She continued to eye him, not saying a word.
“My current home may not be as grand as yours. It is not the Doyle House, but it is still a Doyle House. Let’s continue our Doyle Easter brunch.”
“And my family? You know they join our celebration.”
“Yes, but as I said before, my house is not as grand as yours. Unfortunately, there is not enough room for the Petrarkis clan. I’m sure you can call on them for supper, or perhaps Thanksgiving will be their holiday.”
Ilona shook her head, incredulous as to his continued antipathy.
“Why are you doing this, Michael? You got what you wanted!”
His countenance softened, a small smile broke out over his face, and for a moment, she saw his brother in his eyes.
“Dear Callie, such a beautiful lass. Come give your Uncle Michael a hug,” he replied to the little girl peeking from around the corner.
Her daughter ran, eager for his embrace, a touch most similar to that of her father.
Kneeling down beside her, Michael held her hands and said, “You, Cadmus, and your mother are invited to our home for Easter. I know Katherine Grace, Benjamin, and Andrew are very eager to see you all, as is your Aunt Sybil.”
“What fun!” Callista cried, looking back at her mother for confirmation.
ILONA
Autumn 1941
ILONA SORTED THROUGH THE STACK of mail as she made her way through the foyer, coming to an abrupt stop when she saw Maureen Sullivan written in the upper left-hand corner of an envelope. Her heart beating rapidly and her mouth salivating, she slammed the mail onto the hallway table and bolted to the restroom half expecting to vomit. Her mind raced in befuddlement as to why Maureen would contact her after so long, seeing that she had never once reached out to her after the accident. She knew Maureen and Gavin had moved to Dallas in the months after Patrick’s death, but she knew little else. Her friends were careful to avoid mention of the couple.
Ilona retreated to the kitchen for a glass of water and looked out at the leaves of the trees swaying in the wind against the overcast sky. Whatever was in the letter would no doubt offer another lasting imprint on her mind and heart. During the year since Patrick’s death, Ilona spent innumerable hours carefully curating each layer: examining, reflecting, and praying on each piece of her life and their marriage that had brought her to where she was today. She was unsettled at the thought of a new layer from Maureen, for it would more than likely be of significance. She took the letter to the rose garden, making her way to the bench and begging God for strength.
Dear Ilona,
It is with heavy trepidation and unspeakable regret that I write this letter, as we approach the anniversary of Patrick’s death. Composing words on paper certainly removes any speculation. Although the circumstances are widely presumed, nothing was fully substantiated, and I imagine there is some degree of solace when unpleasant rumors escape final confirmation. I suppose I now should apologize for this indulgence. By writing, I am confirming. I do believe, however, that the reason for my letter will bring more comfort than it will take away.
Ilona, Patrick loved you. He truly and unequivocally loved you. Our first involvement began well before you two met, and while for quite some time I attempted to convince myself otherwise, the truth is we were nothing more than passing distractions to one another, becoming available only when at our worst, a misshapen pair. This is the last I will write about him and me as a “we,” because there never was a “we,” not in the truest sense, and I am filled with remorse that my attempts to create something of the kind resulted in the most cataclysmic of circumstances.
Patrick was a good man. As odd as this may sound, you were his main topic of conversation. He admired your caring nature, your intelligence, and your spirit. He said on countless occasions that you made him a better man, and he cursed himself for his shortcomings. He had been attempting to extricate himself from me completely for a good while. I manipulated him, which was not difficult to do when he drank. I threatened to take away the investment money, threatened to tell Gavin, which would ruin his business interests. Patrick was tormented with how to resolve the affair, and I know this contributed even more so to his alcoholic tendencies.
I do not expect you to understand my temperament, for you are not privy to the circumstances that prompt me to view the world as I do. I hold earnest hope that one day you will accept my most heartfelt apologies for the pain I brought to you and your family. My actions altered our paths in ways I struggle to reconcile, and perhaps will continue to for the rest of my life.
