Don't Cry Now (24 page)

“He says that my granddaughter is a regular little doll.”

“Yes, she is.”

“I don't suppose you have any pictures of her,” her father said, then looked to the window as if he hadn't spoken at all.

Bonnie hesitated, reluctant to share even this much of
her child with her father. “Actually, I do have a couple of pictures in my purse,” she relented, fishing inside her beige leather handbag and pulling out a small red leather case, holding it toward her father. He took the case immediately, pulling out a pair of reading glasses from the front pocket of his shirt and balancing them across the bridge of his nose. “The picture on the left is when she was four months old,” Bonnie explained. “The one on the right was taken last year. She's changed a lot since then. Her hair's longer. Her face is a bit thinner.”

“Looks like her mother,” Steve Lonergan said.

Bonnie quickly returned the photographs to her purse, dropped her hands to her sides. “Actually, everyone says she looks more like Rod.”

“And how is your husband?”

“He's well. He's in Florida right now, at a convention.”

“Left you to look after his kids, did he?”

Bonnie looked at the floor, her brown shoes sinking into the pale green broadloom. Like quicksand, she thought, wondering how long she could keep her head above ground. “I didn't come here to talk about Rod,” she said.

“Why did you come?”

“I'm not sure,” she admitted after a pause. “There were some things I felt needed to be said.”

“Say them,” her father directed.

“It's not that easy.”

“You've had over three years to prepare.”

Bonnie took a deep breath, tried to speak, couldn't.

“What are you doing here, Bonnie?” her father asked simply.

“What are
you
doing here?” Bonnie snapped in return, pouncing on his question. “What right do you have to be in this house? How dare you come back here! How dare you make a mockery of my mother's memory!” Bonnie stepped back, stunned by the ferocity of her outburst.

“You think that's what I'm doing?”

“I think you have no business being here. You hated this house. You couldn't wait to leave it.”

“I always loved this place,” he corrected her, “although I hated that damned floral wallpaper, I'll admit that. But after your mother and I agreed to a divorce….”

“You walked out. You gave her no choice.”

“She never really liked this house, you know. I had to talk her into moving out here. She preferred the city. But she insisted on keeping the house as part of the terms of our divorce, probably to spite me more than anything.”

“Probably to keep from disrupting the family any more than necessary,” Bonnie said. “Maybe she felt we'd gone through enough changes.”

“Maybe. Guess we'll never know now.” Steve Lonergan paused, swallowed, looked toward the window. “At any rate, after she died and left the place to Nick, he asked me if I was interested in buying it from him. He needed the cash more than he needed a big house, and Adeline and I agreed to help him out.”

“Everyone's always trying to help out old Nick.” Bonnie shook her head in amazement.

“Maybe he's not as strong as you are, Bonnie.”

“And the meek shall inherit the earth,” Bonnie said, noting the presence of the Bible still on the coffee table.

“Who is it you're really angry at, Bonnie?” her father asked.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I'm not the one who died and left the house to your brother,” her father reminded her.

Bonnie started pacing between the sofa and the wing chair. “If you're trying to tell me the person I'm really angry at is my mother, you're absolutely wrong. I know who I'm angry at. He's standing right in front of me.”

“Why are you angry?”

“Why?” Bonnie parroted.

“Why?” he repeated.

“Why do you think?” Bonnie yelled. “You walked out on your family.”

“I walked out on an intolerable situation.”

“Intolerable for whom? It wasn't my mother who was out every night gallivanting around.”

“No, your mother was home in bed every night.”

“She was sick.”

“She was always sick, damnit.”

“Are you blaming her?”

“No. I'm just saying that I couldn't live that way any longer.” He brushed his hand along the top of his scalp. “I'm not trying to make excuses for myself, Bonnie. I know I took the coward's way out. But if you could try to understand for a few minutes what it was like for me. I was still a relatively young man. There were things I wanted to do. Your mother never wanted to go anywhere. She never wanted to do anything. She had no interest in making friends, or traveling, or even making love.”

