But not Penelope. She stood and stared at the blood pooling in the indent in the asphalt and the girl’s mother came running and pushed Penelope to the side, pressing a handkerchief against her daughter’s head.
The children were led away from the scene and huddled by a nearby tree. During the frenzy of cries and cars coming to a screeching halt offering help, Penelope wandered back and decided to observe the scene up close.
She stared at the pool of blood. It wasn’t as scandalous to her as it was to the onlookers—she thought of the moment later, how it was twisted into something it was not—and she was merely attempting to see something up close she was fascinated by, not any different than looking at cells under a microscope, something doctors do, like her father.
Penelope kneeled down but couldn’t get a good look at the blood and so she lowered her bottom, her legs turned out and away from her body, her thighs spread apart, her eyes hovering inches above the ground. Ever since then, the children thought her to be odd and all the playhouses in the world weren’t going to change that.
The day the playhouse was put together and the window shattered—Penelope didn’t have power over the wind, didn’t slam the door shut, didn’t make the window break, and therefore the entire affair was not completely her doing—Penelope took a shard and sliced her hand open. The cutting part scared her at first but once the skin opened up, she was mesmerized and felt no pain. Who is to say why she did what she did? To distract her mother? To spare herself the humiliation of playing alone? The anticipation of having her father spend an entire hour getting the sutures just right?
Penelope sat in a squeaky chair for the better part of an hour waiting in the ER. “Any doctor can suture that cut,” the nurse said, but Penelope’s mother wasn’t having any of it. Only Dr. Pryor’s expertise would do. Her mother trusted no one else to close the wound just right, and she didn’t want even a hint of a scar, Penelope overheard her say to the nurse.
“My husband is an excellent plastic surgeon. I will not have my daughter’s hand look like an experiment.”
Her father came to stitch up the wound. In Penelope’s mind, he had special vision: he saw how things ought to be righted that had gone wrong. How else was she to understand that he cut healthy people with a scalpel and then just stitched them up without having cured anything at all?
Penelope had expected the trip to the hospital—the first of her life, not counting her birth—to be a bigger ordeal. It was anticlimactic for the most part; there were no machines taking pictures of her bones, no cups she had to pee in, and no needles prodding her, they didn’t even tell her to take off her clothes so they could put a gown on her. The highlight of the day was her mother inspecting the sutures and whispering over them as if she could will the skin to close and heal without a mark.
Later, at home, her mother sat down next to Penelope.
“What happened?” she asked and watched for words or gestures meant to expose Penelope somehow. Her mother was smart that way, capable of seeing signs that gave her away: the rapid blinking of the lids she had no control over, the trailing of her eyes to the left and downward, a sure sign of a lie to come.
“You didn’t do this deliberately, did you?” her mother asked. There was a long pause as Penelope watched her mother brace herself for the answer.
Penny replied with a wobble of the head, which could have been a yes or a no.
“Did you?”
“I don’t know what that word means,” Penelope said instead.
“Were you trying to hurt yourself?” Donna rephrased but Penelope knew the meaning of deliberate.
“Hurt myself?” Penny said as if that was a question incomprehensible to her, like a concept that only adults understood and that didn’t make sense to her at all.
Penelope felt desperation run through her mother, could tell by her breathing and the red rash on her neck. Penelope liked this spark she felt inside of her; it made her feel powerful. She closed her eyes, kept her breathing steady, afraid her mother might demand an explanation.
“Okay.” Donna smoothed the pink duvet along the edges of the four-poster bed. “Okay. You go to sleep.”
Penelope traced the cut with the tip of her thumb for years to come. There was an occasional tingling of severed nerves and the red welt faded into a barely visible white scar passing as a second life line, as if Penelope could pick one fate over the other.
4
DONNA
Soon it will be winter. Everything will cease to grow and thrive and bloom. I’d like to have a word with the arborist. What he’s done to the crape myrtles is a sin and I want to tell him how to properly prune them. Cutting them off at a certain height is the lazy way out; no, each plant is different and requires individual treatment. All one has to do is remove any dead flowers and seedpods and if you keep fertilizing, they will keep vigorously producing blooms until the first frost. I seem to recall purple blossoms a while back but I didn’t pay much attention; I wasn’t in the right state of mind then.
Though I’ve come a long way since Edward left me, I’m still in a peculiar place. I told the therapist—also located in-house for our convenience—I will always be Mrs. Edward Pryor and I insist on keeping the Pryor name after the divorce, minus the house and the husband. Though I told him, as a side remark, that keeping it was something I feel compelled to do, the truth is I imagine with horror Edward demanding I take back my maiden name.
Belcher. Donna Belcher. It conjures up the picture of a matronly woman in sensible shoes and stiff Aqua Net hair waiting for her monthly check to arrive so she can go grocery shopping. I have zero proclivities to be that kind of a woman, ever.
* * *
• • •
Outside my window two women with visors walk past, their footsteps echoing sharply. They are dressed casually: jeans, fitted jackets, and neck scarves. Their arms and legs move in unison and I feel a pang of loneliness. Friendships are hard to come by, and I’ve been moody and ought to make more of an effort to meet people.
