Let Me Whisper in Your Ear (6 page)

That was how it started. The first few years, Emmett Walsh came with his daughter to the Bronners' house the night before Christmas. After that, Laura came on her own.

An only child, Laura loved the big family celebration. Alan Bronner was a warm, generous man who clearly loved his “Max” and their two children, Danielle and Justin. Aunts, uncles and cousins filled the house, gathering to celebrate the
Wigilia,
the biggest Polish family feast day of the year.

As dusk gathered, Mrs. Bronner placed a candle in the front window. She explained to Laura that this was once believed to help the spirits of family ancestors find their way “home” for the
Wigilia.

“Do you think my mommy will find me here?” Laura asked quietly that first year.

Maxine pulled the child close. “Laura, I truly believe your mother is here in spirit, loving you very much. She did everything she could to stay with you and I know she did not want to leave you. But it was her time to pass on, to go to live in heaven with God. I know she wants you to be happy and enjoy your life and all the wonderful things that are in store for you.”

“Like tonight?”

The poor child is asking permission to enjoy herself,
Maxine thought.

“Yes, especially tonight.”

Maxine took Laura's hand and led her into the dining room. Pulling back the corner of the heavily starched white linen tablecloth, Maxine showed the child the straw that had been laid beneath it.

“Hay and straw are the symbols of the birth of Jesus in the stable, Laura. When the first star appears in the sky, we can begin our celebration.”

Laura thought about that. “What if there is no star? What if it's too cloudy?”

Maxine laughed. “Then we begin at six o'clock.”

But that night, there was a star. The family and guests stood around the table to break and share the
optalek,
the sacred bread that, Mrs. Bronner explained to Laura, was similar to the liturgical water used as the sacred Host at Mass. Instead of the Host's round shape, the
optalek
was a rectangle and was embossed on one side with a Christmas motif. For Poles, it symbolized the strengthening of bonds between peoples.

Laura solemnly ate her piece of the wafer and then took her seat next to her father at the table. She was relieved that Daddy had not been drinking that day. In fact, she noticed that when Mrs. Bronner asked what he would like to drink, Daddy had asked for a ginger ale.

Maybe things were going to get better.

13

I
N THE DAYS
before her mother died, eight-year-old Laura had been put to bed early, but she had not slept. The familiar bedroom with its multicolored candy-striped wallpaper and single twin-canopy bed, the “princess” bed, Mommy called it, the happy, cozy place where so many nighttime stories had been lovingly told, became a darkened, frightening chamber. During the daytime, there had been school and her teacher, Mrs. Bronner, and Brownies and play dates. At night, however, when all the day's activities were over, Laura would lie in her small bed alone, to think and worry.

She had known something was wrong, though everyone tried to act as if everything were all right when she was around.

Daddy hadn't known that she'd seen him crying in his big red chair late at night. He'd thought she was in bed asleep. But she wasn't. She was up and creeping around. That was how she found out everything.

Laura, ever the little trouper, had acted as though nothing were amiss. She would chatter through supper, telling Emmett everything that had happened in Mrs. Bronner's classroom each day, careful not to look at the empty chair at the table. Mommy's place. She had acted as if it were not at all strange that Mommy was upstairs in bed at dinnertime, instead of at the kitchen table eating meat loaf with her husband and daughter. Laura drank all her milk and ate all her peas and hoped that being a good girl would make everything all right.

Laura had also pretended not to notice that Daddy was drinking even more than usual.

For as long as she could remember, Daddy drank from the red-and-white cans. Mommy usually didn't say anything, but Laura could tell that her mother was keeping track of the “red-and-whites” piled up in the trash can each day. “Emmett, that's enough, honey,” she'd say. Usually, Daddy would stop.

With Mommy unable to keep watch now, Daddy didn't stop. He drank more and more. He slurred his words. He smelled like beer. Sometimes he'd stumble and fall when he got up from his chair.

