Binding Arbitration (52 page)

“We call her Betty Poop.” I almost jumped when I heard Vicki’s voice. “I guess you can see why.”

“She seems to be an over-achiever in that department. Does she get that from your husband?” I laughed. I laughed!

She laughed, too. “You must have gotten this from yours.”

I looked up to see the white pregnancy test dangling from her fingertips. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I’m your best friend, for crying out loud.”

“I just found out.” I pulled Betty’s pants on. I didn’t bother with the shoes, but scooped her up and blew raspberries on her protruding tummy. “I’m surprised Mr. I’m-So-Proud-of-Myself-I-Knocked-Her-Up-Again didn’t tell you when he sent you.”

“He didn’t send me.”

I raised a brow, trying to hand off Betty.

Vicki refused to take her; instead she reclined in her chair, before clearing her throat. “Cass sent me.”

I was concentrating on Betty’s little toes, trying to get her sock back on. My head shot up and I wondered if I looked as confounded as I felt. “What?”

“Aidan called me and told me to bring you food, but Cass is the one who sent me.”

I looked at her with skepticism. “Did he phone or text?”

“No, this was old world, biblical communication. At least I think it was a dream.”

“Vicki, this is a little over-the-top, even for you.” I kissed Betty’s head and it was as soft as down and smelled sweeter than anything I could recall. Then I remembered…as sweet as Cass’ hair on a sun filled day.

“Do you want to know what happened, Miss, excuse me,
Mrs
. Analytical?” When she moved her arms dramatically, all her bracelets jangled. “For once in your life, just listen. The night before last, I fell asleep nursing Betty. You remember that nice French nursery your husband furnished for me?”

I raised an eyebrow again.

“I came awake when a blast of hot air rushed over me and receded. Cass was standing at my feet, he was so beautiful. He had on his baseball uniform and he was kicking his cleats into the carpet. He was made up of these tiny particles, almost like floating glass, on one side they were his image and they danced back and forth as he moved, like a floating light boy.

“Cass broke my train of thought when he said, ‘Does she remind you of me, when I was a baby, Aunt Vicki?’

“I said, ‘She poops more than you.’

And Cass cackled.

I couldn’t speak because the tears were welling up.”

Cass said, ‘You’ve got to save mommy from herself. She’s going to ruin everything with daddy, and you got to make her stop. You have to convince her that I’m okay, and I have to know she’s okay, or I can’t finish my trip. The only way is if she’s with daddy. Will you go and see her and tell her?’

‘Why don’t you go to her, like you’re here to see me?’

‘If I go before she’s ready, she won’t be able to see me, and I only get to go once. Will you go for me?’

‘Yes, I’ll go.’

‘Thank you, Aunt Vicki. Tell Betty about me when she grows up, I’ll be watching out for her. I love you.’

“I reached out for him, ‘I love you too,’ but my hand felt like it was going through static energy. It shocked me on the wrist and woke me up.”

Vicki’s eyes, which had become larger in the course of the story, met mine. “Do you remember when Cass was about four and he painted my wrists with glue and glitter, while I was taking a nap? And I was so mad at him?”

I smiled at that memory I hadn’t thought of it in years. “He was in his Sheriff Woody phase.”

Vicki laughed. “Yeah. A couple of days later, when I still couldn’t get all the glitter off my wrists, he said, ‘Why would you want to take off my handcuffs? I put them on you because I love you so much, Aunt Vicki.’ When I laughed, he spoke with the conviction of a philosopher, ‘When those wear off, you’ll meet someone new to love, but I’ll still be wrapped around your wrists. My love is like that glitter. It may fade away, but its smallest speckle will reflect our love.’” Vicki started to cry, and my own eyes welled up with tears.

“It was three weeks later, and I was still rubbing it away at my desk, when Rick walked up to me the very first time. When he held out his computer, I took it with both hands. He looked at my wrists, then into my eyes, and asked, ‘Love handcuffs?’”

“From the first time I held Cass, I knew there was something special about him. I wasn’t his mother, and I’d never given much thought to parental love until he was born, but from the time he came into my life, I felt this unconditional love. He did that for me, and he did that for you.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks for several minutes.

