Chapter 49
The reporters follow my car to the hospital and descend on me as I cross the parking lot to the front door. I keep my head down, ignoring everything they say, a hapless middle-schooler hounded by bullies, until I reach the sanctuary of the lobby and the security guard chases them away.
This freaking hospital is starting to feel like my second home. The smell of institutional food mixed with decay and death, the constant squawk of doctors being paged, the blank, hopeless faces of the patients and their visitors. How can people work here? I’d sooner be a coal miner.
A bored nurse buzzes me in to the ICU, then returns to tending the machinery of impending death while pointing me to Dad’s bed. He lies there slack and empty, tubes running into and out of him. Beeping, blinking machines insist that he’s alive, but I have my doubts.
“Dr. Morganthal is making his rounds,” the nurse says. “He’ll be right over to talk to you.”
I sink into the chair beside his bed. Dad’s pathetic condition should soften my heart, but it doesn’t. Instead, the rage I’ve kept boxed up surges forward. I want to scream at him, demand answers. But the rage has no place to go. He can’t hear me, can’t see me, can’t answer.
Once again, my father has evaded me.
His right hand lies on top of the white blankets. A good daughter would hold it, murmur words of reassurance. I stand like a soldier. “Get better,” I say. “We’re not done.”
A tall bald guy in a white coat strides up and yanks out the clipboard from the foot of the bed. “You the daughter?” he asks without even making eye contact.
A prick this arrogant could only be a brain surgeon.
“Yes. How bad is it? Does he need surgery?”
“Surgery? That won’t help.”
The doctor might as well have added, “you moron” to the end of his sentence. “He had surgery after his first stroke,” I remind him.
“I looked at his MRI—there’s no new damage to his brain. No stroke, no heart attack.” He continues scribbling on Dad’s chart.
“What is it then?”
“I have to run some more bloodwork, but it looks like he ODed on sleeping meds. Probably hoarded several day’s worth and took them all at once.”
“Huh? You mean—”
The doctor snaps his clipboard shut. “Suicide attempt.”
I stagger out of the hospital in a daze. The reporters, held in check by a burly guard, shout their questions, but I have more pressing ones of my own. Why did he do this now, when he was getting so much better? Why now, when the secret he’d been trying to keep from me was finally out? We could have started over. Why is it that with every step I take toward my father, he runs a mile back? I stumble down the rows of parked cars, barely aware of what I’m looking for.
The doctor said he’d been hoarding his medication, planning this. Was he angry that I finally made him tell me the truth about my mother? How could he have done this, done it to me? Because that’s what this suicide is—the ultimate act of one-upmanship, the final fuck you. My knees buckle and I sag against a shiny red minivan for support. Where the hell is my car? I’m so disoriented I have to press the panic button on my remote and follow the hoot of my horn two rows over. When I finally collapse into my Honda and turn my cellphone back on, I see that I’ve missed two calls from Cal.
“Where are you?” he asks as soon we connect. “Are you okay? Is the press after you?”
“At the hospital. My father--” I can’t say the words. My heart is pounding and I can’t catch my breath. “He’s sick. They’re not sure if—”
“My God, Audrey—why didn’t you call me? You shouldn’t be there alone.”
“Sorry. I didn’t think…” I haven’t really gotten used to this concept that I have a boyfriend who loves me. That boyfriends are people you call to report big events in your life. Maybe I’ll get the hang of it eventually.
“I’ll be right over,” Cal says. “We can have lunch.”
“No!” I can’t cope with Cal right now. This is too big, too raw. “I...I think I need to lie down. I’m going to go home and rest.”
“Are you sure? I could bring you something. Soup?”
I smile at the phone. Cal’s offer, the fact that he was worried, is enough for me. I don’t need his actual presence.
“I’m OK, really. Maybe tonight?”
“Definitely. I’ll call you later. Get some rest.”
