Drops of Cerulean: A Novel

by Dawn Adams Cole

  “Well, I’m not gone yet, and I can still pitch in after the wedding, after all,” Ilona retorted with slightly more defensiveness than she intended.

  “Ilona, you are heading to the altar with a wealthy Irishman! Your focus will be on your new family!” Demi chuckled.

  “Ahhh! Good for you, Miss Ilona! It’s a new world here in Houston!” Frederick replied.

  CADMUS

  Winter 2014

  “GOOD MORNING, DR. DOYLE,” CHIRPED the nurse who entered his new room in the west wing. “It’s so nice to see you awake this morning.”

  He offered his best nod, but it did not matter. She would offer a perky response regardless of what she saw or heard. He missed Janine.

  In his few short weeks as resident on the third-floor’s west wing, he assumed his neighbors stared out with barren minds. But now he knew the vacant stare of the aged was born from reviewing their life’s film, one that would garner a few tears and a few smiles, one that would elicit rapt attention as the reel played from the earliest memories. The countenance of the viewer remained flat, but it was merely a contrast to the vivid scenes replaying in the mind.

  The well-intentioned greetings of the staff, the attempts to uphold their end of the conversation in the hopes of creating normalcy, was but for the caregivers themselves. His soul was transitioning; his words were becoming fewer and fewer as his energies gravitated to reflection of his soul’s journey during this lifetime.

  CADMUS

  Winter 1940

  “MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. DOYLE!” BELLOWED the doorman as Patrick entered the Niels Esperson with his son. “And a very special Christmas to you, too, Mr. Doyle,” he added, bowing down to meet Cadmus’ eyes.

  Cadmus nodded shyly, Patrick gave his hand a squeeze. He looked up into his father’s light brown eyes, golden spectacles bearing down on him with a raised brow. Cadmus mustered the courage and offered his hand.

  “Merry Christmas,” he whispered, the doorman shaking his hand.

  “Now, now, son. You can do better than that!” Patrick chided.

  “Merry Christmas,” Cadmus attempted again, the effort to raise his voice a notch not commensurate with the final result.

  “Thank you, Mr. Doyle,” the doorman smiled, giving the little hand an extra pump.

  Cadmus did not go to the office with his father frequently, but he went often enough to form a routine. He stepped into the elevator, the operator smiling down at him with a finger to his lips. “Shhhhh … It’s our secret,” he whispered as he gestured to the buttons, allowing Cadmus to press 16 himself after an exaggerated scan around the car to see if anyone was watching.

  His father doled out a few sheets of stationery—Doyle Lumber & Construction embossed at the top of the creamy thick paper. It was a nice indulgence, the textured paper resting between his forefinger and thumb. Cadmus settled into the secretary’s desk chair, and his father reassured him that the office would remain empty seeing that it was so near the holiday.

  Cadmus began writing a story about Christmas Eve, an imbalance of words spelled phonetically with a sprinkling of correct ones. The sweetness from the cigar smoke wafted from his father’s office, the scent finding its way into the narrative Cadmus wrote about a family waiting for Santa.

  The opening of the office door jarred Cadmus from his reverie. The redheaded woman did not even notice him curled up in the chair. Her gaze was fixed on his father’s office door.

  “Now were you going to forget to wish me a Merry Christmas?” she teased, raising her right hand to rest high on the doorframe. Her dress was very snug, far tighter than his mother would wear.

  His father appeared at his office door, his eyes intent on finding Cadmus rather than meeting hers. She followed Patrick’s gaze and jumped back, startled to see a pair of chocolate brown eyes staring back at her.

  “Well, pardon me,” she apologized, her eyes zeroing in on his face. “My, my. You are most certainly your mother’s son,” she said wryly.

  “He’s my son. Our son,” Patrick said before turning to Cadmus. “Give us a minute alone, Caddie. Just need to wrap up an issue.”

  Patrick closed the door to his office, and Cadmus waited a few seconds before slinking to the door and pressing his ear against the cool, dark wood.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” Patrick questioned.

