Voices of Ash

by Jill Zeller

  “I’m with Sam. Not at the hotel. At his mother’s house in San Pedro.”

  “You know that Tarzan hunk broke my arm?”

  “He’s real sorry about that. But he thought you were going to hurt me.”

  Hank almost laughed. “Right. He weighs ten times what I do and he’s worried I’m going to hurt you.”

  Another silence, and Hank’s anger drained away. “Are you OK?”

  “What is the studio saying? Are they looking for me, missing in action?” Her voice was small, almost child-like.

  “Sorry, Con, I have no idea. I’ve been kinda busy.” Luz watched Hank from the kitchen doorway. He couldn’t quite make out her expression. “Con, you need to come home.”

  Another silence, but not as long. Connie’s voice came through strong and sure.

  “No. Not yet. I can’t face her. Not yet.”

  Then he heard the click, and knew she was gone. But something about her voice untied one of the many knots his family was so good at twisting around him. An important truth that he shared with Connie, and Carl. They were in this together and had one enemy that united them, like Joseph in the Italian hills. And that enemy was Mom.

  Hank went back to Luz and hugged her with his one good arm.

  Movement, voices in the kitchen. Carl had returned with an armload of drugs and supplies. And Hank heard Joseph exclaim, “We have the same name, hombre!!”

  Joaquin stood with his arms folded over his taut belly, a knife in his hand. One eyebrow raised, nostrils flared. Uh, oh, Hank thought. Joseph has met his match.

  Joseph was the only one who ate, and talked. Susan sat silently, and Carl pulled his chair in next to her, chin on one elbow, smiling at her in a ludicrous way, Hank thought.

  She’s here, in my house. The woman who had pulled him away from here, into a world he knew was there but was another country behind that border of class and work Mom spoke so strongly about. It was OK in Mom’s book that a half-brother and sister could fall in love and marry and have children, but it was not OK to cross that gulf of class.

  Susan watched him. She had washed her face and combed back her hair, pulled it under a scarf. There was the slightest smirk on her mouth, but her eyes didn’t match it. Then her gaze moved just beyond him, and her smirk deepened.

  Turning, Hank saw Luz behind him, in her nurse’s uniform, white shoes, hose, cap and all, hair bundled at the base of her neck. Her cheeks flushed when she saw him looking, and she straightened her wristwatch.

  “I’m ready to face the lioness in her den.”

  As he led her upstairs Hank’s heart thundered and it was as if the entire house was beating itself on the chest like a great ape. They went along the corridor past Connie’s room, then Hank’s on the left, which Luz glanced at with a little smile; then Carl’s room and then Mom’s big suite. The door was closed. Standing outside the door, Hank could hear Dad reading aloud.

  Knocking, Hank opened the door without waiting to be asked. He pushed it wide, like a servant, for Luz, who walked into the room with a confident stride. Only Hank saw her hands shake as she smoothed her uniform for her entrance.

  Coming in behind her, Hank closed the door. As Dad got to his feet the magazine he was reading slid to the floor. Taking off his glasses, he stared speechless at the two of them.

  “Hank. You’re home. How’s the arm? Is everything OK? And who is this?” he came around the table and looked at Luz, who nodded politely but walked past him toward her patient.

  In a chair across the bed from them, Mom was encased in pillows, reading glasses on her nose, feet up on the bed. When she saw Luz her eyes widened; Hank saw her nostrils visibly flare.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cleveland. So nice to meet you.” Luz circled the bed, held her hand out for Mom to shake.

  Mother’s feet thumped to the floor. She struggled to rise and when Luz reached to help, she flung away from her and came around the bed, glasses and pad in hand, pencil in her hair, and marched up to Hank.

  “Your nurse, Mom. Meet Miss Del Mar. Carl said you and Dad were getting on each other’s nerves and so he hired her for you.” Hank kept his tone innocent, and Mom’s face bloomed red. She glared at Dad, who shrugged.

  “I think it’s a great idea, Bess. She can do a lot for you that I can’t, you know.” Picking up his magazine, Dad sighed, smiled.

  “Well, I’ll let you all get to know each other. Hank, it’s great that you’re home. You have no idea. Just stay off that bicycle for a while, huh?”

  Dad wasted no time now that he was set free of the duty he’d volunteered for in the first place.

  Standing on the rug in her bare feet, Mom began to scribble on her pad. Luz approached and yanked it out of her hand.

  “Oh, I think not, Mrs. Cleveland. Too much excitement for one day. It’s evident that you need a bath.”

  Luz picked at Mom’s hair, which looked like a pile of sprayed gauze. “That’s the problem with relying on relatives, especially husbands, to assist you. They just don’t encourage people enough to get well.”

  Looking around, Luz saw the bathroom door standing open. “Oh, how convenient. Your own bathroom. Well, I’ll get the water running. Hank, you make sure your mother doesn’t write anything down while I’m getting it ready.”

