The House

by Anjuelle Floyd

  Anna shuddered at the priest’s words when considering her re cent foray of intimacies with both Inman and Edward. “He was a little boy making love to all those women?”

  “Edward was searching for his mother.”

  Anna considered how hard she had worked as a mother. So much giving and no receiving. And then how empty she had felt with Elena. We all need a bit of affection. Someone to love. Someone.

  “Sex as an obsession, addiction, or a major focus in one’s life evidences that a hole has been rent by the lack of love and nurturing.

  In an effort to heal, we seek the bodily nurturing we didn’t receive as a child, a mother holding us close to her breast and feeding us, either from a bottle or—”

  “Her breast,” Anna said as she remembered, “Edward used to watch me breast-feed the children. He was always helpful, making sure I was comfortable and not interrupted. And then ..” her thoughts retreated. Father Richard leaned forward, his movement brought Anna back. “He would watch me breast-feed them,” Anna repeated. “It was as if he didn’t understand. Edward appeared mesmerized by what I was doing.” I envied your ability to give. “It was as if he was taken by what was going on between me and David, and then Theo.”

  “You gave to the children what he never got from his mother,”

  “And what the company could never provide, nor Stella or Esther,” Anna said. Again she recalled Edward’s confession. They were nothing compared to you. Fleeting moments without pain. Anna murmured a lament. Edward had cried out for her during and then in his sleep after their lovemaking.

  Anna said, “Edward had grown distant by the time Linda arrived, absorbed in work and his affairs. Yet he was empty. Life drained from his eyes while I breast fed Linda. He looked at me, intently.” Anna screwed her face.

  “Your children were full of your milk, your love and nurturing, what his mother had never possessed to give him.” Father Richard leaned back in the burgundy recliner. He clasped his hands, inter wove his fingers and set them on his stomach. “Edward wished for and yearned to receive what you gave David and Theo.”

  “He coveted what I gave them.”

  “And your ability to do so. But, he was not about to interrupt while you were giving it to them,” the priest said. “He knew too well the pain of not having it.”

  “And so the women were his way of getting back at me?”

  “Or perhaps his feeble attempt to get some of what you gave your children.”

  “You’re saying Edward was torn between needing me to be there for his children, and yet envious of what I was giving them?”

  “The more financially secure Edward became, allowing you to remain ensconced in the home as a wife and mother, the deeper he fell into realizing how much he’d never gotten during his childhood.

  What his mother could never give him due to her circumstances, not because of who she was.” Father Richard then said, “This is why he never left or abandoned you.”

  “And why the house means so much to him.” Anna then sighed. “It’s why he didn’t want me to sell it.”

  Father Richard joined her in the reverential silence that follows awareness.

  “In all his sickness and hurt,” Father Richard said, “Edward gave you what he most lacked, a house where you could love his children, most particularly, his sons, and where you could feel safe, and hopefully loved.”

  “But I needed him. I still do.” The truth of Anna’s words sent a chill across her body. “That’s what would have made me feel loved and safe.” She had experienced that two weeks earlier when making love to Edward.

  “Tell him,” Father Richard said.

  Aching in the wake of her self-revelation, Anna grew more frustrated. She looked to the priest.

  His words resounded once more. “Tell Edward that you love and need him before he dies.” ?

  Chapter 36

  The hospice worker, Bertrice, was with Edward when Anna re turned home at noon. After making a cup of tea, Anna sat at the kitchen table. She thought of Theo while sipping her tea. She missed him cooking and moving about the kitchen, sharing tea with her, steam rising from the cups between her and him. Anna wished to speak with him now. No one had answered when she called his home last evening. This time she dialed his cell phone.

  He answered. She told of his father’s collapse.

  “I’m leaving right now,” Theo said.

  “Don’t.” Remnants of her latest foray of berating Edward weighed heavily in Anna’s head. And then there was the sexual reconciliation wherein their souls had touched. “Your father and I need some time.” Theo was silent, then “You know I’m here. Call anytime.” She blew a kiss through the phone.