  “I missed you,” she purred, her heels clicking on the floor, which Cadmus guessed was drawing her closer to his father.

  “It was a mistake. A terrible mistake,” he protested.

  “Shhh … want the little one ratting you out, my love?”

  “I’m not your love, Maureen. And you are not mine. You are one big fucking mistake that needs to go away for good,” he seethed.

  “And does my money need to go with me? Sure would be a shame for Gavin to continue on without the Doyle Brothers.”

  “Maureen, please don’t do this. You know I was drunk. If you care about me at all, you will leave me the hell alone.”

  “And if you didn’t care for me at all, you would have never allowed it to happen again.”

  Hearing the high heels cross his father’s office prompted Cadmus to dart back into the seat. He grabbed the pencil and stared at the paper, willing his heart to quiet and fearing that the sound of its thumping would give him away for certain.

  A minute later, the door opened. Maureen held her head high as she stared at him, studying his features. He was not accustomed to adults examining him. After an endearing smile or a pat on the head, they returned to their own world. He intrigued the red-haired woman.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said as she made her way out of the office.

  Cadmus stared at his father positioned at his office door, Patrick uncharacteristically vexed. He returned to his office to gather their coats and hats, motioning for Cadmus to rise from the chair. His father knelt down to button his son’s coat, their faces inches from one another. Cadmus noted a flatness in his father’s spirit, a sharp contrast to the lighted trees and music that filled the city streets just sixteen floors down.

  “Now, we have one stop to make. I have a Christmas surprise for your mother waiting to be picked up … a most beautiful diamond bracelet that I know she will love.”

  ALTHOUGH COUNTER TO THE ACTUAL chronology, what Cadmus perceived as his earliest memory of his father’s death was walking along The Boulevard toward Nineteenth Street, Dear Ernestine’s hand holding his, as if she was protecting him from an unknown force. It left him searching the esplanade, looking for people lurking.

  Callista walked a few paces in front, her hair uncharacteristically tangled and greasy, draping over her downward tilted head. He remembered looking at the sun as it rose to its zenith and how the humidity sprinkled across his face even though it was February, as the black birds crowed with the chimes of the church bells. The spire from the Cooley mansion contrasted sharply against the blue sky, and it made him wonder if it had been metal from the car that pierced his father in such a way as to summon death.

  His memory shifted to his mother’s sequined gown, how the elegant glimmer of the previous night morphed into a jarring flash, now draped haphazardly over the chaise as his mother lay in bed staring at the wall wide-eyed, her mascara flaked under her eyes and her stained coral lipstick smudged as she whispered, “Patrick, Patrick,” under her breath.

  He remembered the evening before when he was curled up in the Cogs-dale chair in his mother’s boudoir, tracing his forefinger along the gold leaf prints that were embossed on the pale pink silk of the armrest. And he remembered her sitting at her vanity, the delicate silver sequins from her gown playing off the light from the chandelier. He knew his memory exaggerated the light, the golds and silvers shimmering around the room, her eyes and the evening star, but the imagery had become part of the tender narrative of the night when his world irrevocably shifted.

  Ilona applied a coral shade of lipstick, a hint of sadness in her eyes as she met Cadmus’ gaze through the reflecti
on in the mirror. She paused, lowered the lipstick, and with moist eyes mouthed the words, I love you, sweet boy, as his sister skipped into the room, dispelling the solitude between mother and son as she gregariously wrapped her arms around her mother.

  “You are a princess going to a ball! Where is your prince?” asked Callista.

  “Here at your service, Princess Callista,” chimed his father as he sauntered into the room, not missing a beat as he swung his arm into his tuxedo jacket, light glinting from his gold-framed eyeglasses.

  Ilona blinked her eyes dry and rose to meet her husband, and playing the dutiful part for the children, they reached for one another’s hands and began humming the tune “And We Danced All Night,” as they waltzed around the room. Callista, arms raised as if holding an imaginary dance partner, twirled around them giggling and collapsing to the ground from dizziness, only to get up and twirl again.

