What Has Mother Done?

by Barbara Petty

  As she braked to turn into the driveway, she stared up at the house. Built of the same dark red bricks as the Collins factory, perhaps even designed by the same architect, it had mullioned windows and large patches of ivy growing on its walls. She remembered being permitted to enter the house to use a maid’s bathroom during that party so many years ago. Her impression was of a gloomy interior with creaking floors and antique plumbing.

  Getting out of the car, she hesitated, wondering what to do next. Then she realized that the front door to the house was standing open and she could hear loud voices echoing inside. A man and a woman. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the woman’s voice was alternately high-pitched as she shouted out something before being choked off with what sounded like sobs. The other voice seemed to belong to Whit, but as Thea approached the front door, his volume lowered and began to modulate to a more conciliatory tone.

  As she stood at the threshold, Thea heard him say, “Do you think it’s broken?”

  Thea paused for the briefest of moments then, telling herself “in for a penny,” she stepped through the doorway and entered the murky, two-story foyer. On the patterned marble floor at the base of a semi-circular sweep of staircase lay a dark-haired woman in a white uniform. One leg was turned under her and the other was stretched in front of her, the ankle clearly swollen. Bending over her was Whit. His back was to the door.

  The woman’s splotchy face turned toward Thea. Her expression was vigilant—as if she were expecting someone—and then crestfallen. She reached out and tapped Whit on the shoulder, alerting him to Thea’s silent entrance.

  Whit twisted around, his eyes squinting against the sun behind Thea. “Who...?” He held up his hand to block the light. “Oh, Dot...er, Thea.” He frowned. “What are you doing here?”

  Thea ignored him. “What’s going on?” she asked, sensing that Whit was not too thrilled to see her. She pulled out her cell phone. “Do you need me to call 911?”

  “No!” Whit jumped to his feet, his hands stretched toward her as if he wanted to grab the phone away. “Everything is fine. Sofia’s only sprained her ankle.”

  With a shock, Thea realized that Whit was afraid of her. Or rather he was afraid of having some sort of dirty little secret exposed. And right now that meant she had the power, she was holding it right there in her hand. She held the phone up, punching out the three numbers and then placing her thumb on the “Send” key. “Tell me what’s going on or I make this call,” she said, her heart pounding in her chest. Was that too Clint Eastwood? Would Whit buy it?

  He shrank away from her, his eyes zeroed in on the phone as if it were a bomb with a ticking clock. “Nothing. Nothing’s going on,” he croaked out. “She fell and hurt her ankle. That’s all.” With an air of defiance, he lifted his gaze from the cell phone to Thea’s face. “So you can leave. We’re fine here.”

  Not about to let him off the hook, Thea let him have a little more Clint. She sneered at him. “Get real, Whit,” she said. “You’re not brushing me off with any more of your lies.” With her thumb still on the cell, she circled around him to where she could see the other woman’s face. “Sofia?” she asked.

  The woman nodded.

  “I want to hear it from you, Sofia,” Thea said. “Are you all right? Do you need a doctor—or maybe a paramedic?”

  It was obvious Sofia was in a lot of pain. Her hands were knotted into fists that she was digging into the flesh of her injured leg. “I-I’m fine,” she said in a thin, unconvincing voice.

  “Oh, come on!” Thea said. “You need help. I’m calling 911.”

  “No!” Whit wailed. “Don’t! Please. I’ve already called our doctor. He’ll take care of her. Just don’t—”

  As Thea stepped closer to Sofia, she became aware of a smell. Something sharp, medicinal. Then she spied a bottle lying on its side next to the woman’s right hip. “What’s that?” she said, pointing at it.

  Sofia swallowed hard and glanced over at Whit. “Nothing,” she murmured.

  Thea bent down and swooped up the bottle before Sofia had time to react. Lifting it up, she wasn’t surprised to read its label: a cheap, generic-brand vodka. “Okay,” she said, turning toward Whit. “You’d better start talking right now.” Her gesture with the cell phone was part Clint and part her own genuine outrage. “And it had better be the truth!”

