Broken (11 page)

Walter stood at the end of the table, his brutal announcement hanging in the air. Neither Sarah, nor David, nor Anna Mae moved or said a word. Maybe they didn’t hear him right. Maybe Walter’s sick sense of humor—it had to be a mistake.

It was not a mistake.

Sarah called Olga who called the police. Twenty minutes later, two uniformed officers arrived. The entire family followed them up to the third floor. David stopped at the top of the attic steps. Anna Mae and Sarah walked across the room to Stanley’s bed. Holding each other tightly, they looked down at the body. Sarah gasped and covered her eyes. Anna Mae was transfixed. Stanley was lying across his urine soaked bed, eyes closed, mouth open, stiff, cold and white as ivory.

One of the officers said, “Looks like he’s been dead for hours.”

The other officer pulled Anna Mae and Sarah away from the body, saying, “I have to call the coroner.”

Walter and David were the first to go downstairs. Sarah followed. Anna Mae, her knees weak, her legs unsteady, made her way down the two flights of steps to the first floor, all while holding onto the railing as though her life depended on it.

A half an hour later, Anna Mae sat on the living room couch with David huddling as close to her as he could get. Together they watched the coroner’s technicians carry the black body bag down the steps, through the foyer, and out the door.

Two detectives took Sarah and Walter into the kitchen to ask questions. When they left, Sarah came to the living room. Still in shock, she calmly, as though nothing at all had happened, told Anna Mae and David to go to bed. Anna Mae wanted to do something to help Sarah, but she could hardly handle the tragedy herself.

Once upstairs, David would not go near the attic door. Anna Mae placed a thick quilt on her bedroom floor near the window where David curled up under his GI Joe blanket. Long after midnight, Anna Mae, still awake, lay on top of the covers. She stared at the ceiling, overwhelmed by the disturbing pictures that passed through her mind; red and blue strobe lights, bright badges on blue uniforms, the lifeless figure on Stanley’s bed, the black body bag. Her stomach knotted into a hard pain as she wrestled with the crushing fear that the pills she had bought for Stanley caused his death.

Hours passed. Outside her window, the dark sky merged into morning’s grayish yellow. She crawled under the covers and curled into a tight little ball. In her despair, she reached for her saving fantasy, the person she had convinced herself must be one step down from the angels.
Mother! Please help me. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. If I only knew where you were, I could go to you. You would know what to do.

Tuesday morning, Anna Mae went downstairs into an uneasy silence. Walter had not gone to work. He sat at the kitchen table, staring at an empty coffee cup. David was in the living room leafing through an aviation magazine. He wasn’t reading, just turning the pages. Sarah had gone next door. The police had said that today the coroner would do an autopsy to determine what caused Stanley’s death. There should be an answer soon. Anna Mae went back upstairs to her room and waited.

At five o’clock, she heard loud knocking on the back door and went down to see who it was. As she entered the kitchen, Olga was handing Sarah a tuna casserole and hot, homemade bread. Anna Mae took the food from Sarah and put it on the stove. She then went to the living room where Walter was sleeping in his chair. A half-empty pint of Jim Beam sat on the end table. She turned on the TV and sat on the couch to watch the news.

“A tragedy hit a Warrenvale family last night when...”

Sarah flew into the room and turned up the volume.

With a pain in the pit of her stomach, Anna Mae watched the story unfold. She could not recall seeing the media trucks last night. But on the TV, in chilling black and white detail, police held back the crowd of curious neighbors while the coroner and two police officers lifted the long black body bag into the white coroner’s wagon. Anna Mae felt the blood drain from her face.
God! Stanley’s in that bag!

“Walter, wake up,” Sarah said shaking his shoulder. “Look, Walter, that’s our house.”

Walter opened his eyes, pushed her hand away, then went back to sleep. Anna Mae left the room. Was no one ever going to talk about it?

