“Guess what I found out yesterday? When Allison was still alive and we were grabbing and clutching at straws, we relied on the best and latest information. She was in the last stages of breast cancer, and the only hope we had was high-dose chemo followed by a bone-marrow transplant. Research said it prolonged survival better than conventional treatment.” He stopped abruptly, averted his face and tried not to be overcome with the anger hammering at him. God, this was killing him. He wiped away sweat from his brow.
“Gordon, you did everything you could,” Michael began impatiently, but Gordon held up a hand.
He breathed deeply and fought to keep the words steady. “I just found out the research was bogus. Wrong. Results had been misreported; there is no benefit from that dreadful procedure. But I talked her into it. I talked her into going through hell because I thought it would help. All it did was make the last several months that much harder, a thousand times more painful.”
Struggling to control his emotions, Gordon stood up abruptly. “Excuse me.”
Michael watched the doctor leave. He couldn’t understand. Gordon had done everything, literally everything possible, for Allison. So what if the research was proved wrong now? Gordon had made the best decisions based on the information available at the time. Michael shook his head, wondering why some people made things that much harder on themselves. Like Elizabeth was doing to him.
When Gordon didn’t come back, Michael paid the bill and left, his mind fully engaged with what was happening that afternoon at his business.
He wasn’t aware he had a mind that could compartmentalize, because it was something he had always been able to do. And since it was part of his inherent nature, he could not understand the majority of people who were not able to compartmentalize their thoughts and feelings.
Gordon Jones was one who could not . . . not when his heart had been smashed to pieces. Again.
The hint of salt clung to the moist air, and breezes off the river cooled anyone near it on this day in late September. It was Indian summer, the season’s last performance before bowing out formally to autumn’s legitimate claim. The crowd of girls banded together was a multiracial gathering; two of the girls were white, another dark, one light skinned, and another whose skin was a beautiful mixture of dark cream and polished mahogany. This young woman was the star of whatever group she found herself in. Black rippling waves of hair cascading down her back, Serenity Brown demanded attention simply by breathing. Tall and regal, she could never be anonymous.
Her face held the mixture of all the best of several nationalities. Her cheekbones were as high and defined as any princess’s from India, her lips the best mixture of African and Greek features. Serenity Brown’s eyes, large and surrounded by lush dark lashes, were a mixture of browns and blacks and moods. Her body had an inherent grace that years of ballet lessons could never teach. School was finished, part-time jobs had been completed this late afternoon on Thursday. These friends were hanging out at the Freeze, the only fast-food joint in the area.
Serenity’s anger was eloquent, her low voice pleasant even while spouting steam. “I will not tolerate such behavior either from her or from my grandmother.” Her words were spoken with precision. It was the way she had been taught by her grandmother, each word and syllable clearly heard, and at this moment, quivering with fury.
Then she snapped to a low-class southern twang, notching the alto up higher. “That rich bitch is going to get it. I’m gonna make sure she gets hers; you be assured I get even with her. She be sorry for firing me.”
She seethed, recalling the afternoon. She had gone with her granny after school to clean up and help pack things away for the season. Sure, the lady had been all sweetness when Serenity first started working there in the summer, but now that white cripple had turned awful. She was missing some things and asked—oh, her voice had been the sweetest fake thing imaginable—“Have you seen any of my jewelry, Serenity? Did you happen to move my rings, Serenity?” The suspicious bitch had already convicted her, made all those snide insinuations! She felt anger flare up and burn all over again inside her, hands clenched in fists.
No one—not even her grandmother who had raised her for the last six years or these girls who thought they were her closest friends—could imagine what her life had been like before she came to this country. America, where so many had so little and yet there was this abundance of stuff. Pretty things, valuable things, all reaching out for her attention.
“What’d your granny say when she fire you?” Kasey asked, snickering. This outburst of temper was not unusual because Serenity was always getting herself into some kind of trouble. The fun was watching her get out of it.
“You mean when that rich bitch said I took her stuff? That fool of a woman, who calls herself my flesh and blood, agreed with her! Took her side against me, and we are kin.” She added a southern drenching to that last word, turning its meaning into a two-syllable slur. “I said I didn’t take anything, and then my grandmother made me turn my pockets inside out, didn’t give me one little minute to do anything else.”
“What happened when you did that?” Kasey persisted.
Serenity’s mouth firmed into a slash of disapproval. “There it was, her gold necklace. I tried and tried to explain I had no idea how it got there, but would they listen? Noooo, just kicked me out, and now Granny says I have to clean up my act and stay out of trouble or she’s turning me over to the cops as a juvenile delinquent.”
The other girls twittered with sounds of admiration as Serenity suddenly pulled out another gold necklace with a diamond and emerald pendant from her bosom. “Now tell me why that witch needs this down here in slum town. There’s nowhere she’s gonna wear something like this.” She draped the necklace against her throat, modeling it with disdain.
“So you did her a favor.” Kasey cackled, slapping her leg while the others applauded.
Quick as a cat, Serenity flicked the necklace back into her bra and grinned. She liked their admiration; the applause made her feel important.