  Whit closed his eyes and bowed his head. “All right,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. But at that moment a car door slammed outside, and Whit turned a hopeful gaze toward the door.

  A white-haired man carrying a black bag stepped across the threshold. He looked so much like Central Casting’s description of a “doctor-type” that Thea briefly wondered if Whit had hired an actor to play the part.

  “Jack, thanks for coming so quickly,” Whit said, relief flooding his face.

  “Well, you said someone took a bad fall,” the man responded. He cast a curious glance at Thea, and then focused his attention on the obvious victim at the foot of the stairs. “Did you call the paramedics?”

  Whit shook his head. “Not yet. Can’t you see what you can do for her? I want to keep this, you know...” He made a helpless gesture with his hand.

  The doctor frowned at him, but nodded and crossed to Sofia. Bending down, he began to examine her.

  Thea grabbed Whit’s arm. Under her breath she said, “You still haven’t told me what’s going on here. I can either call 911—or my old friends at the newspaper.”

  Whit flinched. “Geez, Thea,” he retorted. “Did all those years in Hollywood turn you into a bitch?”

  Thea stared him down, trying to make her gaze fierce, give him one last bit of Clint. “You brought me into this. So talk.”

  Whit pulled his arm away. His eyes were pleading with her. “I wish I could, but I don’t have the time right now. I’ve got to go.”

  “What! Where?”

  He was backing away from her toward the door. “I’ve gotta go.”

  Suddenly it all made sense to Thea: Whit’s protectiveness, Sofia’s white uniform, the smashed bottle of cheap vodka. “It’s your father, isn’t it?” She used the cell phone to point toward Sofia. “He’s the one who did this, didn’t he?”

  Whit blinked at her several times. “You don’t...” Then he shook his head. “Oh, shit,” he muttered, before he turned and ran out the door.

  CHAPTER 44

  Staggered, Thea gaped at the open door Whit had just disappeared through. She began to fume. This was the second time today he had run away. Damn him! She shoved her cell phone in her pocket and with a backward glance at the doctor and his patient, she strode toward the door.

  Once outside, she stood under the portico and made a cursory survey of the driveway and nearby sidewalks. As she expected, there was no sign of Whit. Bounding down the steps, she headed toward the expanse of lawn that adjoined the park. As she rounded the nearest corner of the house, she spied movement in the branches of a bush that bordered what appeared to be a path into Rivercliffs Park, itself. Out of the corner of her eye she caught what she thought was a momentary flash of black farther into the trees—which then disappeared, so she wasn’t certain she had really seen it.

  She began to run toward the bush, telling herself that this would be the direction that Whit—and probably his father—would take. But as she crossed the vast lawn she realized that there was another direction they could have gone: straight to the river and their private dock. There was no cliff above the river here, it was simply a steep slope down to the water. So she altered her path and headed across the green lawn to a point where she could look down and see the dock—and the boat. No one was racing down the incline and no one was visible on the dock. The boat itself was covered partially in canvas and appeared to be moored fast to the end of the pier, bobbing gently in the current. To board the boat, the canvas would have to be removed and from where she stood, it looked undisturbed. No, they had not come this way.

  She turned back toward the
path into the park. As she approached the bushes that edged the path, she remembered Alice in Wonderland and her trip down the rabbit hole. Where nothing was what it seemed to be. Was this path her own private rabbit hole and what would happen if she went down it?

  She hesitated a moment, and then set out on the path. It was mostly packed dirt, littered with old leaves and grasses; the footing was slightly damp from the recent rain, but felt firm as she made her way through the trees.

  After a couple of minutes, she came out on an open area bordering the paved walking path that ran the length of the park along the river.

  Off in the distance she could see two men walking ahead of her. One of the men she was sure was Whit, so she assumed the other man was his father. As she headed toward them, she watched as they stopped and, for a moment, appeared to be dancing. Back and forth they moved, twisting, thrusting at each other. Then one of the men shoved the other to the ground, kicked at him, and ran off.

