“What’s wrong with a grand ballroom where young women from all over the country are introduced to society?”
“This is clearly out of our league,” he replied.
Attending etiquette classes and preparing for the ball would take years and Edward visibly cringed at the thought of it all. I had envisioned the gown—Spanish guipure lace and three-dimensional flowers—but participants had to excel in something. Hadn’t one of the girls been an award-winning math scholar a couple of years back?
“What a parade of clowns,” Edward said and put his foot down. “For one, it’s an archaic notion,” he said, but I understood his issues to run much deeper; it was just another activity that he’d feel left out of. Like the playhouse, which had drawn harsh words from him, especially because it wasn’t something we could afford then. “I know I spend a lot of time at work but I’d like to . . .” He couldn’t find the right words. “You two have this connection,” he said, “and I feel I’m on the outside looking in.”
But Edward was all talk and no action. He hadn’t had the patience to practice division and subtraction with Penelope nor had he witnessed how difficult she could be. I had never explained to him how unsettled I was by some of her behavior, never mentioned when Penelope regressed to wetting the bed at eight.
I don’t know what it all means. Was I given a task to complete as a parent and I failed? Was I tested? Is that what this was all about? I am always searching for answers in the dark, always wandering aimlessly to understand.
Outside my window I see a couple, a man and a woman. The man does the gentlemanly thing and lets her rest her arm in the crook of his. I find it romantic, so much more so than holding hands. I’m oddly moved by them. My mind retreats into memories of my marriage. There’s the happy part, and then there’s reality. Stark and relentless: I have no clue what will become of me if Edward decides to cut me off financially.
The gibberish rush in my mind cumulates into one single thought: no sense in kidding myself, I’m at the mercy of Edward Pryor.
5
EDWARD
The cast-iron gate closed behind Edward. With one final shudder, the wheels rolled across the tracks, the chain quieted. Shadow Garden sat like a barbican, all that was missing was a drawbridge and a moat. As he drove off, the road dipped down and the building disappeared in his rearview mirror.
He was in a state. As if the gate’s final tremor had kindled his brain’s neurons, a dozen things were knocking on his door waiting to be acknowledged. Edward took stock: this was it. Donna was gone. Not gone gone, but gone from his life.
He had never taken the time to reflect. It wasn’t for a lack of want or need but for a lack of time. His parents, though they had the financial means to put him through college, had insisted on him working and grinding away and had turned him into a workhorse. He didn’t harbor any resentment regarding the money part, but they had all but expected him to practice family medicine, not that his parents knew what was best for him or what his dreams were, they wanted a son who was a local doctor in the town they’d lived all their lives.
What do parents really know about their children anyway, right?
Penelope was his only child so there were no feelings or money or time to be divvied up, it was all her all the time, yet he knew nothing about her. He was now convinced all he had ever seen of his daughter were versions of her, adaptations. Renderings, at best.
He’d always wanted a family. The thought of children had manifested long before the marriage part. The woman who would be the mother of his children remained elusive. There were girlfriends, of course, quite a few, but it wasn’t until he was halfway through medical school that he began to think about the kind of wife he wanted, though he had always been clear about the qualities he wanted to instill in his children. Five kids sounded about right to him. One would become a physician like him, one would turn into something lofty like a writer or painter—which was bound to happen with a gaggle of children—two of his daughters would marry well, among them there might be one or even both tying the knot due to an unplanned pregnancy, nothing to be embarrassed about. He imagined a dark horse somewhere in there, one child that would emerge within the competition that was inevitably going to ensue among so many siblings, one who seemed unlikely to succeed yet would prove everyone wrong, would live out his or her dreams, whatever living out one’s dream meant.
His father had had a vision for his family. Edward’s brother, George, ran a gas station and a car wash, his sister Victoria was a teacher, and Denise, the youngest of the siblings, had four foster children. As soon as one aged out of the system, she took in another. He used to be closest to George though they hadn’t spoken in years. Four siblings, one to heal, one to educate, and one to care for others, an entire family seeing to the success and health of humanity, and George, well, George was George and he liked to spend his money on trips to Atlantic City, had a couple of failed marriages and children from them, though that part wasn’t talked about. He was that one loose brick, yet the family foundation didn’t crumble. You are your choices, Edward’s father used to quote some philosopher, then add some gems of his own making—a path of your own design, and every choice you make makes you in turn—and Edward had by all accounts done the right things and had imagined his life to take shape accordingly, the way puzzle pieces automatically click into place.
He often pondered an existence in which he’d never met Donna, never married her. It had been a slippery slope lately, one he tried to avoid, but it was a thought he had been entertaining. Say, if he had married another woman. Become a father to another woman’s children. He didn’t want to think of Penelope as not having come into existence, yet here he was, wondering what his life might have been like without her or her mother.
