Drops of Cerulean: A Novel

by Dawn Adams Cole

  Cadmus believed his mother’s death would elicit a softer side in his sister, bring her back to the Callista who had opened her room as a sanctuary when his nightmares loomed. And while he did see glimpses of her regret, of her love for her mother, what took front seat was Callista’s anger over the skeletons brought to light.

  How many tragedies can befall one family?

  Poor Doyles, God love ’em! Maureen cursed that family. Remember her?

  Cadmus? Alone in that house with a man? That house was made for a real family!

  Cadmus used reason to suffer through the funeral planning with Callista. He reached into the well of compassion, as Ilona would have wanted, and deduced that anger was Callista’s way of dealing with her mother’s death. Surely she would come to her senses in time.

  “I don’t feel right about leaving you, Caddie. I can stay in the apartment and only come out if you need me.”

  “Please, Dear Ernestine, please,” Cadmus said, gripping both of her hands. “I need to be alone. I am a grown man.”

  “Look here now, you’ll always be my baby. I delivered you! And I raised Paty since he was three, and he’s still my Paty even though he passed,” she said, breaking down in tears. “And your mother was a fine lady, kind lady.”

  Cadmus embraced her as she wept, her head falling at his chest. He envied her ability to cry, something he desperately needed to do.

  THE DAY CADMUS DISCOVERED HIS mother had been dead for two days, Thomas wanted to come over immediately to be by his side. Cadmus told him the time was not right; he and Callista were pouring over details for the funeral, which was partially true. He wanted to be alone, needing to absorb the initial shock of the loss. After some time in the rose garden, he spent the night alone in the home with the spirits of his deceased parents, studying the home as he had never done before. It looked different, death casting its shadow on the Doyle family objects that now belonged to him and his sister.

  Thomas insisted on attending the funeral and reception. With so many people from an array of social pockets—Irish, Greek, Houston society, Heights High School, and even Holy Family—he could easily blend in without notice.

  “But I want to be by your side,” he urged.

  “It’s not the appropriate time,” Cadmus emphatically retorted. “If you attend, then you must keep a distance from me.”

  Cadmus stood at the front of The Doyle House, greeting the floods of people who continued to pour through the door. His brain ping-ponged to place how he or his mother knew them, darting between her varied worlds. The visitors from Holy Family made him even more apprehensive, leaving him to wonder whether they might be the ones whose sharp tongue caused his family even more pain.

  In the few times he turned his head to scan the room, he found Thomas staring at him oddly. Despite their time together, he could not register the emotion, which left Cadmus unsettled. He looked as if he were heading toward him at one point. When Cadmus firmly shook his head “no,” Thomas stopped suddenly before darting off to another part of the house.

  After a few minutes had passed without another person opening the door, Cadmus took advantage of this pause and headed down the hall only to see Callista bawling, surrounded by a group of Irish women, who were consoling her over the loss of her mother. For Ilona’s sake, Cadmus did not want to question her sincerity, but it pushed him to head out to the rose garden in disgust nonetheless.

  “Cadmus! Over here!” called his cousin, Benjamin, who was standing next to his twin, Andrew.

  Cadmus’ heart picked up a beat, sensing that his cousins bore a genuine look of interest in their greeting. Hope found him in the few seconds it took to cross over to them, stationed in front of the birdbath. He knew tragedy had the potential to bring people together as much as it could tear them apart. Perhaps they could attempt to forge a relationship.

  “I’m so sorry,” Andrew said, reaching for an embrace. “Your mother was always so kind to us. What a tragedy.”

  Cadmus turned when he felt another hand on his shoulder, presuming it was Benjamin. He turned around to meet the eyes of Thomas, staring at him blankly.

  “Cadmus, I’ve been looking for you to make sure you are okay,” he said, touching his arm before turning to the brothers. “Hello, I’m Thomas, Cadmus’ good friend.”

  Benjamin and Andrew tensed, their disposition retreating to its more formal nature. They politely shook his hand before heading away to talk to the other members of the family.

