by Harry Kraus
“Good-bye,” she said, attempting a firmness she didn’t feel.
He nodded slowly, his jaw clenched. “Good night, Lizzy.”
She leaned toward him, then halted in indecision, then forward again as he lowered his face to hers.
A good-bye kiss was all she’d intended. Quick. Then pull away, and walk—no, run—back to the house and her plans for her life and her future with John McCall.
The jacket in her hand was lowered for a second, and the thin nightgown offered little barrier between them.
She broke away once, then surrendered again, her emotions on edge, her resolve and her jacket falling to the ground.
She pushed him away, her hand on his chest, but he held her tightly behind the small of her back.
His eyes were locked with hers, intense and full of fire. “You always promised that I would be the one. That I would be your first.” His eyes were scaring her, his countenance changing. He was no longer pleading, but demanding, his face no longer filled with love, but revenge.
The transformation caught her off guard, and in a moment, he was pulling her into the barn. She stumbled up the steps to the loft, his grip a vise around her. Suddenly, he was on her, moaning and ripping her gown.
Why didn’t she cry out? Why didn’t she yell for her parents for help?
She remembered resisting, but never calling out.
She remembered the hour she spent crying in the hayloft alone.
But mostly she remembered her kiss that had initiated it all. That alluring kiss, the one she’d willingly given, the one that sparked his desire … and hers.
Elizabeth McCall sat up, clutching her flannel nightgown with one hand and rubbing her thinning white hair with the other. She slipped from bed, troubled by the memory, and driven by the thought of her own guilt. She moved slowly to the library and pulled a dusty book from the shelf, agonizing over a partially remembered phrase, one she’d heard a hundred times before, preached from the pulpit of a legalistic country church. What was it? The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third generation?
She opened the King James Version of the Bible. It was the only one her mother would allow. In the back, she ran her finger through the concordance, then turned to the verse for which she searched.
“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”
Her hand began to tremble as she counted the generations from Harold Morris, a man who bore the Lord’s curse declared by Eleazor Potts for rebuilding the devil’s still. Beginning with Harold, and ending with her own son Wallace, she whispered, “One, two, three … four.”
Her hand went to her throat. “Maybe this will be the end. Wally’s the fourth generation. Margo, Claire, and Clay are the fifth.” Hopefully, they will be spared.
She thought again of Steve Hudson. It was a rape, pure and simple.
Wasn’t it?
But why did I kiss him like that? I must have wanted him, just like he said.
“Oh, God, can you ever forgive me?”
She thought of her son Wally and his shocking behavior at the graduation. And before the graduation, it had been months since she’d seen him. He had become a hermit, hiding away in his little house, making it clear that he would see her only when he cared to. That he’d agreed to have her along in the car seemed a minor miracle.
He’d gone into such a decline. How long had it been since she’d really looked at him with open eyes? She had suppressed the fear of the curse, never wanting to believe it to be a reality. For years, her secret had been successfully hidden. No one needed to know. No one seemed affected. But seeing Wally at the graduation had unearthed the buried fears.
Wally looks so much like Steve Hudson did shortly before his death.
The reality of the thought struck her again. Could it be? I thought my secret would affect only me.
“Oh, Wally, could you ever forgive me if you really knew?”
Della McCall awoke early to a jabbing pain in her side. “Come on, Wally, stay on your side.”
She looked at her husband’s face. He was snoring, sound asleep, yet still his arms were as busy as during the day. This was ridiculous, Della thought. Wally had always been the nervous type, always tapping, frequently pacing, never standing still, but this was new, even for him. He couldn’t seem to stop moving even when he was sleeping.
And his temper! Sure, he’d blown up at the kids before, but to strike a nurse the way he did at the hospital? That was definitely out of character.
The evening before, she’d confronted him about it. He’d broken down and cried like a baby, saying he didn’t mean to do it, that it was all an accident, something he couldn’t control. She wanted to believe him, but she’d seen it with her own eyes. He’d landed a square punch right on the bridge of the nurse’s nose.
All evening, she’d fretted about a possible police investigation, watching the driveway through the window, expecting a police cruiser to show up at any moment. And after her conversation with Claire, she’d worried even more, contemplating the possibility that her husband suffered from some rare disease.
Now, in the faint light of morning, her anxieties returned full force. Something was robbing her husband of life. He was losing control, sinking without a life vest, and Della felt like she was going down with him.
What options did she have?
The doctor in Carlisle had been no help.
If she listened to Grandma, she’d have to cart her husband off to an exorcist or someone like that. And if Wally wouldn’t see a doctor, he certainly wouldn’t agree to an exorcist! Besides, she knew what the clergy would say: He’s brought it on himself with the lifestyle he’s chosen. You reap what you sow.
She’d have to figure out something. And if it got any worse, she’d just have to call Clay to help her force Wally into a hospital.
She slipped from the bed and plodded to the kitchen to make coffee, adding an extra scoop of fresh grounds to make up for the interruption of her sleep.