One night, Laura said, “Daddy, that's enough, now.” And her father hit her. After that, Laura pretended not to notice as she heard one beer can after another pop open.

Somehow, even in her little girl's mind, Laura had known that her father had not meant to hit her. He loved her. She knew it. She excused him because she knew that Daddy was worried about Mommy.

She knew because she had heard him. When her parents thought she was safely sound asleep in her room, blond, wispy-haired Laura stood in the hallway outside her parents' door and listened to their hushed voices.

“Oh, Sarah, what will I do without you?” Daddy cried.

“Shh, sweetheart, shh. I'm so sorry, so sorry. But you have to be strong, you have to go on, for our little girl, for Laura.”

“I can't.”

“Yes, you can. You must. But, Emmett, you've got to stop drinking. Promise me you'll get help.”

Laura heard her father whimper and it scared her. If Mommy was leaving her, all she'd have was Daddy, and he was falling apart. Daddy, who she'd always thought was so big and strong. Daddy, whom she'd have to depend on to make everything all right. Daddy, who was sobbing.

“Promise me, Emmett. You have to tell someone. Unburden yourself. You'll never be able to stop drinking with what happened nagging at your conscience. You have to stop feeling guilty and own up to it. Admit to what happened. It was an accident. Go to the police. Confess.”

Laura knew what “confess” meant. She had made her First Holy Communion that year—and along with it, her first confession, the other sacrament, Penance. She had had trouble coming up with things to tell the priest, things that would be considered sins.

She stood in her flannel pajamas and bare feet, and wondered,
What did Daddy do that Mommy is so worried about?

Twenty years later, a childhood and adolescence of secrets and physical abuse behind her, Laura still did not know what her mother had been whispering about. But her forehead carried a constant reminder of her father's sickness and inability to control himself.

14

D
R
. L
EONARD
C
OSTELLO
finished his rounds at Mt. Olympia Hospital with a heavy heart. But it was not his last patient, a teenage girl who had been knifed in the face by some lunatic in Central Park, that left him feeling bereft. When he was done with her, several operations and many thousands of dollars later, she might even look better than she had before.

Costello walked slowly down the hospital hallway, the antiseptic scent of recently cleaned linoleum filling the air. Nurses hurried down the hall, their crepe-soled shoes squeaking. Doctors' names crackled over the PA system. But Costello was only faintly aware of the activity around him. He was thinking of his conversation with Gwyneth Gilpatric and it was deeply troubling him.

Did she know? How could she know about the Parkinson's?
He hadn't told anyone, not Francheska, not even his own wife.

He had taken such care. When he suspected that something was wrong, he had not consulted with any doctor at Mt. Olympia—he had not spoken to any doctor in New York, for that matter. Instead, he had called his best friend from medical school and flown down to Miami for an examination. His med school pal, now a neurologist, checked him out but wasn't sure at first what was wrong. It could be anything, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, or something unknown. But his friend suggested he try some medication. Costello would know within twenty-four hours if it worked. If the Sinemet stopped the trembling, Costello surely had Parkinson's disease.

As he took the yellow tablet for the first time, Costello was ambivalent. He wanted to know what was wrong, but he prayed it wasn't Parkinson's. However, the alternative of multiple sclerosis or a brain malfunction wasn't any better. How he had taken his good health for granted!

By the end of that day, Costello knew. The Sinemet worked. Costello had joined the ranks of actor Michael J. Fox, Attorney General Janet Reno and boxing great Muhammad Ali.

Once the diagnosis was made, his friend swore to tell no one. Costello was sure his buddy would keep his promise. After all, Costello knew things about him, too. Doctors had to take care of one another.

One whiff of suspicion and a crowded waiting room could become an empty tomb. Reputation meant everything in maintaining a thriving practice.

He had worked too long and too hard to build his dream practice. He was an artist. Everyone said so. His bank account proved it. His lifestyle reflected it.

The Jaguar, the Range Rover, the boat moored in the Hudson. The mansion in Scarsdale, the beach house perched on a cliff in St. Martin. The kids in the best private schools. The hot girlfriend ensconced in the Upper East Side apartment.