Edward accelerated. Suddenly he couldn’t get away from Shadow Garden fast enough. He had no clue if he was doing the right thing—he had just dropped off his wife like a pesky relative who had overstayed her welcome—and just like that, guilt saw an opening and swooped in, and a fair share of guilt at that. He couldn’t help but think he should have known, seen the signs.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
* * *
• • •
It all started out with so much hope. He had met Donna in the ER at Houston Methodist, where he worked as an intern. When he rubbed the stethoscope on his thigh to warm it up, her childlike voice spoke of flu symptoms: cough, aches, nausea, fatigue, and a fever. He observed her being short of breath and she complained of short and stabby chest pain. An X-ray showed atypical pneumonia and he treated her with antibiotics. Donna caught his eye not because she was beautiful but because, though she was flushed and coughing and unable to keep food down, she was looking to him to make her well. He had made people well before, as much as an intern can whose every diagnosis and test is signed off by a resident, yet he caught himself checking in on her more often than he had to.
It wasn’t a grandiose and sweeping love affair, Edward wasn’t looking for that, figured what came on quickly and powerfully waned just as fast, while slow and steady would win the race. The relationship began with a natural ease, revolved from acquaintances to friends, from friends to lovers, though it took them a year to become a couple. They married informally at a justice of the peace. No family attended.
He had wondered about that often, why they didn’t have a big wedding with family and cousins and people flying in from all over the country. To his recollection, Donna said she needed time to plan the wedding but then came the residency, and Penelope’s birth, the move to Florida, the modest house they bought, and then she seemed to have lost interest. How could she have been such a frugal and pragmatic person then, compared to the woman who ended up throwing parties with tents and caterers and valet parking? Once he generated a fortune, she was all about showing it off, had the mentality of someone winning the lottery just to end up destitute withi
n two years’ time. It was a gradual change, he liked to think, and therefore it was hard to pinpoint the moment she changed, and he often saw himself as a lobster in cold water and Donna turned on the burner and he happily drifted off into a stupor.
Edward had learned a lot about himself when he became a father. The way the world tilted the moment he held Penelope, the vulnerability six pounds of flesh created inside of him, a helpless bundle wrapped in a generic hospital blanket, a milky white synthetic material with thin stripes in blue and pink. Her mere existence opened him up to so much more than anything he had experienced thus far. But his love for his daughter was complicated by the detachment he had cultivated and refined over the years. It was not something that had come easy to him, it was a rather unnatural skill, he was not not compassionate, but he had to learn to suppress this innate sympathy. It had taken him years to get to that point but he eventually came to see death as the result of a disease and not of the care he gave.
Edward balanced on that fence for a while—the detachment on one side, this crushing love for his daughter on the other. It was impossible to teeter back and forth between those extremes. The physician in him was trained to disconnect and though it was useful and necessary, he might have taken it too far. He ended up with a limited capacity for caring altogether and a sense of distance snuck between him and the rest of the world and ultimately Penelope got caught up in that. One day he awoke and no longer embodied his role as a father.
Though he blamed Donna for monopolizing Penelope, it wasn’t up to her to foster their father-daughter relationship, but he knew it was the sting of I’m-not-a-perfect-father that made him fault her. He knew that about himself but he didn’t want to admit it to Donna, didn’t want to complain, saw it as some kind of ungratefulness—because look at what they had achieved, look at this life, this house, the cabin by the lake, the cars, the money, their standing in the community.
He’d achieved his status by choosing detachment from those around him, coupled with an innate need for proficiency, and add to that his curiosity, his way of wanting to get things done faster and more efficiently. That was what had led to his patents and one day he realized he had made a name not only in the community but worldwide, was asked to speak at international medical conferences, and was given awards. He was a success, he had arrived.
He was man enough to admit the sacrifices he’d made to himself but Donna was a different story altogether. The past couple of years or so distrust had crept in and burrowed itself a den. Donna told little lies Edward ignored for the most part, and when he did ask her about inconsistencies—money she’d spent or another renovation she didn’t tell him about, issues concerning Penelope—she blamed it on absentmindedness and maybe she was a bit of an airhead after all, something his mother had alluded to. But when did all this mistrust start? This deeply entrenched wariness he felt toward Donna, it couldn’t have been that far back—or could it? This needle was hard to thread.
Here he was again, obsessing about Donna when he should have . . . Then the thought comes, a good-for-the-goose-good-for-the-gander moment; maybe he too had been taught to look the other way, like his parents did when it came to George, his brother, who gambled and had more money problems than anyone cared to admit. One of his sisters, Debbie, had problems too, but no one ever acknowledged that either. She was an alcoholic, had been sober for decades now, but back then they all looked the other way. Had he and Donna brought their own little carry-on baggage to this marriage, were they both to blame? All along he thought this life had come with some sort of a guarantee, and it wasn’t until he left Shadow Garden and Donna behind that he understood his limitations.
Edward took a deep breath and straightened his tie by slowly running his hand from knot to tip. How eager he had been all these years to stay trim and fit and how loose the fitted shirt was now. Nothing was right, not his clothes, not his life. Not this car, the house. It had all become ill fitting. Disengage, he told himself. It’s done. Disengage and separate.
Except, he couldn’t free himself of Donna. She tore at him. The way she had clowned around even on the ride to Shadow Garden, how she cracked jokes about everything. Old shrew this and weeping hag that. It was all a joke to her. One big goddamn joke.