“She was sick,” Bonnie repeated.

“So was I,” her father shot back. “Sick of living that way, of feeling like my life was already over, of sleeping every night beside someone who recoiled whenever I tried to touch her. Bonnie, you were a child then, I didn't expect you to understand. But you're an adult now. I was hoping you'd have a little compassion.”

“Where was your compassion?”

“I tried, Bonnie. I tried for years.”

“Then you walked out. She was never the same after you left.”

“She was exactly the same and you know it.”

“You walked out and you never came back.”

“It was what she wanted.”

“She didn't know what she wanted. She was sick….”

“I was suffocating. I couldn't breathe. Her sickness was infecting us all.”

“So you left two children alone to look after her?”

“I didn't know what else to do.”

“You could have taken us with you!” Bonnie shouted, stunned by the words coming out of her mouth. She burst
into tears, then collapsed on the sofa. “You could have taken us with you,” she sobbed.

For a long while, nobody spoke. After several minutes, Bonnie felt her father at her side, his hand on her shoulder.

“Don't,” she said, shrugging off his hand. “It's too late.”

“Why is it too late?”

“Because I'm not a little girl anymore.”

“You'll always be
my
little girl,” he told her.

“You have no idea,” she told him, refusing to look at him. “You have no idea how much I cried, how every night I prayed that you'd come back for us. One night, I even walked in my sleep, packed a suitcase, and waited for you in the front hall. But it wasn't you who found me. It wasn't you who woke me up.”

“I'm so sorry, Bonnie. I tried to reach out to you on numerous occasions. You know that.”

“Yes, you were always very good about introducing us to your new wives.”

“You made it very clear whose side you were on, that you didn't want anything to do with me.”

“I was a child, for God's sake. What did you expect?”

“I expected you to grow up.”

“You abandoned us. You abandoned
me
.” A fresh onslaught of tears racked through Bonnie's body.

“I'm so sorry,” her father said. “I wish there was something I could say or do.” His voice drifted to a halt. He walked to the window, stared out onto the street.

“Are you happy?” Bonnie asked, eyes on the gradual slope of his back. “Does Adeline make you happy?”

“She's a wonderful woman,” her father said, turning around to face Bonnie. “I'm very happy.”

“And Nick? You think he's really getting his act together?”

“I think he is, yes. Why don't you give him a chance?”

“I don't trust him.”

“He's your brother.”

“He broke our mother's heart.”

“He's not to blame for her death, Bonnie,” her father said.

Bonnie swallowed, brushed the tears impatiently from her eyes, said nothing. “I should get going.” She stood up, walked into the hall, feeling her father behind her.

“Is everything all right?” Adeline asked, coming out of the kitchen, one hand clutching a large wooden spoon.

“Everything's fine,” her husband told her, looking to Bonnie for confirmation. Bonnie nodded, eyes wandering to the stairs.

“I'm making apple pies,” Adeline said. “There's already one in the oven. It should be ready any minute, if you'd like a piece.”

“I really have to get going,” Bonnie said absently, drawn toward the stairs, as if by a magnet.

“Would you like to see how we've changed the bedrooms?” Adeline asked.

Bonnie's right foot was already on the first step, her left hand on the wall. Something was pulling her up the stairs, beckoning her forward. What was she doing? she wondered, slowly mounting each step, watching the white walls bleed and darken, then fill with flowers, their odor swirling through her head, making her dizzy. Don't be silly, she told herself, looking toward the bedroom at the top of the stairs. It's just the apple pies in the oven. There's no odor. There are no flowers.

Just like there's no one waiting in the upstairs bedroom, Bonnie told herself, reaching the top of the landing and crossing the hall, pushing open the door to what was once her mother's bedroom.

The woman was sitting in the middle of the bed, her face in shadows.

“We've changed everything, as you can see,” Adeline was saying from somewhere beside Bonnie. “We thought blue was pretty for a bedroom, and I've always been partial to mirrors.”

“Could I have a few minutes alone?” Bonnie asked,
eyes on the shadowy figure in the middle of the bed.

