Adirondack Audacity (19 page)

“Sir, it’s not necessary to press charges.” The younger
trooper says shrugging his shoulders. “The kid felt he had
his back up against the wall and had no choice, we could
look the other way and let this go.”
“Mr. McCauley,” Ramon asks in a voice dripping with
sarcasm, looking at my father with raised eyebrows.
“What would you like to do?”
“I hope he rots in jail for what he did to my
daughter.” My father hisses, his face screwed up in a
mask of hatred aimed at Vic. I never knew my father
capable of such emotion. Unfortunately, I can’t help but
feel the sentiment is misplaced pride rather than love or
concern for me.
“Daddy, please don’t do this, please don’t send him
to jail.” I beg him, tugging on his arm trying to have him
just once look at me and realize that I’m real, not just a
shadow in his life.
“I’ll sign the papers tomorrow.” My father answers
with finality through clenched jaws. “Show up on my
doorstep and next time I’ll have the gun.” He points his
finger at Vic’s chest. “And I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”
“No!” I wail, “Please, please, I beg of you.” I’m
screaming as hysteria courses through me, throwing my
arms around Vic’s waist, refusing to be separated from
him.
“Officers, I’ll meet you at the station house to help
process the paperwork. I’ll make sure arrangement can be
made for him to be extradited to Mexico.” Ramon Rienz
says smoothly. His trap baited, set and sprung. “There is
no reason your government should bear the financial
responsibility for the incarceration of my son. I’m sure
Mr. McCauley doesn’t mind where my son goes to jail as
long as he serves his time and the farther away from his
daughter the better.”
“That’s fine with me;; get him the hell out of here.”
My father retorts with a contemptuous wave of his hand.
“I don’t want him anywhere near my daughter ever
again.” He looks Ramon in the eye. “Are we in agreement
over this matter?”
“Totally.” Ramon gloats with a smile of satisfaction.
“Louis, you go with the McCauley family to make sure
the arrangements for the girl are properly taken care of
with as little fuss as possible. I’ll meet you back at the
apartment in the city.”
“Arrangements! What arrangements?” Vic cries out,
frantic as he struggles almost breaking free from the hold
the troopers have on him. “What the hell are you talking
about? What are you going to do with her? So help me
God, if you hurt her or the baby, you will live to regret
it.”
Helen gives Vic a dismissive glance, a small smile tugs
at the corner of her mouth. “Your little friend will be
going to a lovely remote convent for wayward girls. I’ve
known Ellen was pregnant for some time. I took the
liberty of finding just the right place for her to finish out
her confinement.” Helen speaks in a calm soothing voice
for the first time, looking impeccable in her Chanel suit,
not a hair out of place even though it’s six o’clock in the
morning. To look at her one would think she dressed for
a celebration and in her mind it was, she was finally
vindicated in her revenge against my mother. My
humiliation and downfall into disgrace is sweet revenge
for her. Yes, revenge can be sweet, sometimes the longer
one waits the sweeter the taste. She sniffs in disdain, “It’s
such a shame that it had to come to this.” She says coolly,
glancing down to check the perfect finish of her polished
nails. “But Ellen knows sins must be atoned for through
prayer and sacrifice, only through the help of the good
nuns, may God forgive and help redeem her soul.” Her
face glitters, breaking in a thousand shards of hatred
spinning off toward me as she stares into my eyes with
unmistakable malice and says, “May God help you, my
dear, you have always been a difficult child.” I look
beseeching at my father who shakes his head in disgust,
turning away from me.
I spit out at the two of them, beyond caring. What
more can they do to me? “I hope the two of you burn in
hell, I will
never
forgive you for this!”
“Elle, I’ll come back, I promise!” Vic shouts as the
State Police drag him handcuffed through the station
door into the early morning, the sky streaked pink with
the coming dawn, shoving him into the back seat of the
waiting patrol car.
The world spins around me as I sink to my knees,
supported by Vic’s brother, Louis. The finely honed trap
our families planned for us overwhelms me. The
enormity of their convoluted warped concern is a front
for the deep-seated resentment that we dare flaunt their
dominance and control over our lives. We were going to
pay. Oh, yes, we were going to pay dearly for that sin and
not even God and his legion of angels could help us now.
We were going to hell.

Oh yes, Helen had her revenge. She laid her plans for me
carefully. A meaner more dogmatic place was not to be found. An
austere old mansion donated to the church, encircled by an eight foot
high wrought iron fence. Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception,
what an ironic name to call a home for wayward girls. My room, a
hole, a cell, everyone hates it here, even the nuns. The next few
months, a prison term, days divided between work, prayer and
school. Determined to graduate high school in June, my studies a
distraction to the misery of my days. Awakened at dawn, the bells
summon us to the cold, damp chapel for prayer, to atone for our sins
of earthly pleasure. Obey the church and confess your sins. I don’t
care what they say; my love for Vic is not a sin. This baby growing
in me is not a sin. We made a mistake, a reckless abandonment of
the rules. How could a loving God be so angry with us?

I dream Vic will fly down and take me out of here. But I don’t
know where he is…..in jail…here or in Mexico? The uncertainty,
the fear of not knowing keeps me awake at night.

I
’m allowed no contact with the outside. No letters, no phone
calls, no visitors to deter my time for reflection and prayer for my
immortal soul. I thought I heard Burt down in the lobby one day,
yelling. I swear it was his voice. But the doors between the
entranceway and dormitories are kept locked. I was told it was a
figment of my imagination, part of my condition, but I know it was
Burt.

Our baby was born in May, and they stole it. Helen and my
father signed my child away for adoption. Saying I was too young
and I would later thank them. After eighteen hours of labor, I was
not even allowed to hold my son. They said I would thank
them……..only on a cold day in hell will I ever thank those
bastards for what they did to me. I never knew I was capable of
such hatred.

