A Family Trust

by Ward Just

  “Well, you know.” Dana knew she was perspiring; beads of sweat jumped through her skin. “She’s been sick for years. But no, there wasn’t any warning.”

  “Well, it’s a hell of a thing,” he said slowly.

  “I want to take Cathy with me, you know Out there for the funeral.”

  “Well, Dana., she’s only nine.”

  “I believe that children should know the bad with the good,” Dana. said rapidly “They should witness funerals as well as weddings. That’s what I believe. I’ve always believed it. Don’t fight me on this, please.”

  “We’d made arrangements.” He glanced over her head, out the window.

  “Can they be canceled?”

  His smile was fleeting. “Nothing’s graven in stone.”

  She said. “No, it isn’t.” She pushed her knees together with both hands. “It’ll only be for a couple of days, my dad hasn’t seen her for a year. It’ll make things easier for him, perhaps. On the other hand, perhaps not,”

  “That’s what I was thinking, and it might be hard on Cathy—” He leaned over her now, perched on the arm of the seat across the aisle.

  “It’s something I believe very strongly. I want her with me now. Those arrangements, whatever they are you can cancel them. And please do. I can explain it to Shirley if you don’t want to.” She was being sharper than she wanted. She knew he would not, in. the end, refuse her. But she didn’t want to argue with him. Really, she didn’t want to talk to him at all.

  He said, “All right, Diana. Under protest.”

  She shrugged. Her head was beginning to ache and she took a swallow of her drink “I’ll let you know from Dement when she’ll be back. It’ll be ten days at the most.”

  “I don’t want to quarrel with you Dana,” he said stiffly “It’s so good to see Cathy again, she seems to have had a pleasant enough time with you.” He looked at her with his dry eyes and bland smile.

  “And Myles,” she said.

  “Myles, too,” he said.

  She said, “They’re great friends.” She put her shoulders back against the seat and patted her stomach.

  “Is that right?” he asked coolly

  “Yes, they went—swimming. Every day” Then she said, “They built sand castles together.” She was laying waste to everything now and enjoying it. She watched him nod slowly and noticed that his knuckles were white, gripping the seat in front of her.

  “Well, they must have had fun then.”

  “We all did,” she said, leaning away from him. “Me. And Cathy. And Myles.”

  He looked straight at her then, as grim as she had ever seen him. Suddenly she felt ashamed and turned away, though the expression on her face did not change. He leaned down and said in her ear, “When did you decide to be such a bitch?” Then he stood up and. straightened his tie and went on to the lavatory.

  She slumped in her seat and looked out the window. She was no longer perspiring and her hands were still, The clouds were below them now and the plane seemed to float through the atmosphere; there was no sensation of speed. She took a swallow of her drink and held the glass at arm’s length to reassure herself that she was steady. She decided that she felt both better and worse for all that. She heared the lavatory door open and. felt him brush her arm as he moved up the aisle, no backward glances. She could not suppress it, and why should she; she had a connection with him. She could not destroy it, no matter what she did. They had had a child together but the connection went beyond that. No one could ever know her as he knew her. He had a part of her and would always have it. She had come to him fresh, had opened herself in a way that she never would, never could, ever again. She would have given her life for him. Those bright, fresh, crowded hours—they had behaved like spendthrifts; there was no end to anything. It was a time when all promises were kept. She looked at his angular body settling in between his wife and daughter. She had known every turn and crevice in that body Now she could hardly remember it at all. There was a long ragged scar, but was it on the right or left thigh? She had known everything there was to know about him and she supposed that somewhere in her memory she had it still. She did not care for him as a man now and was surely not in love with him. But the connection remained, similar to the connection with her own family Her grandfather, her parents; the parent that was dead as well as the parent that was alive. She watched him turn to his laughter and smile and the smile stirred her because he was the first man she had ever truly watched—move a certain way, speak, and smile. She saw Cathy tilt her head and laugh. There was a Rising look to her. There in. the nine-year-otd. were. parts of her grandfather, her parents, herself. She had her mother’s shy look around the eyes and the way she held her hands when standing. Dana smiled. It wasn’t true that all promises were, dead; some were and some were not. There was always a new promise to be made and kept; the world was full of promises. They were still laughing, father and daughter. She felt wretched, she should have asked McGee about his father. She hadn’t seen Harold McGee in five years; he was retired now and living somewhere on Long Island. Maybe he was living in the beach house, that funny sanctuary, that place they’d both loved so. She swallowed her drink in a gulp and closed her eyes. She breathed very carefully. One, she said, two, three; she said, four. The surge came from behind her eyes and she fought it back. One, two, three. She saw her mother’s face as she had been as a young woman, a determined woman who stood at the center, holding things together, a woman of no little strength and purpose. Too young. Surely too young to die. She squeezed her lips together and felt the pressure recede, and then disappear. She’d won; it was gone now. She breathed out, a long sigh. Her eyes popped open.

