here to Long Island to help them with the new baby and to get to know David. It will be difficult to leave the home I shared with Danny, but for now at least, the most important thing is to stay close to this child. I will nurture him and teach him and love him, as any grandmother would. But, then again, I am not just any grandmother. Every time I gaze into those hazel eyes of his, I will be watching closely and looking deeply. Because I know only too well what evil looks like.