by Mary Campisi
Nate rubbed his jaw. Damn, but the woman could talk.
“Stop flappin’ and start workin’, Betty.”
“I was just saying hello to Nate.” Her voice slipped into a warm, conspiratorial whisper. “Talked to your mother the other day, she sounds real good.”
“She’s getting along.”
Betty’s lips curved into a wide smile. “Hear you’re seeing Charlie’s daughter.”
“Betty.”
She held up a hand. “That’s fine, nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. Must just be the Lord’s will.” She looked at the ceiling. “You just never know how things are going to work out now, do you?” She winked at him. “She’s a real looker, too, and nice, real nice. I think you two are perfect for each other. Perfect. Much better than the last one you had.” She waved at both men, turned and headed for the door. “Well, toodles,” she called behind her. “I’ve got loads to do before noon.”
Nate waited for the door to click before he spoke. “Jack?”
The old man was studying a frayed shoelace on his work boot. “Hmm?”
“What’s going on? Did my mother come in here and broadcast my personal life to everybody?”
“Don’t listen to Betty. She don’t know what she’s sayin’. You know she’s got a bigger mouth than that fifteen-pound widemouth I caught at the lake last year.”
“Was my mother here?”
Jack pushed back his ball cap, scratched his head. “Come to think of it, she did stop by one day last week. You was visiting a customer, I think.”
“And nobody bothered to tell me she was in, not even my mother?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t no big deal. She stopped in, brought some corn muffins, said hello and good-bye.”
“After she told you about Christine Blacksworth.”
“That’s right, that’s about it.”
Nate leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. “We go back a long way, Jack. I trust you more than just about anybody I can think of.”
“Thanks, Nate. Feeling’s mutual.”
“So I’m going to trust you to tell me how the hell Betty knew what Christine looked like and worse, how she acted. Tell me, Jack, and by God, if you value our friendship, it better be the truth.”
Chapter 24
Miriam carried the laundry basket outside and set it down. It was a perfect day for drying clothes, sheets especially. She lifted Lily’s sunflower sheet from the basket, folded it in half, and pinned it to the line. Tonight when she crawled into bed, Lily would smell the fresh air on her sheets, rub her face in the soft fabric, and say that it felt like summer and sunshine.
Winter was gone, though it had stretched far into April and spring had taken root, pushed the bulbs to the surface, sprouted their delicate heads in bursts of red, pink, white, and yellow, which were now fading and shriveling to a dull greenish-brown. Christine and Lily had visited Abbott’s Greenhouse early this morning and returned with enough vegetable plants and seed packets for the entire street. They’d spent a good part of the day planting Big Boy tomatoes, broccoli, bell peppers, zucchini, lettuce, cucumbers, beans, even two blackberry bushes on the far corner of the property.
Miriam turned toward the 8x10 patch of dirt, staked out with markers reading, cucumbers, beans, zucchini, and cages housing drooping tomato plants. Almost two seasons had passed since Charlie’s death, close to five months since she’d heard his voice, watched the even movement of his chest as he slept, smelled him on her sheets. It was already a lifetime, and yet she could still remember the touch, the smell, the sound of him in painful detail. A few mornings ago, as she lay on his side of the bed, she thought she heard him, was certain she smelled him. The sensations were so real, so ordinary, and yet anticipated that later she wondered if her wanting had merely created the illusion.
Was this what happened when half of a whole was gone? Was the other person destined to wander through life, aching, empty, searching?
Thank God for Lily and Nate. She clutched a pillowcase to her chest. And thank God for Christine, too.
She was thinking of Charlie and how proud he’d be to see his daughters together that she didn’t hear Nate’s pickup pull in the driveway. It wasn’t until he was ten feet from her that she turned.
“Where is she?”
The anger in his voice spilled over his body, seeped into his eyes, through his face, to the set of his jaw, just like his father’s used to when he was on the verge of a rampage.
“Good heavens, Nathan, what’s wrong?”
“Where’s Christine?”
“In the house with Lily. Why?”
He ignored her question, turned and headed for the back door.
“Nathan.” She dropped the pillowcase in the laundry basket. “What’s going on?” She hurried after him, grabbed his arm.
“Let me take care of this. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“I don’t understand—”
“You will, soon enough.”
He flung open the screen door and stepped inside. Lily was pouring two glasses of juice in the kitchen. “Hi, Nate. Want some grape juice?”
“No thanks, Lily.” His tone gentled. “Where’s Christine?”
“In the living room.” Her lips pulled into a wide smile. “Playing War. I’m winning.”
“I have to talk to her right away. I want you to go to your room until I tell you to come out.”
“Why? Are you mad at me?”
“No, Lily,” Miriam said. “This is adult talk, that’s all.”
Lily set down her juice glass. “There’s Christine’s juice,” she said, pulling her lower lip through her teeth.
“Good. Now go.”
“Don’t yell, Nate.”
“I’m not yelling, Lily, but I’m losing my patience.”
She turned and ran out of the room. Nate headed for the living room with Miriam close behind.
“Nate? What’s wrong?” Christine sat on the floor, legs tucked under her Indian style.