He floored the gas pedal, turned onto the highway, and true to its German origins, the car remained stable even as he accelerated way beyond the speed limit. The signs flew by, cars honked at him or hastily switched lanes to allow him to pass. When he reached the underground toll lane, the concrete barriers propelling him forward like chutes, he felt a sense of calmness. Just a twitch of his arm and the car would turn and collide with the concrete wall and that would be the end of it. Nothing lives that hits concrete at this high a speed. He wasn’t planning on doing just that, but it felt good to know the tunnel wasn’t going anywhere.
As he turned onto his street, a neighbor passed him. Edward panicked, didn’t know if he should smile or wave or not do anything at all. It might come up later, how he acted in the aftermath of it all. Edward slowed and lifted his fingers in a greeting while his hand remained on the steering wheel, that’s what he’d normally do. He’d have to get used to that—being normal.
When he reached his driveway, he sat in the car and his body wouldn’t move. He stared at the inlayed brick, the house number, the name, Hawthorne Court, the cursive letters—what was it with people and naming houses, he’d never understand. Something struck him: it was the first time he’d come home and Donna wasn’t waiting for him—burden or gift, he wasn’t sure.
He cut the engine and got out, unlocked the front door, but his hand hovered over the doorknob. He had no way of knowing if he’d done the right thing but it was the only thing to do, or so he told himself, and therefore he should be absolved from guilt.
6
DONNA
Marleen extends a round porcelain bowl with pills. I scoop them up, put them in my mouth, and take a sip of water from a glass on the nightstand. She leaves the room and I lean back and listen to the sounds of the house. Marleen karate-chops the throw pillows on the couch (I don’t care for that look but I won’t correct her) and wipes the kitchen counters (there is the tearing of a disinfectant wipe from the container, followed by the sound of the garbage can lid clinking shut shortly thereafter). Her heels clack, make their way down the hallway and into the powder room, followed by a silence during which she undoubtedly straightens towels on the shelf.
The house phone rings. Marleen’s explanation about someone punching in the wrong numbers at the gate sounds contrived. I want to get up, hurry from my bedroom down the hallway and into the kitchen, want to get to the bottom of this—want to grab the receiver and demand to know who is on the other end of the line—but the phone stops ringing. I don’t want to be in this state of mistrust but—
That book on the nightstand. I hadn’t noticed it before. Its pages are tightly bound, I can barely see the beginning of the lines. As the spine cracks open, the glue dissolves and pages are loosening before my eyes. A piece of paper falls out. One of those lists I make to remind me of all the things I have to do? I unfold it. It’s a drawing. A child’s drawing. Penelope’s drawing. Large heads on small bodies, fingers like tentacles pointing upward, then turning into scribbles all over the page as if she were trying to erase it all. Dozens of colored markers, yet she drew exclusively in black and red. Never a rainbow, never a field of flowers. When I carefully probed about the intended meaning, she just shrugged. Or said it’s what’s in her head. Or something like that. So many years have passed, I can’t read into it now.
Ch’trik. The front door locks.
There’s a pull behind my eyes. My limbs are heavy, something lures me to sleep.
It seems as if—no, I’m pretty sure of it—there’s a sleeping pill among the statins and the anti-inflammatories. A sleeping pill so potent that I don’t recall ever having woken up in the middle of the night since I’ve moved here.
My last thought is of Penelope. And like so often, the last image is of her face, evanescent, as if behind a bridal veil—always a bridal veil—and it’s hard to interpret. I want to think it’s a clue that she’s happy somewhere. But I also see a slick wet pool of red. As if on cue, my heartbeat slows to a peaceful rhythm, and like counting backward before surgery, the curtains come down all at once. First the world as I know it is there, then it isn’t.
It’s not until morning, until I get out of bed and step on the book, that I remember the drawing. For a few minutes it all feels like a dream. I protest but Marleen gathers everything and stuffs it all into a garbage bag and the garbage bag into a bin.
Between keeping the house neat and tossing the drawing, I wonder if Marleen was out of line on that one. I’ll mention it to Vera later, she is good at putting things into perspective. I do confide in her a lot, maybe more than I should. Edward wouldn’t approve if he knew how much I tell her about my former life. He’d turned into a strangely private person and I can admit that now, he went from clearheaded to paranoid. Edward being paranoid—that goes against all reason, or does it?
* * *
• • •
Occasionally Vera reads from one of her novels in the space off the lobby with fireplaces and immaculately polished hardwood floors. It’s a special occasion and that afternoon, I get my nails done in a salon in the main building. I take my time picking out a color, nothing fancy, a nude shade will do, yet I’m forever undecided—Flesh, Ballerina, Anonymous, Jade Rose, Incognito—and later, we take our seats in rows of chairs.
It has taken me quite some time to warm up to Vera. For the longest I couldn’t remember her name, Valerie or Vivian or Viola, but once we got talking, we felt comfortable around each other. Vera and I, we both had a moment in the limelight. Vera was catapulted into fame almost overnight with a book, and I, I was Miss Texas 1985. My winning gown and sash are now memorialized in a shadow box. I just had the gown dry-cleaned and reframed and Penelope has yet to see it in my bedroom above the fireplace.
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