All day I’ve worn my hair in a bun, the bobby pins nipping and prodding my scalp. Without a mirror I struggle and they get tangled in my hair. I open a drawer and arrange the pins neatly on top of a sleek folder with a glossy cover and embossed letters in gold foil.
I had pulled it from the recycling bin within a stack of discarded newspapers. The folder was given to Marleen when I moved to Shadow Garden a year ago. She has removed most of the pages—the one with important phone numbers is tacked to the bulletin board in the kitchen, so is the waste schedule. Garbage is to be placed on the walkways on Monday and Thursday between eight and ten, securely tied up in bags and left beside the columns by the front doors to be picked up by a maintenance crew member. Marleen takes care of that and has the schedule committed to memory, I’m sure.
The back page of the folder is a map of the monarch butterfly migration, starting in Mexico beginning in March and subsequently journeying north to Canada. It’s a nice touch, though I lack understanding of the connection to luxury apartments, but I appreciate the juxtaposition with my own life of, say, reinvention and determination of one’s own journey. The calligraphy is exquisite and reminds me of invitations I used to send out. The rest of the pages I barely skimmed over but I recall sketches of floor plans with square footages, suggested furniture placement—management is a stickler for keeping the windows unobstructed by heavy pieces, for safety reasons I assume—reminders about the wildlife, and bait stations tucked underneath bushes and in the corners of breezeways. Apparently stray cats are frowned upon and rats are considered a nuisance, and just like in real life, friend or foe seem arbitrary but I keep my mouth shut.
I slide the folder back into the drawer of my vanity. So little privacy left with Marleen around every day but this drawer remains my very own space.
How long have I been sitting here, tinkering with my hair? The two women from earlier h
ave passed by my window twice, maybe even three times. To lose track of time can be a blessing with the thoughts of—
The house phone rings twice. Always twice. Then it stops. How odd. I wonder what that’s all about. From the kitchen the cabinet doors bang, the dishes clink like cymbals.
“Marleen,” I call out. My voice sounds sharp. I’m not always kind to her and I promised myself I’ll do better. “Marleen?” Softer this time.
She appears as if she moves about by hovering above the ground.
“Yes, Mrs. Pryor?”
This is what it comes down to every day. “Any phone calls today?”
“No, Mrs. Pryor, no calls.”
“I heard the phone ring.”
“Oh, that,” she says and cocks her head to the side. “Just someone at the gate punching the wrong numbers, I guess. It stopped ringing.”
Marleen Clifford is a swift and practical woman. She’s either a young-looking fifty or a hard-life thirty, it’s difficult to tell. I don’t ask her age, that would be rude. She appears in the mornings and without fanfare prepares my breakfast. She does my laundry, manages my appointments, reminds me of my schedule, and does everyday chores like vacuuming and dusting. She cooks and cleans, though the meals are not elaborate and the house seems to maintain itself.
I have no complaints but for this one peculiar habit of hers: she seems to think she’s in charge of certain aspects of my life. She moves things around the house—vases, figurines, and glass bowls—puts them away altogether—mind you, I have observed this myself—and I’m convinced she was a clumsy child and had her fair share of scolding. Her disposition is one of anticipating the worst. I discovered my Meissen figurines in a box in the storage room. Marleen never told me she found them though I had specifically asked for them to be displayed. I have yet to mention that to her.
It took weeks to get settled and now there’s that storage room left to tackle. Boxes pile up to the ceiling, leaving barely room to move. The peculiar thing is that the number of boxes never seem to lessen regardless how much linen we stack in closets or how many books we put on shelves. They multiply and when I comment on it, Marleen seems uneasy. I don’t mention it anymore.
* * *
• • •
I’ve come a long way with my injury considering I was in excruciating pain when I began walking again. But I pushed through. Though my hip gives me problems on certain days, I have taken up running again. I’ve been hiding my recovery from everyone—Marleen, the doctors, even my friend Vera.
I check my running shoes for the proper tie and I head past a cluster of cast-iron chairs and a table tucked away underneath the silver maples where leaves have left unsightly stains on the ground. The courtyard has changed into its fall clothes and is no longer in bloom with colors of ferns, pears, and lime peels, has months to go before nature will emerge triumphantly.
I head down a walkway, past a fountain covered in algae, its copper spigot a pale green, and take the steps up to the walking trails where cast-iron poles indicate color-coded routes.
A trail of blood leads from the path onto the lawn. A grackle struggles within the green lush blades, one wing spread, the other tucked underneath its body. It wobbles and tips to the side, the long keel-shaped tail unable to keep it upright.
Around me, numerous grackles croak as if in protest, followed by a high-pitched whistle like a rusty gate swinging open. The calls of the birds are interrupted by a sound of scraping metal, which sends dozens of them bursting from surrounding trees.