“Certainly,” Adeline said, confusion causing the word to waver in the air. “We'll be downstairs.”

Bonnie heard the door close behind her. It was only then that the figure in the bed leaned out of the shadows and beckoned Bonnie forward.

“C
ome closer so I can see you,” the figure said, the voice surprisingly strong.

Bonnie pushed her feet toward the bed, catching her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror behind the light wood headboard, seeing it rebound in the smaller mirror on top of the dresser on the opposite wall. Except that instead of a woman in a shapeless ecru-colored shift, she saw a young girl of eleven, wearing a pale white cotton dress, her shoulder-length brown hair pulled into a ponytail by a shiny pink ribbon.

“How are you feeling today?” the young girl asked the woman in the bed, approaching cautiously.

Shadows danced across the woman's face, like waves. “Not very well, I'm afraid.”

“I brought you some breakfast.” The girl lifted a heavy plastic tray for the woman's perusal.

“I couldn't eat anything.”

“Couldn't you try? I made it myself. Two eggs over easy, just the way you like them.”

“I couldn't eat any eggs.”

“Some orange juice then.” The child lowered the tray on the night table and lifted the glass toward the bed.

“You're a good girl,” the woman said, falling back against her pillows, ignoring the tall glass of juice in the girl's hand.

The child drew closer, brought the glass to the woman's
lips. “Are you having a bad day?” she asked.

“I'm afraid so.”

“Headaches?”

“Migraines,” the woman qualified, bringing her hands to the sides of her temples, closing her eyes.

The waves washed over the woman's face, then disappeared, taking with them any signs of life, leaving only a pale, vaguely bloated mask, its pain evident, even in repose. Lost somewhere in all that pain was a beautiful woman, the child liked to imagine, a woman with sparkling blue eyes and a bright, expansive smile.

The child lowered the glass to the tray on the night table and brought her small hands to the woman's face, smoothing her thick brown hair away from her forehead, and gently massaging the area around her high cheekbones.

“Not so hard,” the woman cautioned, and the child relaxed the pressure in her fingers. “That's better. Here,” she indicated, pointing at the area around her slightly upturned nose. “My sinuses kept me up half the night. I don't think your father got any sleep.” She opened her eyes. “Where is he? Has he gone out already?”

“It's after eleven o'clock,” the child told her. “He said he had work to do.”

“On a Saturday?”

The child continued rubbing, said nothing.

“He's out with one of his women,” her mother said.

“He said he had work to do.”

“Nice work if you can get it.”

The child pulled back.

“No, don't stop. It feels good. You have good fingers. You make your mother feel much better.”

“Do I? Do I make you feel better?”

A sudden loud noise reverberated throughout the house. Bonnie spun around, her adult frame colliding with the child in the mirror. “What was that?” she heard her father call out from downstairs.

“It's nothing, Steve,” she heard Adeline call back. “I
dropped a mixing bowl. It's nothing to worry about.”

“What's that noise?” the woman in bed asked, as Bonnie returned to the body of the eleven-year-old girl.

“Nick's playing cops and robbers again,” the young girl answered.

“Bang, bang!” Nick shouted, bursting into the room, wearing a large tin badge and brandishing a toy gun in their direction. “Bang, bang! You're dead.”

“Nick, you have to be quiet,” the young girl urged. “Mommy's not feeling well today.”

“Bang, bang,” Nick insisted, oblivious. “I shot you. You're dead.”

“You shot me,” the woman in bed agreed, a faint laugh in her voice. “I'm dead.” She closed her eyes, her head slumping over her right shoulder.

Nick laughed loudly and ran from the room, his eleven-year-old sister chasing after him. From her position at the foot of the bed, Bonnie watched them go.

“Come closer.” The woman in bed beckoned again.

Bonnie straightened her shoulders and approached the bed, her fingers brushing up against the sky blue comforter. Instantly, flowers spread across its surface, like weeds. Bonnie stared into the mirror, watching another image take shape, this one taller than the previous one, the hips fuller, the breasts more developed. The image twisted in and out, grew wider, then thinner, distorting this way and that, like a reflection in a fun house mirror.