With continued deepest regret,
Maureen Sullivan
Two days after receiving the letter, Ilona received a phone call from Margaret. Maureen was dead, having shot herself in the head at her Dallas home.
THE CLINK OF A TEACUP being set upon her nightstand broke Ilona from her dream. She opened her eyes to see Dear Ernestine pulling back the drapes.
“Quarter after nine, Mrs. Doyle.”
“The children … are they …”
“Well at school, no need to worry about that.”
“Thank you,” Ilona whispered. She’d had a good stride going, rising before dawn, dressing herself nicely and then joining Callista and Cadmus for breakfast. She had held their hands en route to school and enjoyed a slower walk home on The Boulevard. Maureen’s letter and suicide had shaken Ilona, fracturing the fragile shell she had managed to piece together.
She thought back to her dream, where she had been but moments ago. She was alone in the car as it sat in front of the Millers’. She stared at the house; it was nighttime with lights streaming from all the windows. Patrick stood in the far left window upstairs, looking down at her, his hands pressed to the glass. Maureen stood next to him, staring down at her, arms by her side, wearing the gown she had worn to the Port of Houston Dinner at the Rice Hotel the first night they met. As the car began to pull from the curb, Ilona asked Coleman to stop. Her request unanswered, she spoke louder and louder and then screamed at the realization that the car was driving itself and picking up speed.
“I killed them,” Ilona said aloud, staring out the window.
Dear Ernestine paused in her routine, her gaze suspended. After a few seconds of thought, she pulled a chair next to Ilona’s bed, cupping her palms over Ilona’s hands.
“Paty was my son,” she began after several minutes, snagging Ilona’s attention. “Friendly to everyone with a good heart, ever since he was yay high,” she continued, her eyes remaining downcast, palm facing down a few feet above the floor. “He had a good heart, but a restless heart … we all have it. Some hide it just fine; some just can’t. Paty had trouble with it. Mrs. Doyle, I loved that boy, so very much I did,” she paused to choke back the tears, managing to whisper, “but he is the reason for his, and she is the reason for hers.”
Squeezing Ilona’s hands together in prayer, Dear Ernestine looked into her eyes, tears flowing down her face, “It’s not your fault, ma’am. No, no, no. Sweet Jesus, no … it’s not your fault.”
CADMUS
Summer 1941
THE YEAR AFTER HIS FATHER’S death, Cadmus remembered Ilona spending her time in the library nook, staring into the rose garden. Her days were spent in silence; the room’s stillness fractured only by endless tears streaming down her cheeks and occasional whispers, “I’m so sorry, my love” in between her litanies of “my fault, my fault.” Cadmus passed many of those days curled up in the chair beside her, with crayons and coloring book in hand to pass the time.
Without the pressure to be a boy, Cadmus spent more time in the garden, lazing about under the majestic pecan tree in the far corner of the grounds and paying homage to the sky’s variations throughout the day, his vantage point framed by tree limbs and leaves moving ever so slightly in the breeze. He recalled seeing his mother in the window as he leaned against the bark, her countenance and posture so still he feared that life was abandoning her.
“I’m heading over to Un
cle Michael’s and Aunt Sybil’s,” Callista said as she offered Ilona an obligatory kiss on the cheek.
“Why not stay home this evening?” Ilona asked, her resignation evident in her tone despite the words.
“Katherine and I have a lot to talk about, Mom. They will be in River Oaks before we know it. I can’t imagine school next year without her.”
Cadmus recalled the talk about new Houston and the upset it stirred in Callista to think of the world unfolding west. She was more of a Doyle. River Oaks held little charm for him, and he struggled to understand her reverence for the uncle who showed him so much disdain.
As the front door closed and after Callista made her way down the steps, Dear Ernestine came into the library with Ilona’s early evening tea.
“Just you and Caddie for supper?” she asked, pouring a steaming cup of Earl Grey.
