by Peggy Jaeger
“I wasn’t. Then. I went to pastry school…after.”
I didn’t need to tell these two after what. They knew the details of my life six years ago intimately, since they’d been so heavily involved in the day-to-day care of my daughter.
Back then Sharla and Mary had been the primary nurses assigned to Angie’s care. Sharla was the day nurse, Mary her evening/nighttime one. They’d taken as much care of me as they had my daughter, always bringing me something to eat from the cafeteria because I refused to leave Angie’s bedside, or bringing in a sleep chair so I could spend the precious nights I had left with her and not have to go home.
“Ladies?”
Both nurses looked at me as if asking permission. I was the one who answered him, though. “Sharla and Mary were the nurses who took care of my daughter while she was at Pearl’s Place.”
“The most beautiful angel you ever saw,” Sharla said, taking my hand.
Connor’s eyes widened, his head bouncing back and forth between them and me.
“Wait? What? Your daughter? I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“She…passed away. Six years ago.”
“Six years? I’m confused. I thought your husband died six years ago.”
“Johnny? No, he’s not dead. Not that I know of anyway.” You never know with Pop. “He’s just gone. He bolted right after we buried Angie.”
Connor’s handsome face grew very serious.
“I could have sworn you told me you lost your husband.” He shook his head. “But your daughter was a patient at Pearl’s Place?”
“For almost three months.”
Three of the most difficult, worst months of my entire life. Seeing these two wonderful woman again brought all the sad memories back to the surface I’d pushed down deep inside me just so I could start to function and live again. Sorrow flooded through my system as the horror of Angie’s last days began pelting the front of my memory.
Her beautiful raven hair, gone, from the massive chemotherapy, her tiny head encased in a pink turban aunt Frankie’s mom, Nonna Constanza, had knitted to keep her warm. The veins visible just underneath her fragile skin, giving her a bluish, waxy hue. Her poor lips had been swollen, dry, and caked with scabs from the thrush caused by the never-ending rounds of antibiotics to help fight all the infections her little immune-compromised body fell victim to. No amount of lip balm or moisturizer helped heal them.
She’d stopped eating, stopped talking, stopped interacting with us until her lungs finally stopped and she was put on a ventilator. Five days later, her heart followed and there was nothing more to do.
“And now you’re a baker?” Mary asked.
With a nod, I said, “I have my own bakery. It’s called Angie’s.”
Both women shot each other a look.
“Oh, child.”
Mary rubbed my back while Sharla, who still held my hand, squeezed it. Her kind voice was tinged with sadness, and I had to bite down on the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t make a fool of myself and let go the tears that had been threatening since they recognized me. I looked over at Connor, sending a silent plea for him to save me once again from emotions too difficult for me to contain. Unfortunately, he was prevented from coming to my rescue. Another tuxedoed man had come up to him, whispered something to him and then pointed to the dais.
Connor nodded, his eyes staying trained on me the entire time.
“Ladies, I’m sorry. I need a minute.”
“That man is a saint,” Sharla said when he’d left us. “Do you have any idea how much money he raises for us each year?”
“Last year he donated a new MRI machine on top of the hundred thousand dollars he raised at this same event,” Mary added.
My eyes tracked him all the way to the dais where he was met by his mother and a man who looked vaguely familiar. He was facing slightly away from me, but there was something in the shape of his head, the line of his chin that reminded me of someone. When he shook Connor’s hand and then turned to face the crowd, I went stone still. Sharla still held my hand and must have felt the way my body reacted.
“Oh, Reggie, I’m sorry. I forgot Dr. Mendelsohn was here, too. He’s on the board of directors now, and he’s the one who accepts the funds donated for the center.”
Garrison Mendelsohn hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d seen him. Still holding himself ramrod straight as if, as Pop had commented more times than I could recall, he had a stick shoved up his bony ass. His stark white hair seemed a little thinner on top, his cheeks maybe a bit sunken. But he still looked like the arrogant, unfeeling man who’d whirled into Angie’s room and pronounced her dead without ever offering any consolation or recognizing the family grief that surrounded my daughter’s bedside.
He’d come, listened to her chest, then turned the alarm off the screaming ventilator. He’d pushed his glasses up on his beak-like nose, turned to us, and declared, “She’s gone.”
That was it. Then he left the room.
What happened after that was as vivid and clear in my mind right now as it had been that horrible day. I’d flown from the room and pummeled his back, striking him, yelling at the top of my lungs at him, railing like una donna pazza—a crazy woman. It had taken two of my brothers and my father to pull me off of him. I’d broken his glasses and given him a black eye in the wake of it. Why he’d never pressed charges against me for assault I never knew. If I had to harbor a guess, Pop had somehow smoothed everything over as only he can.
Seeing Mendelsohn again now blew that last day of my daughter’s life back into my mind as if I was watching a digital replay of it.
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. In the next instant, my lungs hyper-inflated with air and my pulse started hammering in my chest. Sweat soaked my uniform coat like a bucket of water had been thrown over my head.
I had to leave. Now. I had to get out of here. Just like that day at Rockefeller Center, everything was closing in on me.