  Mom shook with fury. Hank started to worry that she would have a stroke or even explode. Taking her by the shoulders, he sat her down in Dad’s chair. She reached for one of the pads but he shoved them away, then took the pencil out of her hand. She looked like she wanted to stab him with it.

  “You remember Miss Del Mar, don’t you, Mom? She is an excellent nurse, you know, first in her class at the nursing school. Only the best for my mother.” He patted her on the knee and she slapped his hand away.

  Hank continued, “Miss Del Mar remembers you. I had a time convincing her to help us, but I couldn’t think of anyone better. Right, Mom? Someone whose experience is far greater than yours or mine?”

  He listened to the water running, saw Luz moving back and forth in the bathroom with towels and soap. “I remember now too, Mom. Funny, the things I forgot about. Important things. Maybe one of the most important things of my life. Oh, wait, Luz brought you something.”

  He went to Luz’s nurses’ bag, lifted out a bundle wrapped in newspaper. “A gift for you. From one sorceress to another.” He glanced at Mom as he unwrapped the paper. Mom’s face paled with fear. He set the gift on the table at the foot of the bed, removing the vase of dead flowers there.

  Mom sighed impatiently, stared at what Luz had made for her. A large figure, more than 14 inches, of a Mexican Indian woman in scarlet, yellow and indigo garments, black hair caped on her shoulders, skirts caught in a mountain wind. She carried a baby in a basket; she swung the child in her arms, and looked as if she were singing to it.

  Oh god, hideous, Mother mouthed.

  “No, beautiful,” Hank said. Picking it up, he brought it to her. “Touch it. Like silk. Smell it. Like smoke.”

  Have you lost your mind? Mother turned her head away, reached for the phone.

  “Who are you going to call? God? The Devil?”

  Mother’s lips thinned and she tried to slap him. He got out of the way just as her fingers grazed his lower lip. She was pretty fast. He would have to watch that.

  You call that doctor right now. I don’t want her.

  Hank shook his head. “Can’t do that. Carl hired her. It’s nothing to do with me.”

  Mother’s look told him she knew it all had to do with him.

  Luz appeared, ready to take Mom into the bath. Hank decided it was time to leave, and he shut the door behind him. If there was a struggle, at least there was no screaming or name calling.

  While Luz was helping Mom with a bath, Hank ate some of the cold dinner with Susan, Carl, Dad, and Diego on Joseph’s lap, which seemed to Hank odd but strangely comforting.

  Dad heard the story of the fire and made no complaint about putting the Chagalls up for a few months. After all, hadn’t
Susan nursed Hank when he was so ill? He kept glancing at Diego, as if trying to understand whose little boy this was and why he was here. It was as if he had not put two and six together and as if he never even knew Diego existed. Mom never told him, apparently.

  Joaquin loaded a tray with food for Mom and Luz. From inside Mom’s room came soft murmurings. Getting the door open, Hank angled through carrying the tray, expecting chaos and blood, but got nothing of the sort.

  Only the lamp behind the reading chair, and another shaded one on the dressing table were lit. A hint of herb and flora sifted through the air. A gold light seemed to fall on everything. The Indian woman stood under the lamp on the dressing table, lit from above, or within, Hank thought.

  Luz sat on the bed. Hidden by the table piled with magazines and books and the Dictaphone, Mother came into view as Hank brought the tray closer and set it down in a spot cleared by Luz.

  Mother leaned back on her pillows. Her eyes were closed, hair curled around her shoulders, luminous and soft; a pink scarf pulled it from her face. She wore a dove-gray bed jacket. Luz had fished a not-so-dead carnation from the bouquet Hank had thrown away and pinned it to the collar. A mirror, along with tubes of lipstick, make-up, eyeliner, lay on Mom’s lap.

  Luz sat on the bed, leaning against one of the end-posts. She had loosened the buttons around her neck and taken off her shoes and cap. She held a book on her lap.

  Hank stood beside Luz, leaned down, kissed her, sliding his hand along her breast. She dug her fingers into his hair.

  As he straightened, he looked at Mom. She had been watching them, eyes curious but indicated nothing else. Then she looked away toward the foot of the bed and smiled.

  On the end table stood the little marquess. Luz must have fetched it from the living room while the others were eating. Next to it she had propped the framed portrait of Grandmother Annette and Grandfather Joel.

  Luz read aloud from Alice in Wonderland, while Hank moved Dad’s chair closer. A few minutes later Hank heard the door open. Luz turned her head to look, and the book slowly slid into her lap.

  Carl, Diego in his arms, circled the bed and stood before Mom’s chair. A bolt screwed itself into Hank’s guts, then unscrewed itself just as quickly. This is right.