When I was outside, all I wanted was to get back to my bed and Ethel. But now that I’m lying here, sleep won’t come. My breathing has returned to normal, but my brain is churning. I see my father’s suicide attempt like a hologram—one image and then another depending on the angle of the light. Anger has morphed to guilt. Telling me about the night of my mother’s death was traumatic for him. Did I comfort him, reassure him? No, I interrogated him, gave him the silent treatment, and dumped him back at the nursing home. I killed my mother, and now it seems I’ve killed my father too. I twist the covers over my head, ashamed for even Ethel to see my miserable black soul.
Then anger reasserts itself, slithering out of the cracks of my conscience, a snake relentlessly seeking heat. I’m giving myself way too much credit. My father would never kill himself because I, of all people, hurt his feelings. No, he did this to regain the upper hand, I’m sure of it.
I can’t take this anymore! Flinging back the covers, I leap out of bed. Ethel looks hopefully at her leash, but the vultures are still posted outside my door and I don’t have the strength to run that gauntlet right now. I click on the TV, but what old sit-com or preposterous advice show could possibly hold my attention today? Reading is equally hopeless and working on my accounts makes my head throb. I’m like a tiger in one of those supposedly enlightened zoos with the “natural” habitats—my surroundings are pleasant but the bars are no less real.
I need a project, some mindless yet absorbing task to keep my thoughts at bay. The hall closet is open and I catch sight of the trunk of jewelry from Mrs. Szabo’s attic. Now that the election is over, I guess we can give it to Sister Alice. I’ll ask Cal tonight. In the meantime, I might as well go through it and get a rough estimate of what the stuff is worth. I haul it into the middle of the living room and dump it out.
The cascade of gold and gemstones takes me back to a day that now seems like eons ago. So much has happened since this jewelry tumbled out of Mrs. Szabo’s attic, yet nothing’s been resolved. I still don’t know how my mother’s ring got into this trunk, and I don’t know who else did just what I’m doing now—upended the trunk here in my condo to search through it.
Empty, the trunk itself holds more interest for me. Although the outside is dusty and scratched, the inside striped silk lining is pristine. I’ve seen trunks like this before—they were popular at the beginning of the 20th century. With a little clean-up, I could probably get two hundred bucks for this, but only if the inside partitions are sturdy. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I run my hands along the inside walls. Shit—the lining is loose on one side. Water damage? Bugs? Gently, I tug at the lining and it peels away from the side wall of the trunk. Behind it are some papers: Mr. Szabo’s discharge papers from the army at the end of World War II, the Szabos’ wedding certificate, the title to a 1952 DeSoto, and an envelope that looks less yellowed with age than the other items. The glue has dissolved over time. I unseal it and remove a single sheet of paper.
The gasp of air I draw in burns my wounded lungs. I know this handwriting. The long loops of the “g”s and “p”s, the dramatic swirls of the capital S and B. This is the handwriting on the Christmas decoration boxes of my childhood. This was written by my mother.
The paper trembles as I read:
My darling,
I know you can never forgive me for what I am about to do-- I will not ask so much of you. I’m not good at keeping secrets. I feel better now that the truth is out. Believe me when I say that if I thought there were a chance that any of us could achieve happiness by following some ot
her path, I would take it. I cannot keep going over the rational reasons for staying; I must follow the true reasons for leaving. I will not separate you from Audrey. I know how much you love her. I love her too (that’s why I cannot continue to poison her with my misery). It’s best for me to leave right now--I’m sure Audrey won’t wake before you return.
All I ask is that someday you will understand.
C
I read the letter a second time, then a third. Ethel approaches and lays her head on my knee. I let the letter slip to the floor, and speak out loud to the empty room. “Goddamn it to hell. She was going to leave me behind.”
Chapter 50
Am I shocked? I poke and prod and decide this new wound looks a lot worse than it feels. The letter confirms what I’ve suspected, deep in my heart, since childhood: my mother chose to leave me.
Then my heart rate kicks up as the hologram dissolves to yet another image of my father’s suicide. Guilt. If my mother left this letter for my dad, then I was never in the car with her that night. I didn’t run her over.