She added sugar and milk until the coffee sloshed onto the side of the mug. She lowered her mouth to the rim and slurped noisily, pulling the warm liquid into her mouth. She’d started her day the same way for years, rising before Wally, quietly preparing her coffee and opening her Bible in the solitude of the kitchen before the troubles of the day could assault her.
Could it be that you’ve abandoned me, Father? Have you set things in motion, then withdrawn your hand when I need you the most?
Does everything in life have a root cause? Or is it all random?
Is Willy reaping what he sowed?
Or am I reaping what I sowed?
“Dear God,” she whispered, “am I the reason? Is this all just payback for the way I treated him? Is it fair to make Wally suffer if it’s only to teach me a lesson?”
Elizabeth McCall rose from her rocking chair after concluding her prayer with a heartfelt amen. Getting up took some effort due to her arthritis, and she wondered whether the creaking she heard was her knees or the antique rocker she loved so much. She had been troubled by her conversation with her granddaughter the evening before. And she was bothered by the response she’d given Claire, motivated by the secret fear she had held for so many years. What troubled her the most was that Steve Hudson, whom she secretly suspected was Wally’s biological father, seemed to have the same affliction that Wally did. But it was all alcohol, right? Both of them were cursed by a love of the still—and the curse that was proclaimed by Eleazor Potts was still valid.
Could she be wrong? Could Wally be suffering from a mysterious inherited disease? She shook her head. No, Steve’s mother, Mary, had lived to a ripe old age, hand in hand with her husband, Benjamin Hudson. Neither had shown signs of the illness Claire had described. Only Steve had any symptoms of erratic behavior or problems with controlling his movements. And Claire had assured her that Hun
tington’s disease does not skip generations. So if Benjamin and Mary were free of the disease, then certainly so was Steve. So even if he was Wally’s biological father, the point was moot. Wally couldn’t have Huntington’s disease regardless of whether Steve Hudson or John McCall had fathered him.
She busied herself making a cup of tea, but sipping the liquid did little to ease her mind. Why did she feel so uncomfortable? She knew the answer. While she hadn’t actually lied to her granddaughter, she’d let Claire believe that John McCall was Wally’s biological father. She shook her head. So what? What good would telling her suspicions do now? And the story of what had happened between Elizabeth and Steve Hudson, if it got out, could upset Wally, Della, and the whole family.
A secret this old should remain buried. She’d kept up the charade for so many years, there didn’t seem to be any point in bringing the truth to light now. She really didn’t know for sure, she justified. She’d never had blood proof that Wally didn’t belong to her husband. And without that confirmation, she’d been able to suppress her secret.
Why hadn’t she told her husband? At first, she’d felt guilty enough that she had doubted her own heart. And then, once Wally was born, she was afraid that her husband would resent the child. So she had tucked it away, with layers of denial, never allowing herself to believe that one fateful night with Steve Hudson could possibly have been responsible for her pregnancy.
But it was seeing her son during her daughter’s graduation that had brought it all rushing back. Wally was acting just like Steve had shortly before Steve’s death.
So what did that prove? Only that Wally was infatuated with the same liquid that had infected so many others from the hollers in and around Stoney Creek. And only that the proclamation brought forth by Eleazor Potts after he smashed the still was true. A curse rested on anyone who drank from the still should it ever be rebuilt.
Harold Morris had rebuilt the still, then gone crazy. Steve Hudson, Harold’s grandson, had loved the liquor, and he’d gone crazy, too. Wally seemed to be walking the same path. Wasn’t that evidence that Wally had come under the same curse? Maybe it was a generational curse, an example of the sins of the father being visited to the third and fourth generation. And if that was true, then it only proved to Elizabeth that her worst fear was true: that Wally was the result of her infidelity. Oh, how she wished she could have that moment back.
Elizabeth swirled the tea in her cup, feeling nauseated at the whirlwind of her own thoughts. She went to the medicine cabinet and took a long gulp of a pink antacid, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Aggh,” she gagged. Anything that tasted that bad was certain to help.
She walked to the library room and pulled out an old photograph album. She turned the yellowed pages until she came to the period she sought. There, she carefully studied the images of her son Wally, including his wedding with Della. She ran her index finger over his face. He showed no resemblance to her husband at all. She left the album open and returned to the shelf, this time retrieving a much older volume. Slowly paging through her own teen years, she came upon her graduation picture. He should be around here somewhere. She ran her finger from picture to picture, freezing on the image of a young man holding a bouquet of flowers. Steve Hudson. She hadn’t seen this picture for years. And she had never dared to compare it to Wally’s. She slipped the photograph out from the old four-corner fasteners and carried it to the other open album. There, she laid the pictures side by side, Wally McCall by Steve Hudson. The similarities made Elizabeth gasp.
She shook her head in amazement, then looked over at another photograph that sat on the bookshelf. It was a picture of Claire and her boyfriend, John Cerelli, taken just a few months ago, at Claire’s graduation.
“Okay, Claire,” she whispered to the photograph, “I know believing in a curse isn’t very scientific. And maybe I wonder a little bit about it myself. So, since it seemed so important to you, I guess the least I can do is be sure about a few things. But I’m not about to tell the world my secrets unless it’s really going to make a positive difference.”