Betty sighed in her sleep.

“You might think its all new-age mumbo-jumbo, but I know Cass came to remind me.” Vicki got up and she pulled up the sleeve of her sweater up. “I tried touching him with this hand.” She held out her wrist for me. “He left me this reminder. He must have known you’d need proof.”

I latched onto her wrist like it was a lifeline and pulled it to my face. I turned it in the midday sunlight and admired a diaphanous band circling her wrist like a diamond bracelet. I ran my finger over it. It wasn’t glitter on the skin, but under it, threaded into her flesh.

“Where would we be today if it wasn’t for him? Maybe we thought we worked so hard and achieved so much for him.” She took Betty from me, and bundled her into her snowsuit, before putting her in her carrier. “Maybe not.”

I couldn’t speak. My mind raced with memories as sweet as any I could recall, and I let the tears flow in testament to their beauty as they filled my wounds.

Vicki got to her feet. When she was at the door, she moved it, and the sun lit her from behind. She looked like a goddess lighting the path for the righteous. “We have work at the legal aid office, so I’ll pick you up at eight tomorrow morning.”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure I was ready, but I felt I needed to go somewhere. Maybe I could help someone else since I wasn’t helping myself, wallowing around here. “I’ll be ready.”

“That’s my girl.” And she disappeared into the sunlight.

I lay back in its warmth and closed my eyes. I wasn’t asleep, but I startled, when someone created a shadow in the frame of the door. My mother-in-law was standing in the doorway, smiling. “Someone sent me here to see you.”

“Cass?” Disappointment seeped through me.
How many people had he deemed more worthy than me?

“No, I had a dream about Andy. He had a little boy with him.” Her hand went to her mouth. “That was Cass.”

“What does Andy want me to know?”

“He said to tell you that since he died, you’re the first person Aidan has given his whole heart to, and to remind you that Aidan’s hurting.” Her eyes welled up. “It’s the first time I’ve ever dreamt of Andy since he died. It must be why I was unaware of Cass. It was so vivid, like he was in the room with me. I think he came now because of Cass.”

“How so?” I pushed the sofa cushion out of my way so I could see her face.

“I don’t think I really let go of Andy until Cass died. I still clung to bits and pieces. I was always bartering. Even after all these years, I thought I could somehow earn him back. Hanging onto him, even if it was only in the abstract, was preventing me from living. I’ve wasted so much of my life trying to stop the pain of it, or get him back or go back and make another decision to save his life, that it’s prevented me from living in the moment.”

Kat wrapped her arms around me. “Libby, you were a wonderful mother for Cass, and you’re an incredible wife for Aidan, and you’re a good daughter.” She kissed my forehead. “What’s most important to know is when to let go, really let go. Keep the memories and the laughter and the happiness you shared with Cass, but everything else needs to fade away, and you have to resign yourself to the fact that he is never going to come back. Nothing you could have done would’ve saved him. The only thing you can save is the love between you and Aidan. Cass would want that. He wanted you together. Somewhere inside he knew what was going to happen, and he wanted you to have each other.”

Before my tears had subsided, she kissed me and was gone. I blew my nose on the tail of my T-shirt.

I walked to my bedroom to get another shirt, the room smelled rank. I opened a window to clear out the stench. I walked across the hall and did the same in Cass’ room to catch the chilly cross-breeze. I picked up the box Aidan had been working on and started reassembling it.

He was right, I needed to pack this stuff up and give it away, or it would be tied around my neck until I did. He was right about a good many things, but I needed to sort through them before I’d be able to admit that to him. I made another box and went to Cass’ closet, opening the door. I heard a sound and I looked up to find Suzy standing in the doorway. She smiled hesitantly before she stepped into the room.

“What can I do to help?”

“I’m attacking this closet. You can fold while I’ll sort what’s worth giving away to charity and what we should toss.”

“Let’s get after it. I’m happy to see you’ve gotten out of bed. I was going to have to resort to extreme measures if you didn’t come out on your own.”

“No fear there. Aidan did that early this morning.”

“You’re lucky he’s been as patient as he has, most men would have broken down the door days ago.”