A man in Dickies shovels what looks like a heap of black iridescent feathers into a metal bucket, repeatedly grating the shovel against the stones. There are countless dead birds scattered all around him but the man—I recognize him as one of the handymen but I don’t know his name—moves his large frame as if to conceal their scrawny legs sticking up into the air.
From the corner of my eye I see a shadow. I brace for impact and instinctively raise my arms. An owl—face round like a disc, head pulled back, and talons spread wide open—pounces on the struggling bird and then thrusts upward, spreading its wings, carrying the fidgeting grackle with it. The man and I stare at each other, then we gaze up at the sky. The owl has disappeared.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says and the shovel lands with a clunk on the walkway.
Tipped-over rat bait stations and green chunks lie scattered about. Didn’t they mention something about the sanctity of wildlife in that brochure?
Neither one of us mentions the dead birds.
* * *
• • •
Marleen told me there was a mix-up. That’s not what she said, her words were quite harsh and there were lots of tears, more a stern lecture to not mess with the bills, those were her words. Mess with.
A month ago I came upon a contractor’s estimate for the kitchen renovation at Hawthorne Court. Some oversight while packing, the paperwork must have ended up with my bank statements. I would have discarded the papers altogether if it hadn’t been for the rather silly logo that jogged my memory: two gnomes with red pointy hats, Kitchen Magic, Inc. The cheapest estimate by far, yet it took two months for the kitchen renovation and delayed our move to Hawthorne Court by weeks. I feel anger when I’m reminded of Edward’s constant miser mode. Before I knew it, I tore at the papers, shredding them, wanting to gnarl at them like a wild animal.
I must have ripped up other paperwork in the process and thrown out bills that subsequently didn’t get paid and then the phone rang, one call after the other, and Marleen was upset, so much more so than anyone should be over paperwork, and I remember thinking why doesn’t she just put someone in charge of the bills? But she is the one in charge.
Marleen made me promise not to go through the drawers again but the incident also opened a floodgate of emotions: finances, bank statements, insurance policies, legal contracts, everything pertaining to my financial situation is unknown to me. Edward takes care of all the financial affairs though I’m not aware of any settlement or if he has filed for divorce. No one’s served me with papers, I’ve never signed any kind of documents relating to anything financial, nor have I been contacted by a lawyer. There’s no prenuptial agreement—neither one of us brought anything into the marriage but our good intentions—and I have signed neither a lease nor anything related to utilities. I’m not aware of a health or life insurance policy, of investments, annuities. Was there a settlement? Is there alimony? Or is Edward paying for Shadow Garden as long as he sees fit? Until . . . until? No contract I can hold Edward to, no agreement of support. What would I do, where would I go?
I’m hardly prepared to support myself and what happens if Edward decides to abandon me completely? And mostly, why would he not? I’m not worth anything to him, the smidgeon of loyalty he has left for me will eventually fade.
I get angry, mostly at myself. For not knowing. The scenarios I imagine create a panic I can hardly contain, not a hypothetical panic, not some made-up situation, no, I’ve seen some Donna Pryors around here. I’ve seen them on the trails, well off, just look at their clothes and shoes, and those handbags they carry, their nails immaculate, not a wrinkle in their clothes, not a scuff mark on their shoes. I’ve also seen husbands trade in wives for younger women, I’ve seen how easily alliances shift and money gets tight, I’ve seen men live it up with the new woman and call destitution in front of a judge. I’ve known court cases to drag on for years.
I open the drawer where Marleen keeps all the files, but they are gone. She must have moved them because all they contain is a bare minimum of flatware and kitchen utensils where the files used to be. In the drawer below that, underneath a tray of sterling tea strainers, bouillon scoops, cheese picks, cake servers, and caviar forks, I find a folder but all it contains are medical bills. There’s not a scrap of paper relating to a divorce or a settlement.
Now that my head is clearer, I should get legal advice.
I flinch when I imagine a version of myself scraping by in an apartment with cheap carpet, laminated countertops, and a small storage room on the balcony. It’s not an image I plan to entertain. I didn’t go to medical school but I had just as much to do with Edward’s success and anyone who wants to say otherwise, I challenge. We did good things and good things came to us.
If Shadow Garden is my consolation prize, what’s Edward’s? I’ve fretted endlessly about it, have weighed the options, teetered from guilt to he would never to how much do we really know another person? Is keeping Penelope from me his final revenge? I’m not insinuating Edward is capable of hurting Penelope—that’s not at all what I’m saying—but maybe Edward wants Penelope all to himself? Some sort of psychological manipulation when parents separate, which happens every day in so many families. The fact that both have cut off contact with me makes me suspicious of Edward.
He was the kind of man who went to work every morning, face cleanly shaven, shirt starched, tie knotted, forever cheerful and personable with his employees and patients, just to come home and take critical glances at renovations and new furniture. Money was one thing—there was lots of it—but Penelope was another, an only child getting caught in the crosshairs of our squabbles. He complained how I monopolized her and he blamed his trouble connecting with her on my taking up so much of her time. We clashed about everything pertaining to Penelope’s future. It all came to a head when I had my mind set on having her attend the International Debutante Ball.
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