“Your father's left us,” her mother said from the bed, her face tight with anger.

“He'll be back,” the teenage girl assured her.

“No, he won't.”

“He just needed a little time to himself. He'll be home soon.”

“No, he's not coming back. He's with her.”

“Her?”

“That woman he's been seeing.”

“He won't stay with her.”

“He won't be back.”

Bonnie watched the teen's eyes fill with tears. “I'll take care of you, Mommy,” she heard the girl say.

“I'm supposed to see Dr. Blend on Friday. How will I get there?”

“I'll take you.”

“I'm afraid,” the woman cried out, and the girl rushed to her side. “My heart is pounding so wildly I'm afraid I'm going to have a heart attack.”

“What can I do?”

“Get me my pills. They're right here by the bed.”

The girl's hands struggled to open the small bottle of red-and-yellow capsules. She dropped two into the palm of her hand, held them to the woman's lips, watched her swallow them easily without water. “Are you all right?”

The woman shook her head.

“What can I do?”

“Nothing. You're a good girl.” She wiped some perspiration off her forehead with the backs of her fingers, looked around the darkened room. “Where's Nicholas?”

“He's hiding from the neighbors,” the girl said, afraid to upset her mother, but reluctant to lie. “He put handcuffs on Mrs. Gradowski, then flushed the keys down the toilet. Mr. Gradowski had to call a locksmith to get them off. He's really mad.”

Her mother laughed, delighted, as she always was, by Nick's high jinks. He could do no wrong, it seemed. The teenage girl shook her head in wonder and dismay, then faded from sight.

“I still can't see you,” the figure in the bed said to Bonnie. “You'll have to come closer.”

Bonnie inched her way up the side of the bed. But someone was directly in her path, blocking her way, a young woman she knew intimately, she realized, stepping into the woman's shoes, assuming her wary posture, the woman's breath tightening in her chest.

“I'm getting married,” she announced, then waited. “Mother, did you hear what I said? I said that Rod and I are getting married.”

“I heard you. Congratulations.”

“You don't sound very pleased.”

Her mother bit down on her lower lip. “So, you're deserting me too,” she said.

“No, of course not. Nobody's deserting you.”

“You're moving out.”

“I'm getting married.”

“Who will look after me?”

“Dr. Monson said that you're well enough to look after yourself.”

“I'm no longer seeing Dr. Monson.”

“We can get a housekeeper.”

“I don't want strangers in my house.”

“We'll work something out. Please, Mother, I want you to be happy for me.”

The woman in bed turned her head away and cried.

“Don't cry, Mother. Not now. Now is a time to be happy,” Bonnie said, her voice ricocheting back and forth between the two mirrors, echoing against the stillness of the room. “Can't you ever be happy for me?”

“Sit down, Bonnie,” her mother said.

The young expectant mother replaced the nervous bride-to-be. She perched nervously on the side of the flowered spread.

“We have to talk,” her mother said.

“You should rest, Mother. Dr. Bigelow said—”

“Dr. Bigelow doesn't know a damn thing. Haven't you learned anything in all these years?”

“He said you had a stroke, that it was worse than the last one—”

“I want to talk about my will.”

“Please, Mother, can't we talk about it when you're feeling better?”

“I want you to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Why I've done what I've done.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm leaving the house to Nick.”

“Mother, I don't want to talk about this now.”

“He needs something to ground him.”

“You're going to be fine. We can talk about this when you're stronger.”

“He's not as strong as you are,” her mother said, using Bonnie's words. “That's why he's always getting into trouble. You have to help him.”

“Nick's a big boy, Mother. He can take care of himself.”

“He isn't guilty of trying to kill anyone. You know that. You'll see, he'll be acquitted. Just like the last time. He won't have to go to jail. It's all been a horrible mistake.”

“Mother, you have to stop worrying about him. It's not doing you any good to worry.”