“You mean Max would have broken down the door days ago.”

“Well, yes.” She folded a red, long-sleeved rugby shirt while a thoughtful expression took hold of her face. “Have you ever wondered why I brought you into my home and helped you so much when Cass was an infant?”

“I thought old Mr. Rodgers asked you to take care of me.”

“He did, but that’s not why I did it.” She had a strange cadence to her voice that I had never heard from her before.

“This conversation doesn’t have anything to do with a dream or a ghost since Cass died?” I asked passing her more clothes.

Her head shot up from her chest and she became very pale. “I did have a dream about a baby crying, but I’ve had it before. It’s a recurring nightmare of mine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s a reason I helped you, and there’s a reason Max was so incensed about what Aidan did to you in college.”

“What?”

“I’m going to trust you with this story because I think you need it now. You know I was an undergrad at Loyola when Max and I married before I graduated. Everyone thought we were so in love, but that’s not really how the story goes.”

“What?” I almost yelped.

“When Max and I met, I was a junior and he was a senior. It was the early seventies, and there was a real push for woman’s rights. Max had the lingering mentality that a woman had her place. He told me once that I was too ambitious for a woman. Ultimately, it was the reason we stopped seeing each other.

“I was part of a group that was protesting the war in Vietnam, and I went to Washington the summer after Max and I parted company. I started seeing a senator’s son there.

“I went to Chicago to finish my senior year, and he promised to come see me, but he never did. He sent me letters assuring me of his devotion, and in September I found out I was pregnant. I was naïve enough to believe if I told him, he would marry me and take care of me. Of course when faced with the news, he accused me of sleeping with other men.

“Roe vs. Wade was a raging battle, and I was trapped in the middle of it. Nice girls didn’t end up in situations like the one I found myself in, and if they did, then the fellow took responsibility. But the senator’s son had political ambitions, and while my family had money, we didn’t have the right connections. He told me I was more of a liability than an asset. With those words I decided to have an abortion. While they were legal then, they certainly weren’t easy to come by.

“I went to a party with friends and ran into Max there, who was in his first year of law school at Northwestern. He sensed something was going on with me, and he kept hounding me to tell him what was wrong. I ate something that didn’t agree with me, and I got sick, and I couldn’t stop throwing up. Max insisted that he take me to the hospital. By the time we left, he had discovered the truth, along with my parents. My parents assumed that Max was the person who was responsible for my pregnancy, and Max never denied he was the father. He just signed the paper work and left my father ranting in the lobby of the hospital.

“I told Max the truth and what I was prepared to do, so I could go to law school. I knew that my parents would insist that I have the baby and give it up. Max didn’t tell me what to do.

“I was still asleep that afternoon when he appeared in his best suit, a dozen red roses and a diamond engagement ring. He offered to marry me and raise the child. All he asked in return was that someday, when I was ready, I’d give him more children and put aside the idea of law school until he finished it himself.”

“But that baby wasn’t Ollie? She would be much older.”

“Max and I married, and when I was seven months pregnant I went into labor. The baby was stillborn. By then I wanted that baby because I knew it was the only part of the man I loved that I would ever have.

“I graduated and started applications for law school. When Max asked what I was doing, I told him that we should divorce. Of course he had a fit. At the end of the tirade I knew I would be his wife for the rest of my life. Because I knew he loved me and wanted me not for that child, but for me. And somehow that became more important than a law school degree.”

I didn’t know what to say. I stood, frozen, with clothing in my hands, while Suzy worked to keep her shaking hands busy.

“So years later, when Max’s dad asked us to help you, we did so. Max did it for you because he had always regretted taking my law school dreams away. I did it because I didn’t think that anyone should give up her dream because she fell in love with the wrong man.”

I moved toward Suzy, who had always been more of a mother to me than my own, and wrapped my arms around her. I had always thought her so happy; content with what life had offered her. She hugged me back and ran her hand over my hair, consoling me, as if I were indeed her child.

She pulled away and smiled at me. “The difference between your story and mine is that you fell in love with the right man at the wrong time. And he loves you, the true kind of love. The kind Max offered me from the start.”