I push myself to my feet, pace to the window and back. He killed her. He must have. And when I got close to the truth, he told me this terrible, terrible lie. And felt so guilty he killed himself. I snatch up the phone and dial the hospital. The doctor is gone, but the nurse tells me there’s no change. My father is still unconscious, but stable.
I sit on the floor stroking Ethel’s head as the daylight slowly slips away. Who knows how much time passes as I twist and turn the pieces of the puzzle, looking for the pattern to emerge?
I’ve been assuming Mrs. Szabo acquired my mother’s ring the same way she got all the other deposits in her larcenous 401k. But the presence of the ring and the letter in this trunk changes that key variable in the equation. She didn’t steal my mother’s ring by chance, when an opportunity presented itself. She had both items for a reason, and cleverly hid like items with like items: the ring among her stolen jewels and the letter among her own valuable papers. Someone gave them to her. Maybe that’s why she was so anxious to get to the trunk in her attic. She wasn’t worried about the stolen jewelry being found; she was worried about this.
Why?
Whoever broke into my apartment to search this trunk was looking for the letter, because he knew the ring had been found.
Who?
I can’t get all the pieces to fit together; some are missing, for sure. But of one thing I’m sure: Agnes Szabo knew someone in my mother’s love triangle.
I have to find out the identity of this other man. Jude, my father said his name was. Is it too late to call the Van Houten Group and demand a search of their personnel files? Or at least talk to Reid himself and twist his arm? I dial 411, but as the computerized voice demands, “City and state” my gaze rests on the Princeton yearbook on the table. Spencer, Roger and Charlotte were friends in 1968.
The phone slips from my fingers. Jude…Judas. A rare burst of metaphor from the mathematician. Dad was betrayed by his friend.
Spencer was my mother’s lover, yet my father lied about this too.
Why?
I can’t talk to my father, but I sure as hell can talk to Spencer. I reach for the phone again. Then drop it again. What the hell am I thinking? Spencer’s not an ordinary citizen. He’s walled off behind a cordon of reporters, security guards and lawyers. And Coughlin has specifically forbidden me to talk to any Finnerans.
Not that I ever listen to Coughlin.
I have to talk to Cal about this. There’s no other way. He’ll help me get in touch with Spencer. He has to—he knows how much this means to me. I have to know, once and for all, what really happened that night. Once I know, I can let it go. I can.
I think.
I leave an incoherent message on Cal’s voicemail, talking so fast I know I must sound like Jill on meth. I babble on about the letter and the trunk and Agnes and Spencer and my dad, and when the phone beeps and cuts me off, I call back and babble some more, ending with, “Call me as soon as you get this.”
Then I begin to pace, Ethel right at my heels. A peek out the front window reveals the vultures still on their roost. “C’mon, baby—we’ll sneak out the back again. I know it’s not much of a walk, but it’s the best I can offer right now.”
I triple check to make sure I have my phone, then Ethel and I head out.
I’m in no mood to deal with reporters right now, so I keep a sharp eye peeled as Ethel and I step off the condo pathway onto the sidewalk. The street is empty except for one parked car. Ethel and I set off in the opposite direction. As soon as she does her business, I turn and head back. A head of me, a man steps out of the parked car and stands waiting by the pathway into my development.
I sigh. Damn reporter. At least he doesn’t look too imposing, and I do have Ethel. My hand tightens on her leash as I prepare to push past him.
“I’m Brian Bascomb.”
I stop and stare.
Megan the speech therapist told me Brian Bascomb was “cute.” I have to question her judgment. Cute is not the adjective that leaps to mind here; awkward is more like it. A little taller than me and probably not a pound heavier, Brian wears faded jeans that cling to his skinny butt through sheer willpower. He’s got a mop of unruly, dirty blond curls, deep-set brown eyes and a slightly beaky nose. Definitely not the hunky Brian Bascomb I found on Facebook. I laugh slightly.
“What’s funny?’
