Tuesday Night Miracles

by Kris Radish

  Thoughts of Peter still make her heart thump. He’s been a wonderful husband, and the kind of father who still has a relationship with his grown daughter. When he’s not home, Kit misses his energy bouncing off every wall in the house.

  The house. Their house. For so many years the mid-size two-story Colonial had mostly been hers. From the outside the black shutters, low bushes, and the gorgeous towering evergreen trees made the house look like a suburban postcard.

  Kit had inherited tons of beautiful antique furniture from a variety of aunts and uncles, and somehow through the raising of one daughter, various family functions, and a parade of teenagers most of it was still half-beautiful. Underneath the throw rugs it was obvious that the wooden floors needed to be redone, and the last time a new appliance came through the front door her daughter was in middle school.

  An interior decorator would have a heart attack up there on the second floor, where Kit refuses to empty her daughter’s room. It’s as if Sarah has just walked out to get a glass of milk. The bed is half-made, old shoes are all over the place, the desk is littered with papers. Kit can’t bring herself to change a thing, even though her daughter has graduated from college and has a job halfway across the country. The other bedroom was supposed to be for the brother Sarah never had. Kit is the lone female in the history of the Ferranti family who could only have one child. Who has a hysterectomy with the first baby? As if that was her fault. No one on her mother’s or her father’s side of the family will ever own up to throwing out a bad reproductive gene.

  The room Kit shares with her husband actually makes her laugh every time she walks through the bedroom door. Both she and Peter were sticklers for neatness when Sarah was growing up, and now their room looks like it belongs to a college freshman who has just figured out Mom isn’t going to make her put away discarded clothes.

  “Underwear on the floor. Check. Bed never made. Check. Mismatched socks lying in all four corners. Check. Platters with food on them all over the place. Check.” That was the last conversation she had with Peter the one night last week when they managed to go to bed at the same time.

  His work schedule is a mess, but Kit sometimes feels like no one really wants to be in the same room with her anyway. She’s thinking maybe they would all like her again if she did change her name back to Agnes. Her birth family has all but disowned her since she went after Mark with the wine bottle.

  Thinking about it still makes her a little crazy. That son of a bitch. He can get angry and say things, but I can’t. Kit knows that words can be bigger and better weapons than broken bottles, but she lashed out with the bottle. Her tongue, and the cascade of words and truths that would pour out if she could be honest, would make her wounded brother bleed to death on the spot.

  Six months. That’s how long Kit sat with their mother. One hundred and eighty-five nights of hell. The tubes and the medicine and her mother crying in her sleep, what little sleep she had, and Kate lying on an old camping air mattress on the floor with her hand tucked under the blankets so that she could feel a pulse, touch her mother’s skin, make certain she was there when her mother needed her the most.

  She is the only daughter, so there was no question that it would be her. It was always her. Kit suspended her life, while her brothers, always the heroes, came and went, and it was as if she had stepped back in time.

  She cooked and cleaned and handed them drinks, and then Kit rolled her mother on her side and cleaned the sheets and emptied the bedpan. The boys arrived like glorious gods and then drove off to their nice beds and families every night, and that son of a bitch Mark—was she doing enough, was she there when Ma took her last breath, did she have her pain meds, did she really do everything she could? Who the hell wouldn’t snap?

  Now there is this ridiculous court-mandated anger crap. Anger is like the middle name of her entire family. Agnes Anger Ferranti. Mark Anger Ferranti. John Anger Ferranti. Luke Anger Ferranti. Matthew Anger Ferranti. All the sweet apostles and one saint. Why she ever kept her last name when she married is now a mystery to Kit.

  Girls weren’t allowed to get angry the way boys did. Boys could swear and hit things, and girls would have to go into their room like their mother, rock on a chair, dig their fingernails into the palms of their hands until there was blood, and then sometimes take the white pills that made everything go away.

  Kit has spent half her life asking herself if it was possible that she could end up like her mother and her grandmother—crouched in a bedroom, taking pills, swatting away anger and evil thoughts in the dark while the men chopped wood and kicked one another.

  The idea terrifies her.

  Since the bottle incident, Kit has developed a weird compulsion to move her left leg up and down whenever she’s sitting. It makes her entire body move, and she looks as if she needs new medication. She wants to change. She has to change, otherwise her leg might come off.

  Kit closes her eyes and sees her mother curled on her side, looking at her with her eyes wide. Near the end, her mother kept pointing to her old wooden jewelry box. Kit was desperate to understand what her mother wanted. Finally, she grabbed the box and walked it across the room to her mother’s bed.

  “This? You want this?” she asked, straining to decipher what her now voiceless mother wanted.

  Her mother nodded.

  “You want me to open this now?”

  Her mother shook her head back and forth, as if to say no.

  “You want me to have this?”

  Yes, her mother nodded.

  “Now? Should I open it now?”

  There was a long pause, and Kit saw tears pooling in her mother’s eyes that finally spilled over. Kit set the box down and rushed to her mother, wiping the tears. But her mother kept pointing at the box. It was her small treasure chest. Kit knew this. It was her mother’s private stash, the one place she could keep whatever treasures she might have accumulated in her lifetime. In spite of what her brothers might think, Kit respected her mother’s privacy and had never looked inside the small wooden lacquered box. But how she had wondered.

