Conundrum (28 page)

“Even when you’re a great big girl
.
 
.
 
.
Daddy won’t go away.”

I closed my eyes on cue as my father repeated the last line, his voice
growing
quieter as he lulled me to sleep: “Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye
.
 
.
 
.
”

I could see my father’s face so clearly—the love in his expression, the way the skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled at me. The sight took my breath away. This memory was like a treasure washed up upon a
barren
shore—unexpected, but
priceless
.
It infused me with something I couldn’t name, imparting to me comfort and a faith of sorts. Faith
that
I could go on,
that
I could prevail.

Had my father sung that to me at night when he was ready to give up? Were his words “Daddy won’t go away” a promise or a hopeful wish?
Or w
as he lying to me, or to himself, when he sang that?
H
ad
he mean
t
it in some ethereal way—that even though he planned to abandon me, he would never leave me, in spirit?

I watched Jeremy sleep. The drugs relaxed his face
,
and I realized how long it had been since I saw such peacefulness attend his features.
I sang that song to him, but put my name in place of “Daddy.”
I might never know what my father’s thoughts were when he sang that lullaby to me, but I knew my intentions. I would never leave Jeremy. Even when he recovered and was again “a great big boy,” I would stay by his side—if he’d have me.

The nurse came by and suggested I go home and get a shower, get some sleep.
Exhaustion about knocked me over at the mention of sleep.
I knew I smelled
rank
, and my stomach
churned
in acid.
At home
I could make a decent breakfast and not subject my gut to hospital fare.
Jeremy needed rest
,
and I could come back in a few hours. It was all I could do to get to my feet and walk down the stairs to the parking lot. I wasn’t up to confronting the elevator again, not knowing if I had it in me for another test of my nerve.
I was spent.

At the hospital entrance, a nurse hurri
ed
over to me. She handed me an unmarked envelope and said it was from the officer who had found Jeremy in his truck by the Nicasio Reservoir.
I s
t
opped outside the front doors, in the early morning chill, and pulled a small piece of white paper from the envelope. I saw my name written in Jeremy’s wobbly handwriting.

Without a further glance, I crumbled up the note and the env
e
l
o
pe and threw them in the trash bin on the curb.
I didn’t want to read what he had written in his darkest despair. I knew the words would haunt and berate me. I already felt guilty enough.

In a daze, I drove home,
under
the speed limit, with cars on my tail, angrily racing around me on the freeway. I
was
Humpty Dumpty, shattered in pieces, with all the king
’
s men standing around, puzzling how to put me together again. It’s no use, I told them, too many pieces. The ribbon of nursery rhyme characters appeared in my mind—
including
Humpty Dumpty perched on the wall
—
before his tumble. No doubt, whoever created that whimsical wall décor wanted to spare children the darker side of
those merry
songs
—displaying only what came before—not after:
Jack, tumbling down the hill and breaking his crown
;
t
he spider that sat beside Little Miss Muffet and frightened her away
;
the cradle rocking in the treetop that fell—cradle, baby, and all
.
And what about the Black Plague sung about in “Ring
a
round the Rosy”? I remember hearing that the
lyrics referred to
a symptom of the plague—a red rash in the shape of a ring, posies in the pocket to ward off the disease.

Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down.
Dead
.

Didn’t that sum up life? Hopes and promises, so high-flying, only to be suddenly dashed in a moment’s reversal.

I pulled up my driveway and fed all the animals before I went inside. I felt oddly unhinged. I walked through the living room to the kitchen with a sense of trespassing. Already I was unmoored and drifting away from this place I had called home the last ten years.
I gave Buster and Angels their kibbles and Alpo, then took a deep breath. First, I had to call the feed store and talk to Daniel. He could take care of everything, no problem. I wasn’t sure what to tell him. I doubted Jeremy would want his manager to know about his accident. I could be vague and say something came up, that Jeremy wouldn’t be in for a few days. Not to worry.

The message light blinked
,
but I didn’t have the heart to listen. What if my mother had
worked out
a snappy speech, designed to wreak more havoc on my emotions? Would she dare? And then I considered that maybe the hospital had called. I couldn’t take a chance on
missing any news from the doctor.
All I wanted was to take a hot shower and crawl under the covers. I wished I had someone there to care for me, damaged as I was.

I pressed
P
lay and heard Raff’s voice, which startled me. Perhaps Kendra had given
him
my message, after all. But as I listened to his strained voice, I chided myself for entertaining such a thought. My mother owned him—every strand of hair, every cell in his body. How could I
hope
he
’d
try to stand up to our mother?
The effort would surely send him over the edge. Only once had I witnessed Raff upset enough to turn
on her
. I didn’t recall the circumstance, but Neal, Raff, and I were all over at her house, and he had sh
aken
a finger in her face.

“It’s all your fault I’m sick. You did this to me. I blame you for everything!”