I shake my head, thinking of my preposterous belief that Brian was my long-lost half-sibling. He’s just a standard-issue math whiz, the kind of geeky boy who sat next to me in Calc III or Tensor Analysis all through college.
He shoves his hands deep in his jeans pockets and looks down at his battered running shoes. “I need to talk to you.”
I can see that talking to strangers, particularly strangers who are women, is torture for the poor kid, and I take pity. “Walk along with Ethel and me.”
His head jerks up. “That’s Ethel? I thought she was lost. Your dad was really upset.”
“She was, for five days. But my…my boyfriend found her. Out by Manor View—isn’t that amazing?”
Brian shoots a quick glance at me before dropping his gaze back to the ground. He speaks in a rapid monotone. “That guy you’ve been dating, the one who works for Spencer Finneran, your dad doesn’t like him. He’s worried about you. He told me—”
I come to a quick halt, jerking poor Ethel who’s trotting ahead. “Who are you? How is it that he tells you so much when I can’t get him to tell me a freakin’ thing?”
“I was his student at Rutgers and now I’m getting my PhD at Princeton. I used to come to see your dad at his office to toss ideas around for my dissertation. After he had the stroke, I came to see him at Manor View. That’s when he first asked me to help him.” Brian shifts from foot to foot in the freezing evening air. “It’s up to me to look out for you. It’s what he’d want me to do.”
I look at this strange, scrawny person bobbing in front of me. What in God’s name is he talking about? “My father would want you to look after me?”
Brian nods vigorously. “Ever since you found that ring he’s been worried. He asked me to keep an eye on you, and to find out some things for him.”
“Keep an eye on me?” I glance over his shoulder to the street and notice that his car is small and gray with a dented front bumper. “You’re the person who’s been following me? You’re the one who stole the yearbook I found! He sent you to spy on me because he was afraid I was going to find out the truth about my mother!”
“He wanted to protect you from knowing the truth about her accident. He only told me after you already knew.”
I reel Ethel in closer to me for comfort. Grabbing Brian’s arm with my other hand, I give him a little push. “Everything he told you is bullshit. I didn’t kill my mother, he murdered her. And now he’s tried to commit suicide because he can’t face the truth coming out.”
Brian shakes his head furiously, making his curls fly like a feath
er duster.
“I was with him when he found out about the fire. He was scared, really scared and really worried about you. He told me you were in danger. He didn’t try to kill himself. I know he didn’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He holds his head up straight, his awkwardness slipping away. “Because I know him. He just isn’t capable of that. And he sure isn’t capable of murder.”
I look at Brian’s intense eyes. It must be nice to enjoy such certainty. Too bad I don’t share his conviction. “Frankly, I have no idea what my father is or isn’t capable of.”
“Trust your father, Audrey. He cares about you.”
I snort and pivot away from him, dragging Ethel after me. “Get away from me, Brian. Go sit by my father’s bedside. And if he happens to wake up, tell him I found the letter. Tell him I know the truth.”
Chapter 51
Striding away from Brian Bascomb, my heart pounds and my lungs burn as if I’d just run a four minute mile. I feel muddled and unsteady. My poor brain, simultaneously deprived of oxygen and overloaded with information, is barely able to command my legs to walk. As Ethel pulls me across the courtyard toward home, my cellphone rings. Cal, at last!
“I need to talk to Spencer,” I say as soon as I answer. “You need to set it up.”
“I’ve talked to Spencer, Audrey. He can’t see you, not with Dylan under arrest and the media watching us all like hawks. But he and I talked. I told him your happiness depends on getting all this resolved. So I want you to come here to my place and I’ll explain everything.”
I hesitate. This is what I wanted, and yet-- I wish I hadn’t blabbed everything about finding the letter. If Spencer knows—
“Audrey? What’s wrong? If you’re worried about Ethel, bring her along. I don’t mind.”
I smile. “No. she’ll be okay by herself for a while. I’ll be right over.”
Another Man's Treasure (a romantic thriller) (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 1) Page 29