It was Wednesday, late afternoon, the second day after Stanley had been found dead. Anna Mae stood in the second floor hallway. She had just washed her hair and had a towel wrapped around her head. She was pushing a few wet tangles off her forehead when David emerged from her bedroom where he had slept on the floor the past two nights. Anna Mae had convinced David to back out of his “commitment” to play first base for a neighborhood team. However, he was still wearing his gray baseball shirt. They exchanged glances when they heard unfamiliar voices downstairs. Together they went to the landing to see who was there.

At the bottom of the steps, three men crowded into the hall. They were introducing themselves to Walter and Sarah. At the front of the group, Sergeant Edward Smith, slender and slightly under six feet, displayed his rank with a gold badge on the breast pocket of a white dress shirt. When Walter shook his hand, a heavy frown wrinkled the sergeant’s young face.

Behind the sergeant and to the left, Officer Joe Murphy made a daunting appearance with his massive shoulders, intimidating blue uniform and glasses that had grown darker in the house. Anna Mae thought she remembered him from Monday night.

Behind the officers, Coroner Samuel Lessor stood with his back pressed against the front door and towered over his companions. He had thick brown hair, a basset hound face, and a piece of striped necktie hanging out of his jacket pocket.

When the three officials moved toward the living room, Anna Mae and David inched their way down the steps. It was then that Walter noticed them. He motioned them to leave, then followed the officials into the living room.

David, his face as gray as his shirt, huddled stubbornly behind Anna Mae. Earlier that day, he had told Anna Mae that death was something that happened to other people, old people, or bad guys on TV, even cartoon characters. Now he sat directly behind Anna Mae, pressing his face against the banister spindles, looking into the living room at the men investigating his half-brother’s death.

“Sorry this has taken so long,” said Sergeant Smith, “but we were waiting for the toxicology report.”

While the coroner looked for a place to stand, where his height didn’t block anyone’s view, Officer Murphy politely removed his hat, saying, “So sorry for your loss.”

Anna Mae and David scooted down a few more steps so they could see better. Walter, who had seated himself in his favorite chair, unsnapped a can of beer and took a long gulp. Sarah glanced at him sharply, then invited the officials to sit down.

Sergeant Smith sat on the couch. The coroner sat in an armchair across from the sergeant. Officer Murphy leaned against the dining room archway with his arms folded across his chest.

“Can I get you some coffee or something cold to drink?” Sarah asked.

Murphy was about to accept but was cut short by Coroner Lessor who said, “No thank you,” and went straight to the point. “According to the blood tests, your son, Stanley, must have ingested the newest street drug, a homemade amphetamine three times stronger than the ones produced by pharmaceutical companies.”

Officer Murphy placed his hands on his hips and in a voice that rumbled up from his gut, interrupted the coroner. “The street boys call’ em ‘fliers.’ Your kid popped at least six. That’s enough speed to kill an elephant!”

Anna Mae was hardly able to breathe as a hurricane of guilt whirled through her head. David leaned closer to Anna Mae and said in the thin high voice of a boy half his age, “Where do you think Stanley got those pills?”

Anna Mae stiffened. Did David know? No. He couldn’t know. Nobody knew. It was just a question like all the other questions that he had been asking since the day he started talking. But her guilt was unrelenting.

In the living room, questions and conversation circled the gamut of Stanley’s life. It soon became clear that Sarah and Walter knew too little about their teenage son’s friends and activities to be of much help. After a few more words of condolence, Sergeant Smith indicated the interview had ended by standing up and saying, “We’ll catch whoever is selling the things. You can be certain of that!” Looking at his watch, he added, “I have to get back to the station. And Murphy here is already late for his afternoon shift.”

The officers put on their hats as the coroner led the way to the front door. Walter usually became irritated if a person displayed authority, so Anna Mae was relieved when Walter respectfully shook Samuel Lessor’s hand. She was also grateful that Walter did not make matters worse by asking stupid questions or worse yet, becoming belligerent.

When the small group entered the foyer, Officer Murphy looked up at Anna Mae and David. “Can we have a word with the kids?”

Walter moved to the base of the staircase and said, “They don’t know nothing.’”