  Theo said, “I love you, Mom.”

  Anna had set the cordless back upon its charger when Bertrice entered the kitchen. Startled on hearing her footsteps, Anna jumped then turned around.

  “I’m sorry,” the hospice worker said

  “No bother,” Anna said then extended her hand toward the table, “Please, join me if you will.”

  “Edward’s resting now,” Bertrice said. She sat at the table. “That’s good,” Anna said then added, “Thanks for coming so soon last evening.” She offered Bertrice some tea.

  “I’m fine. Bertrice waved her palm. Anna drank more of her tea, now lukewarm.

  “I’ve had no experience at this. What I mean is that,” Anna hesitated then rephrased her statement. “My mother died of a terminal condition. But my father took care of her.” Regret engulfed Anna, “I abandoned my father; refused to see my mother in her last days.”

  Anna’s thoughts drifted back to Reverend Elijah speaking of Elena. Your mother had her way. She was difficult to understand. Parishioners of Reverend Elijah’s flock had struggled like Anna to make sense of Elena. She wasn’t always affectionate.

  “She was never affectionate,” Anna muttered, deep in thought. You could have used more love from her—a show of emotion, Reverend Elijah concluded. She meant well, your mother. She did the best she could.

  Anna said to Bertrice, “Papa hoped that one day I would see that Mama cared for me. He wanted me to forgive her.” Anna had not. She took in the middle-aged Bertrice. The color of her chest nut face was like her Reverend Elijah’s; Bertrice’s salt and pepper hair resembled Elena’s. “After Mama died,” Anna said, “I wanted Papa to live with us—me, Edward, and the children. He refused.”

  “Death is difficult no matter how many times we’ve experienced it,” Bertrice said. “Each case I take leaves me with a sense of loss. Every death asks me to become more than I think I can. We are all born once. For those who know of their impending death and receive advanced warnings, or a heads-up as my mother called it, there’s a chance for a second birth, a re-birth.”

  Anna didn’t want to hear any philosophical theories on how Ed ward’s death could open up blocked passages in her, him, or their marriage. Hope had dissolved with Edward’s confession and subsequent collapse. In her searching for a way out of the darkness of his encroaching death, she had given herself over to Edward. She had clawed her way through the depths of forgiveness. Amid Edward’s hands trembling across her back Anna had infused his weak and ailing body with her passion.

  Edward had then murmured, his fingers squeezing her breasts, “I don’t deserve it, you taking me like this.”

  “Shhhh. You’re the father of my children.” Anna had received, and granted him her passion. “I wanted to be so much more.”

  “Shhhh.” For remembrance’s sake, she had taken him unto her one last time. She now wondered, how in his condition could she have done such a thing. She had settled her body upon him, the door to her heart eking open. Her soul had given way. Edward had breathed more deeply, as if coming to life, the two of them liberated in their moment of coming together. Redemption intertwined with death. Anna had feared Edward might die while reaching climax.

  Bertrice’s words pulled Anna from her memory. “Death is difficult. We all make mistakes. We will a
ll surely die.”

  Anna held her breath. Bertrice’s words felt pointless. “I always thought I’d go first,” Anna said. “That I was the weaker. I’d die of a broken heart.”

  “Broken by whom?”

  “Edward,” Anna whispered.

  Bertrice appeared to ponder the idea. “He’s a young man, relatively speaking. At fifty-six, he’s is in what many might consider his prime.”

  “He worked hard. And played hard.” Anna’s breathing shallow. Bertrice said, “If you could re-live your mother’s death, how might you arrange things? What would you change?”

  Anna absorbed Bertrice’s question and then acquiescing to her mixture of bitterness, regret, and atonement, said, “I’d ask her why she was so closed, withdrawn, and unloving.”

  Bertrice placed her palm upon Anna’s trembling hand. “Sounds like you might want to give yourself a chance at rebirth.”

  Anna wondered how many people, now deceased, had Bertrice’s hands consoled. “How does it feel? Death—life slipping from a per son’s body?”