  Cadmus and Ilona were the only ones not caught in the fantasy of the happy family, Cadmus not knowing why he felt an emptiness. His mother was a quiet soul, so many people never noted the subtle change, but Cadmus did. He followed his mother with his eyes, observing how her eyelids appeared heavier and how every seventh breath extended a bit deeper in resignation.

  Cadmus observed the evening’s scene with trepidation, as if he knew at five years old that the Doyles were on the precipice of a climactic family event. His parents dancing in tuxedo and sequins; Callista giving way to bursts of giggles in her white cotton ruffled nightgown; Dear Ernestine coming into the room to announce the driver was waiting; and only his mother’s eyes betraying her stunning façade. His father patted his head and gave a wink, his palm resting for a moment longer on his cheek. His mother knelt down and offered a deliberate kiss to his forehead and a playful kiss to his nose. His parents were off to a party at Shadyside.

  Ilona arrived at home at half past midnight, the grandfather clock marking the time as the key slipped into the door. Cadmus ran a hand through his wavy dark hair before sliding out of bed in his footed pajamas and creeping like a snake into the hallway. He pretended he was a predator looking for prey, gripping the bottom of the stairwell banister and peering through the railing to spy his parents. His fantasy of startling them dissipated after several minutes of waiting. He wondered what was taking them so long, and then he realized that he had heard only one person enter the home.

  He knew it was Ilona, noting the sound of her high heels slowly making their way across the wooden floor. But then, silence. She must have taken a seat. He saw Dear Ernestine walking down the hallway, passing the bottom of the stairs to the sitting room with two cups of hot tea in hand. Her countenance suggested that she was upset; perhaps she was frustrated at having to make a cup of hot tea at that hour when she should have been in bed herself.

  He took a few cautious steps downstairs, his arm outstretched high along the wall to help him balance as he arched his body to the right for a glimpse of what was unfolding below. After taking another step, a growing viscidity in the air stopped Cadmus from going forward. He paused for a breath, struggling to understand why he was uneasy.

  A teacup clinked to its saucer, breaking the tension he registered. His mother said what he thought was “Patrick” on cue with another clink that muffled the subsequent words. Did they know he was there trying to listen? Where was his father? Then he thought the word could have been “party” or “park.” Perhaps his father was parking the car, or maybe his mother thought Dear Ernestine would want to hear details of the party. He found it strange for them to have such a discussion at this hour, but then again he did not know what adults did after he fell asleep.

  Several minutes passed without another word; there were only a few clinks to punctuate the silence. He heard his mother gasp, trying to muffle her sobs. Dear Ernestine rose from her chair and sat next to Ilona in the loveseat, stretching her arms around his mother. He blinked several times in disbelief to check whether he was dreaming. His mother rested her head on his nanny’s breast, her fragile hands covering her face as she wept. Dear Ernestine patted her head, gently rocking her back and forth with her eyes closed. That was what it looked like when she comforted him after a scrape, after tears from a bad day on the school playground. The vulnerability of his mother in pain was unnerving. Looking back as an adult, this was the moment he realized that parents were not bastions, unflappable forces capable of keeping misfortune at bay.

  Although he was not particularly close to his father as his friends and boy cousins were with theirs, an intense longing for Patrick swept over him. Suddenly, he knew intuitively that they would never again hunt for doves or talk of the railroads and lumber, things that never held the faintest interest for him in the first place. He knew that the time had passed for the smell of whiskey and cigars on his father’s jacket. Cadmus’ eyes filled with tears, his gaze fixed on the front door, willing Patrick to come in and give familiar form to the pain and uncertainty that was downstairs.

  At a loss for what to do, Cadmus climbed upstairs backward, his eyes locked on his mother’s wedding rings, before tiptoeing into Callista’s room. He curled into bed behind her and buried his head in a pillow. If in the morning all was well with the world, he would do everything in his power to become a dutiful son.