Sarah quickly added, “Anna Mae is a good girl. If she knew anything, she would have told us.”

“Is that right?” Officer Murphy lowered his dark glasses and looked intently at Anna Mae. “Sometimes even good girls know things, but they don’t say anything unless someone asks.”

She stopped breathing—afraid she was going to faint.

“She don’t know nothing,’” Walter repeated, his voice beginning to rise.

Sergeant Smith put a firm hand on Officer Murphy’s shoulder. “Look, Murph,” he said, “We don’t need to upset the family any more than they already are.”

“I was just tryin’ to...”

“I know, I know,” said the sergeant pulling Murphy away from the steps and turning him toward the door. “If you feel, sometime in the future, that you should talk to these kids, you can come back. But check with me first.”

When the door closed behind them, Anna Mae exhaled. This was only the beginning.

That night Anna Mae asked Walter to bring David’s mattress down from the attic. “It’s okay for now,” Walter said when he placed the mattress by Anna Mae’s bedroom window, “but David can’t sleep in your room forever.”

Anna Mae put clean sheets on the makeshift bed, then covered it with David’s treasured GI Joe blanket. When he was comfortably under the covers, she climbed into her own bed. Exhausted, she began drifting off immediately. Suddenly, she was falling—falling into the dreaded nightmare. She tried to fight her way back, to wake up. Hanging on to the fragile edge of consciousness, the images, like ruthless vacuums pulled her back. It was the same deafening pounding, the same blistering flames. When her weakened hands futilely tried to hold back the sleek, black umbrella, it closed in to suffocate her.

Suddenly, she was floating, the warm brown river lapping at her sides. Up on the high riverbank the same people stood, looking down, watching—watching her float down the river. Then there was something new. A blurred human form stepped out of the crowd to the edge of the embankment. The figure began easing its way down the side, half-walking, half-sliding in the mud, all the while looking down at her. She could see its eyes: reddish beams. Then it reached for her.
Stanley!
She tried to scream. But there was no sound. Frantically, she struggled in the water.

Her legs were tangled in the covers. Her constricted vocal chords uttered a guttural cry. Someone grabbed her shoulders and started shaking her. They were not the same hands that had been reaching down from the riverbank. They were not Stanley’s hands. These hands were trying to help her.

“Annie! Wake up! Are you awake? Annie!”

She bolted upright. With the hall light at his back, she couldn’t see his face. But she knew it was David. Thank God! She was awake.

Saturated with sweat, her cotton nightgown stuck to her body and yet she felt cold. It was still dark as death outside, but when David turned his head, the light from the hall was enough for her to see his face. It was as white as the bed-sheet. She touched the hands that were still on her shoulders and asked, “Did I wake you up?”

Nodding, he sat on the edge of the bed trying to catch his breath.

“I was having that awful nightmare again,” she said wiping the perspiration from her face with the sheet.

“The same one?” he asked.

She nodded.

He looked at the floor and shook his head.

“Did I scream?”

“No. It wasn’t exactly a scream.”

“I thought I was screaming.”

“I think you were trying to. But you couldn’t.” The color was returning to David’s face. “Are you okay now?”

She hid her face in her hands, her tangled blond hair hanging down as her head moved in a slight nod.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m sure,” she mumbled into her hands then looked up. “Good grief, Davie! I must have scared you half to death.”

“Just a little,” he shrugged.

“Well,” she said, “we better try to go back to sleep.”

“I hope you don’t have any more nightmares,” David said crossing the room and dropping onto his mattress.

“I won’t,” she assured him. And she wouldn’t. Because she would not allow herself to go back to sleep.

Anna Mae lay with her face to the wall, the trauma of the nightmare behind her. She needed to do some serious thinking. Maybe she should run away. Then she would never have to face up to her part in Stanley’s death. Maybe if she had a fresh start, away from Walter, she wouldn’t disappear into all those lost hours. She thought about Kennywood and Angelo kissing her. She pulled the blanket to her chin and curled into a tight warm ball savoring the memory.

