House of Steel (11 page)

“He’s back in Wisconsin? Good thing I was
here.” Ann’s eyes glimmered for a moment while she waited for her
daughter’s response. She had always wanted James to rescue her
loveless Delaney. Both her parents had always adored James. He was
a frequenter at the Jones’ house since his father often worked late
at the office. By the end of their senior year at Xavier Academy,
Ann Jones had joked that she inherited another mouth to feed, but
they hadn’t seen James since he moved out to California, and
Delaney had failed to mention why they had stopped talking several
years ago, avoiding the topic all together.

“I guess he’s moving back, but that’s
irrelevant. Let’s talk about the wedding before Ben gets here,” she
said, dodging the James discussion.

“What’s there to talk about? I will be
there. Dr. Hansen mentioned I should be discharged - if the night
goes well - by tomorrow morning,” she reported. The exertion of
energy was too much for her as her breathing shallowed. She looked
down at Michael who had lifted his hand from her foot to remove his
glasses. He once again began to methodically rub his temple,
massaging it. Delaney had always heard about the mental and
physical toll caregivers shouldered, though she had never seen it
living, breathing before her eyes like she did now.

“You think you’ll have enough energy for the
wedding, Mom? I think Ben might prefer that you stay home and take
care of yourself,” Mark said, leaning against the chair Delaney sat
in for support. Convincing his mother to stay home from Ben’s
wedding, he knew, would be insurmountable. Ann Jones was the most
incorrigible woman he had ever known and in most scenarios, this
quality benefitted her and everyone surrounding her. They had all
believed her sheer determinedness was why she was alive today; in
fact, she was three years past Dr. Hansen’s projected “expiration
date.”

“Absolutely not. No more discussion on the
wedding, and I swear to you, Mark,” she whispered as she curled her
finger, beckoning him to come closer to her, “I will cut you right
out of the will.” Mark, who had leaned in closer to her, gently
pushed her finger aside before he cracked a smile and moved back by
the chair. Ann let out a small, raspy laugh before beginning to
cough. Michael reached for the glass of water on the tray next to
her, placing it to dry her lips. She swallowed hard. The water line
hadn’t moved.

“I tried, for the record,” Mark said,
lifting his hands up in the air, drawing attention away from the
painful vision of her swallowing essentially air. “Ben’s going to
try to convince you, too. Just so you’re prepared.”

“You Jones boys don’t scare me,” Ann said as
she adjusted her legs in her bed and looked back down at Michael
who had once again placed his hand on her foot. “I will be
there.”

Delaney glanced out the window of the third
floor room to avoid eye contact with her mother. Her eyes scanned
the ledge, stopping at a light brown teddy bear that had a pink bow
tied around its neck. Her mind flashed to the tattered teddy bear
she remembered from her childhood. The muffled voices of her family
filled the background as she tuned out the conversation, focusing
her eyes on the bear. She stood up, feeling her legs buckle
underneath her, as she walked over to the ledge to feel the satin
bow slip between her fingers. The bow was wound tight around its
neck as if it were strangling the teddy bear.
The satin. The
pink.
She hadn’t recognized the resemblance before, but this
teddy bear had the same hued pink, satin fabric of her mask. Her
mind shot back to her bag in Mark’s truck, the mask buried deep
inside. She felt a rush of warmth run through her body.

“Who sent that?” Michael asked as Delaney
stood holding the teddy bear in her hands.

“I don’t know. It was just here,” Ann
replied, dismissing the teddy bear and turning back to talk with
Mark. Delaney set the bear back on the ledge as her chest
tightened. She needed air.

“I’ll be right back,” she muttered as she
stumbled out into the hallway of the hospital, allowing the heavy
door of Room 547 to shut behind her with a click. She inhaled the
sterile air of the hospital and leaned against the wall next to the
door, closing her eyes as the sketch of her mother’s waves blowing
in the wind appeared. Her rich, long strands blew across her back
as she sat in the driver’s seat of the old car. Delaney had
remembered clutching the teddy bear next to her in the passenger
seat.