  Thea started to race toward the fallen man. As she ran she could hear clamoring, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. When she got closer she could see that it was Whit on the ground. He was attempting to sit up, his face a grimace of pain, and he was clutching at his right side. “Oh my God,” he gasped as Thea came to bend over him. “I think he broke my ribs.”

  She knelt down. “Don’t move,” she said. “You might puncture a lung.”

  He leaned back on his right elbow and then cautiously shifted his weight to his left side as if he were preparing to get up. “I’ve got to go after him. He’s...he’s out of control. He might hurt himself.”

  “Well, you can’t do it,” Thea said, starting to rise. “I’ll go.”

  “No!” Whit grabbed at her arm. “It’s too dangerous for you. He might want to...hurt you.”

  Thea stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Whit’s eyes focused off in the distance in the direction his father had run. “He’s an old man, his short-term memory is gone. He’s got the past confused with the present. It’s all about your mother...”

  “You said that before. Why is he so fixated on my mother?”

  “I told you. They were teenage lovers—”

  Thea cut him off. “You said that before, too. Why now? What’s going on with him?”

  Whit let out a deep sigh. “He’s going downhill fast.”

  “You said George was wrong about your dad having Alzheimer’s. But he knew there was something—and he knew you were hiding it.”

  Whit gave her a grudging nod. “Yeah, he said that.”

  “Well, what?” Thea pressed.

  Whit rubbed a hand across his forehead. “It’s called Korsakoff’s Syndrome.”

  “Not Alzheimer’s?”

  “No.” Whit gave her a mirthless smile. “It’s from chronic alcohol abuse. To my mother, that was the worst sin. It was something you did to yourself, something you had to keep hidden. That was the legacy she passed down to me, to never let the world know my dad was a drunk. But George was such a know-it-all, he kept saying it had to be Alzheimer’s. He wanted us to come out in the open and tell everyone ‘the truth.’ He hounded me about it.”

  Thea felt a sickening lurch in her abdomen. “What do you mean he ‘hounded’ you?”

  Whit’s gaze slithered away from her. “That day. That’s what George was doing out here. He was waiting for us by the overlook.” He took a breath, grabbing at his side. “With your mother. That’s what happened.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Before he would go on with the story of that fatal day, Whit insisted on getting to his feet. Thea moved to his left side helping him put his arm across her shoulders. Wrapping her arm around his waist, they levered themselves into a standing position, with him wincing in pain any time too much weight was put on his right side.

  Once he was up, Whit pulled away from Thea. “I’m okay,” he insisted. “I can walk by myself.”

  Thea was dubious. “Are you sure?”

  Setting his jaw, he said, “Yeah. Let’s go. I’ve got to find my dad before...”

  “What?”

  Whit began to walk. “Before he does to somebody else what he did to George.”

  What?

  She had no time to absorb what Whit had just said as he began to walk, wobbling with every step. She stayed close to him as they made their way along the sidewalk, and gave him a few minutes to concentrate on his balance and pace. Soon, she lost her patience: she had to hear the rest of Whit’s story. “So,” she said finally, “George and my mother were waiting for you at the overlook. What happened then?”

  Whit’s face took on a bitter, resigned expression, as if this were a moment he had been dreading and was fully aware there was no way to avoid. “George knew we walked there along the path pretty much every day. When it was really cold or icy or whatever we’d only go as far as the overlook and then turn around and go home.”

  “I see,” Thea interjected. “He knew that if he waited for you at the overlook you would eventually come.”

  Whit nodded.

  “Why do you think he came to meet you on such a dreadful day?” she asked. “Everybody told me that it was unbelievably windy. Doesn’t that seem like an odd choice?”

  He frowned. “All I can think of is that George didn’t want any other people to be around. This was going to be his big confrontation. He probably thought it would go better if there weren’t any witnesses.”

