The Thanksgiving Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  I stopped at a local florist in Oakwood and picked up a few stems of baby orchids to give to Elsie. Then I drove over, parking in her driveway.

  Her smile, as always, was spontaneous and genuine. She oohed over the flowers, then put them in a lovely little vase that seemed made for a spray of delicate flowers. She had tea on a warming plate and little square cakes coated with chocolate and topped with buttercream flowers on a crystal serving plate. We carried everything out to a glass-enclosed room at the rear of the house.

  “What a lovely spot,” I said, setting down the cakes.

  “Francie would have loved it. We didn’t build it till ten years ago. In the summer you can’t even see through the trees, the leaves are so dense.”

  There were small silver cake forks that looked antique, and I remembered my mother talking about how Elsie liked to go to flea markets and shows and pick things up. To hear my mother tell it, Elsie made a killing every time, finding treasures in junk, underpriced items that were worth far more than the asking price, quality amidst trash.

  “The forks are beautiful,” I said.

  “Had ’em for years. There were just five and she gave them to me for a song. What’s so special about an even number? They’re just great for the two of us and another couple. I don’t entertain big crowds much anyway.”

  I had brought my wedding album for her to see and we turned the pages together. There was Sister Joseph, Sister Angela, my mother-in-law, Jack’s sister, the chapel at St. Stephen’s decorated for the occasion. Elsie was thrilled, asking about each person, trying to put them in the context of my life. Finally I closed the book and poured some more tea.

  “You said something last time you were here, Kix. You don’t mind if I call you Kix, do you?”

  “I like it.”

  “You were such a good child. I hope you have one like yourself one day.”

  “Thank you. I hope so, too.”

  She was easily diverted, unwilling to go ahead with what she had planned in advance to tell me. “You talked about the parade.”

  “Yes. My dad took me.”

  “And you met someone there.”

  “A woman. I don’t remember her name.”

  “I think your mother told me about her.”

  Prepared as I was for a revelation, her words hit me like a slap. My heart started pounding and a voice in my head told me I didn’t want to hear it, I DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR IT. I looked at her, suddenly hoping she would change her mind and I could go home without knowing any more than I knew now.

  “Your mom…”

  “Yes?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to tell you. She didn’t mean for me to know. She told me one day when she was feeling very low. Your mom had a sister, Kix.”

  I shook my head. My mother was an only child. I had been to my grandparents’ house when I was young and I had seen their pictures and there was only Frances. She had always said she was an only child.

  “It’s true, dear. There was a sister. She did things she shouldn’t have. They disowned her, your grandparents. And your mother went along with it,”

  “But why?”

  “Bad things,” Elsie said. “She hurt her parents, hurt them a lot. Your mom told me.”

  “I don’t understand. You think she’s the one we talked to on Thanksgiving Day?”

  “Oh, I know it. Francie told me once after you and your dad saw her. Your dad always wanted to get them together. He was a real peacemaker.”

  I started to cry. It was all so crazy. Here I was, dealing with people like Al DiMartino, who couldn’t keep his family together, and Natalie Gordon, who had segmented her life and left a great chasm between the two parts so they would never meet, and in my own family a similar craziness had existed, a craziness my wonderful father had tried and failed to extinguish.

  “It’s all right, honey,” Elsie said with dismay. “These things happen in every family. I just didn’t want you to think, God forbid, that your wonderful father was meeting some woman behind your mother’s back. It was your own aunt, Chris. She was your own flesh and blood.”

  I took the tissue she pressed into my hand and cleaned up my face. “Thank you, Elsie. Thank you for telling me.”

  She put another cake on my plate, as though I were a hurt child who would be comforted by the sweet taste of sugar and chocolate. My emotions were going so crazy, I couldn’t tell whether I felt more relieved that my father was a hero or shocked that my mother had severed relations with her own sister.

  “I wonder if she’s still alive,” I said finally.

  “Why not? Your own mother’d only be in her fifties if she was around today.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “I think Francie said Olive. That doesn’t ring a bell, does it?”

  I shook my head. If they had talked about her, it had been when I wasn’t around.

  “You think you’ll call her?”

  “I’ll try to find her. Was she married?”

  “That’s part of it,” Elsie said, looking troubled. “But I don’t think she used her married name. I think she kept her maiden name, at least when your mother was alive.”

  I didn’t want to ask for any of the sordid details, and it didn’t look like Elsie wanted to reveal them. I put myself back together and split the last cake with her—I think she wanted it more than I did—and then left, feeling overchocolated and still overwrought.

  At home I pulled out the Manhattan directory that we kept in the house and looked up my mother’s maiden name, Cleaver. There were several, none with the first name Olive, but there was an O. A. Cleaver on West Sixty-fourth Street, exactly where I had expected to find her. With pounding heart, I dialed the number, but there was no answer.

  Tomorrow I would find out once and for all.

  25

  The prospect of finding what was surely my last living blood relative besides my cousin Gene so consumed me that I lost all interest in staying home to await calls from Sandy Gordon. I had to get to New York and see if my aunt was in the apartment on Sixty-fourth Street, and I couldn’t wait. After I taught my class, I grabbed a very quick lunch in the cafeteria and drove directly to the city.