  Mom’s eyes were closed. When Luz stopped reading, she opened them again. Her lips parted, one eye brow drew down. Hank saw her reach up to her ear, as if searching for the pencil.

  “Hey, Mom. Meet your grandson Diego.”

  As Luz rose to stop him, Carl placed Diego in Mom’s lap.

  Hank found himself on his feet. She’ll kill him. She’ll throw him out the window.

  He gave Carl a sharp shove as he raced around the bed, and started to push past Luz, but strangely, she seized his arm.

  “Parar, caro mio.”

  Mom steadied Diego in her hands as he sat sideways, one leg hanging down, and squirmed a little. The deep lines, like cracks in glaze, on Mom’s face smoothed away; her gaze covered the boy, taking in every inch.

  Then Hank saw something he had never seen before. Maybe he never saw it before because Mom talked them out of existence. But now she was mute, and so they came, tears that bled down her cheeks.

  Squirming from Mom’s arms, Diego slipped to the floor, and, standing on tiptoe, began to examine the magazines and books and pens on the table next to Mom.

  And Hank thought about how his son didn’t speak, either. He hadn’t heard a word from the boy since he had known him and selfishly, he had never asked Luz about it. Was it a concern, a three-year-old who didn’t speak?

  Luz moved then; picking up Alice in Wonderland she knelt on the floor next to Diego and began to show him the drawings inside.

  Mom’s eyes closed again, her face blank. He couldn’t see her thoughts about anything any more. Hank wouldn’t hear her thoughts about anything any more.

  “Oh, and I almost forgot. Connie wanted Luz to have this.” Carl pulled an envelope from his pocket. Taking it, Luz frowned, opened it, read it, handed it to Hank.

  Connie had paid for a new car for Luz, saying it was really for Diego, who needed to be driven around in style.

  “Don’t you dare say you can’t accept it. Let Connie do this for you. It’s the least she could do,” Hank said, handing the envelope with title and keys back to her.

  When Hank glanced back at Mom, she was staring at him as if she had seen him for the first time. Sitting up, she fumbled in piles on the table, and pulled out several narrow boxes of tapes, examined each one, and after tossing three of them onto the bed, thrust one at Hank, then tapped the Dictaphone.

  “I think she wants you to play it, Hank,” Luz said from her place on the floor, where she looked a little stunned.

  Mom waved them away and pointed toward the door. Not here. Take it to your room. Carl can stay with me a while.

  Carl can stay with me. That meant she wanted them both to hear it. Hank took the Dictaphone in his good arm, Luz carried the tape, and they went to his room.

  “Once I threw my son’s girlfriend out of the house. Henry was too young to understand what I did for him. What I do for him, for them all. I have to watch every move, catch every single error. I am the anesthetist, one slip of my hand on the gauge, the push of a cc too much or too little, and it all falls apart.

  “She was a beautiful girl. A smart girl. I could see her intelligence in her eyes. An intelligence I don’t understand. She could overpower me, if I give her any kind of entry into my house and family. So now she is gone. My son is furious with me, but I can talk him down, out and around to anything. I have done it before with Constance. I can do it again with Henry.

  “But I don’t think this will last. I think my time is at an end, soon. I am tasked with holding the pairs together, but my own partnership with the devil is come to pay. For whatever reason, I have been blessed with money, looks, talent, a beautiful family. I am married to my half-brother, but we cannot see ourselves with anyone else.

  “My father knew all along, but did nothing to stop it. What could he do? For me stopping it would mean death, which is what it would take. Maybe he knew that. It killed Kenneth’s mother, though. Annette died in furious anger after our wedding. Joel knew she despised him, she wished, prayed that she could outlive him, but it wasn’t to be.

  “I made a grave mistake that day I shoved that girl out the door, I think. But I will continue on the path I chose. I am doing my part to keep order in chaos. But things will happen. I used to look at my mother’s marquis and marquess, that she gave to my father and he in turn gave to his wife. They are very valuable, she said. Just make sure they don’t become a broken pair.”

  ~The End~

  Copyright & Credits

  Voices of Ash

  Jill Zeller

  Book View Café edition: August 11, 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-499-4

  Copyright © 2015 Jill Zeller

  Production Team:

  Cover Design: Jill Zeller

  Proofreader: Cynthia Felice

  Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Digital edition: 20150723vnm

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624

  About the Author

  The author of numerous short stories and novels, Jill Zeller lives near Seattle, Washington, with her patient and adoring husband, an English Mastiff and one self-centered tuxedo cat.

  Her works explore the boundaries of reality. Some may call it fantasy, but there are rarely swords and never elves. More to the point, she prefers to write as if myth, imagination and hallucination are as real as the chair she is sitting on as she writes this
. Could be because she was raised as a Christian Scientist but most likely is because reality is boring, don’t you agree?

  About Book View Café

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