***

According to her mother, Delaney had been
born, unwillingly, in the unpopulated town of Amberg on a dairy
farm. She grew up knowing nothing of farming and its particular
demands, not by her own choice, but by the hands of the
uncompromising Ann. On Delaney’s third birthday, her mother had
packed her only daughter’s handful of clothes, with tags still
intact, into a worn, leather child’s suitcase and put Delaney,
clutching her sole toy - a light-brown stuffed bear with a pink bow
tied around its neck - into the passenger seat of the family’s ‘79
Impala. With a small handbag of her own, filled with one change of
clothes, Ann had taped a freshly-printed picture of Delaney’s dad
on the dash. He had stood, half-leaning against the rusted Ford, in
a cowboy hat and red flannel tucked neatly into his jeans. The
nearby wheat field and an old wheelbarrow had completed the
landscape of the portrait.

With one last glimpse of the faded red barn
and single silo glowing in the sunset, Ann had driven down the dirt
path, through the small town of Amberg, passed the old grain store
turned coffee shop she had once adored, and onto the concrete of
I-43 headed south. Her dark brown waves had gathered loosely on her
neck as it fluttered in the fresh breeze of the open driver’s side
window. She had stared straight ahead, not once looking in the
rearview mirror. She would never set eyes on the sixty-year-old
farm she was raised on again or the town of Amberg or her few close
friends from childhood. She had smiled down on Delaney in the
passenger seat, reassuring her young daughter with a slight pat on
her knee.

Four hours later, Ann and Delaney Jones had
arrived at the two-story colonial house in the Milwaukee suburb of
Waukesha to their waiting relatives: Uncle Walt, Emma, and Levi.
The soft glow of the TV inside showed movement in the house as they
had pulled into the driveway. Soon all three stood on the porch,
watching as Ann turned off the key and stopped the hum of the
engine. They had been waiting, after all, for two days. Delaney had
learned much later that it had taken her mother that long to leave
Amberg.

Uncle Walt had cradled a sleeping Delaney
into his arms while Emma ushered Ann into the house to unpack -
although Emma hadn’t realized how little
packing
Ann had
done - and showed her the birthday cake decorated with a single
purple flower waiting for Delaney on the dining room table. All
four had huddled around her in an enclosed cocoon and sang quietly
to the three-year-old, half sleeping in the chair, lulling her to
sleep. The hues of the three spiraled, pink candles had flickered
against the darkness of the room.

Delaney’s small head, with the same thick
waves as her mother, only shorter, had rested on the massive table
as they finished the last notes of the song. She had lifted her
head as the singing stopped and looked up at her mother who had a
single tear sliding down her face. It had been the first time
Delaney had seen her mother cry. She hadn’t known it would be the
only time she would see her mother cry.

***

The memory washed over Delaney as her feet
moved beneath her, carrying her to the end of the hallway. She
stopped, her eyes a foot away from a Van Gogh print of a wheat
field. Black crows scattered against a blue, looming sky in a
large, ornamental gold frame. The print intricately detailed the
strands of wheat sweeping through the vast field. The golden yellow
contrasted beside the dark blue sky. The placement of the print,
among the sick and dying at a hospital, seemed a distasteful choice
as she looked closer at the crows circling through the field. A
tear rolled down her face. Ann Jones had never looked so
vulnerable.

Delaney wiped the tear with the back of her
sleeve and turned her back to the print on the wall. She slid down
the wall and pulled her knees into her chest, cradling them as she
breathed in deep, closing her eyes to Thanksgiving four years ago
on 7th Street.

The Jones family, along with Uncle Walt and
Emma - Levi was living in New York at the time - had congregated,
as usual, to enjoy their annual turkey feast created meticulously
by Ann Jones. The aromas of fall filled the air; the warm smell of
pumpkin pie and turkey had occupied the Jones’ kitchen and
adjoining dining room. They had all gorged themselves, just
finishing their choice of two desserts that Ann had crafted the
night before when she said in passing as she cleared up dishes, “I
have cancer. I thought I would let you all know. Stage Three.” Ann
had said it so matter-of-fact, as if she had been commenting on the
weather. She hadn’t missed a step, continuing to move dishes
further into her arm, stacking them as she gathered more. Ben had
dropped his glass on the wooden floor, shattering it on contact.
The rest of her family still seated at the table stared at her, not
moving or saying a word. The doctors had given her three hundred
sixty-five days, give or take a few.

