“As much as I didn’t want to believe anything he said, I nodded.
“‘That night, she was up to her usual tricks. She’d had a couple beers—oh, you didn’t know she drank now, did you? To you, she was this perfect angel. She took up drinking after the kid was born. She was a quick drunk. One or two beers and she was seriously lit. Then she liked to take risks. This time, she wanted to ride the banister, but not sitting on it. Oh, no. That wouldn't have been risky enough. She wanted to stand on it.’
“Roger took another drink himself. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Then he continued. ‘I was already in bed. The kid was sound asleep. Then I heard Greta banging around, coming up the stairs. She’d had a third beer, she shouted at me. She finally felt free. I dragged myself out of bed, and there she was, standing on the banister, at the top of the stairwell, drunk and crazy. She claimed her life was so boring, she might as well be dead. Then she lost control of her feet and fell.’ He covered his face with his hands.
“‘The fall killed her?’
“‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘But already, people are whispering about me. I know what they’re saying. That I was bad to her. Not true. I loved her and I killed her by marrying her. Greta played games, and she went too far. Now I and the kid have to pay. You coming here trying to avenge her is proof my name is mud now. I haven’t got a chance.’
“Then he looked at me and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m checking out real soon.’”
Dorothy said, “The scandal, the whispering, would have ruined his life. He knew it. He was convinced it already had.
“I didn’t need to threaten him. He was a beaten man. He was grieving for Greta as I was. I urged him to sober up and consider his young child. I went home.”
“What happened next?” Pam asked, apprehensive.
“Two weeks later, I got a call from Roger. He asked me to come get his son. He was going on a long trip, alone. I arrived at the house only half an hour later. The smell of burning was in the air. I could see a corner of what he had burned. It was Greta’s letter. Another paper was open on the table. Roger’s will, giving his son into Nora’s custody.
“The boy was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, hugging his puppy. The puppy I gave him. He asked me if I was there to take him to his new mommy. A few minutes later, the police arrived, and told us the news about Roger. They saw the will and assumed he had killed himself out of grief for Greta. Which of course they hushed up and said was an accidental death so there was some life insurance for little Bruce. I called Nora to come get him.”
“That’s an amazing story,” Pam said. “Very different from what you told Bruce and me several weeks ago. Then, you said Roger killed Greta.”
“Sometimes, I only remember what I believed before I confronted him. Roger felt guilty for trapping Greta into a life she hated. Even he admitted that. Later, I realized that perhaps I had caused some of the double tragedy by threatening Roger directly. I’d brought home the truth of what the world thought of him.”
“But you didn’t tell Greta’s sister?”
“Greta’s letter went up in smoke. I had no way to prove Roger’s innocence to her. She didn’t want to believe that Roger was blameless in Greta’s death, although I did try to tell her. I finally decided I would let it lie. If Nora wanted to hold onto the idea that everything was Roger’s fault, as long as she never took it out on the boy, it didn’t matter.”
Dorothy sighed, looking every year of her age. “Nora was a lot younger than Greta and had always admired her. She couldn’t bear to think of her sister as an unbalanced daredevil. I, on the other hand, had seen some of Greta’s stunts during the war. Much as I preferred Roger as a villain, his supposed abuse of Greta had never jibed with her personality. She wasn’t the submissive or fearful type. His story made more sense. I decided I believed it.”
“You always claimed you were motivated to become an activist by a tragedy. I thought you meant something different,” Pam said.
“It was a tragedy,” Dorothy insisted. “Oh, Roger was no angel. He probably did knock her around a little, but that would hardly subdue Greta’s fiery spirit. No, Greta felt fatally constricted by the societal role she was forced into after the war. Something in her twisted. She turned her frustrated energy against herself.”
Dorothy shifted in her chair, sitting more upright.
“What I took from Greta’s sad end was we women had a lot of energy despite all the babies and homemaking, and we needed to use it constructively, or we’d end up crazy and hurting ourselves and others.”
Pam understood at last. Probably her mother had said bits of this before, but Pam had not been listening then. Now that she had finally broken out of her supposedly safe rut—or more correctly, been thrown out—Pam did have some understanding of the importance of finding meaningful work, a way to contribute. Linley had scoffed at her nonprofit, but it was a lifeline, a way at last of having a personal presence in the world. Something Pam had been afraid of when she was young. The fear was gone now. She might have twenty-five more good years to live, years in which she would be healthy. She could do something genuinely useful with her extra time on the planet. As her mother had.
Dorothy retired to bed early. Pam took the opportunity to go next door.
Bruce was happy to see her. He moved to take her into his arms, but she held him off.
“I’ve got another version of your parents’ story. Mom just told me.” She repeated everything her mother had said.
Bruce was stunned. “Wow. How could Aunt Nora have been so wrong? What kind of crazy woman was my mother?”
“Mom said she was a daring and adventurous person who found her peacetime life too constricting. She livened it up by acting like a reckless kid.”
Bruce nodded. “This version is more credible than the tale your mother spun of holding a gun on my dad. He’d seen action in the war. He could have disarmed her easily.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, struck. “Do you believe this new account?”