“Excuse me,” I said to Sharla and Mary as I all but ran from the room. I heard them calling my name, but I ignored the sound.
Down the long hallway and through the main part of the restaurant, until I passed the reservation podium, I ran. Once out on the avenue, I chugged in a huge breath and bent forward, hands on my knees.
Home. I needed to get home.
I shot my hand in the air when I saw a cab approaching, its light on, and poured into it when it pulled to the curb. I gave my address and then collapsed back on the seat.
Chapter 6
Regina’s tips for surviving in a big Italian family: 6. Never be late for church.
I barely made it up the stairs to my apartment before I slammed the door and fell back against it. My breathing was still loud and choppy, and it echoed in the empty space around me. It was a wonder I was still able to stand upright. Once I closed my eyes and began breathing in through my nose then pushing the air out through my mouth, I slowly, gradually, started to calm.
As soon as I knew I wouldn’t drop to the floor in a pathetic heap, I pushed off the door, sat down at my kitchen table, and dropped my head in my hands.
Disgust galloped through me. I was such a coward, such a weakling, to have run from Mendelsohn when I should have confronted him and apologized for what I’d done six years ago. He wasn’t the reason my daughter had died, but I’d lashed out at him, blaming him for her death. His bedside manner may have left a lot to be desired—a whole lot—but the entire time he’d been responsible for her medical care, he’d done everything in his power to keep her comfortable. And while he hadn’t been able to save her from the ravages of the hateful disease, he had tried. Valiantly, I had to admit.
Tonight, I should have gone up to him and, with those six years of separation and a lifetime of emotional growth behind me, thanked him for what he’d done for Angie.
But I hadn’t. I’d bolted from the situation unable to face the tormented pain of my past. And worse, I’d left Connor in the lurch. He’d asked me to stay
, to help him with the cake presentation, and I’d flown without an explanation. Not a very professional way to act. I should have been able to separate my emotions from my job, but I hadn’t. Any idea of the two of us being together now was probably over. This was his big night, and I’d run away from it, selfishly unable to be supportive because of my own raw and painful memories.
Just when I’d opened my heart again to the possibility I could be happy, I’d sabotaged the opportunity. Tears crept down my cheeks filled with sadness at what might have been.
How long I sat at the table, my own little pity party consuming me, I haven’t a clue. I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep until I felt my phone buzzing in my uniform jacket pocket.
Connor’s name danced across the screen.
There was no way I could talk to him, so I hit the ignore icon. Not two seconds later, I got a text.
I’m downstairs. Let me in.
I shot from the table to the window. True to his word, he was standing at my service entrance door, fresh snow raining down on him. His overcoat was pulled tight around his neck, his head and hands, bare. He glanced up and waved.
Everything in me said to send him away. To just leave things as they were. I was mortified to face him, ashamed at my behavior.
Everything, but my heart.
There really was no decision to make, no choice to choose. I ran down the stairs at breakneck speed and unlocked the door. Freezing cold air and tufts of snow swirled around him like a tornado as he came in. Before I could shut the door, he pulled me into his arms and kicked it closed with his foot.
“Regina.”
My name on his lips was gruff and filled with deep worry. His body shook against mine, and I knew it wasn’t because he was cold.
“Why did you leave?” he asked, his mouth pressed against my hair. “I looked up and saw you bolting from the room. I wanted to go after you, but I couldn’t get away. Not then.”
He pulled me an arm’s length away, his gaze dragging over my face. Twin lines of concern fluted his forehead as the corners of his eyes grew tight. “I was frantic something had happened to you.”
I dropped my chin, afraid he’d see the shame in my eyes.
“Look at me,” he commanded. “Please.”
When I did my face was wet with tears. Connor’s warm, gentle hands cupped my chin and swiped at my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. The gesture almost dropped me to my knees again. “Sweetheart, talk to me. Tell me what happened. Why did you leave?”
He was such a good man. From everything I’d seen with my own eyes, I knew this to be true. He deserved the truth. Resigned to that, I nodded.
“Let’s go upstairs. I need…I need a cup of tea.”
He held my hand the entire time and only let go once we were in my kitchen. While the water came to a boil in my teapot, I took down two mugs from the cabinet, poured milk into the creamer.
After shucking his wet coat and hanging it up on the peg by the door, Connor slipped out of his tuxedo jacket, sat at the kitchen table, and silently watched me set up everything. The top button of his shirt was popped open, the bow tie undone and hanging from the confines of the collar. He’d swiped his snow-damp hair back from his forehead to slick it down the sides as it had been earlier in the evening. With the tea steeping, I brought the mugs to the table and sat.
Connor stirred his tea and, after I’d taken my first few sips, asked, “Better?”
I nodded and kept my hands woven around the hot mug. The heat went a long way to helping to calm my nerves.
“Talk to me.”
I took a breath, trying to figure out how to explain why I’d left without sounding like an emotional wreck—which is what I’d been and still was.
“First, I have to apologize for running away. It was never my intent. I’d promised you I’d stay and cut the cake, so I’m sorry I left you to handle it all.”
He shrugged. “It got taken care of.”
“Oh, good.” I drank some more tea. Focused what I wanted to say.