“When were you going to tell me? After I was indebted to you even more, then you were going to spring it on me, so you could play me like a puppet? Was that your goddamn plan?”
“What are you talking about?”
“ND Manufacturing. The note. I know your name is on it.”
Miriam leaned against the wall, took several deep breaths. Dear God, not this way, not now.
“How...how did you find out?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think my people aren’t loyal to me?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Jack Finnegan told me all about it, how you came to visit him, told him you held the note but didn’t want me to find out.”
“I only wanted to help.”
“Help? By coercing my own mother into letting you take over the note? That was helping? So you could control the company, control me?”
She met Miriam’s gaze, then looked away.
“No more bullshit, Christine. How’d you do it? Threaten my mother with exposing Lily if she didn’t sign? Huh? Tell me, is that how you people do business in Chicago? Rule through intimidation?”
“No.”
“Forget it, I don’t want to know. Everything you say is a lie anyway.” He stood in the middle of the living room, fists clenched, rage pouring out of every word he spoke. “I want you to leave, now, and don’t come back. Lily shouldn’t be around someone like you.”
“Nathan, wait.” Miriam forced the words out of her mouth.
“No, Ma, let me take care of this.”
“No, Nathan.” She had to speak up, had to tell him the truth. “Christine didn’t bribe me or coerce me.” Oh, God, forgive me. “The loan wasn’t mine in the first place.”
“What?”
“It was never my note, Nathan.” She moved toward him, placed a hand on his arm. “You were struggling, having such a hard time keeping everything together, and I knew if you just had a little help—”
“Whose name was on the note?”
She sensed the second he figured it all out; his body tensed, and his breath stilled.
There was no way around the truth, not any longer. “Charlie signed the note.”
He deflated in one giant rush of air. “Blacksworth.”
“It was the only way, Nate.”
He shrugged off her hand. “And then, of course, Christine showed up and just stepped right in and took over. All this time, I thought it was the Desantro will prevailing, and it wasn’t; it was the Blacksworth money that pulled us out.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“You know, I would rather have let it all fold than take money from them.”
“What about your people? Don’t the employees deserve a fair chance?”
“Not if I had to sell my own soul to help them out.”
“You didn’t. Charlie simply gave you time to recover; you’re doing the rest.”
He dragged both hands over his face. “What would the old man say now? His own son has to take money from his mother’s lover to keep the company afloat. That’s pathetic, don’t you think?”
“I think it says Charlie believed in you.”
“The old man would tell him to take that belief and go screw himself.”
“Stop it, Nathan.”
“You think Charlie Blacksworth’s so wonderful, maybe the town should build a statue to honor his greatness. Huh? What do you think about that?” He spread his arms wide. “I think I’ll start a petition, see how many names I can collect.”
“You’re out of line.”
“I never remember you saying such wonderful things about my father. Your husband.”
She said nothing. How could she tell him she’d felt nothing but relief when his father died?
“Wasn’t he good enough? Were his hands too dirty for you?”
“Nathan! Stop!”
“I want to know, I’ve always wanted to know. Why didn’t you cry over Dad at night the way you used to when your lover was gone? He was your husband, for chrissake, my father. Charles Blacksworth was nothing but a weak bastard who wanted the best of both worlds.”
“He was an honorable man who loved me and Lily.”
“Don’t bring Lily into this; this has nothing to do with her. She was his daughter, of course he loved her.”
“All parents don’t love their children, Nathan, especially if they’re born with,” she paused, gathered strength, “a deficiency.”
“You’re saying we should all clap our hands because he loved his own daughter?”
“I’m saying some men would have run away.”
“Only a coward.”
“Dear God, I thought I was protecting you by not telling you the truth, but I think I’ve done more harm. Maybe if I had gotten it all out at the beginning, things would have been different. You and Charlie might have actually gotten along.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You will.” Her mouth pulled into a sad, faint smile. “When your father and I married, we were very much in love and so happy when you were born. We couldn’t wait to have another child, but instead I lost three babies before my fifth month. Something happens to a couple when they lose a baby; it makes them desperate, even irrational, the wanting is so deep, the loss so bleak. After a few years, we began to worry we’d never have another child. But finally, I was pregnant again and this time, I didn’t miscarry. We couldn’t wait for the new baby, boy or girl, we didn’t care.” She blinked hard, swallowed. “Your sister, Anna Nicolina was born three weeks early.” The tears started then, spilling down her cheeks, onto her chin, her neck. “The top of her head was missing. She only lived two hours. I stroked her tiny body, praying to God for some kind of miracle and all the while knowing there was no hope. They let me hold her while she took her last breaths.”
“Jesus, why didn’t you ever tell me?”
She sniffed, swiped both hands across her cheeks. “Because then I would have had to tell you that your father was at O’Reilly’s Bar when your little sister died. I would have had to tell you that he deserted us, told me it was better she died. And then I would have had to admit to the hatred that filled my soul from the moment he spoke those words until he took his last breath on the shop floor. I would have had to tell you that your hero, the man you thought was next to God, had rejected his own daughter.”