  Cadmus stormed to the side of Dear Ernestine’s garage apartment, with Thomas following him closely.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Cadmus shouted.

  “I’m tired of being ignored. Ilona would have wanted me here.”

  “Yes, but only on her son’s terms! And you will still refer to her as Mrs. Doyle, understood?”

  “I’ll be moving in soon anyway. What difference does it make who sees us together?”

  “How on earth did you come up with that idea?”

  “You in this big house all alone? Surely, you are not going to be selfish, Cadmus. You know I struggle.”

  Cadmus stared at Thomas in disbelief, wondering how he could have misjudged his character. He had never thought of himself as a rich man, often comparing his station to Callista and William’s success. But wealth is relative, and he and Ilona were wealthy compared to most people. They simply did not flaunt it as others did.

  “We are over,” Cadmus said, turning away to head back in the house.

  HIS GRANDPARENTS AND AUNT ARIANNA tried their best to reach out to him after Ilona died. He accepted a few invitations to Lawndale Café, sitting with Ya Ya at the counter, drinking strong coffee and staring into the kitchen. And while he did not doubt their sincerity to support him, the time he spent next to them left him feeling emptier than if he had stayed home.

  He held fond memories of the café of long ago, of his grandfather bellowing, “Ah! My boy!” when he walked through the doors, the grand welcome and glittering eyes of his grandfather popping a towel to polish the best counter seat for him to sit. He ran as fast as his buckled dress shoes could take him, giving a preemptive leap in the final stretch, his grandfather lifting him high to swing him into the seat. He had looked back to see his mother and Callista making their way back to him, his grandfather’s greeting to Callista loving but more reserved, as if he did not quite know how to greet his green-eyed granddaughter.

  “Biggest piece of apple pie for my grandchildren! You hear me? Biggest, I say!” he demanded, heads of the other patrons turning toward them, some wistful as they viewed the familiarity of the scene through the lens of their own lives while others grinned and scraped the plates with the sides of their forks.

  “Yes, and young Cadmus know his letters and numbers … even know how spell …” His grandfather bragged, looking over to him, hand cueing him to speak.

  “Petrarkis. P-E-T-R-A-R-K-I-S.” Cadmus enunciated with pride, carefully sounding out each letter.

  “Now that hard word for boy who five!” he pronounced as Callista bent her head down to tuck her hair behind her ears, her eyes rolling.

  “My Callista, now she write story … beautiful story … best of grade,” he said, gesturing his coffee cup over to her for confirmation.

  “Poetry contest. Second place,” she corrected.

  “Yes … that what I mean … po-eh-tree. Fine job!” he said with a sharp nod to the head, oblivious to her annoyance.

  His grandfather continued, bragging on his grandchildren. Whereas Callista often felt embarrassed or annoyed, Cadmus watched the narration of his life in fascination as it was told in exclamatory terms. It prompted him to think his life was much more exciting than he realized. As an adult, he wondered how often this routine occurred, questioning if it were only that one memory that bore such an impression as to have heralded it as one of the cherished from childhood that made its way to the gallery.

  He remembered his mother sipping her coffee, with her painted lips, shoul
ders back, and pearls resting against her smooth skin. He wondered how she had ever wiped the counters.

  “Sixty percent, you say?” She asked, incredulous with her eyes watery over the occupancy of the M&M.

  “Good we no rebuild Franklin. And going down every day. Building empty before you know it.”

  “Perhaps it can still make a comeback … it’s such a lovely building. It’s never too late for a second chance, at least it shouldn’t be,” she had said, choked up and shaking her head with thoughts of how its impending demise mirrored her marriage.

  “Yes, my dear. Hope,” her baba replied, placing his hand over his daughter’s. “Always hope.”

  Hope. Cadmus figured it was still an option. He could hope to forge a relationship now, although it would be difficult. Lawndale Café was ten miles away, but it might as well have been on the other side of the earth. The limited time spent together during his childhood, coupled with the stark differences between their worlds, left few topics for conversation and a reminder of the family he really did not know. He also surmised that they did not approve of his sexuality, but he could not say it for a fact. Cadmus often caught his grandfather staring at him from the corner of his eye, like he was studying how they could be related or how Cadmus could do what he did.