  “Goody!” Shirley McGee, gray eyes bright as stars, sat down beside her. “Now we can have our little chitchat,” she said, and began to talk about her husband.

  3.

  DANA PULLED into the driveway and stopped at once, her head resting on the steering wheel. She turned off the engine and watched a flight of blackbirds approach from the field and settle in the big oaks, each bird releasing a memory, their cries like tolling bells. She opened the door and got out of the car, her head fuzzy from lack of sleep and the long hours of concentration. She scuffed through the wet leaves on the lawn, the leaves clinging to her shoes. The air was stale and damp but she breathed deeply, walking away from the car. The high trees were dark and forbidding in the failing light but at the top of the driveway the house looked cheerful. The porch light was on and from a distance she thought she could see movement behind the curtains. But the kitchen was dark and empty. She pulled her coat around her and walked to the stand of oaks, the place where she went to smoke cigarrettes as a teenager, and dream of jazz hands and voyages and feasts. The blackbirds flew off into the field, screeching: in the distance was a house that had not been there a year ago. She turned away, facing her own house now, the stone birdbath and the cast-iron love. seat in the foreground, the shrubs flanking the driveway and on the second floor the window to her own room, the cloister from which she had viewed the world. She smiled sadly, home at last, She begun to move up the lawn toward the house and the front door swung open, the inside light silhouetting her father. He was motionless in the doorway and she walked toward him. up the lawn and still he did not move. His hands were at his sides and he looked to his left and right, and then saw her car at the end of the driveway. “Dad?” She walked more quickly now and he came out of the doorway and onto the front steps. His head jerked upward then and he came carefully down the steps and across the driveway, his shoes crunching the gravel. His walk was unsteady and still he did not seem to hear her, though he was only a few yards away now, He wore no coat and his shirt was unbuttoned, his tie at half-mast. He was looking at her directly now and his face broke open in a crooked smile. She ran the last few yards and they embraced on the wet lawn in front of the cars. His skin felt feverish, as if he’d been wrapped in a blanket. They stood there swaying a moment, close, then turned and walked into the house,
arms around each other’s waists. Inside they embraced again and she began to cry. He comforted her with his arms and helped her off with her coat. She turned to look into the kitchen but it was dark, and when she looked up the hall stairs she saw the second floor was dark, too. There were fresh flowers in the hall and in the living room. Her Uncle Tony stood as they entered the living room, and the old wall clock chimed six.

  “My God,” she said. “I left Cathy in the. car.”

  “Cathy’s her?” Charles Rising turned away in confusion.

  Dana nodded. “In the car. I left it at the end of the drivewan” She laughed apologetically. “I’ll go get her.”

  “Oh Dana,” he said. “You should not’ve brought her, it’s no thing for a child-”

  “Dad, she’s almost ten. years old.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean, she’s just a little thing.”