She knew just who to talk to about this. If anyone would know the truth about Steve Hudson’s medical history, it would be his brother, Dale. She decided to make a visit to the Pleasant View nursing home.
Chapter Eleven
Elizabeth McCall swore she’d turn ninety before she stopped driving, and it was summer mornings like this one, with the windows of her old Buick rolled down, her left arm out in the breeze, that made her renew her vow never to lose her independence. She honked at Red Smithford as she passed his gas station, and waved at Wilda Huggins as she unlocked the hair salon beside Raymond’s paint store.
She wound around the road leading up to Pleasant View nursing home, wondering aloud why on earth someone would plan to house a bunch of medically needy old folks at the top of such a steep hill. Lord knew, if it snowed, getting one of the residents to the hospital in Carlisle would be a feat tantamount to catching a greased pig at the county fair. But what did the architects care? She’d argued with them herself, after donating a cool million to the project. But no, they had a site to design, and the hilltop provided the perfect panorama for a nursing facility named Pleasant View.
She parked in the visitors’ lot, proud to park at the far end and then strut past all the handicapped parking places. She knew she was older than many of the residents inside, and she smiled at the thought that she could still come and go as she pleased.
She entered the front door, giving a cursory nod to Harvey Georges, a maintenance man who was installing a new handrail along the lobby wall. She took the elevator to the second floor. Although she was fine on level ground, she wasn’t about to put her knees to the test by taking the stairs.
She found Dale Hudson’s door at the end of the hall. A ragged note taped to the door appeared to have seen better days. The edges were curling and a corner was torn. In large, shaky letters, the note warned visitors to use the doorbell.
He’s more deaf than I am. Elizabeth shook her head and punched the button. A loud buzzer sounded from behind the door.
As she waited, she recalled their conversation earlier in the morning. Dale was glad to receive visitors, but surprised to hear from her. She had been intentionally vague about the reasons for her visit. She had always believed that serious matters deserved a face-to-face encounter.
Dale opened the door and invited her in, pointing with his cane to a chair by a window. “Have a seat, Liz. Can I have ‘em bring us a beverage?”
“Don’t go to any trouble for me.”
“Hey, it’s no trouble. The staff here is available twenty-four hours a day. It’s what I pay the big bucks for,” he added with a snort.
He settled into an easy chair equipped with a mechanical lift, something Elizabeth thought looked a bit scary, kind of like a catapult or some such medieval device. For a moment, she imagined Dale flying across the sculptured lawn, screaming like a circus performer shot from a cannon, launched into the air by the rehab chair gone mad. Good grief, she thought, dispelling the picture. I’ve got to stop taking that Tylenol PM.
Dale’s loud voice interrupted her thoughts. “What’s on your mind, Liz? I got the feeling you were upset about something.”
“Upset?” She lifted her hand. “Not me. Not really.” She paused, looking around the apartment, spartan but neat. She supposed the paucity of furniture must make it less likely that he’d stumble over things while using his cane. “I wanted to ask you about your brother.”
He put his hand to his chin, which was covered by white stubble. He rubbed it contemplatively. “I forgot to shave.” The revelation seemed to derail his thinking for a moment. After a few seconds, he replied, “Tommy?”
She shook her head. “Steve. I wanted to talk to you about Steve.”
“Steve.” He nodded. “You were sweet on him.”
“A long time ago.”
“I remember.”
“What do you remember abou
t Steve’s last weeks? Why did he die?”
Dale leaned forward on his cane and steadied his gaze on Elizabeth. “It was suicide, Liz. Of course you remember that, don’t you?”
“Of course. But a man doesn’t just kill himself without reason.”
“You think he killed himself over you? Are you feeling bad after all these years?”
“No, Dale, it’s not that.” She hesitated before launching into her rehearsed answer. She couldn’t just outright tell him that she thought Steve had fathered her oldest son, could she? “I’m concerned about the Stoney Creek curse. Certainly you’ve heard of it. My son looks like he’s the latest victim. And to me, he looks a whole lot like Steve did before he died. Glassy-eyed. Twitching. Stumbling about. Slurring his speech.” She cleared her throat and continued. “He was poisoned with alcohol from the still, wasn’t he? Poisoned by that wretched curse that haunts everyone who drinks in Stoney Creek.”
“You’re worried about Wally?”
She nodded.
“You think he’s under a curse?”
“It sounds so silly, I know, but—”
“It is silly, Liz,” he interrupted. “You won’t find me supporting that idea. If Wally looks like Steve, it’s not because they both have a curse, it’s because they both are fighting the same demon of alcohol.”
“But I remember the rumors, the stories about a curse affecting your family. Steve accused me of being afraid of it, accused me of leaving him for fear of how it would affect my children. I know your grandfather built the still that the reverend cursed. I thought if anyone would be an expert on the curse, it would be someone from your family.”
“Wait a minute,” he responded slowly, his voice undulating with a hint of Parkinson’s disease. “I have never believed that family curse hocus-pocus. And even if I did, it’s not my family under the curse. It’s Steve’s bloodline, not mine. It was his grandfather who built that still, not mine.”