Ilona paused and turned to her son with a weak smile.
“Yes, thank you, Dear Ernestine. Just me and my boy,” she said, her choked tears stealing the speck of light that had shown itself for but a moment.
Cadmus missed his mother’s beauty; he missed her smile, which radiated her zest for life, a spirit eviscerated by guilt in the wake of his father’s death. He knew his mother was not what you would call a knockout, not the type of woman the redheaded one had tried to be. Ilona held her beauty like a secret, which only those who really knew her appreciated; the longer you looked, the more her beauty revealed itself, making observers wonder how they could have missed it in the first place.
Upon first glance, Ilona’s medium frame and thick black hair camouflaged her as an average woman; yet as it sometimes does, the universe tinkered with the design and made the features of her wide brown eyes, upturned nose, and toothy smile something of exquisite proportion. Cadmus longed for the mother he once knew, perhaps more than he longed for the father he never did. Ilona doled out her smiles begrudgingly after she became a widow, her countenance signaling approval relegated to barely a grin.
It made him wonder when his father had first seen her smile. It also made him wonder if a man would ever see her again the way his father had. He knew one man already did. Regardless of his outward disdain, Cadmus knew that Uncle Michael was attracted to his mother. At family gatherings, Uncle Michael’s gaze fell on places it should not fall when he thought no one was looking, but Cadmus was always looking.
A sharp set of raps to the front door woke Cadmus from his slumber. The second round prompted him out of bed to see who would come to the house at that hour. He peeked downstairs to see Uncle Michael standing in the doorway next to his mother in her ivory silk robe.
“I expected you much earlier,” Ilona stated, her tone harsher than normal. “Is everything alright with Callista?”
“Callie? Yes, of course,” Michael said in an unusually pleasant tone. “She and Katherine Grace enjoyed a milkshake at Ward’s this afternoon with Sybil. Thank you for letting her sleep over tonight.”
“I found the papers you asked about,” Ilona said, turning to head into the library as Michael’s eyes scanned down her backside when she turned away.
Cadmus tiptoed down the stairs and knelt next to the wall in the hallway. Watching with one eye, he saw his mother at his father’s desk staring at a folder she pulled out earlier. Uncle Michael helped himself to a whiskey from his father’s liquor cabinet, downing the highball as he made his way over to the desk.
“These are the plans Patrick worked on with Gavin. Gavin certainly does not need or want them now.”
“Thank you, Ilona,” Michael said. “May I make you a drink?”
His mother stared at his uncle in silence, her constitution stoic. It was her post-Patrick look, the stare of a widow who had suffered tragedies and could not easily be rattled. Cadmus could not see his uncle’s face, but he knew they were looking one another in the eye, as if playing a game of who would look away first.
“No, thank you,” she replied, holding his gaze.
“There is another subject I wish to broach if you don’t mind,” Michael said.
“What is it, Michael? What more do you want?” Ilona said, making her way to the sofa, her defensives beginning to settle.
“An interesting question,” he replied, following her to the sofa but pausing to refill his glass along the way. He sat down on the sofa, watching her intently as he swirled the liquid in his glass.
“Yes?” she asked, her impatience growing.
“Sybil is a wonderful mother. I couldn’t have asked for better,” he began. “But … but she just can’t seem to meet all of my needs.”
His mother stared at Uncle Michael with a furrowed brow and her right hand now splayed over her mouth.
“And … I am sure you have needs that are no longer being met,” Uncle Michael continued in a matter-of-fact tone, taking another sip of his whiskey. “I’ve always found you very attractive, Ilona. Perhaps that is another reason I begrudged my brother so. He had something I still want. Passion with an exotic woman. I heard you two once, before you were married. Thinking the house was empty, I let myself in to leave a few papers.”
Ilona made an effort to bolt from the sofa, but he pulled her back down, slamming his highball on the table.
