“…surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” Thomas sounds very erudite as he responds to something the Sunday school teacher asked.
Guilt washes over me. I learned so many verses in my childhood. Why can’t I run to the Bible, like Nikki Jo or even Thomas, to find comfort? Thomas reads it every night before bed. I’m reminded of those cryptic words on Rose’s hidden garden stones. Pulling a church pen from the pew ahead of me, I write “Rose rocks” on my hand so I’ll remember to pull out my Bible at home.
By the end of our class, I have a newfound respect for young Sunday School teachers. Parents leave to retrieve their children from Sunday school. Petey whirls into the pew, plopping down next to me.
The choir trickles up to the choir loft, Nikki Jo among them. They launch into a kicky Southern Gospel song. Nikki Jo’s lilting soprano mesmerizes and is impossible to ignore, even as the other voices meld around it. Andrew and Kelsey whisper together, oblivious to the beauty of the song lyrics.
Petey leans over, cupping his hand by my ear. “Don’t look now, but that big guy back there is staring at you.”
I wait a little, then twist slightly toward the back. Sure enough, there’s Axel, large as life, looking right at me. I’m stalked on every side, from elderly care homes to church.
I nudge Petey. “Does he normally go here?”
“Don’t know; maybe?”
Helpful. As the choir switches to their next song, I focus on each and every singer’s outfit. Pink tie, white oxford shirt, rumpled chinos. Red sweater, navy polyester skirt, brooch from the 1700s or thereabouts. Hopefully, if I act like Axel’s not there, Thomas won’t think to turn around.
We make it all the way to the sermon. As the elderly pastor instructs us to open our Bibles, Andrew punches Thomas’ arm, jerking his head toward the back row. The look on Andrew’s face says something like “Dude, what is up with that?”
I sit stock-still, willing myself not to breathe. Axel, get out of here and quit staring at me, you Germanic brute.
Thomas turns.
Then he turns back, looking at the pastor as if nothing’s wrong. It takes about two seconds for him to dramatically raise his arm, extend it fully, then position it on the pew behind my back.
Staking the territory. Andrew recognizes this and winks at his brother.
By the conclusion of the sermon and invitation, Thomas has rubbed my head, my neck, and my shoulders, causing no end of coughing and throat-clearing behind us. I finally draw the line when he starts massaging my chin with his fingertips.
Thankfully, Axel’s out the door before we get out of our pew. The Sunday school teacher comes over, introducing his wife, who bears more than a passing resemblance to a tan, towering Swedish model. I have no idea what to say to her.
Nikki Jo invites us to stay for the church dinner, but I politely shoot down that idea. On Thomas’ last day off, I only want to hang out with him.
I’m quiet in the car, which makes Thomas restless. He peppers me with random questions. “What was that crazy guy doing watching you again?” “Don’t you think the choir needed more bass today?” Finally, he hits it. “Wasn’t that a good Sunday school class?”
Yes…yes it was. Good enough to make me come back, in fact. I’ve wanted to ask my burning questions about God for so long, and that Sunday school class seems as likely a place as any to do it.
I rub lotion into my dry hands, noticing the words I wrote. “Thomas, do you recognize the words Mene, Tekel, and Upharsin?”
“Sure. Those were in Daniel, I think. Remember the writing on the wall? Let me think.” He gets his intense lawyer look, the one that always makes me want to kiss him. “Weighed in the balances and found wanting; something like that. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s it.”
So Rose felt someone was weighed and found wanting—probably her husband. But I think Miss Rose left a little something to be desired herself. The obvious question is whose child had she been pregnant with?
26
~*~
One Sunday, I asked Claire to take me to Cliff’s church. I told her I wanted closure, but really, I wanted to stay in her good graces. Paul had been ignoring me since the moonshine binges started, so it wasn’t a problem to leave the house.
Church was much like I’d remembered, full of starched-looking people who didn’t care to talk with me. How did Cliff manage to stay so real when he was surrounded with so many fakes?
Even when one of Paul’s poker friends came over, he shifted around, not looking me in the eyes. Was he embarrassed to know me?