  “Terrifying. And yet freeing. They’ve suffered so much, most of them, the terminally ill. They need rest, relief.”

  Don’t we all, thought Anna.

  Bertrice’s eyes sparkled, as if in the midst of Anna’s torment, she was undergoing an epiphany, grasping a new reality. “As we live, so we die,” the hospice worker said. “Many of the people I assist have held on to life so tightly, afraid it would slip away at any moment’s notice. The harder we hold on, the more life snatches itself from our grips. Like people and love, life longs for freedom, to come and go as it pleases, and with us grateful and gracious of its presence.”

  “But what of all those who tell us to embrace life?” Anna said. Her thoughts shifted to Inman. He had filled her with such passion, enough for Anna to give Edward. Inman had fed her yearning to connect. Inman’s very being exuded vibrancy and the will to live despite all losses. Basking in the rays of his perceptive attention, she had felt, seen, and valued.

  Bertrice said of life, “Like the child who lives in each of us, we need to hold it with gentleness and kindness, not with fear and rage. We’re the only person who can steal life from us. We do it by living in a way that robs our life of love and affection. Then again, sometimes our parents do that for us.” Her brown eyes twinkled.

  Poverty and Violet’s struggle had stolen meaning and any semblance of love from Edward’s life as a child. He took what remained and put it into his drive toward ambition.

  Anna said, “My mother was not happy. She was withdrawn and absorbed into her world of knitting and crocheting, constantly reciting Biblical and religious aphorisms. I’ll never know why, only that I couldn’t make her happy.” Anna bit back the claws of sadness. Her thoughts doubled around to Edward. “Some would say my husband lived life to the fullest,” Anna said. “He built from scratch a successful real estate business, and gave us a lovely home. He did what he wanted, and in his way.” She sucked air, and breathed out slowly. “Now life is having its way with him.” The image of Bertrice’s face ran blurry. Tears broke onto Anna’s cheeks, the full meaning of her words revealed. Life was not only trying Edward and claiming its measure, but also issuing Anna the same charge.

  Anna said, “Edward and my mother never liked one another.” Years earlier she had said to Edward, You’re both the same—cold and unloving. I supposed that’s why I married you. Edward’s reply now echoed in her head, We would have been better off if my mother had done away with both me and herself. Anna hated having left her father to care for her mother alone. And now, in her desire to offer penance by caring for Edward in his last days, the quake of impending death left her angry and frustrated.

  The night she had laid in bed with him after dinner at Scott’s Restaurant, Inman had said to Anna, I want you in my life. I need you. The thought of having been with another man while Edward was home and dying blistered Anna’s conscience and soul, and then to have thrust herself on Edward two days later. Anna had needed to be with Inman. His passion, love, and words had fed her soul. Full and satiated, she had served Edward a full spread. Thanks to Inman, her cup had overflowed with goodness and mercy, all that Elena had lacked and withheld from Anna. While making love to Edward, Anna had envisioned herself living through and surviving what she thought she could not endure—Edward’s constant infidelity. Despite everything, her reasoning had said Edward was not supposed to die, that he would outlive her, as she had foreseen her mother outliving her father. Strong and tenacious individuals such as her mother and Edward had grit. Elena’s fight had eloped when Elijah most needed her. Elena’s will dissolved into the same fears and hopelessness that she had held throughout life. Anna accepted that she had survived and was very much alive, despite the slow rendering of Edward and his life unto death. It takes strength to give. Love moves mountains, dissolves walls, mends broken hearts. A change of heart is the ultimate of miracles.

  Anna’s mother and Edward were alike, but they were also like Anna. Edward had made that plain when he said, I’ve always hated myself. As long as I can remember I’ve held no love for who I am, or what I’ve become. I was the soiled and dirty one; you were clean and pure. That’s why I wanted and needed you. It dawned upon Anna that perhaps Elena’s anxieties and Edward’s fears had exceeded her own, and those of her father. Again Anna recalled Inman’s words, I want you to be happy and free.