He was not about to give it all up.

If Gwyneth knew, it would be just a matter of time before she told someone else. The gossip would spread like wildfire. Leonard Costello, the renowned plastic surgeon with the shakes. His well-heeled patients would flee in fright. He shuddered at the thought.

True, eventually he would have to quit. But not yet. He could wait until he could not control the shaking with medication any longer. With luck, that could be years away. Years when he could continue to rake in the cash and force himself to pay more attention to his investing. Time to build the cushion he needed.

He had to find out if Gwyneth knew. If she did, perhaps he could reassure her that he never intended to operate during one of the Parkinson's episodes. Maybe he could appeal to her sympathies and explain what his plans were. She would understand that he just needed some time before he retired. He resolved to get her aside and fish around at the New Year's Eve party. If he saw her face-to-face, he would be able to tell if she knew.

“Hey, Len.” Costello's thoughts were interrupted by Greg Koizim, another of the city's top plastic surgeons. Good-looking and ten years younger than Costello, Koizim fell in step beside his colleague.

“Hi, Greg. How's it going?” Costello asked dully.

“Guess who came in to see me the other day?”

“I give up.”

“Gwyneth Gilpatric. Isn't she a patient of yours?”

You know damn well she is, you son-of-a-bitch,
thought Costello, and he cursed himself for all the name-dropping and bragging he had done over the years. But the fact that he was losing a famous patient did not matter to him now. As long as he kept all the others.

“Oh, yeah? What's she having done?” Costello asked, trying to sound only mildly interested.

“Full face-lift. I fit her in for the first week of January.”

Dr. Costello felt his cheeks grow hot. All Gwyneth's crap about being scared, about not being ready. She had been lying.

Gwyneth knew. She definitely knew.

15

L
AURA WORKED ON
her Yearender all morning and a good part of the afternoon. She screened three cartons of videotapes looking for just the right two seconds of pictures to capture the essence of her dead subjects. By four o'clock, she was eager to go down to the
Evening Headlines
studio for her taping session with Eliza Blake.

As many news staffers as possible tried to take Christmas week off. Laura, with the exception of Christmas Day, would work through the week, finishing her Yearender. Eliza Blake was taking some vacation, but before she left,
KEY News
wanted to be prepared for contingencies.

When Laura arrived in the studio, Eliza was already at the anchor desk going over her copy. She smiled at Laura as the younger woman approached.

“I feel creepy doing this the day before Christmas Eve,” Eliza remarked.

Laura nodded. “Me, too. But you know how it works. If we're prepared, then he won't die. It's only if we're not ready—that's when he'll be sure to go.”

“I guess that's one way of looking at it.” Eliza shrugged. “I wonder if they know we do this.”

“From what I hear, he's in no condition to know much of what's going on,” Laura answered.

“Okay. I'm ready when you are.”

Laura crossed the studio to the director's booth, leaving Eliza to give an audio level. “Mike check, one, two, three.”

“Sounds good,” confirmed director J. P. Crawford, as Laura took a seat in the control booth behind him. Crawford counted down, “Eliza Blake, ‘Special Report Kevin Kane,' in three, two, one. Cue Eliza.”

Laura watched on the television monitor as Eliza looked directly into the camera and read the words on the TelePrompter. “This is a
KEY News
Special Report. Former President Kevin Robert Kane died today at his ranch outside of Tucson, Arizona. He was seventy-three years old. The former president had been fighting a battle against cancer for the last year.

“President Kane's body will lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda and he will be buried on the grounds of the Kevin R. Kane Presidential Library in Tucson.

“We will have more details on the death of President Kane on tonight's
Evening Headlines.
Repeating, former President Kevin Kane is dead at age seventy-three.”

“Let's stop and check,” directed Crawford.

Laura and the control room staff watched as the tape of Eliza played back on a half-dozen screens across the control room wall.