Ann Jones had spent the last four years,
trying various experimental treatments and aggressive chemotherapy.
She had been close to remission, a treatment almost eradicating the
cancer cells, only to experience another severe spread of the
cancer. Her health moved in waves, on sliding scales from better to
worse and back again. But never had Delaney seen her mother so weak
and vulnerable. Her eyes, for the first time, had lost the vibrancy
and sheer determinedness that had brought her mom this far. Ann
Jones had begun to let go.

Delaney opened her eyes to the sound of a
door shutting down the hallway. Her eyes adjusted and focused in on
the door and the man across from Room 547. His fleeting eyes made
contact with hers for a moment as if he was surprised to see her
sitting down at the end of the hall. He darted his eyes away and
turned to walk down the hall away from her. His body, with perfect
posture, stood tall as he took long, strong strides. His dark hair
with speckles of silver glistened in the light of the hallway as he
moved effortlessly in a black leather jacket. As he turned the
corner, he placed a gray fedora on his head and in a moment, he
vanished from the hallway as if he had never been there in the
first place. Delaney stood up, stretching and rubbing her eyes as
she took a snapshot of the man’s face in her mind; his dark eyes
penetrated the sketch.

Her legs moved her to the door of Room 547.
She lifted up her hand to open the door, but set it back down at
her side before turning to the room behind her. Room 546. The door
had cracked open to display just a small glimpse into the room. Her
eyes moved up and down the vacant hall. She listened to the silent
space before turning to move toward the door behind her. Her head
peeked into the room as she pushed the door to get another inch of
sight. There were no visitors standing in the room. She poked her
head another inch closer. The bed was empty.

***

Delaney shut the door behind her, locking it,
and turned into the bedroom her parents had left untouched for ten
years. Mark had dropped her off at her parents’ house, leaving her
to stay by herself while he spent the night with Ben. The rehearsal
was cancelled, Ben claiming that “no one needed to practice
standing anyway.” Michael and Ann were still at the hospital,
despite her mother’s plea to be discharged, and Delaney had
welcomed the chance to be alone, a chance to breathe. Gunnar had
threatened her, but this strange sense of relief was comforting
her. Mr. Rowan was gone. A dark, psychopathic angel had taken her
rapist.

She felt the stitching along the purple
patterned quilt her mother had sewn for her back in high school.
Each square was so small and intricate. Delaney realized, for the
first time, how long her mother must have spent sewing the quilt;
the same time that was so limited now. She sat down on the edge,
plucking at a stitch that was unraveling before noticing the teddy
bear sitting on the pillow. Tattered and worn, the almost
thirty-year-old teddy bear still had the same pink satin bow tied
around its neck. She hadn’t seen it in years, assuming it had been
long gone from her childhood. Picking it up, she felt the pink bow,
gritty from years of dragging it along as a child. A strange
feeling consumed her as she thought of the teddy bear back at the
hospital.

8:22 p.m.
She had eight minutes. She
wouldn’t miss another call with
him
.
It would be
therapeutic,
she reasoned. She needed to release the anxiety
threatening to overtake her body. Her hands slid open the zipper of
her black bag and into the contents, searching for the pink mask
buried underneath the clothes for the weekend. She pulled the
laptop from the bag, turning it on before gathering her mask,
brush, and rolled up canvas. Her fingers wrapped around three
different shades of black and gray paint. He only ever wanted
black. As she waited for the laptop to start, she closed the
curtains and pulled the sweater over her head revealing the red
lace bra. She pulled down her jeans and peeled off her socks,
standing in only her bra and underwear in the middle of the room.
Sliding them off, she stepped into the one-piece, black dress. It
hugged to her body as she pulled the straps over her shoulders and
drew the bottom down to hang just below her upper thighs.

Glancing into the small mirror leaning
against the dresser, she hadn’t imagined what it would be like to
be back in her bedroom like this. The rush flowed through her
veins.
S
he couldn’t help herself as her fingers placed the
mask over her eyes, tying it tight behind her head among the brown
waves. She felt transformed.
A woman.
Delaney Jones needed
to escape her reality.