The Tolling of Mercedes Bell: A Novel (52 page)

The doctor ushered her into her office and asked her to be seated. After preliminary pleasantries she said, “You’re here for results from your HIV test, your third one—is that right?” They both knew it was. “And how is your husband doing?”

Mercedes could sense that the doctor was just trying to soften the blow.

“Not well. We’ve separated.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It’s always sad when a marriage is stressed like this.”

Please just get on with it and tell me the bad news.

“Your test is negative, Mercedes. There’s no sign of the virus.”

The words took a moment to register. She was shocked speechless.

“And honestly, I don’t think follow-up tests are necessary. I think you should go on with your life and put this all behind you. If you want, have another test in a year, but I’m convinced it will be negative too. Your immune system has defended you perfectly.”

“How is it possible? Are you sure the test results weren’t mixed up in the lab?”

“I have no explanation. There’s no reason to think there was an error in the test. I think you’re very, very lucky. You have some natural immunity that I haven’t seen in this epidemic. Maybe there will be others. I certainly hope so. It makes me so happy to be able to tell you this!”

The doctor shook her hand, and Mercedes left in a cloud of astonishment.

Outside, the clouds were dispersing. She got into the mudspattered Jeep, looked in the rearview mirror, and noticed the top of her head. With a start she realized she would live to see her hair turn gray. She was going to have the privilege of aging, along with others in her generation.

She drove out of the parking lot and turned onto the main road. The sun began to peek through the clouds and a rainbow emerged over the road ahead, its arc forming a perfect semicircle of vivid colors, a matinee produced by the gods.

She was free! She would live! She would see her daughter become a woman! Germaine would never be an orphan, and together they would leave all this behind. It was over. The nightmare was
over! The dread that had hung over her for months, the tornado of doom on the horizon, had given way to a rainbow and a future.

Tears filled her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. She pulled the car off onto the shoulder of the road, overcome, and wept.

T
HAT HOLIDAY SEASON WAS MAGICAL
in a way she had never known before. Although she kept her good news mostly to herself, her spirits brightened more each day. She felt like singing when she woke up in the morning. She daydreamed about what she wanted to do years hence. Even the pending visit from Eleanor and Philip was going to be fine.

She strung colored lights along the eaves of their house, like so many others on the street. They bought a Christmas tree for the living room and decorated it, combining new ornaments with the old. They read beside the fireplace each night. They went shopping, wrapped presents, baked cookies and took them to all their neighbors, sent Christmas cards to their friends. They bought special dresses to wear for Christmas dinner and carefully planned the meal they would cook for the grandparents. Germaine didn’t know what had come over her mother, but it didn’t matter. They were getting over their sorrows one by one.

I
N ALL THE YEARS SINCE
she’d left home, Mercedes’s houses had been her refuge from Eleanor’s drama. But she’d been seasoned by death’s hourly companionship. She had stared real madness in the face. No behavior of her mother’s could possibly match what Jack had put her through. And finally, she accepted that Eleanor loved her in her way.

All was ready on Christmas Eve when the doorbell rang. Eleanor
made her grand entrance swathed in fur, followed closely by Philip, who was laden with bags of presents. Germaine ran to her grandmother and was immediately engulfed in mink. Philip put down his load and embraced Mercedes. Eleanor drew Mercedes into her overwhelming cloud of perfume, clutched her awkwardly, and released her after a kiss on the cheek.

Mercedes helped her out of her coat. As usual, Eleanor was perfectly put together—tonight in a deep purple cashmere sweater with a cowl neck, decorated with a prominent diamond brooch. Her suede high heels matched the sweater and peeked out beneath impeccably tailored black silk slacks. Eleanor peeled off her long leather gloves and straightened the heavy gold bracelets on her wrists, then looked askance at the oddly furnished room.

Germaine took Eleanor by the hand and led her on a tour of the house, proudly narrating what she considered to be its fine points. She pulled her from room to room, effervescent and loquacious, even turning on the outside lights and dragging Eleanor out onto the back patio to extol the virtues of the backyard. When Germaine loved something, she loved it with every hair on her head.

Mercedes could hear Eleanor trying to echo her granddaughter’s enthusiasm, but it was obviously difficult for her to be impressed by the small house and its humble amenities. Eleanor must be finding it impossible to imagine herself in their position, Mercedes mused, or to comprehend why Mercedes had tolerated men who treated her poorly.

Whatever Eleanor thought of the house, she was definitely drawn to the aromas coming from the brightly lit kitchen. As she swept through the room behind Germaine, she snatched an appetizer and slid it into her mouth, careful not to smudge her lipstick.

“Divine!” she proclaimed.

Philip opened the wine. Mercedes showed him all the dishes they
had prepared for the holiday feast. Casseroles were warming in the oven and a succulent roast fowl was resting on a platter. Mercedes wore a chef’s apron over her dark green Christmas dress, with her thick curly hair pulled back and twisted around the crown of her head in a Renaissance style that became her well. She whisked a steady stream of rich, seasoned stock into the roux and a scrumptious gravy began to coalesce. Eleanor, who was a stranger to the kitchen and had never made gravy in her life, watched in mute wonderment.