Once we sang hymns, I relaxed, recognizing the old words from childhood. Still, what did they mean to me? So many happily married couples here. Who could understand the depths I’d been forced to endure, much less my method for achieving freedom?
For half the sermon, the temporary pastor told jokes. For the other half, he had us flipping around in the Bible like it was on fire. My disappointment surprised me, since I hadn’t been expecting much. I guess I was keenly aware Cliff would’ve been saddened by the farcical sermon.
On the way home, I told Claire I couldn’t go to church again, feigning sadness over Cliff. She said she understood. I wanted to laugh hysterically. No one understood, not even Bartholomew. Not my ghostly mother. And probably not even God.
~*~
My alarm bleeps and bleeps. I finally drag myself up, stumble across to the dresser, and contemplate bashing the blue LED into a thousand pieces with my hairbrush.
Realization dawns. I’m meeting with the Good Doctor today at the bistro for lunch. It’s already ten o’clock—I must have hit snooze six times. Why am I still tired? Maybe the pregnancy?
Downstairs, I whip up a breakfast of champions: toast and Nutella. I hope the chocolate fortifies me for the day, since I don’t have time to brew coffee in our old-school French press.
Finally, I feel relatively presentable in my baby bell-bottom jeans and purple shirt. I throw on some silver ball earrings and matching mesh bracelet, for a touch of class.
The house phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, but I pick up.
“Aw, good, honey—it’s you. Listen, I been down here in this cell just a’thinkin about you all Christmas—I mean Thanksgiving. I wanted to be there, you know I did.”
The smoky voice pulls at me through the phone line. My mom. Calling from prison. I back onto the couch and sit, trying to harness my emotions.
“How are you doing, Mom?”
“Now, don’t you go gettin’ all sly on me. Is it true you’re pregnant?”
Oh, good land. Who told her that?
“Yes, Mom, I am. Found out not too long ago.” Well, maybe a couple months…
Mom coughs directly into the phone—a nasty phlegm-filled cough. What if she has bronchitis in that comfortless cell? I need to find out which prison she’s in and go see her. I shouldn’t have distanced myself so far from her problems.
“Now listen, I just need to get outta here, then we can go get you some baby stuff.” Mom doesn’t even know where I live, much less that I don’t need anything bought with her drug money. If there’s any left.
“What did the judge say about when you’re getting out?”
“Now don’t you worry your pretty little head about that judge. Momma’s gonna find a way out of here; wait and see. I’m tired of sitting around, all do-less.”
Oh mercy.
She coughs again. I hope the guard’s standing by with some Clorox wipes for the phone.
She finally breaks the silence. “Okay, well, better go, sweet girl. See you later.”
Click. That’s it. No time for a rebuttal, question, or reply. My mom makes up her mind and there’s no stopping her. Unfortunately, she nearly always gets set on doing the wrong things.
I rush to the SUV, running late. Any cohesive thoughts are lost, like someone pushed the reset button on my game system. I can’t even remember one topic I wanted to broach with the Good Doctor.
I flip on the Christia
n radio station, hoping for something to fill my soul. Instead, I get nothing but lovey-dovey songs. I feel anything but that.
Turning it off, I focus on the serpentine pavement ahead. I might be the worst child ever. I don’t even want my mom to know this grandchild. Hiding the baby and myself away seems a legitimate plan right now.
Point Pleasant comes into view way too soon. I almost turn the wrong way down a familiar one-way street. Finally, I pull into a parking spot near the restaurant.
When I get out, the nippy air braces me. By the time I push open the bistro’s heavy wooden door, there’s a fifty-fifty chance I might be lucid enough to interrogate Doctor Cole.
I scan the room. He smiles at me from a darkened booth and waves me over. There is no way on earth he could be from the same decade as Miranda. The first question I should ask is “How do you stay so well-preserved?” Between the strong chin, the shock of white hair, and the impeccable wardrobe, he’s a regular elderly Don Juan. Today, I fixate on his shoes—soft gray suede lace-ups.