  But Dana was already out of the room and opening the front door. She strode briskly down the driveway to her car. Cathy was still sleeping, curled up in the front seat. Dana drove the car to the front door and gently prodded her daughter. “We’re here,” she said is the child wakened slowly “Sleepy?” She nodded. “We’ll get you right into bed. But first we’ll say hello to Grandpa and Uncle Tony You remember Undue Tony?” Cathy nodded sleepily. “We’ll leave the bags until later. You can go up and have a nap and then come down for dinner if you want to.” They got out of the car together and saw both men standing on the *stoop. Cathy ran to her grandfather and he scooped her up. Dana thought he looked hardly strong enough to lift her, but she came off the ground easily and put her arms around Charles Rising’s neck. The four of them went into the house and Dana took Cathy straight up to her old room. She needed no urging to go straight to sleep. She was asleep again when her head touched the pillow. Dana kissed her on the cheek and went into the bathroom to put a cold towel on her face and brush her teeth. The room had not changed; it retained a little-girl look and smelled vaguely of stale cologne. Dana stood wearily at the basin. She had not slept at all the night before, they were late arriving in New York. Of course there had been no sleep on the airplane, Mrs. Shirley McGee had seen to that, She stood for a moment with the wet washcloth on her face, then went on downstairs. Both men were talking quietly in front of the fire. They rose when she entered the room.

  She took Tony’s chair and moved it closer to the fireplace, explaining about the flight, McGee and Shirley at Shannon and the late arrival at Kennedy, an overheated motel room until seven a.m., the delay of the flight’s departure until nine. The only comfort she had was Cathy who was an excellent traveler; not a word of complaint from her. But it had been an exhausting two days, though she supposed nothing compared to Dement.

  Her father shrugged, his eyes on the fire. He said, “We tried to cable you, telephone. When Lee went into the hospital at first. No answer on the phone and no answer to the cable.”

  She said, “We didn’t get any cable, Dad.”

  “I suppose they aren’t very efficient over there.”

  She said, “No.”

  he said. “She had a seizure on—He looked at Tony, who said, Friday; it was Friday. ”Friday, early in the afternoon. We called an ambulance and I went with her to the hospital. Stayed there most of the night, then went to see Elliott Townsend Saturday afternoon. I guess I got back to the hospital around eight. They said she’d had a fairly comfortable day but she was still in a coma. But I hadn’t felt good about her all day She looked—sick. Sicker than before but the doctors were hopeful.” He paused and looked at his hands, for a moment lost in thought. “The hospital’s improved quite a bit in the last few years, it isn’t what it was. It’s better. Better doctors, though you’d be surprised how many are foreign-born. Indians, Orientals. Well,” be said. “I returned about eight. Elliott and I had had a long talk and I was tired. I just sat for a while and then I guess I fell asleep. I woke up and went to sit by her bed, you know; hold her hand. And she looked to me then as if she’d gone.” He was still staring at the fire, talking now as if to himself. Dana put her hand on his arm. and he covered it with his own hand. “I was very alarmed and called the nurse who did—whatever they do. Checked her pulse, her heart. She told me that Lee was all right. No change in her condition. I remember she looked closely at the I-V and some other gadget they had hooked up. I don’t know about these things. The nurse.” He paused and swallowed hard. “Insisted that I go next door and rest myself. The room next door was empty They added a new wing to it, you know, and there are about eighty more beds than when you were around here. It’s really a very fine hospital, as fine as any in the state”.

  “Dad,” she said. “We can talk about this later.”