“No!” she shouted, causing Cadmus to fall backward at the sound of her raised voice.
“You know you want me,” he said as he moved on top of her, gliding one hand underneath her robe and nightgown while he placed the other over her mouth.
After several seconds with his one hand still making its way around her body, he removed his other from her mouth and kissed her. Ilona momentarily stopped resisting, as if she wanted to see whether he tasted like his brother. She attempted to push Uncle Michael off, but his weight overcame her. He pinned her down with one hand while he reached for his belt with the other. Cadmus saw his mother struggling to get loose, her hands beating against his uncle’s back to no avail, begging, “No, no, please Michael, please don’t do this!”
Cadmus rose from his crouched position.
“Mommy!” he shouted, and Uncle Michael jerked back.
He ran to his mother, who had by now extricated herself from the sofa, leaving his uncle to buckle his belt and tuck in his shirt. They returned to the hallway, his mother standing tall while Cadmus stood in front of her, his head barely at her waist. Ilona opened the front door, where both she and Cadmus stood staring at Michael, waiting for him to leave. He remembered the effort he exercised in glaring at his uncle. He mustered his best menacing look to make certain Uncle Michael knew that he was her defender.
Uncle Michael did not look at Ilona, but he held his nephew’s stare as he exited The Doyle House for what would be the last time. Years later, Uncle Michael would attend Ilona’s funeral, but he did not dare enter Cadmus’ home for the reception.
ILONA
Spring 1952
AS LOATH AS ILONA WAS to admit it, Callista’s departure to the University of Texas brought peace to the house. She had not been around that often when she had attended Heights High School, spending most of her time with friends or with Katherine. Her frustration with Cadmus intensified as they entered their teens; Ilona surmised it was because he was coming more fully into what he was supposed to be.
She thought back to a conversation they had during Callista’s senior year.
“Callista, please invite your brother to the game. I bet he would love to attend, but he needs a ride from someone other than his mother,” Ilona had pleaded.
“I doubt he wants to go, Mom. Sports are not his thing, you know.”
“Well, perhaps not to play, but cheering the team on is another matter, sweetheart.”
“Mom, look, I can’t bring him with my friends. I just can’t,” Callista said shaking her head as she made her way from the kitchen into the hallway.
“Callista, your brother is such a nice person! How can anyone not like him?”
“Because he’s too nice. And he’s … well, you know.”
“What?
”
Callista stopped and turned around to face her mother, who followed close behind. “I don’t think he likes girls.”
Ilona remained stricken, not sure how to respond.
“Mom, I’m sorry. It’s hard on me, you know. What people say … so many girls in his class find him handsome, but he doesn’t care … just wants to read and hang out with the boys from Chess Club.”
“I hope you defend your brother, Callista. He focuses on his studies and not girls, and for that I’m thankful. The others could learn from him,” Ilona replied.
“Are you saying I need to learn, too?” Callista questioned, sensing the growing rivalry with her brother. “I’m a good student, maybe not perfect like Cadmus, but at least I have lots of friends!” she shouted heading to the second floor.
“Callista, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it that way!” Ilona called after her, following her up the stairs. “I just want the best for you both. You are smart and lovely, with so many friends. You are so far ahead of where I was at your age … so full of confidence! I want the same for Cadmus, too. Please help him.”
“He needs to help himself, Mom,” Callista replied, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help,” she said as she shut the door to her room.
Anyone who truly knew Patrick could easily recognize his spirit in both children. The trouble was that no one knew Patrick as Ilona had known him, and as such, Callista received the most comparisons to her late father. She demonstrated his charisma, his moxie. Her involvement in extracurricular activities at Heights High School; her time with Michael and Sybil in Houston Society from the time she was in junior high; her initiative to leave home for the University of Texas: These were all things foreign to Ilona when she was her daughter’s age. She was proud to see her daughter’s achievements. She only wished it all came with a dose of humility.
Drops of Cerulean: A Novel Page 14