  Kit could clearly see her mother mouth the word no.

  “Later? I should take it and open it later?”

  Her mother nodded again, and the tiniest smile crossed her face. It was the last time the two of them had anything close to a conversation.

  Kit is standing by the foot of the stairs when she thinks about the jewelry box. She set it in the closet behind her boxes of old summer clothes and has yet to open it. What’s the point now? Her mother is gone. All the conversations she wanted to have will never happen. All the questions she had will never be answered. All the chances to empty her heart have been abolished. Or have they?

  She shakes her head, turns, and stands for a moment by the front door. When she turns, there is no way to avoid the photographs of her daughter hanging in the entry hall.

  My baby.

  Kit starts with the first photos, raises her left hand to them, and runs her fingers on the glass that is covering her daughter’s face. Beautiful Sarah. Another name of a saint, but a lovely name that wouldn’t get her harassed on the playground. Grade-school photos. Soccer-team photos. High school. Graduation. Sarah with her Kit-like dark hair trimmed to her shoulders after years of letting it grow to her waist. The gallery goes all the way down the hall, and she follows the photos as if she were dancing, touching each one, closing her eyes to remember the moment Sarah caught the ball, got an award. The house was full of life and laughter and, especially, love.

  Gone now.

  Sarah is on some island off the coast of Canada. Is it because of me that you’re so far away? Kit thinks. Why does everyone leave? Should I have kept my anger in the bedroom like my mother did? Was I too protective? Too quick to make sure you were okay and whole and centered and safe?

  “I miss you so much,” she whispers, as she lays her forehead on the last photo.

  She closes her eyes, and just then her cellphone vibrates in her pocket. She
prays that it’s Sarah, but it isn’t. Kit takes a deep breath and answers the phone moments before it goes into her voice mail.

  “This is Kit. Can I help you?” she says in the sweetest possible voice.

  “Yes, Kit. It’s Michael Corrigan. I took care of your mother’s estate. You might remember me from when your father died. We are set to do a reading of the will but …”

  He hesitates, and Kit’s stomach rises right into her throat.

  “But what?” she asks, raising her voice and pushing herself away from the wall.

  “There is one small complication.”

  “How small?”

  The bright and respected Michael Corrigan hesitates yet again.

  “What?” Kit asks, impatience flooding her voice. “Man up here, Mr. Corrigan. I assure you I can take it.”

  “Your brothers have asked that you not attend.”

  Kit remains poised. She takes a breath, turns around to face the last photograph of her daughter, and then glances up the stairs leading to her bedroom closet and the as yet unopened wooden box.

  “Am I in the will?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Before she decides what to say next, Kit imagines sitting across a long oak table from her brothers. They would all be dressed up in the nice dark suits their wives had just had dry-cleaned for the big meeting. One brother would not be able to look her in the eye. They would all be politely silent, eager, wondering how much money the folks had squirreled away while they were off running around the neighborhood and terrorizing everyone smaller than them, including their own sister.

  The attorney finally clears his throat.

  “I’m still here,” Kit says, much louder.

  “So your brothers have asked to have Peter, your husband, represent you.”

  “I know who Peter is, for God’s sake.”

  Isn’t this just perfect? Isn’t it just like them? Isn’t this the Good Ol’ Boys’ Club personified? Isn’t this the frosting on the cake, the top of the mountain, the day before the fat lady sings?

  Kit can’t help herself. “You can tell my selfish, controlling brothers that they can kiss my ass!” she shouts into the phone. “I’m sure I have legal rights when it comes to this. An—”

  “Excuse me, but you’re yelling,” the attorney says, cutting her off.

  “No kidding, brain box!” she yells again, and then slams her phone shut.

  Kit is immediately embarrassed. Why does she do that? It’s as if she’s forgotten to be normal, forgiving, light. She staggers back to the table, sits down, picks up the letter from Dr. Bayer, and violently rips it open. It begins the same way as Grace’s letter but does not end that way at all:

  Next week, instead of class as a group your assignment is to attend a comedy club by yourself. You must go alone, go early, stay for the entire show, and work hard to enjoy yourself. Try and keep track of how many times you laugh. You have a week to complete this task, and you must tell me what you did, how you felt, and send me an email by one week from today. The next class details will follow once I have your assignment.

  Sincerely,

  Dr. Bayer.

  Kit reads the letter three times in total disbelief. Is this doctor nuts? A comedy club? Then she puts the letter down and looks around to make certain she’s alive, in her house, and actually reading an assignment from her anger-class doctor.

  “This Dr. Bayer woman must have fallen and hit her head!” she says, unable to keep herself from laughing. “This proves she was a hippie. Drugs! It must have been the drugs.”

  9

  The Red Dot

  Jane is already halfway through her bottle of California Zinfandel and making believe the envelope from class doesn’t exist.