  She looked at her cup, the tea within now cold. She said to Bertrice, “My husband was a strong man. I’ve never seen him weak like this. It’s frightening and sometimes repulsive. Yet, I’ve never felt so close or attracted to him.”

  “Death, like sex, is seductive. The French call it the little death, sex that is.” Bertrice gave a sad smile. She had passed this way on many occasions, had witnessed families, who were entangled and grounded in their all too imperfect love, face sudden and impending illness. She had watched them push their warts from hidden crevices onto the surface of life for all to see. Despite her fear and frustration, Anna felt comforted that Bertrice had experience in these matters. All would not turn out as Anna wished. Yet as Bertrice had done time and again for others, she would see Edward through his transition from this life to what lay beyond.

  “Your husband says he needs me to come every day,” Bertrice addressed more practical matters. “That you’ll be busy over the next few weeks with your company.”

  “My husband’s illness is forcing me to rethink who I thought myself to be,” Anna’s chest tightened. One last challenge manifested by Edward left her afraid to move forward concerning a matter where she held little choice. “Edward gave me his company, Manning Ventures,” Anna said. Her voice felt tight, sounded foreign. “I have to prepare for a board meeting.”

  “How nice.” Bertrice curved her lips up in a fashion that said she was not a death angel. Rather, she was a harbinger of life in the midst of death, a person who heralded transcendence when the abyss of uncertainty was all within its path. “Some say the greatest mystery lies in death,” Bertrice said. “The Africans say it springs forth in life.”

  “We die as we live,” Anna mused. She wanted to take a new path, and not clinch the reins of life too tightly lest they snap back and entrap her as she was beginning to feel with Edward’s approaching demise. Anna wanted to be free. And for that, life demanded she let him go.

  “I suppose we need to set up a schedule,” Anna said to Bertrice, “and arrange times for you to come.” ?

  Chapter 37

  Anna continued alongside Bryce down the corridor. Unsure of herself, she reiterated, “I still don’t understand why Edward chose a hotel as the place for me to meet with stockholders and trustees of his company.”

  “Edward never held board meetings in the office,” Bryce said. “We didn’t have enough space, and he wasn’t about to rent a suite of offices that included a boardroom. It’s cheaper to book a hotel conference room when you need one. Neutral ground,” Bryce said. One more secret to the success of his company
,” Anna murmured. Reaching the end of the corridor Bryce stopped at the door to the conference room. “Ready?”

  “I feel like I’m trying to fake being an MBA,” she said. Anna had spent the last two weeks cramming for the meeting. By day, Edward had sat in bed, bolstered by pillows and laid out the particulars of running of a company. At night and when Bertrice was seeing to Edward, Bryce arrived. Sitting across from Anna at the kitchen table, he expanded upon the particulars to which Edward had introduced her. Anna’s meetings with Bryce often ran past midnight and poured into the early morning of the following day. During the afternoon, Edward provided pointers on what she had gleaned from Bryce the previous night. This continued for three weeks with Anna receiving from Edward and Bryce a crash course in business management.

  Standing before the door to the hotel conference room Bryce said, “I’ve got a JD and a MBA, and you know more than I ever learned in graduate school.” Anna frowned. “Edward Manning taught me everything I know about running a business. I’ve shared all of that with you.” Anna held the sinking feeling that Bryce and Edward had been up to something. She feared that unbeknownst to her Edward had crafted a master plan into which she had fallen prey. Inside the meeting room, she would crash face first, in front of the board members. In truth, Bryce behaved as if he were a son doing all he could to grasp the essence of the man he had wished to be his father. Edward Manning, his mentor was failing in his last days.

  Anna was about to ask Bryce what was really going on, when he smiled and said, “You’re a wife and mother—two of the hardest jobs I know. You can do this.” He took hold of the doorknob. “Take my cues. I’m with you.” He opened the door.

  Six men sat around the oblong table as Anna assumed her seat at the head against the wall. Bryce opened the meeting.