Her daughter was an enigma to Eleanor. Mercedes was interested in things completely foreign to her, and indifferent to much that Eleanor deemed vitally important. The result was an introspective, self-sufficient young woman, who lived her life on her own terms and actually seemed to enjoy working. Eleanor watched the playful banter between Mercedes and her father, unable to disguise a twinge of envy.

Philip gave his wife a glass of wine and a wink, and then poured a glass of sparkling cider for Germaine.

“Cheers! Here’s to our enterprising daughter and her gracious hospitality,” he exclaimed.

Wind blew through the bare tree branches outside, and the full moon ascended. They all joined hands at the dinner table, the candlelight shining on their steaming plates, while Philip said grace, something he never did ordinarily. He and Eleanor seldom ate dinner at home. Germaine, so sweet and appealing, even with braces, had scrunched up her nose, shut her eyes tight, and appeared to be praying with all her might. Mercedes, having walked through the valley of death, had never felt so grateful or so blessed by life.

The meal was exactly what she had hoped it would be. Germaine ate as though she were starving, and had seconds while her grandparents talked about their travel plans for the coming year.

When it was time for dessert, Mercedes brought out a lattice-top cherry pie, Germaine’s favorite. The candlelight flickered, and they listened to the wind whip around the corners of the house while she served everyone. Mercedes looked at her family and felt great love. Philip took a forkful of the succulent pie and flavor exploded in his mouth. He was perfectly happy, and that made at least three of them.

As the last bites of dessert vanished from their plates, Mercedes said, “I have something to tell all of you that I’ve been keeping to myself for many months. It’s about Jack and what happened this year.”

Eleanor and Philip looked at each other as if to say, “At last!”

“I first noticed a change in him during our honeymoon,” Mercedes began. “He was very moody, but I thought that was just how he was, and I hadn’t taken enough time to get to know him before we married.

“He began to reveal more of the truth about his life—starting with his childhood. His mother died when he was little, and his father was vicious. Jack was abused and neglected from an early age. His father went bankrupt paying for his mother’s medical bills, and they had to sell the family home. Dr. Soutane became dependent on drugs and took out his aggression and bitterness on Jack. He died when Jack was in college. Within a short time, Jack also lost his only two siblings. He was completely on his own.

“Only a short time into our marriage, he seemed to become several different people. There was a child of five or younger named Jackie, a slovenly scatterbrain who couldn’t remember anything, a mean guy who was suspicious of everyone, and so on. The Jack we loved made fewer and fewer appearances. The scary Jack, the nasty Jack, and the lost boy were around more and more.

“After months of coughing, one weekend he had a seizure, became desperately ill, and I took him to the hospital. They gave him an MRI, which led to a shocking discovery. In college, Jack was
introduced to a gay lifestyle by two fellow students who were very kind to him. For obvious reasons, he could pretty much choose his companions, and he did so with impunity. Somewhere along the way he contracted the AIDS virus. I don’t know the circumstances, but it was well before we met. By the time he had the seizure he was really very ill—too ill to practice law any longer.”

Germaine reached for her mother, who grasped her hand. Philip’s eyes glittered with outrage, while Eleanor, for once, was speechless.

“Before I go on, I want you all to know that I didn’t get it. I’m clean. All the tests have come back negative. I’ve been very lucky.”

“Oh, thank God!” Eleanor exclaimed. Philip shook his head, pressed his lips together, and waited for Mercedes to continue.

“Anyway, although there was finally a rational explanation for Jack’s crazy behavior, I felt panicky, realizing my own exposure. And there was so much I didn’t know—about our finances, Jack’s private life and law practice. I scrambled to keep everything afloat while my own prognosis could not have been worse.

“I spent a lot of time in his office trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage and wind down his law practice. I was still getting up to speed when Jack was released from the hospital, which was another kind of nightmare. I’ll spare you the details, but Germaine saw a lot of it. It was very, very difficult for us. For many weeks he was tethered to an oxygen tank. He had dementia. He couldn’t manage his own bodily functions, read, remember anything, or take care of the most rudimentary things. We had a nurse with him until he was able to wash and dress himself and take his own medicine.”

Germaine got up, climbed into her mother’s lap, and buried her face in her neck.

“All this time, I myself was facing death. I was told repeatedly that no one who had been exposed to the disease as I had could possibly escape getting it. Yet each HIV test I took was negative.
Jack’s doctor told me that less than one percent of the people exposed to the virus do not succumb. It is a miracle, truly, that I am well. But there’s more you need to know.

“One night Jack seemed more lucid than he’d been in a while. We had gotten a letter from an accountant we hired to help with the dissolution of Jack’s law practice. He was asking us for information. I watched Jack read it and saw his shocked reaction. The next day, he confessed everything to me—that he had known he had the virus when he married me and planned the whole thing. He had prepared an estate plan based on the assumption that I would get the virus and Germaine would be an orphan.

“He admitted embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from an old family friend, who was like a mother to him. He also stole from his clients’ trust accounts. That money was the source of his lavish lifestyle. He admitted there were tax liens on all his properties and he had no intention of repaying anyone.

“He expected me to go along with all of it. He committed fraud to obtain four disability policies. He thought that the huge amount of his disability income would ensure my compliance. He saw no reason for anyone to know. He was sure I would do nothing to jeopardize Germaine’s or my position. He was incensed at my suggestion that he come clean.”