“Seeing Sharla and Mary was a bit of a shock and, I have to admit, made me a little sad. But I thought I could handle it without breaking down. Those two got me through so many horrible days, you have no idea. They are simply two of the kindest people I’ve ever met.” I sighed. “But when I saw you with Dr. Mendelsohn, well, it became too much for me.”
“Why?”
I looked across the table at him. His face was so caring, so open. My heart melted a little at the natural kindness of this man.
“He was the doctor in charge of my daughter’s care while she was at Pearl’s Place. He…let’s just say we didn’t part well.”
“Don’t do that, Regina. Don’t brush over anything. Tell me what happened between the two of you. All of it. About your daughter, your husband. Everything.”
“There’s not that much to tell.”
“Regina.”
I nodded again.
I explained first about Johnny and me. The shame I’d felt for so many years about the reason we needed to get married still dragged deep. I wasn’t the first girl on the planet to ever walk down the aisle with a baby bump camouflaged under a frilly wedding gown, but I was the first in my strict, Italian, Catholic, and overprotective family to do so. The embarrassment of that fact never quite went away, always lurking somewhere near the surface, ready to be used as verbal ammunition if a family fight occurred. Not that it ever had been. My mother saw to that. But still, the shame lingered.
Connor, though, accepted what I told him without showing any judgment or disapproval in his features.
“He never wanted to get married. Who could blame him, really. He never got the chance to go to college. At eighteen, he was saddled with a pregnant teenaged wife. But with the baby coming, he did the right thing. We were okay for a few years. While it might not have been the life Johnny pictured for himself, he adored Angelina. She was everything to him. I’d named her after my nonna, and she was true to her name.”
“Angel?”
“Yeah.”
I got up and went into my bedroom.
“This was taken about three months before she started to get noticeably sick. The doctors told us the tumor in her brain had been growing for a while before we ever saw any signs of it.”
I handed him the framed photograph Johnny had snapped of the two of us. We were in Central Park during the fall, sitting on a bench near the pond. Angelina’s two top teeth had come out a few days before, and her wide, toothless grin dominated her face. She was sitting on my lap, my arms around her tiny waist as I peeked over her shoulder my own huge smile in place.
“She’s your clone,” Connor said, his gaze ping-ponging between me and the photograph.
“Everyone said that. She didn’t did have any of Johnny in her at all. Not in looks. Not in disposition.”
He handed the frame back to me. “You said she had a brain tumor?”
“Glioblastoma.” I shook my head and sat back down. “I know it’s ridiculous to hate a word, but I hate that one. With every ounce of my soul.”
He reached across the table and took one of my hands with his. A feeling of safety, of acceptance, of warm promise, seeped through my skin at his touch.
“At first, she kept knocking into walls, and her whole perspective on her surroundings seemed off. We chalked it up to a growth spurt. My nephews were like that. One minute they were natural athletes, the next they were tripping over their feet. A week later their pants were too short and then everything righted again. Only it never righted with Angie.”
I took a few sips of my tea, my free hand still in Connor’s, his eyes still on me.
“She’d always been an enthusiastic reader, and she read early. A benefit of being an only child: she got all the attention focused on her. One day, she put down the book she was flipping through and said, ‘Mama, the words are swimming.’ I figured she needed glasses, so I took her to an optometrist. He told us to go to an ophthalmologist and made an appointment for us,
but he wouldn’t tell us why, just that she needed a specialist. We went, and the doc dilated Angie’s eyes. After he examined her, he suggested we take her to her pediatrician. Again, he weren’t told why.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” Connor asked. “Well, not illegal. That’s the wrong word. But shouldn’t they have told you what they suspected, or at least given you a heads-up?”
“You would think so. I don’t know why they kept what they thought was wrong with her from us. Maybe they didn’t want to scare us because they weren’t sure. I don’t know. Anyway, the pediatrician got us right in. After his examination, he called a pediatric oncologist, another two words I despise. Luckily, this doctor was part of the same practice, so we got right in to see him as well. Two MRIs and a boatload of other tests later and the diagnosis came down. Glioblastoma, stage four. Inoperable. Incurable.”
“Jesus.”
“She had three months of radiation to try and shrink the tumor. Despite that, it continued to grow. The doctors said it was an all-invasive, rapidly growing cancer, and the more we weakened her immune system with the treatments, the faster the tumor would take over. We were referred to Pearl’s Place by one of the oncology nurses at the hospital when Angie started physically deteriorating to where she needed continual around-the-clock medical and nursing care. Palliative care, it’s called.”
He nodded. “How long from diagnosis until…”
“A little under a year. She died on December tenth.”
“The day I found you at Rockefeller Center.”
I took another sip of my tea. The steam billowed over my face, coating it in warmth.
“What happened with Dr. Mendelsohn that made you so upset tonight? Was it just seeing him again? It all rushed back to you?”
“Partly. I told you we didn’t end on the best of notes.” Quickly, I explained what happened after Angie died.
“I know my anger was displaced. Now. Back then?” I shrugged and shook my head again. “I blamed him for not saving her and for being so cold and unfeeling when she died.”
“Misplaced though it may have been, I think your anger was justified.”