  He decided to take side roads back to The Heights, just as his mother would have when she worked on Franklin, taking in the developing city. The Houston skyline was beginning a wave of transformation: The Humble Building was now open, the first skyscraper in over twenty years. He and his mother had planned to visit it to honor Patrick, and now she would never experience it. He drove down Franklin, noticing the building where the family diner once stood, abandoned and boarded. His cousins’ new chain across Houston boasted a success for the Petrarkis family, although it was not directly from his grandfather’s line.

  He thought about what his life would have been had his mother married a Greek man, had he been raised as his cousins. Would he have fallen in love with a woman? One chance day at the M&M to pay a bill, the boy in red suspenders running past her, what if she had arrived one minute later? Would she have met Patrick?

  Now that his mother was dead, Cadmus did not have a family in the real sense. Callista and William did not accept him, saying to him in the months following, “If you decide to make other choices in your life, you are welcome to join us. Cadmus, if you had children, you would understand what we mean. You make decisions in their interest and not your own.”

  Callista’s station in River Oaks certainly gave her the appearance of surpassing the Doyle standards of wealth, but even she was surprised at the reading of the will. Her mother had not touched a penny of what had been left to the children, which was a sizeable amount. Ilona left a remainder of her portion to Dear Ernestine and left The Doyle House to Cadmus, since he would live alone on a professor’s salary. Even without the Doyle & Dunn money Callista enjoyed, they were very well-to-do. It sickened Cadmus to see the dollar signs behind his name, Callista having made him doubt his mother’s intention with the settlement of his father’s estate, not to mention jarring him to the core when she had so vulgarly enunciated his sexuality.

  Cadmus knew who Uncle Michael was, yet he entertained the possibility that his mother had pitied him over loving him. He was still overwhelmed with disappointment that she never told him the truth, but he should not have rejected her. She had only done it out of love.

  Pulling alongside the curb, Cadmus looked at The Doyle House, his house. Despite his tendency for stillness and reflection, his early thoughts of living here alone unnerved him, leaving him feeling as if he had robbed his parents of their due. Their untimely deaths, so tragic and unexpected, how could he possibly carry on the family legacy alone? What was the legacy of a man destined not to marry?

  The reason old souls enjoy spending time alone is because they never really are.

  —AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  PART

  TWO

  DELPHINA

  Autumn 1973

  “DELPHINA,” PATRICIA ANSWERED WHEN THE nurse asked for the name of her baby, who was born on the eleventh of October 1973.

  “Come again?” the nurse asked with a quizzical gaze, suggesting a misunderstanding.

  “Delphina Ann Cizek,” Benny emphasized, his protective fatherly instincts kicking into gear.

  Patricia decided to name her daughter Delphina long before her birth-date, the decision rendered during the 1963–64 school year when she was in the sixth grade. The essence for the name dawned the summer before the school year started, the summer Patricia spent alone in her room, draped perpendicularly across her bed, arm’s-length from the battered record player that rested on her nightstand, so she could reset the needle for a continuous running of “Pintor” by The Pharos. The melodic rhythms of the guitar, punctuated by crisp claps of the maracas, took her to another place, and the fact that there were no words—only sheer instrumental musings—offered an invitation to create her own romantic narrative of a life that bore little resemblance to the current one she held as the second youngest of the six Vizcek children.

  Only three children remained at home, and since she was the only daughter left in the house, it was agreed she would have a room to herself while her two brothers shared another. And even though she had her privacy, the thin walls gave way to her brothers pounding, “Knock it off with the cha-cha stuff. Cain’t ya play somethin’ else?”

  But she could not play something else. The song was a muse for the life she would one day inhabit, and starting junior high was as good of a time as any to start the transition. Her best friend’s mother not only read Vogue, but she also had an actual subscription, a fact that pushed her to the top of the ranks as far as mothers were concerned. Patricia could not believe her luck when Mrs. Spilka had asked her if she wanted her April issue because she planned on throwing it away.