I returned home with the single minded goal of finishing up my
senior exams and finding Vic again. My grandmother was not
allowed to see me. Helen said she would taint me with her liberal
ideas. I have no idea what that meant…..Gran?

I barely recovered my strength from the baby when a phone call
came from Mexico. Helen called me to the phone, saying it was
Vic’s aunt. Overcome with joy I snatched the phone out of her
hand,…… the woman on the line was sobbing into the phone, her
voice making no sense, the words refusing to register in my stunned
brain. “I don’t’ know how to tell you this, senorita, but there has
been an accident. Last night, Vicente, our beautiful Vicente, was
riding his motorcycle, he had just gotten out of jail and we knew he
was planning to find you. His father forbade him to do so and they
had a fight. He got on that motorcycle, furious at his father, driving
too fast; he went around a mountain curve.” She stops to blow her
nose, gasping with tears. “The bike slid out from underneath him,
he went over the embankment into a tree.” She pauses, “He was
dead on impact.” I dropped the phone with a wordless scream, by
the time I reach my bedroom, my world went black. I curled up in
the fetal position on my bed, refusing to eat, drink or talk; for all
intents and purposes, I died that day with Vic.

My depression so deep, and not knowing what to do, my father
and Helen asked the family doctor to sign papers committing me to
the county mental institution. Only by the grace of God, Doc
Winkle….. our family doctor for years, treating everyone in town,
regardless of age, creed or money,knew me well enough… and
Helen…..to realize this was not the right decision. So behind my
father’s back, he went to Gran. Armed with her cane and Burt by
her side, Gran stormed the house, marching up to my bedroom and
held off my father and Helen with a string of profanities that would
scorch the hide off the devil, himself while Burt picked me up in his
scrawny sinewy arms and carried me away.

Only through the sheer force of their will and determination did
they nurse me back to health. Filling my days with the things I
loved, flowers, books, opening the windows of my bedroom to the
fresh summer air, and the sounds of birds, frogs and toads in their
early summer chorus. Tempting food, not one ounce of tofu or any
crazy vegan concoction, just fresh wholesome foods gathered from the
local farmer’s market to whet my appetite.

Butterflies in jars during the day to keep me company until
dark, then Burt would release them and replace them with fireflies
at night. Music, jokes and light hearted banter combined with the
care they bestowed upon me, cracked through the darkness of my
nightmare and they taught me to live again, laugh and eventually
they taught me I could love again……..
…

The flight attendant works her way through the first
class section of the plane, refilling wine glasses.
Thankfully, the turbulence subsided and the captain has
turned off the fasten seat belt sign. I tell the hostess, no
thank you. Two glasses of wine made me happy but by
the third glass I was melancholy. I’m excited about
seeing Lani for the first time since Christmas. But this
trip is reviving old memories, maybe because this is the
first time I’ve traveled without Jack. They say grieving can
last for many years. Frankly, I’m tired of it……first losing
Vic and now my husband, Jack.

I admit to being lonely, my children are grown, Lani
living on the west coast, Trey off to college, and my
friends involved in their own lives. I’ve been asked out by
a few men since Jack’s death, but no sparks. For
instance, there is John, about my age; he and his wife
divorced five years ago. He’s a great guy;; pleasant
looking, easygoing personality, even did the grocery
shopping and laundry for his wife while they were
married. The grocery shopping and laundry are
tempting…….. Jack could never find anything more than
a quart of milk at the store and thought the washer and
dryer were a holding pattern for clean clothes on their
way to the dresser drawer. But John elicits no sparks, not
even the Fourth of July sparkler kind, bright, but
ineffective. It sounds selfish, but the idea of dating and
the far-fetched notion of remarrying seems impossible
after loving Vic and Jack .……..I’ve had magic…….and
nothing else will do.

Shaking peanuts from the foil snack bag, and idly
arranging them in a pattern, a habit from my days as a
kindergarten teacher, I can’t help but think, it’s August.
I’m heading in the wrong direction, instead of heading
west to visit our daughter, Lani, in Los Angeles, I feel the
familiar tug, north to the Adirondacks. I’m craving a walk
in the forest, just to smell the balsam.

Every August, Jack and I rented a camp on Saranac
Lake for a month, inviting our family and friends,
including the dogs. Our gatherings were almost tribal. It
was a wonderful month of quiet mornings spent on mist
shrouded inlets with loons calling from the cove, fishing
from a guide boat almost too beautiful to be put to
common use. And evenings of lavender sunsets, turning
the lake into a silvered mirror, as the ground gives up the
last held heat of the day. Porches, front and back, deep
and wide served as a backdrop for the loon’s echoing cry.

Friends and family scattered over the house and lawn
forming a human strand of colored twinkle lights as
jumbled pockets of laughter and camaraderie blink on
and off across the property illuminating the house with
cheer. I can still smell Jack’s famous barbecue sauce
filling the air with its tantalizing aroma. We were never
sure if everyone came back for the sauce, the house, or
the cooler full of beer. But every year they came, the
numbers swelling as nieces and nephews grew and
brought families of their own. The lean-to by the lake was
filled, tents popped up across the lawn under the cover of
hemlock trees. It was wonderful, hectic………..and a hell
of a lot of work. But I loved it and Jack thrived on the
attention of his family.

I haven’t rented the camp since Jack’s death.
Without Jack it wouldn’t be the same. I can picture the
family standing around looking lost and sad, the loss of
his presence the missing hole in the fabric of our family.
It would be that ghastly funeral replayed again. Once
was enough. Maybe next year…..they say time heals all
wounds.