  Thea was silent for a moment, absorbing the enormity of this tragic flaw in George’s character. “I think you’re right,” she said. “He was so obsessed about confronting you. He thought he knew all about it—about Alzheimer’s, that is. He didn’t think it should be closeted away. He was determined to out you, if you wouldn’t do it yourself. He thought you should be an example, you know, your dad being a ‘pillar of the community’ and all. In the journal he wrote that he was ‘going to give you one last chance to come clean.’ After that, he was going to go to the press. I guess that day was his big grandstand effort—without the spectators in the stands.”

  Whit paused to catch his breath. “That sounds like George. Whatever it was, it was obvious he had an agenda that day.” He shook his head as if to clear it, and then resumed walking. “The one thing he didn’t factor in was the past. I guess he never knew about their past relationship. He seemed so surprised by my father’s reaction to your mother.”

  “Why? What did your dad do?”

  “Oh, he got this big grin on his face and he kept saying her name. ‘Daphne, Daphne.’ Then he went over to her and hugged her.”

  “What did she do?”

  “At first I think she was a little confused about who he was. And then she laughed and started calling him ‘Freddie.’ Then there was a lot of hugging and kissing. It was when she started hugging him and kissing him back that George got his nose all out of joint. ‘Stop that!’ he said.”

  “Oh, God!” Thea groaned. “I can hear him now. Just like they were two disobedient children.”

  “Well, in a sense they were,” Whit observed. “George should have just left them alone. What he did escalated everything...” He paused. They were nearing the turnoff to the overlook, and his eyes were searching the bushes and trees nearby.

  Thea waited, her own gaze aimed at spots in the evergreen hedges where a man could hide. Their view of the overlook was blocked by the large stone obelisk dedicated to the town’s war dead, and Thea had a nagging sense that they weren’t alone, but she couldn’t see anyone else. The air seemed filled with an unnatural stillness, but she was sure that was just her overwhelming anticipation that—at last—she was hearing the truth about George’s death.

  Was that a muted cry? No, it must be her imagination. Or maybe from a boat on the water.

  Whit didn’t seem to hear. He had stopped and seemed reluctant to move any closer to the overlook. His eyes appeared to be staring out across the river, but she guessed he was really looking back at that day.

  “What did Geor
ge do?” she asked, prodding him.

  Whit shifted his weight and then winced in pain, but Thea sensed it was more emotional than physical. “He...he stuck his finger in my father’s face and kept saying, ‘Stop that!’ But when that didn’t work, he tried to pull your mother away from my father.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah. My dad went berserk. It...it all happened so fast.” Whit’s face was twisted with emotion as he spoke, as if even saying the words was causing him anguish. “One minute the three of them were here, with George tugging at your mother and my father pushing George away and then...then there was a shout...and George was gone.” He covered his eyes with his hand. “He just...disappeared.”

  Thea’s body went rigid as she absorbed the full impact of Whit’s story. Then, unable to stop herself, her gaze turned toward the overlook. As painful as it was, it felt as if she owed it to George to play out his death scene. In her mind’s eye she could see it all taking place: an angry, disturbed old man, a cold, blustery day, a railing that was too near the edge of the cliff because of years of erosion, and George’s shoes slipping on the rocks. It would have been over in seconds. There would have been nothing anyone could have done to save George once all those things were set in motion. But that still didn’t excuse Whit for what he had done next.

  “Did you look for George?” she asked, not hiding her bitterness. “Did you lean out over the cliff to see if maybe he was hanging there? Did you ever think that maybe he could have been rescued?”

  Whit pulled his hand away as an expression of horror contorted his face. “No,” he whispered. “I never thought...he couldn’t have...”

  “You’re probably right,” she said grudgingly. “The coroner said he most likely died instantly, but you never even looked, did you?”

  “I needed to...” Whit’s voice was still not much more than a whisper. “My dad was in real bad shape, he wasn’t coherent at all. I had to get him out of there—”