He stands as I walk to the booth—an old-fashioned gesture that doesn’t fail to impress. He grabs my hand and covers it with his own. “Tess, so good to see you. How’s the pregnancy?”
I try to inject some edge into my voice. “Doing okay, but that whole episode with Miranda was pretty traumatizing. She still seems weak—is that normal?”
The Doc’s gaze sharpens and he goes into doctor mode. “Perfectly normal with that kind of overdose, I’m afraid. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to determine how that could’ve happened.”
“I have some ideas, one of which is a specific volunteer over at The Haven. Have you noticed a pretty blonde working there?”
“Actually, the volunteers are there on weekends, during the mornings. I usually round in the afternoons.”
Our waiter sidles over and reels off the list of specials, his eyes never leaving my face. I order a peach sweet tea and Caesar salad, and the Doc orders a crab salad sandwich and sweet potato fries. When the waiter finally turns back to the kitchen, I breathe a sigh of relief.
The Doctor gives me a knowing look. “Must happen all the time, huh?”
“What?” I feign oblivion.
He smiles. “Rose had that problem, too. When you’re beautiful, you attract attention. When you’re beautiful and approachable, you attract even more.”
It takes me aback, this comparison to Rose. Lately, I’ve been hating on her for her indiscretions. Which puts me in mind of a question I need to ask the Good Doctor. I lean across the table.
“I know you and Rose were close. I also know you pronounced her death. Please be honest with me. Was she pregnant when she died?”
The Doctor inhales some of his coffee down the wrong pipe. After coughing and sipping water for a minute, he tries to answer, his face still red.
“I wonder”—cough—“how you got that idea?”
“You’ve said it yourself, Doctor. I’m pretty intuitive. I’ve been putting some pieces together with pictures, stories, and the like. I also know you could have fathered that baby.” I calmly take a sip of sweet tea. Sometimes it feels pretty daggone good to be “top banana in the shock department,” as Holly Golightly says in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
The Doctor takes one last cough, then recovers his composure. “Bravo, Tess. Good sleuthing. Yes, Rose and I were involved. And you’re right, it would have been my child.”
I didn’t expect this quick admission. “Would have been? But wasn’t she pregnant when you pronounced her?”
His habitual smile dissolves. “I know she wasn’t pregnant then. She’d had an abortion.”
My face freezes. “But why would she do that? I thought she wanted a child more than anything—at least, that’s what Miranda told me.”
The waiter brings our food, derailing my train of thought with his unwelcome stares. He carefully places the plate between my hands, saying, “Careful, now, that’s hot.” He leans closer and whispers, “Just like you.”
I catch my breath. Did he really just say that? He stands by my chair, not even asking if we need anything.
The Doctor doesn’t fail to miss these intrusive overtures. He gives the waiter a look that could melt glass. “Excuse me, but we’d like a little privacy.”
The punk gives me a long smile, then moseys back toward the kitchen. I try to process the horror of what the Good Doctor told me.
“You said Rose got an abortion? How do you know?”
The Doctor dips his fry in ranch dip, then slowly chews it, gazing out the window. “I know because I asked her to.”
What? What about the physician’s creed: Do no harm?
He continues. “I know what you’re thinking. How could I do that? Well, I’ll explain. Paul would have killed Rose if he knew. And I’m not exaggerating. Rose always had bruises, and those bruises came from her husband. She never told Miranda.”
Fire works its way into my chest, until I’m ready to shout at all the injustices. “Don’t you think you should’ve told someone? Even now, Miranda’s getting ready to marry Paul! If he lays a hand on her I’ll kill him! And why didn’t you get Rose out of there, if you loved her so stinking much? You could’ve saved the baby and her!”
“What are you insinuating? That Rose could have been saved? She committed suicide.”
“Of course that’s what I’m insinuating. What if Paul found out and he killed her?”
“Ridiculous. Impossible.”
The Doctor’s tone is borderline condescending. “Why’s it so impossible, Doctor? You said yourself that Paul was violent. What if she pushed him too far?”