Bruce smiled ruefully. “I think so. Or maybe we wait for the next version from your redoubtable mother.”
“You think she might tell us another?”
“Why not? Dorothy seems to be a creative woman. The second story is the mirror version of the first. Instead of my father being unhappy with his peacetime role, it’s my mother.”
“You’re right.” How disappointing if the mystery still had not been solved.
Bruce shrugged. “She’s circling back to the past as if it’s unfinished in her mind. Why else did she have my mother’s photo on display?”
“She saw your resemblance to Greta, and it nudged her memory.”
“Every time she sees me, she probably gets that same nudge. All we have to do is wait for her to talk about those days again.”
“Then you’ll pick the version that pleases you the most? They’re all pretty miserable. I think my mother feels guilty. Confronting your father may have caused him to kill himself. That’s why she tells it differently each time.”
Bruce’s expression was sober. “There’s enough blame to go around for everybody involved. Even Aunt Nora, whose freak-out at the funeral motivated Dorothy to threaten my father. Bottom line, both my parents died. Nothing changes that essential truth. I’m old enough to know we don’t always get a happy ending.”
Pam’s hand was on his arm in a consoling gesture. She moved it up to cup his cheek gently. “I’m sorry.” She reached up and kissed him.
His arms came around her.
#
Pam went back to Ardsley the next day. She and Bruce had made love the night before, the first time in weeks. It had been very pleasant. That was all. She wasn’t in love with Bruce. Maybe she never would be in love again. Or perhaps love at her age was so different from young love she did not recognize it.
Bruce might not be in love with her either, although she got the feeling he thought he was. He was the most decent of the men she met these days. Th
e corporate scumbags she solicited for donations were something else.
As she pulled into her driveway, she mentally ticked off some of the tasks ahead for this week. Starting the lengthy process of finding the right help for her mother. More efforts to build the foundation. Some key changes in her own living situation. There was satisfaction in knowing she could handle everything.
Chapter 39
Six months later, Pam had made substantial progress, including selling her house. On a crisp spring day, she showed Sarah around her new condo in Melville, an affluent Long Island suburb.
“I’m about as near to the city as before, but now I’m far enough out on the Island that visiting Mom isn’t a huge trek. There’s tons of nearby shopping. Look at my big balcony.” She led Sarah outside to a generous terrace, screened on both sides so it was private. They were on the tenth floor. The skyline went on for miles.
“This would be a million dollar view in Manhattan,” Sarah said. “You have so much space.” She admired the large rooms and the high ceilings, plus the Palladian windows letting in so much light.
“New furniture, too.”
Sarah approved. “You’ve started a new life.”
“I’ve let go of my past. Symbolically, at least.”
They relaxed in comfortable chairs in the sunlit living room. “What do your children think about your move?” Sarah asked.
“They’re still shocked, especially at how fast it happened.”
“You kept the money from the sale, I hope? You didn’t give it to them?”
Pam answered Sarah’s last question with a shake of her head. “I kept what was left after purchasing this place outright. Now I won’t need a paying job. I can concentrate on my foundation.”
Sarah eyed Pam critically. “I can see you’ve already spent some of your profit on yourself. Your hair is done and you’re dressing more upscale.”
“You noticed.” Pam preened a little. Her casual at-home outfit of chrome yellow slacks and top was from a high-end ready-to-wear designer. “It’s spillover from needing to present myself carefully to solicit donations. Look.” She held out her hands, showing off professionally manicured fingernails. “Legitimate business expense,” she giggled.
Sarah laughed. “You’ve made amazing improvements to your life since the Menahl disaster. I’m proud of you.”
Pam smiled. “Thanks.”
“Time for the elephant in the room,” Sarah said. “How’s your mother doing?”
Pam took a deep breath. “All things considered, pretty well.” She explained about the professional organizer she’d hired to visit Dorothy several times a week, to help with her social life and her new habit of not reading her mail.
“That’s an unconventional choice of a home helper.”
“She only needs light oversight for now.”
“My aunt went through this, so I’ve heard a lot from my cousin about how dementia goes. Eventually, you’ll need a fulltime companion or housekeeper to oversee regular physical therapy visits and nursing care.”
Pam sighed. “Arranging it all takes time.” She brightened. “Bruce decided to extend his lease, so he’s still next door. He keeps an eye out for Mom and they still take their daily walks.”
“Going to marry him?”
Pam shrugged, her fingers playing with a crystal paperweight on the table next to her.
Sarah stood. “Yeah, why bother? Keep it to sex and the occasional dinner out.” She smoothed her sharp-looking pantsuit. “Speaking of which, let’s go find a restaurant.”
#
Two months later, Pam was still searching for a full-time housekeeper, slash companion, slash practical nurse when she got a phone call from Magda. Although they kept in touch by email about Bright Side Foundation business, they seldom talked directly.
“How are you, dear? How is your son?” Pam asked.
“Harvard is wonderful university. Marc so happy.”
Magda asked in turn how Pam was, and somehow, Pam ended up telling her former coworker about Dorothy.
“You need housekeeper. I can be housekeeper.”
“What? You’re a trained financial professional and you’re looking for a paying job and you’re already donating lots of time to the foundation.”