At the time, I remember reacting in shock
at such
mean
words
. My mom had recoiled in hurt and dismay. She uttered
phrases
of consolation and love, calming him down and diffusing his anger
, a look of pity in her eyes
. He never said anything like that again, at least to my knowledge.
It’s possible Ruth Sitteroff made sure he never did, with some kind of veiled threat.

I realized I had played Raff’s entire message and hadn’t heard a word. I
pressed the Play button again
.

“Lisa. I don’t know what’s going on with you and
M
om, but this has to stop. All this bickering and fighting—I just can’t take it. And no one thinks about me and how this is affecting me. Doesn’t anyone care how sick I am, how I can’t take this kind of battle?
I’m the one suffering here. Or have you forgotten—”

I looked at the time display for the message. He
’d
called at least a half hour after I left the hospital. I had no doubt that my mother had stirred him this morning, rallying him to her side, shoring up her defenses with my brothers as her battlement.
Had
my mother even
told
Raff about Jeremy’s accident? Maybe she
had
, and maybe Raff didn’t care.

I suddenly felt annoyed beyond measure at my brother’s trump card. Yes, he was sick and suffering. I knew that. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to sue for peace with our mother just to spare him some pain. My mother was making Raff suffer more, by dragging him into our war and using him as a pawn. It was not my responsibility to spare him by sacrificing my own sanity and my marriage. I would not pay that price to save him
—
mainly because I knew that wouldn’t cover the bill.

Raff’s message ended
,
and a chuckle escaped my mouth
at his
feckless
whin
ing
, and that chuckle grew into uncontrollable laughter
. Surely I was losing it. But I found something
ironic
in the situation. Here was my husband, battered, bleeding internally, with a punctured lung
and injured spleen and liver
. So depressed he tried to kill himself. Does anyone in my family call to console me? To offer help? To commiserate? How many times had I heard my mother spout how important family was, how we all had to stick together and support one another—through thick and thin
?
Family was paramount.

My life, my home, everything we had built over the last ten years, was about to be stolen from me, and I was helpless to do a damned thing.
I should have known the fairy tale would have a reversal in the end—just like all those other nursery rhymes.
You break in pieces when you fall off a wall. You crack your head, when all you’re doing is fetching a pail of water.
You never see it coming.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Not some of us. All.
No one gets away unscathed.

Another message started to play on the
answering machine
. I stopped laughing and wiped my eyes. I recognized the voice, but it took me a moment to realize Julie Hutchinson was speaking.
She
sounded tense
and uncertain. Almost as if she’d been crying.

“Lisa, I’m sorry to bother you. I should have told you everything when I saw you. It’s just—you seemed upset about something, and I didn’t want to drop a bomb on your head. But, well—this may not be such a big deal to you, I mean, you have a family, your brothers. I don’t have anyone, not anymore.” There was a pause as Julie calmed her breathing. My first thought was that her father had died. Maybe she was grieving, despite her estranged relationship with
him
.

“
P
lease, I have to see you again. I’ll drive to your house—I don’t want to put you out.
Please
, call me. You have my number.”

Her words sounded vaguely similar to the words my father had written to my uncle those many years ago.
“
I’m afraid I’ll have to drop another bombshell in your lap, which frankly I feel would upset you too much now.
”
Maybe it was my weird sense of twisted fate, but the idea came to mind that Julie’s bombshell was related to my father’s bombshell. The image triggered another spastic chuckle. It was raining bombs on my head, and my umbrella was just too flimsy to protect me.
Holes were forming at an alarming rate.

Julie could wait
. W
hatever surprise she had for me would wait. A s
hower and some sleep would not.

I rubbed my weary eyes and trudged up the stairs, hoping the hot pounding water would melt all the anguish away.

Who
m
was I fooling?

Chapter
1
9

I hadn’t meant to sleep so long. When I rolled over, the afternoon sun had baked my face into a clammy sweat. It took a few minutes to orient myself as
images
—
like frames in a movie reel
—
of
the accident, Jeremy in the hospital,
and
the letter notifying us of our eviction besieged my mind in a cacophonous roar.
I forced myself to sit up, the bedcovers tangle
d
around me. I threw them onto the floor,
unwrapping
myself from the sheet that had pulled loose
from the mattress
.

I had left the phone number for the hospital on my nightstand next to the clock—which strangely
to me
displayed 4:14. I listened and heard quiet, the afternoon stupor having fallen over bird and beast. No doubt my barnyard critters were snoozing under the trees in the warmth of the day.
I berated myself for not setting an alarm. How could I have slept that many hours?

I picked up the phone receiver and punched in the number. After connecting to the switchboard, I learned Jeremy had been moved out of ICU and was in a private room. The operator asked if I wanted to ring his room, but I requested to speak to the doctor, or to a nurse on his floor, so I could find out his status. I put the speaker
phone
on while she had me wait, and I changed out of my sweaty clothes into clean ones.
A nurse cam
e
on the line and told me Jeremy was stable and resting, and that I could come over anytime to see him.