  I found her name next to a button in the lobby and pressed it, waiting impatiently, keyed up, for any kind of response. None came. I rang again, feeling increasingly disheartened. She was at work, she was away on vacation, she was somewhere she would rather be and might not be back for a long time.

  The lobby door opened and a well-dressed woman stepped out.

  “Excuse me, do you know Miss Cleaver in 2B?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I live higher up. The super should be around somewhere. Maybe he can help you.” She left without waiting for me to say anything, and I turned back to the list of names, finding SUPER at the last bell. I rang it.

  A woman in jeans and a sweatshirt and carrying a young child opened the door. “You ring for the super?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for Miss Cleaver in 2B.”

  “She’s not there.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “They took her away to the hospital again. Last week sometime.”

  “Do you know which hospital?”

  She shrugged. “Same one as before, I guess.”

  It didn’t look as though I was talking to a good or willing source of information. “Would you have any idea how I could find her?”

  “You could leave a note in her mailbox or with me. If I see her, I’ll give it to her.”

  That didn’t sound like a productive move. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll see if I can find the hospital.”

  “Sure,” she said indifferently, and pushed open the door she had been holding off the latch.

  I went outside, turned toward Broadway, and found a store that let me see a phone book. Roosevelt Hospital was only half a dozen blocks away, a likely place to be taken if you’re picked up by ambulance. I called and asked if Olive Cleaver was a patient.

  “Yes,
she is,” a Spanish-accented voice said. “You wanna be connected?”

  “No, thank you. Are visiting hours in effect now?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I walked down and found the hospital. A pleasant woman checked her computer and found Olive Cleaver. They gave me a pass to insure that there would be no more than two visitors at one time. Clutching the pass like a child holding her mother’s hand in a hostile area, I made my way through the maze of corridors and elevators to the room where my aunt lay.

  Most of the doors I passed were open, so I slowed as I approached hers, trying to calm myself, wondering what I would say, whether she would want to see me, how we would make up for a lifetime of being apart. I stopped just short of the room. That door, too, was open, an invitation to enter. Swallowing, I turned and went inside.

  The first bed was occupied by a tiny sleeping figure, an ancient woman with thin white hair and hands that moved as she slept, as though she were shooing away flies or bad dreams. Between her bed and the next a curtain was drawn. I walked to it, looked around it, and set foot on Olive Cleaver’s territory.

  “Olive?” I asked.

  She was thin, maybe in her sixties but looking older, washed-out blond-gray hair too long to be kept in place on a pillow, skin so pale it might never have seen the light of summer. She turned from the window and fixed her gray eyes on me, holding them there, putting together all her memories, maybe even all her hopes and dreams.

  “You’re her daughter,” she said.

  I tried desperately not to cry. “I’m Christine.”

  “I remember. Pull up a chair. How did you find me?”

  I took the guest chair and sat between the bed and the window. “I remembered you at the Thanksgiving Day parade.”

  She smiled a little, or at least her lips did. “I used to meet you and Eddie there. Then one year he didn’t come.”

  “He died.” I could hardly speak, but she seemed totally unaffected, completely without emotion.

  “She never told me.” There was a harshness to her voice. Her sister had disappointed her.

  “My mother died seventeen years ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It was very hard for her after Dad died.”

  “What did you do? You couldn’t have been very old.”

  “I went to live with my aunt Meg, Dad’s sister.”

  “Eddie was a good man.” She said it as though he had cared for me, not his sister.

  “And when I was fifteen, I went to live in a convent. I became a nun.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Is that what Francie wanted for you?”

  “I think so. It was what I wanted for myself. I left almost two years ago. I’m married now.”

  “Seems to be the way the world is going.” She pulled herself up so she was more sitting than lying, holding a hand up to keep me from helping her. “Did she leave you my name and address?”

  I shook my head. “I talked to my mother’s friend. She knew about you. It took a while, but she told me yesterday. I guessed you lived in this area because we used to meet you on the street with the Statue of Liberty.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded. “Kids remember things. I’ve lived here a long time.”

  “Elsie—my mother’s friend—said there were problems between you and your parents.”

  “Lots of problems. Big problems. I was a bad girl.” She said it almost with a touch of pride, as though she had ventured to do things her generation could not approve of.

  “I’m sure they couldn’t have been that bad.”

  “They were.”

  “I guess you’re here because you’re sick,” I said, not wanting to pry.

  “Very sick. It’s all catching up with me now. But I’ll be going home soon, maybe in a day or two.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “Not so wonderful. They can’t do much more for me. I don’t want to die in a hospital. I hate it here. I have a nice apartment. That’s where I belong.”

  “Would you like to come to our house?”

  “No. You’re a nice girl, Christine. You don’t want me there and I don’t want to be there. It’s too bad about Eddie. He never told you about me, did he?”

  “No one did. I just remembered you and wanted to know who you were.”