He leans toward me, templing his fingers. “I think it’s more a case of Rose’s psyche. You like to study people. What do you make of Rose, from what you’ve uncovered?”
“There’s no way I can understand someone who died forty years ago. Here’s what I do understand: if she killed herself, she was probably in the depths of despair because you forced her to have an abortion. If Paul killed her, it’s probably because you were having an affair with her. Either way, you’re the most direct link to her death.”
The Doctor rubs his forehead with long tan fingers, giving me an exhausted look. “Of course I know all this. I’ve suffered with insomnia since the night she died, all those years ago. Was it my fault somehow? I’ve had to live with the guilt.”
Guilt. The very word is heavy, like a rock dropped into a clear blue pool. And it’s something I’m acquainted with, every time I pull out my mental what if list. I should give the Good Doctor a break.
“You never married?” I try to sound casual.
He’s barely touched his sandwich. Wasted money…like the handsome Doctor’s wasted life. He focuses on me with those intense eyes. “I couldn’t. I know it sounds horribly old-fashioned, but she really was my one true love.”
It does sound quaint, but the Doctor seems honest. Then again, some of the best liars come across as incredibly honest.
As the Doctor pays the bill and I gather my things, I catch a glimpse of the wayward waiter through the kitchen door window. He winks. Jerk.
27
~*~
Snow started dumping halfway through the month, blocking us in again. I wished God had never invented December. I was going stir-crazy as it was. The wood stove was the only good reason I had to go out into the mess. I didn’t like being cooped up with Paul, or, if I was honest, my mother’s ghost.
The ghost had taken to appearing at the drop of the hat. I’d open my closet; she’d be shimmering between my clothes. I’d wake from a nightmare; she was hovering over my bed.
Still, I didn’t feel afraid, just uncomfortable. Mother didn’t really talk to me anymore, just gave me the feeling she was listening and supporting me.
Then, in the middle of the snowstorm, everything changed.
I didn’t want to fix supper, since I was feeling sick to my stomach. Paul brought leftover chicken and rice to me in bed. He walked into my room, then stopped short. He had
n’t come in since that day I was talking with my mother.
“Did you rearrange in here, Rosey? Something’s different.”
“Nothing’s different.”
He skulked over to the bed with the tray, sniffing at the air. “Feels like there’s a draft or something.” He set the tray on my lap, then walked toward the window. “This locked down?”
“Yes, Paul. Stop fretting.”
He came over and sat on my Wedding Ring quilt. His dark eyes were impenetrable as he examined my face slowly, from eyes to mouth. Finally, he spoke, his drawl exaggerated.
“You doin’ drugs?”
“What?!”
He grabbed my arms. The pain no longer affected me.
“You don’t let me in your bed now. What am I supposed to do, Rosey?” He leaned in closer, eyes nearly wild with passion. “I married you because I need you!”
I sat calm, unmoving—an ice queen. “Unhand me.”
“What?” He dropped his hands, shrugging helplessly. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. Then, like a baby, he laid his head on my lap and started sobbing.
I steeled myself against him, even as I rubbed his head. “There’s no more time, Paul. It’s too late.”
~*~
Back at our cottage, a strange urge to cook overwhelms me. Though the freezer is scantily stocked, I manage to find a couple steaks I’d bought on sale. I feel disconnected from Thomas, even though we just spent all weekend together. Whether it turns out to be a snow-bloated winter or not, December seems to stretch endlessly. Christmas is a light at the end of the very long tunnel.
I whisk around between my two countertops and the table, making salad and homemade breadsticks. The Doctor’s words echo in my head. He was sure Rose had an abortion because he asked her to. My stomach twists. The Doc is a murderer, whether he killed Rose or not. Chill bumps creep up my neck, to my very scalp hairs. I sit on the couch, gripping my stomach with both hands as it cramps again. He had Rose kill her baby. I ate lunch with a killer.
I run to the bathroom, just in time to lose my lunch. A dull headache replaces the stomach cramps. What if the Doctor poisoned me at lunch?
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