Nate looked away, closed his eyes.
“So I kept silent all these years. I did nothing to stop the animosity you felt for Charlie because I thought I’d destroy your love for your father, but now I see my silence is destroying your chance for happiness, for peace. Charlie may have been a weak man, Nathan, but he loved Lily.” She touched her son’s arm. “Stop this anger before it destroys you.”
He stared at her, the pain and bewilderment of her revelation stretching across his face. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. Then he turned and was gone.
Chapter 25
Harry bit into his ham sandwich and watched Greta reach for a glass bowl on the top shelf of her cupboard. Nice. His gaze followed the strong lines of her back, the firmness of her ass stretched over white shorts. Very nice.
He was sitting at a small oak table in Greta Servensen’s tiny kitchen on Wendell Street eating the best damned ham and Swiss he could remember. He’d become a regular here, since the night Greta’s car died at Gloria’s and he’d given her a ride home. No matter where he was going, a banquet, dinner, the theater, and no matter where he’d come from, golfing, a bar, a benefit, he invariably ended up at Greta’s for a cup of coffee, to talk; hell, who knew why he ended up here, he just did. She didn’t seem to mind, actually; after the initial shyness of having a man in her kitchen, he might even say she looked forward to seeing him.
And he looked forward to seeing her, too; not in the confines of Gloria’s buttoned-up house, where she had to wear a white-box uniform and old lady tie shoes, but here, in her own home, with that golden hair falling down her back and those bare legs, strong and tanned.
She was killing him, bit by bit, with that laugh, those legs, that smile. Oh, God, she had no idea how much he wanted to take her, right here, spread-eagled on the kitchen table. Every damn time he walked through that door, he fought with himself, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; one part reveling in the pureness of their growing friendship, the cleanness of it, and the other, saturated with lust and visions of her naked body covering his.
He could screw any woman he wanted; hell, he’d been doing that for years, but friendship, especially with a woman, now that was rare.
“Harry, can I get you another seltzer?”
He shook his head. “No thanks, I’m fine.” Look at him, Harry Blacksworth, drinking seltzer water. What he really wanted was a scotch neat but that would have to wait.
“Would you like another sandwich? Maybe half?”
“I haven’t finished this one yet.” He rubbed his stomach. “I’m going to have to start living at the gym just to work off what you’ve been feeding me.”
She smiled. “I don’t think so, Harry.” Her voice softened. “You look perfect.”
He looked away, tore into his sandwich. Now why’d she have to say that? He kept his eyes on the blue and white plate in front of him. She was supposed to be his friend; couldn’t she tell how hard he was trying to keep it that way?
“Harry?”
“What?” He needed to go home, right now.
“What’s the matter?”
He heard the concern in her voice, all soft and sincere, slithering over him, wrapping itself around his cock, tormenting the hell out of him. He needed to go home right now and call Bridgett.
“Harry?”
“Nothing. Okay? Nothing’s the matter.”
She was leaning against the sink, her long, golden hair falling around her, pale blue shirt unbuttoned at the neck, revealing a swell of breast. He pushed the plate away, stood up.
“I’ve gotta go.” Now, he had to get out of here now.
“But I
made you lemon meringue pie.”
There was the hurt in her voice, making him feel like a class-A asshole. He couldn’t help it; he was a class-A asshole.
“Take some with you.”
That was it. “I don’t want your goddamn pie. Do you understand?” He took a step toward her, then another until he had her backed against the sink.
“Harry?”
Her eyes turned a liquid blue, her lips parted, her head fell back. He knew the actions for what they were, though he doubted she understood herself. Desire. Women had been looking at him like this since he was a teenager, offering themselves up to him. And he’d been taking since then, too, mindless of anything but the push and pull of physical pleasure. Did she think he was going to stick around and hang his towel next to hers, sit beside her in church, shovel the walk? Didn’t she know it would only be about sex? Didn’t she care? He was trying to protect her from himself, from his worthless lechery.
She reached out and touched his cheek. “Underneath all of this, there is a good man. I see it.”
He grabbed her hand, thrust it away. “What the hell’s wrong with you? I’m not a good man. Would a good man be thinking about bending you over that table right now, with your kids asleep in the next room?” He saw the tears starting. “No, don’t start. Please.” He backed away. “You are the good person, Greta. You. And the best thing I can do, the one decent thing is to not touch you.”
She stood watching him, face wet with tears, eyes bright, and for the first time in years, he wished his life had been different, wished he had been different.
“Good-bye, Greta.” He took another step toward the door. “I think it would be best if I didn’t come here anymore.” And with that, he opened the door and walked away from the one true friend in his life.
***
She was packed to go, and if she left right this minute, she’d still make the flight. Christine tossed her overnight bag into the trunk of the Saab. The last several hours were still a blur; Nate standing in the middle of the living room learning the truth about his father, Lily crying because “Nate had acted scary”, and Miriam sitting beside Christine on the couch, sipping tea and talking into the early morning hours about losing her baby girl and her husband in the same day, learning to move on, and finally, loving Charlie Blacksworth.