“He was always a handful,” her mother said, almost proudly. “Not like you. I could always count on you to do the right thing. You're my good one.” A smile tugged at the corners of her lips, but the stroke had rendered much of her face immobile, and the smile refused to stick. “But, oh, how he made me laugh with his silly games. All the time shooting his gun. Bang, bang,” her mother said, her eyes smiling even if her lips could not. “You understand, don't you, Bonnie?” her mother repeated. “You already have a house, and a husband, and a baby on the way. Nick has nothing. He needs something to ground him.”

“Do whatever you want, Mother,” Bonnie heard herself say. “The house doesn't matter to me. None of it matters to me.”

“You lied, didn't you?” the figure in the bed asked now, reaching out to grab Bonnie's hand, to force her back into her own reflection. “You were always such a bad liar.”

Bonnie tried to pull away, but the hand was too quick, too strong. She felt herself being tugged inexorably toward the figure on the bed. “No,” she protested. “Please leave me alone.”

“Look at me,” the woman ordered.

Bonnie immediately shielded her eyes. “No. No.”

“Look at me,” the woman commanded again, skeletal fingers prying Bonnie's hands away from her face.

Bonnie's hands fell to her sides. She opened her eyes, stared directly at the woman in the bed as all the shadows of the past fell away.

Her mother stared back at her, thick brown hair pulled back and secured with an antique silver clasp, eyes as deep and as cold as an arctic sea, pale skin stretched tight across proud cheekbones, delicate upturned nose over an unconvincing smile. “You look tired,” her mother said, securing the top button of her white-quilted housecoat.

“I haven't been feeling very well,” Bonnie told her.

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yes.” She paused, swallowed. “I thought maybe you could help me.”

“Me? How?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Why did you come?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“What is it you think I can do for you?”

“I don't know,” Bonnie told her honestly, searching the walls for answers, finding none. “Did you know that Nick sold the house to Daddy right after you died?”

“He needed money for lawyers.”

“You gave him money for lawyers.”

“The house was too big for him. And besides, he loved to travel. Remember how he took off after college, went across the country on his own….”

“Stop making excuses for him.”

“He's my son.”

“I'm your daughter!”

Her mother said nothing. Bonnie found herself gazing into the mirror, confronting the endless repetitions of mother and daughter that refracted back at her. Generations of mother and daughters, she thought, as close as their own reflections, and as unreachable.

“I didn't realize the house meant so much to you,” her mother said.

“It isn't the house,” Bonnie cried. “I don't care about the house.”

“Then I don't understand.”

“I care about
you
. I love
you
.”

“I love you, too,” her mother said evenly.

“No,” Bonnie argued. “There was only room in your heart for one child, and that child was Nick.”

“That's ridiculous, Bonnie. I always loved you.”

“No. You
depended
on me. You
counted
on me. I was your good one, remember? I was the good little girl. The good egg, you used to call me. You
relied
on me. But it's Nick you loved.”

“This is nonsense, Bonnie,” her mother protested, aggravation tightening each word, like an elastic band. “I expect more from you.”

“You always expected more from me,” Bonnie told her. “And I always provided it. Didn't I? Didn't I always come through? Didn't I always go that extra mile?”

Her mother said nothing.

“All my life, I tried to make you happy. I tried to please you. I tried to make you feel better. When I was a little girl, I used to think maybe you were sick because of something I'd done, and I thought that if I could just be the perfect little girl and not give you any trouble, then you'd get better. Even when I was older, and I understood intellectually that your problems had nothing to do with me, I still thought I could make you well again. I made bargains with God. I promised Him everything if He'd just make you well again, if He'd make you happy. And after Daddy left, I felt even more responsible. I tried even harder. I cooked, I cleaned the house, I made straight A's in school. When Nick started acting out, I acted good enough for both of us. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much or how long I prayed, no matter how good I was, you didn't get better. You never left the house except to go to the doctor's. Do you realize that you never
once came to see me in a school play? That you never met any of my teachers? That you never even came to my college graduation?”