The school picnic…that was only three days ago, three days since Stanley showed up with his motorcycle friends and tried to ruin everything. Two days since Stanley blackmailed her for twenty dollars by threatening to tell Walter about her and Angelo. Just two days. That’s all. 

She moved to the edge of the bed where her bare feet touched the cold floor. She could hear David’s soft breathing and was glad he had been able to go back to sleep. Poor little kid! David had pulled his GI Joe blanket up and over his head so only a few blond curls were visible against the white pillow.
He isn’t a baby anymore,
she thought.
But should I leave him? Will he be okay?

She stood up, wandered across the room, and into the hall where she could hear Walter’s muffled snoring. She would have to think things through; try to make some sense out of all the craziness. Glancing back into her room where a luminous clock sat on her dresser, she was surprised to see that it was after five—almost morning. When she looked away, her eyes settled on the attic door. It was shut tight. Locked. She shuddered.

Troubled thoughts went through her mind and she mentally talked to God.
You know, God, never in a million years would I have bought those drugs for Stanley. I was afraid—afraid that he would get us all into trouble. I couldn’t let him do that.

She moved to the top of the stairway and looked down into the dark foyer.
God, don’t let those policemen come back. They’ll put me in jail if they find out that I was the one who bought those pills.

She went down the carpeted stairway. Her bare feet didn’t make a sound, but her mind would not be quiet. Sarah went to see Mrs. Siminoski in the hospital.
That was good, God, wasn’t it?
She shouldn’t get beat up for doing that.

She stopped at the landing near the bottom of the steps, wiped her sweaty hands on her nightgown, and sat down with her back against the wall.
If I left, where would I go? I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t.

She leaned sideways against the steps, rested her head on the soft carpet, and drifted into a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, and voices:
Got any money? Look for the blue Cadillac. Traffic. A bright green turtleneck. Gold chains. Well, well, aren’t you a pretty thang.
A dark hand reaching for her own. Drugs in her hip pocket...

She lifted her head from the step and listened.
Is that water running? What’s that smell? Toast.

Anna Mae slid on her rear to the edge of the landing. Someone was moving around in the kitchen. Was that Sarah packing Walter’s lunch? No. Walter didn’t have to go back to work until after Stanley’s funeral. Walter and Davie were still sleeping, so it had to be Sarah in the kitchen. This might be the opportunity she’d been waiting for. With Walter in a volatile mood, Sarah wouldn’t dare tell him if Anna Mae were to bring up the forbidden subject: Becky McBride—her mother. And, if she could convince Sarah to tell her where her mother lived, she would have somewhere to go. That is, if her mother would have her. It was worth a try.

Anna Mae walked into the kitchen. The back door was open, sending the fragrance of lilacs to mingle with the smell of browning toast. Sarah was at the sink rinsing out the coffeepot.

“Good morning,” said Sarah. “Why were you sleeping on the landing? I stepped right over you and you didn’t move a muscle.”

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” said Anna Mae, then quickly realized how dumb that sounded. She hadn’t explained what she was doing on the landing in the first place. While Sarah prepared a fresh pot of coffee, Anna Mae told her about the nightmare and that she had no idea why she had come downstairs. However, she certainly had not intended to fall asleep.

By the time Anna Mae finished her explanation, the coffee was perking on the back burner and she and Sarah were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table with hot buttered toast and a jar of grape jelly between them. Sarah was wearing the housecoat with the ripped sleeve. She had sewn it a dozen times, but it was pulling apart again.

Anna Mae nodded at the sleeve. “Why don’t you throw that old thing out?”

Sarah shrugged. “It’s comfortable.”

“It’s falling apart! Don’t you think you deserve something new once in a while?”

Sarah didn’t respond. The rich aroma of coffee permeated the air. Anna Mae curled her bare toes on the cold linoleum, trying to tuck them into the hem of her nightgown. “Aunt Sarah, can I talk to you about something serious?”