  EVERY PEW AT HOLY FAMILY was filled for his father’s funeral mass. Although only a few candles were lit, the scent of melted wax from over the years permeated the walls, emitting a hallowed sweetness in the air. Cadmus recalled the dark hair of the Greeks blending in with their black apparel, the numbers so great as to create the effect of a shadow or a wave rising on the left side of the church. He, Callista, and his mother sat in the first pew on the right along with Uncle Michael and his family. Throngs of Irish friends, with their pale skin and a palette of hair spanning red to sandy brown, filled the entire right side of the church.

  Uncle Michael’s sons, Benjamin and Andrew, whispered to one another and giggled in between reprimands. Cadmus had never felt close to them, and now that Patrick was gone he did not see how that would change. The teachers at Harvard Elementary were surprised that the Doyle boys were cousins, not only because of their physical differences, but also because they did not play together at recess and barely acknowledged one another in passing. No animosity, no fighting. There was simply no interest shared. Cadmus preferred to walk the school grounds collecting twigs and rocks while narrating fictional tales in his head. The sandy-haired Doyle cousins were masters of sport, assuming a natural command of the playground that was a precursor to their future positions as prominent Houston businessmen and philanthropists.

  Cadmus heard the word sorry so many times that day that the sounding of the word itself became peculiar. Repetition stripped away its meaning, leaving him reciting the pronunciation of the word over and over in his head.

  I’m sorry for your loss.

  I’m sorry your father passed away.

  I’m so sorry, Cadmus.

  You will be the man of the house for your mother.

  Sorry, sorry, sorry.

  A soft, innocuous “s” followed by a hard “r” and concluding with whimsy. The word even looked odd, written on the scores of cards sent to their home in the weeks following—the slopes of the s and the arches of the r’s. He wondered how a simple word had come to represent such a complexity of emotions.

  The other inescapable word he kept hearing after the horrific event was the whispered “she.”

  She is a harlot, the way she dyes her hair flaming red.

  She better not dare show her face here.

  She should have been the one killed.

  She killed Patrick.

  Even as a young boy, Cadmus was confounded by the supposed allure of women, of their power. Last year, Callista so carefully culled over the valentine choices from the box Ilona purchased at the variety store. She wanted to select the perfect card for Edward, whom she was lucky enough to sit behind in Miss Smith’s class. Cadmus had overheard boys on the playground teasing Edward
about his interest in another girl, but Cadmus did not have the heart to share this news with his sister. When Callista asked his opinion between two valentine selections, he found himself eager to assist. Cadmus did not feel an attraction to any particular girl, but he did experience an odd feeling whenever he thought of Edward.

  Cadmus welcomed the silence that descended on the house after Patrick died. He felt guilty for his appreciation of the stillness, of the solitude, but his remorse dulled as he indulged more and more often in his own reflective world. His father was known for his boisterous personality and charm, qualities that no doubt helped strengthen Doyle Lumber & Construction as a presence in Houston industry. It was the Doyle’s wealth that allowed them to remain in their house on The Boulevard. When Patrick was alive, Cadmus had been assumed to be next in line as the primary heir to lead the business with the next generation. Men at the lumberyard had greeted him as “Our Greek Boss” and “The Greek Doyle,” as they offered him broad smiles and pats on the back.

  Cadmus remembered visiting the lumberyard one summer, his father animatedly discussing the timetable for a particular job. The Houston humidity glazed his skin, and the moisture from his scalp formed droplets of sweat that tickled down to the middle of his back. He envisioned the beads as tributaries forming across his body, commanding this image to cool his temperature and still his dizziness from the sweltering heat.

  Cadmus pulled the handkerchief his mother had given him from his shorts pocket and wiped his brow. Sitting on a small pile of freshly cut lumber, catching his breath and caressing the smooth wood, he thought about his teacher’s explanation that paper was made of wood and how much more appealing it would be if his father had been a publisher instead. He broke from his daydream after hearing the word “delicate” and glanced up to see a few of the men looking at him, shaking their heads, before turning away to resume their work.