Magda laughed. “Pusher paper,” she said, as usual getting the idiom backwards. She coughed her smoker’s cough and continued. “No jobs. I look. Every day. Stan no job. He married. Me, I need job.”
“But…but would you be happy being a housekeeper out there at the beach? It’s isolated compared to the city,” Pam said.
“Keep house for husband. Keep house for your mama. Email for rest.”
Could it be that simple? Pam and Magda decided on a tryout. Why not? They’d worked in the same office together for five years. Except for that last day when she set the documents on fire—under considerable pressure of emotion—Magda had been levelheaded. Magda was a trustworthy person. She had a good heart. Now they had to find out if Magda would enjoy living out on the beach, and more significantly, if Dorothy would tolerate having her as a housekeeper.
There was plenty of money to hire help. Even the recent financial meltdown hadn’t significantly touched the large resources available. Malcolm Duncan had known too many stockbrokers to trust all his savings to them, and Dorothy had continued the tradition of diversifying her assets.
Alexander helped with the initial steps. He flew up from North Carolina to be there on the day when Pam took Dorothy to see the lawyer to have a power of attorney drawn up.
“Where have you been lately?” Dorothy scolded her son.
“I’m living in North Carolina now.”
“That’s very disobliging of you,” she harrumphed.
He smiled, and hugged her. “Mom, my wife threatened to leave me unless we got away from the harsh winters up here.”
He nodded at Pam. “Little sis is going to take care of all your business affairs from now on. I’ll oversee what she does, I promise.”
Dorothy looked mollified. She still thought of Pam as a lightweight and she always would. Her brain did not process much new information about her family anymore. It was a wall Pam had to work around. She struggled not to break down when she thought of what inevitably would happen. The slow wreck of her mother’s wonderful mind. Pam pasted a smile on her face and tried to deal with today and tomorrow only.
“Come on, you two. We’re off to see the lawyer,” she said.
Alexander led the way to his large rental car and helped Dorothy into the spacious front passenger seat, while Pam climbed in the back.
“I hear you have a boyfriend,” he said, as he drove.
“Who told you?”
“What’s his name? Bruce?”
“Yes,” she replied, wondering where this was leading.
“When I called Mom the other night, she said you were off with Broooooce,” he dragged out the name to two syllables in falsetto.
Alexander continued to tease her all the way to the attorney’s office. Her brother was okay with Pam taking control of their mother’s life. He thought most of Pam’s ideas were good. Unsaid was his determination not to be around to see their mother deteriorate day by day. Pam ought to be angry at him for leaving the state without even warning her about what he was doing. He had evaded the issue, thinking Dorothy was all right living alone for a while. How could he have known the situation would change so rapidly?
Surprisingly, Dorothy did not put up a fuss at the lawyer’s office. She agreed to the power of attorney, and at the lawyer’s urging also updated her will, and enacted a durable medical power of attorney naming Pam, as well as a living will.
“Any more thorough, and he would have taken a blood sample,” Dorothy remarked as they left.
“Being thorough was the idea, Mom,” Alexander said. “Now you’re set.”
To ride off into the sunset of her life. The truth was painful. Their mother was losing her mental acuity. If she stayed physically healthy, they could lo
ok forward to Dorothy eventually being a shadow of her former self mentally. Which was worse, to die in the next year or two, when she could still recognize her children? Or to drag it out for another decade? Dorothy had often stated she would not live to be ninety because no one from her side of the family ever had. Yet, Dorothy had always been an exceptional woman. She might beat the family odds.
Pam shivered. Alexander put his arm around her. She looked at him and saw her own sadness reflected in his eyes. He was putting on a good show, but he felt the same pain she did. This was the beginning of the end.
Back home after a lavish restaurant lunch, they settled Dorothy in the sunroom, and then Pam and Alexander walked into the kitchen to discuss details of how they would handle day-to-day and emergencies.
“It’s a good thing your friend is starting as housekeeper next week, but meanwhile, take Mom’s car keys,” he warned.
Pam sighed. “I don’t think she has used the car since that day Bruce thought she got lost.”
It had been painful to call Dorothy’s best friend locally and explain she would be arriving and leaving by cab from now on.
Adele Watson had said, “I suspected Dorothy was getting a bit vague. I didn’t know Alexander had moved away. I’m glad you’re taking over.”
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how is your own situation, Mrs. Watson?” Pam asked.
“You don’t have to worry about me, dear. My youngest grandson lives with me.” She laughed. “He couldn’t afford an apartment so I let him live here rent free.”
They agreed as long as both of the elderly friends enjoyed lunching together, Dorothy would be reminded of her regular date and sent over in a cab.
“I do love Dorothy,” Adele Watson said.
Pam also made a special visit to the local taxi company. She explained the kind of help she needed from the drivers.
The company owner was eager to be of service. “She helped me start this business, you know,” Celia Jones said. She was a sixtyish bottle blonde. A reminiscent smile touched her world-weary face. “I’d had a devastating divorce, and Dorothy got me back on my feet. She forced the local bank to lend to me, citing the Fair Credit Act that banks weren’t honoring yet. I owe her a lot.”
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