Sarah walked to the cupboard, took out two coffee mugs, and set them on the counter. “Why sure,” she said with a smile. “But first, would you like to have a cup of coffee? You’re sixteen now. Not too young anymore.”

Anna Mae was surprised to find her aunt in such good humor. Maybe it was an involuntary reaction to her stepson’s death. Stanley had brought Aunt Sarah nothing but grief.

“Well?” Sarah asked while holding the coffeepot over the mugs. “Can I pour you some?” Anna Mae nodded. Sarah put both steaming cups on the table along with milk and sugar that Anna Mae used but Sarah did not.

Sarah watched as Anna Mae took her first uncertain sip, lowered the cup, and licked her lips. “It’s good!” Anna Mae lied. She hated it. However, if drinking coffee made her older in Sarah’s eyes, she would drink the whole darn pot.

“So what is it you want to talk about?” asked Sarah.

“Promise you won’t get mad.”

“I promise.”

“I think I should be able to…to…” She took a deep breath. “I think I should go and live with my mother.”
There! I said it!

Sarah shifted in her chair but said nothing.

“Like you said,” Anna Mae continued. “I’m not a little girl anymore. And anyway, what’s so bad about my mother that nobody wants to tell me? What are you and Uncle Walter afraid of? Why did you have to take care of me? Where did my mother go? Why did she...”

“Why are you bringing this up now?” Sarah snapped. “Don’t we have enough going on in this house?”

Anna Mae cut her short. “You promised you wouldn’t get mad.”

“I’m not mad. I just don’t understand why now of all times...”

“Because now things will be different,” said Anna Mae. “Walter’s going to start drinking more than ever. And he’ll resent me more than ever. Not only that, David won’t sleep in the attic and neither will I. There won’t be enough room with just two bedrooms.”

“Wait a minute! What’s that got…”

“Don’t interrupt me!”

“I will interrupt! I’m not going to listen to anything about your mother now. Don’t you think me and your uncle have enough to worry about?”

“Why does the world always have to revolve around you and Uncle Walter? I’m sixteen! I’m old enough to make my own decisions—to have some rights around this house. God knows I’ve earned them.”

“You haven’t earned anything.” Sarah was beginning to raise her voice. “You’re just lucky we took you when your grandmother died. You could have ended up in an orphanage.”

“And maybe I would have been better off.”

“How dare you,” Sarah seethed getting up from her chair and looking down at Anna Mae. “How dare you…you…you ungrateful...”

Anna Mae jumped to her feet and leaned across the table, creating an eye-to-eye challenge. “You’re the one who’s ungrateful. I’ve been your slave ever since I was old enough to walk. I practically raised David. You were too busy worrying about Walter to even bother with your own baby.”

“Why you…you...” Sarah sputtered.

“I wish you had put me in an orphanage. At least the people there would tell me what they know about my mother. At least I would have help finding her and if she wanted me, I could go stay with her.”

Sarah practically fell into her chair. She looked up into Anna Mae’s fiery eyes while suppressing a sob.

“What’s the matter?” Anna Mae asked in a voice that was challenging rather than consoling.

Sarah pulled a Kleenex out of her pocket and wiped her eyes. “I didn’t know you hated me so much.”

Anna Mae sat down across from Sarah. She was not going to let herself be manipulated into feeling sorry for her aunt just so the subject of her mother would be forgotten. “I didn’t say I hated you. So don’t say that I did. I just want to live with my mother. Is that so wrong?”

Sarah’s eyes filled with tears. “Your mother is my only sister. Did it ever occur to you that I would like to know where she is too? Your grandmother never told me anything, just that I should keep Becky’s baby. And I did. I kept you even though Walter didn’t want you.”

Sarah’s face paled as she realized what she had just said. But Anna Mae put her hand across the table, “I know that Aunt Sarah. Don’t feel bad. You’re not responsible for what Walter thinks.”

The room went suddenly silent “Well, anyway,” Sarah finally said, “about my sister—I really don’t know where she is. And that’s the truth.”