  Her kitchen is almost as quiet as Kit’s, yet so very different. Kit’s eat-in kitchen, with its cracked tiled floor, fading brown-and-yellow Formica countertops, and simple white appliances, appears to have gotten stuck in the 1970s. Jane’s kitchen is to the far side of modern.

  The entire left wall, facing a huge open living-room area, is actually one of the most unique wine racks in Chicago. Jane made sure it was featured in three real-estate magazines. Instead of a wall between the kitchen and dining area, Jane had the designers build in the transparent handblown glass wine rack. It also houses an extensive French, California, and South American wine collection that Jane is drinking away one bottle at a time every single night of the week.

  Kit would call the whole damn thing sterile. The stainless-steel appliances are top-of-the-line. The Kohler sink looks more like an indoor fountain than a place to wash out dirty wineglasses. The spotless floor is made of bamboo, and the recessed lighting makes the entire room look more like a museum than a friendly, warm hangout.

  The rest of the house has the same attitude. The long entryway hall is a solid mass of snow-white tile that looks as if it’s never felt the pressure of feet dancing across its surface. The cathedral ceilings are stunning, capped in dark hand-polished wood, but they make the large living room and the formal dining room seem cold and uninviting.

  The upstairs, a glimmering mass of steel bedroom furniture, includes a master walk-in closet that is as big as many downtown Chicago apartments, and the last time the beautifully appointed guest suite had visitors was so long ago the gold towels have dust on them.

  Jane’s very last guest was her college roommate, who had kept in touch sporadically and then, almost a year ago, called to say she was in town.

  “Ask her to come for dinner and spend the night,” Derrick had mouthed while she was on the phone.

  Jane invited her, and the entire evening was a disaster. Her soon-to-be ex-friend had become a high-powered attorney who was in town for a huge corporate-compensation battle. She looked fabulous, had a fabulous job, two fabulous children, a fabulous husband she apparently adored, and Jane could absolutely not stand the fabulous competition.

  She started picking on the woman as if she were a piece of lint. She couldn’t believe she didn’t like the same wine. Why had she cut her hair? Have you thought of letting your hair grow again? Remember the time I stole your boyfriend?

  Derrick told her later when they went to bed that he wasn’t just embarrassed but mortified. “You don’t belong to a book club, there are no friends stopping by, invitations from anyone to go out for drinks, no weekend getaways to Lake Geneva,” he pointed out. “Keep this up and you’ll be more of a snob than you already are.”

  Jane knew that Derrick wished she’d had siblings and different parents, but he had known what he was getting into when he married her. When the college roommate slinked off to bed early and then left before they even got up, Jane caught him fingering the guest towels that had never been touched.

  Her lack of an extended family might also explain why there are very few personal items in the entire house. No family portraits in the hall. No old college keepsakes hanging on the door that leads to the garage. Not one mismatched pair of shoes or slippers thrown carelessly against the fireplace along the full wall in the living room.

  It’s as if the house had never really been lived in.

  And in an honest moment, which is becoming rarer and rarer, Jane would admit that the silence, the coldness, the aloneness is sometimes suffocating. Why is it so hard for her to admit anything emotional? Why can’t she reach out and touch someone, speak gently, admit her myriad failings, her weaknesses, the longings that parade inside of her but dare not surface? Why?

  She is pushing a crystal wineglass from one hand to the other, and trying very hard to pace herself in between sips. The envelope is glaring at her as if it has eyes. She drank three-fourths of the bottle before she went to her anger-management class and is now less than half a glass away from finishing the entire bottle. And she wants to keep drinking.

  Drinking is what occupies at least five, if not seven, nights of her week. The high-end real-estate market, even in Chicago, is a very small world, and once you nearly kill a broker with your shoe it’s har
d to get new listings.

  Gone are the late-afternoon strategy sessions at all the best restaurants. Gone are new listings. Gone are the phone calls from other agents tapping into you for your cast-off listings. Gone are the lovely, sophisticated, well-connected, and filthy-rich clients whom you could parade through all the lakefront mansions.

  Things were bad enough when the economy did a belly flop, but after word of Jane’s attack on the broker got out, her professional world skidded to a halt as if it had hit a brick wall.

  As if.

  As if no one else would have flipped if they had worked for three months to close a deal only to have the rotten broker cancel it because of “potential” funding discrepancies.

  As if a multimillion-dollar deal came along every single day of the week and clients like this would appear again anytime soon.

  As if there were any clients beating down doors to snap up property that was still so expensive even the discount prices were scaring people away.

  As if Jane Castoria had something else—even one other thing—to do besides work constantly, ignore the fact that her ovaries were about to turn into rocks that would never produce a baby for her relentless husband, and scare away the few remaining people who actually might consider her a friend.

  A friend. One single friend. A woman who might now be waiting for her in the living room with nothing but pure and generous intentions.

  Thank God she has alternative plans. Won’t the world be surprised when she puts all the pieces together.

  Jane finally lifts the spicy fruit-driven wine to her lips and drains the last of it. Then she immediately looks up at the wine rack to see how much longer she can get away with drinking every night. The bottles, especially on the red side, are getting dangerously low. And there is no money from her account coming in to replace them.