  “Your mom wouldn’t like this, you know. She didn’t want us to meet. I’m a bad influence on young girls.” She laughed and it ended in a cough that left her breathing with difficulty.

  “Have you seen a priest?” I asked.

  “Not for a long time. There’s nothing a priest can do for me. I did bad things and I hurt people. I stole from my parents.”

  “Why?”

  “I needed the money. Or at least I thought I did. I was pregnant.”

  “They would’ve helped you.”

  “No. No they wouldn’t. It was a different time, forty years ago. They were people who knew what was right. They’re hard to deal with, people like that. I think Francie could’ve forgiven me almost anything except the money, and she was right. I kept thinking I would pay them back someday, but they hated me too much. I couldn’t do it. I never saw them again. Francie and I tried to work something out, but we couldn’t. Then Eddie tried. Eddie the peacemaker. Your mother married a good man, I’ll say that for her.”

  “Did you have an abortion?”

  “Not that time. The first time I gave her up for adoption. It was for the best. I couldn’t take care of a baby. She never came looking for me and I never went looking for her. That’s the best way.” She took a breath and lay back, closing her eyes.

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Olive, I want to see you again.”

  She turned her head back and forth on the pillow. “Just leave your name and number so someone can call you when I die. You’ll hear in a week or two. I don’t have much time left.”

  “I’ll come to see you. If you’re feeling better, maybe we can take a walk together.”

  “Your daddy’s girl,” she said. “I remember you at the parades, all dressed up. Those were such nice parades. I would’ve watched them even if Eddie hadn’t brought you.” She closed her eyes again and I watched her breathe deeply. She was asleep.

  I stayed for a few minutes, but she didn’t wake up. I stood, touched her forehead with my hand, and then bent and kissed it. Then I left.

  —

  I called Sandy when I got home.

  “No calls,” he said curtly. “Nothing. Nothing’s going to happen this time.”

  “It’s early,” I said. “Lots of people don’t even look at the paper till they get home at night. Don’t forget to forward your calls tonight.”

  “I won’t.” There was an almost surly overtone to his voice, something totally out of character. He always struck me as such a mild, easygoing man. It was getting to him finally.

  “Tomorrow’s the day,” I said. “It’ll be in more papers tomorrow. You’ll hear something.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  —

  Jack and I talked about Olive in bed that night with the lights out. “She’s dying,” I said. “She’s so matter-of-fact about it, it’s shocking. ‘Give me your name and phone number so they can call you when I die. It’ll be a week or so.’ ”

  “She’s probably had a long time to accept it.”

  “I can’t bear the thought of her dying alone.”

  “I think you have to respect her wishes, Chris. Just because she wants something different from what you would want, she sounds like a woman who knows her own mind.”

  “She is.”

  “You want her to forgive your mother, don’t you?”

  In the dark, I wiped away the tears. My mother was perfect. I loved her without reservation, without if clauses and then clauses. I admired her life, her struggle, her relentless optimism in the face of disaster. If there were flaws in me, they were of my own making. “I g
uess so,” I said, as usual, surprised that my husband read me so well.

  “Don’t expect miracles. Offer, but don’t be surprised if she turns you down.”

  I knew it was good advice. “She looks like my mother. I don’t think I ever saw it when I was a child. Maybe it’s my grandmother she looks like. The age is about the same. She must have been a pretty girl.”

  “She say how much money was involved?”

  “No, but it must have been substantial for my grandparents to disown her.”

  “You found her, honey. It’s enough.”

  “It’s funny, all this talk about Natalie’s brother who wasn’t supposed to exist. I think I knew she was going to be a sibling. I think I expected it.”

  “I love you, baby.”

  I turned to him with an equal love, and accepted his arms.

  26

  Wednesday morning I called the hospital and talked to Olive briefly. She was tired and didn’t want company. She expected to be sent home Thursday or Friday, as soon as arrangements could be made for home assistance. I made some offers and she turned them down, but she gave me her home phone number, which I hadn’t asked for, and I promised to keep in touch.

  I worked at my poetry class, finishing everything that needed to be done for next week. During the hours I sat at my desk, the phone never rang. I didn’t know what time of day the weekly paper came out upstate, but I felt edgy. It was going to happen soon, someone recognizing the picture of Al DiMartino’s sculpture.

  Finally, finished with my classwork, I put my coat on, made sure the answering machine was on, and left the house. The sun was shining so brightly, it felt warm. I stuck my hands in my pockets and walked through a couple of streets to the strip of beach we all owned equally, a cove on Long Island Sound owned by a community organization Aunt Meg had always been part of. I stepped on the sand and it was again like Proust with his madeleines dipped in tea. I remembered coming here early in my relationship with Jack, walking along this strip with the first man in my life, feeling sensations I had never felt before or that I had repressed. There was a cold wind from the water today, but it made me feel good. I love the smell of the sea, and the sound is almost the Atlantic Ocean. I walked the half-moon strip, reliving happy memories. Someday, I hoped, I would take a child of mine to feel the water lapping on the beach.