  “No,” he said calmly “So I went next. door. I didn’t want to go, you understand, but the nurse insisted. And I must confess that I was tired, maybe as tired as I’ve ever been in my life. I haven’t felt so red-hot lately, so I permitted myself to be taken next door. But I couldn’t sleep. Have you ever been so tired you couldn’t sleep? My mind wouldn’t stop working, it was as if there were people inside my brain who wouldn’t stop talking. I felt like covering my ears, and I remember that I did; but it didn’t help any The talk went on and on as if there was a meeting going on inside, everyone talking at once. I don’t know, maybe I was dreaming.” He stopped again and opened his mouth; she could hear his tongue snap. She pressed his arm but he appeared not to notice. He said, “Strangers* voices. So after a little I got up again and wandered out into the corridor to the nurses’ station to get a glass of water. I must’ve been quite a sight because the nurse insisted I go back and wanted to give me a sleeping pill. But I said I was allergic; sleeping pills upset my stomach. I remember, we were talking in whispers at the nurses’ station. She finally got me to admit that I wasn’t allergic. She told me they were doing everything they could for Lee but that I had to be strong, too. Then she led me back to her room and we looked in and I remember—” He looked away and his hand moves away from hers and settled on his knee. His body was rigid, as if made of iron. She looked at Tony alarmed, but Tony shook his head. It was a gesture that said. Let him talk “Somehow the needle had worked loose in her arm. I don’t know. maybe she had a convulsion. But the nurse quickly went in and closed the door, leaving me in the corridor. Hospital corridors have a strange light at night, did you ever notice it? You don’t know where the light is coming from. Well, there was a wheelchair in the corridor and I just sat down on it. And of course then I couldn’t help thinking about the time Dad was in the hospital. It was in the old part of the hospital of course, the walls and floors built of wood. Damn place was a firetrap and of course they use it as a storehouse or something now. This new place, it’s steel and concrete and the floors are covered with a sort of rubber. Rubber linoleum.”

  “Sterile,” she said.

  “Um?” He looked at her pleasantly.

  “Sterile. Antiseptic.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That, too.”

  She said, “Not warm,”

  “No. So.” He looked around the room, as if to get his bearings. It was a room that had not changed in twenty years, all, the things in it familiar to them both; the books and pictures and bric-a-brac. His eyes rested on a photograph of his father, then he was staring at the fire again. “She came out of the room, a nice, capable woman. This nurse. She said that Lee was all right but that she was going to call the doctor. Meanwhile, I was not to go in. I was to go to the room next door. She was very firm about that, though of course I could’ve overruled her. Rising money helped build that hospital, and of course Do you think I should have overruled her?”

  Dana shook her head. No.

  Tony said, “No, Charlie. You did what you could.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Well, I did go next door. She was leading me like a child and talking. I had all those damned voices and her, too.” He smiled unexpectedly and they all laughed as if a great joke had been made.

  Dana said, “Poor Daddy.”
/>   “But it was what the nurse said to do.”

  “Of, of course,” she said hastily. “Of course,”

  “But the nurse doesn’t know the family”

  Tony said firmly, “You did the right thing.”

  “She didn’t understand that the family always stuck together. Always.” He’d lost the thread of his story and looked it Datia, puzzled. The silence grew.

  “The nurse,” she said gently.

  “Oh yes, I’m not sure that she understood what Lee expected.”

  Tony said, “She was doing what was for the best, medically”

  “Yes, she called the doctor.” He nodded sharply and began to talk in rapid bursts. “I went with her to the nurses’ station though of course I couldn’t hear what they were saying on the telephone. She spoke with the receiver right up to her teeth, like this.” He put his fist to his mouth. “But at the end I heard her say. Thank you, doctor, and give me a big bright smile. Then the two of us walked on down to the room next to Lee’s. I didn’t notice it as she was walking but she had two sleeping pills and a glass of water with her. She gave me some pajamas, one of those darned smocks they wear. Flimsy white things. Made me get into it and then made me get into bed. She was very polite but very determined. I took both pills and swallowed them down with water and I can tell you the nurse looked relieved.”

  Dana winked at Tony. “She didn’t want two patients, Daddy.”

  “No, she didn’t want two, One was enough.”

  Dana said, “So you fell asleep at last.”

  He shook his head. “Not right away I told her that I was allergic to sleeping pills. That wasn’t true, I’m not allergic to anything. What is true is that they don’t have a big effect on me, never did. They work, of course, but it takes time for them to work.”

  “Just like Dad,” Tony said.

  “Exactly” Charles said. “Exactly like Dad.”

  “Takes more than a couple damn pills to put a Rising down.”