As suddenly as a spring thunderstorm, her triumphant smile turned into a fierce frown. “That sick old witch still’s gonna pay. She made my granny turn on me; it’s all her fault. I’m gonna wait, be patient, but she’s gonna pay. Big-time.” She heard the girls giggle in support and Serenity held her head up even higher. She, Serenity Brown, was never going to take any crap off a rich person again.
What she left unsaid was that her granny had also threatened to send her back to Jamaica, back to the authorities to wait until her mother got out of jail. For a moment, Serenity had been fearful her granny might actually do it, but after she left that stupid place and thought about it, she was sure that it wouldn’t happen. For one thing, her grandmother would have to reach down and dig deep into her pockets for the cost of sending her back, no easy task.
The other thing was that Serenity knew her granny really loved her; she knew the old woman could never send her back to that hole in the wall with her mother hopelessly addicted to that moment’s chemical of choice—whatever she could find to shoot in her veins.
Reassuring herself, Serenity calmed to a regal innocence that belied her clear thought about revenge. She realized how she was going to have to manipulate the truth to eventually succeed. And that would mean doing something totally distasteful—but necessary.
While she planned her strategy, her grandmother and Elizabeth were commiserating in their worries about the girl. Inside her house, Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table, trying to be consoling.
“I’m sorry, Mehalia, I simply cannot call the police about this. She’s just a child.” Elizabeth was earnest and patted the old woman’s hand.
“I know, Elizabeth.” The housekeeper’s sigh was painful. “I know, and I do not want you feeling bad. I plainly do not know what to do with this child. She is so good in so many ways. Bright, good at school, but she has gotten this attitude lately that the world owes her.” Her voice was deep and smooth, forming each wor
d specifically and correctly. Mehalia had always spoken her words precisely and taught all her children to do the same. She was an uneducated woman, but the words she spoke always sounded as they should. It was how she lived her life. She wore an honest dignity like a mantle and made no pretensions about herself.
It grieved her that Serenity seemed to have slithered away from that example. Mehalia’s steadfast demeanor was creasing with despair.
“She’s a beauty, but that’s just on the outside,” she slowly considered. “Maybe that’s what makes her so . . . needful. Beauty is nothing if it’s not on the inside, too, but how do you make a child discover such a thing? I’m worrying myself to pieces—what is going to happen if—when—she steals from someone who’s not as nice as you?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I wish I had answers for you.” She insisted that Mehalia stay sitting at the table while she got up and made tea for them both.
Elizabeth wondered why she had decided to come here today. If she hadn’t, no one would have known anything was missing. It just seemed the right time to come back and pack up the expensive pieces, to take them home tomorrow or the day after.
If she had called Mehalia earlier, would Serenity then have had time to put those pieces back? Calling Mehalia and her granddaughter had been as much for company as it was for the help. What a mess.
“Here.” She set the steaming cup of tea in front of the older woman, patting her arm gently. “I wish I had some easy words for you, knew what to tell you to do, Mehalia. I don’t have a clue. But you are right, she is one of the most beautiful young women I have ever seen. That sure complicates things.”
They shared brooding sighs and worried thoughts as they offered possible solutions that—once spoken—didn’t seem possible after all. Finally, Elizabeth walked her part-time housekeeper to her old Chevrolet, offering to think hard about the problem. “Surely we can come up with some sort of plan for the child.” Elizabeth said this earnestly, leaning down to give Mehalia another consoling hug.
Chapter Twenty-two
When Gordon walked out of the restaurant, he wanted to escape. From everything. Without thought, he called his office, feigned illness, and told them not to expect him for the next several days. Ask one of the associates to cover for him, he’d told his assistant, and if that doesn’t work, cancel appointments until further notice.
He drove the gray Lincoln, his mind fogged with grief and guilt; he was the doctor in the family. Bad enough he couldn’t even save his own wife, but to have done that to her, to have failed to look at the research more carefully, scrutinized it before talking her into doing it . . .
He returned home by way of the liquor store, stopping to load up with a variety of bottles to ensure his escape.
The first bottle didn’t do much to assuage the guilt but blurred it, pushed it back.
By the time he had opened a third bottle, his heart was no longer hurting because it was numb. There was an absurd delight in beating himself up intellectually. He, the big know-it-all doctor who got blindsided because he trusted the research. God, what a fool he was.
He was well into that last bottle, knowing the anger was still there lurking but mercifully detached, when he heard the doorbell chime. Startled, he jerked up; splashes of liquor stained the chair and floor. Damn. Who could that be? he wondered as he slowly made his way to the entry. His home had a large foyer that was practically empty. He had gotten rid of all family pictures as well as Allison’s possessions after her death. Those reminders were too painful to have around. Now, as he stumbled past the bareness, he was aware of sorrow that he’d even done that, in a confused, jumbled sort of way.
He peered through the glass and saw Carol Stephens, looking very New York in black leather pants and a matching long trench coat. She looked like the modern version of an old western gunslinger. The idea of her being a shootin’ chick bubbled up a hilarity that got caught in his throat and he opened the door in a spasm of coughing.