  Patricia carried the magazine home right-side up, as if she were carrying a three-layer cake. Jean Shrimpton stared into her eyes, saying, I know what you want, and I promise you it is as wonderful as you imagine. She painstakingly studied Jean, and with her chipped plastic hand mirror, she practiced what she hoped to be her default expression: aloof, yet inquisitive eyes; a barely there smile; and excellent posture with a slight tilt of the head to elongate her neck.

  One day during the summer holiday, Patricia went to Cloth World to rifle through discounted fabrics—some so outdated they carried a coat of dust and others being nicer remnants considered treasures for those lucky enough to have a smaller frame. Patricia, cloudy from the buzz of a morning spent daydreaming about white sands, drinks with umbrellas, and an olive-skinned gentleman, stopped when she came across a fabric dotted with tropical trees and squiggly lines meant to resemble birds. It was a tacky print at first glance, shades of orange and yellow printed on cotton so durable you might mistake it for drapery. She saw it as something created by the Pintor from her favorite song, and it made her think of a place she would live when she was older, where she would wear coral lipstick and take those mysterious vitamins from the disc, like her sister did when she thought no one was looking.

  Patricia’s efforts to channel Jeanie, as she had affectionately dubbed Jean after hours of bonding and primping, fell to the wayside on the first day of school. Her palm tree frock provided hearty fodder for the Havlik twins, who claimed it was the same material their grandmother had used to make a tablecloth over the summer. Attempting to muster the pleasant, low-key smile perfected over the course of countless hours in her bedroom, she excessively tensed her cheek muscles trying to avoid tears. The boys then taunted, “Patricia ate a lemon from her lemon tree dress!” Try as she did to remain composed, she shouted, “Shut up!” before stomping down the hall.

  Walking down the hall to history class, she decided all was not lost. It was only fourth period. She had another class to regain her composure. Miss Matthews was a new teacher and new to Granger, and even though Patricia had known the other kids since birth, th
is new class presented an opportunity as new classes do. The same faces give way to a new matrix that could tilt the balance of social circles. She knew she might be able to pull it off in that class at least.

  Unfortunately, her effort to look elegantly effortless followed suit, falling completely to the wayside when Miss Matthews combined and mispronounced Louis Sassa’s name as “Loose Ass” during roll call. Patricia’s attempt to stifle her chuckle resulted in a most tragic snort that opened a gateway of laughter. It did not matter that the entire class roared—her reaction was among the first registered, which led her to wonder how much of the laughter was directed to Miss Matthews, to red-cheeked Louis, or to her failed attempt at elegance.

  Patricia soon lapsed into her old self, or what could more appropriately be described as her true self. Her gig had been short-lived, but for a few periods, she tasted the new persona she idealized. While her desire to transform did not dissolve, it was certainly dulled. Truth be told, she found it too damn exhausting to change her entire way of being, especially living in Granger without a catalyst to return her to reverie. The inspiration elicited from “Pintor” faded into little more than a nostalgic reminder of the summer before junior high.

  She was in Miss Matthews’ class on November 22, 1963 when the principal announced that President Kennedy had been assassinated. And while the gasps and screams could be heard from all directions of the school, she would always remember Miss Matthews sitting quietly at her desk, with mousy hair draped evenly around her bowed head like a curtain, while tears dripped steadily to form a small pool on her open history textbook.

  JFK’s death consumed the nation, but its impact on Texas carried an additional weight, and selfishly Patricia found it equally horrifying and humiliating. On a cold, dreary day the following February, she awoke to Jeanie’s eyes peeking at her from under the bed as she rose to get ready for school. She had thrown the magazine under the bed over the holidays, feeling overwhelmed with shame for daring to want something new when so many others simply wanted what they once had. Now it was as if Jeanie was taunting her: You still want it. Kicking the magazine back under the bed with her heel, Patricia hopped back into bed and buried herself under the covers.