She strode in, immediately pounding him on the back. “Good grief, Gordon, what did you do, swallow a fly?”
She’d meant it as a joke; her brows rose at the smell of liquor and his jagged movements. “My, my, must’ve been a rough day,” she murmured as she tried to take his arm and help him into the living room.
He was hiccupping now and his mind was riveted on snatches of an old, old childhood song. “I swallowed a fly, I sure as hell don’t know why . . . There was an old coot who swallowed a . . . a . . . bird to eat the damn fly, . . . Swallowed a fly, I don’t know why . . . Maybe I’ll die.” He flopped on the recliner as he said those last words. He looked around, momentarily confused about where he was, then he looked up and smiled. “Where are my m-manners? Wanna drink?” He started to get up again and she pushed him back gently.
“You’ve had enough for both of us, thank you.” She said this with such a kind smile, he grinned then burped loudly.
The force of it sprawled him backward against the chair. He sighed and rested his head comfortably against the cushions and closed his eyes. Within moments he was snoring.
Carol sat across from him. “Oh, Gordon.” She spoke softly, wondering what had pushed him over the edge. There had been plans to go out tonight. But she had come back from New York earlier because of how he sounded yesterday when they had talked on the phone.
He had sounded . . . odd. For a man who maintained a carefully neutral emotional state, he sounded like he had slipped off the deep end but was fighting to keep his head up.
He had agreed to get together tonight, but in a distracted way, and she wondered if he had even remembered to write it down on his calendar, which was the only way he kept track of where he was supposed to be. She went into the kitchen and checked it herself.
What had happened? She frowned as she saw where he had been yesterday and today. And then she did something she had never done before. She didn’t even have to look the number up; she knew it by heart.
“Michael, this is Carol. No, nothing’s happened to Elizabeth. I just wanted to know, have you talked with Gordon lately? You had lunch. Today? Oh, I see.”
She listened intently for several minutes, grimacing as she had to listen to Michael’s whole account of the conversation instead of what she had asked about.
“How did he seem when he left? Depressed? I see . . . Well, we were supposed to get together tonight, but he seems a bit . . . under the weather.”
Carol didn’t like talking to Michael, but since the two men had been together today, she thought he might know something. For some reason, Gordon had claimed Michael as a best friend over twenty years ago.
“Really? He said that? And you told him . . . Oh, okay. That’s certainly enlightening. No, I’m not being sarcastic, I’m just trying to . . . okay. Fine. Bye.” She hung up the phone, feeling angry. Her dislike of Michael was reinforced yet again. The man had no heart.
She walked back into the living room. Gordon hadn’t moved a muscle; he was snoring loudly. She got a blanket from a linen closet and draped it over him, then picked up the two empty bottles and looked at them; she was impressed. He should be sleeping a long time. She took the bottles to the kitchen and put them in the recycle tub. She tidied up the room a bit. She was glad to be doing something constructive, although she was finished in moments.
She wanted to do more. Carol understood his pain; she knew how devastated he must feel about Allison, but . . . there was nothing he could do about changing the past. He had done the best he could do for his wife at the time. That was fact.
But emotions, as she well knew, don’t listen to logic. She wondered what she could do to mute it, soften it for him. After several moments of reflection, she nodded to herself. With purpose she went to her car, retrieved the laptop, found a space at the kitchen table, and plugged it in. The next few hours were spent searching the Web for information that might not even exist.
Evening drifted away into early morning.
Like an internal alarm, Gordon woke up
instantly, immediately aware of the intense quiet surrounding him. The sun was several minutes from gilding the eastern sky with color. Completely alert, palpable silence embraced him; for a long moment he was inside it, part of it, and it made him invisible, only it didn’t last long enough.
As the moments stretched forward, the inevitable memory also slid to the forefront of his mind and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he could stand the darkness no longer, he opened them and was startled to see Carol curled up on his couch; a sudden thought made him sick: Weren’t they supposed to get together . . . sometime? Thoughts fluttered in disarray as the confusion mingled with the aftereffects of the booze.
How had she gotten in? He had no recollection of yesterday after he left the liquor store and arrived home. Damn. He was in no mood for company; he wanted to be alone. Completely alone, to continue drinking toward nothing but a soft oblivion. He must have made some unconscious noise because suddenly she was awake. He watched her legs swing to the floor, her hands stretching overhead, and then she was walking toward him.
“Gordon.” She stopped in front of him, eyes warm with sympathy he didn’t need or want.
“Carol.” He was surprised he had a voice at all. “How, uh, did you get in here?”
“You let me in.”
“Oh.” He squinted up at her. “Hmm. I don’t really remember much . . . What happened last night?”
She sat on the edge of the hassock, pushing his feet over. The small smile was provocative, her voice low and amused. “You mean after we consummated our friendship? Or before?”
A hand snaked up to rub his face. “Aw, hell.” He was dismissive. “We didn’t do any of that; I never get sick when I’m drunk. I have a cast-iron stomach.”
Her face was the picture of innocence, her voice soft, insinuating. “That’s not what I meant.” Startled eyes met hers. She watched as clashing emotions slid over his face, easily reading his thoughts.
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