Hush Little Baby (6 page)

I’m still uncertain if Gordon would have killed me—if Drew saved me or if Gordon stopped himself. And worse is the uncertainty of whether, as I fled from the house into the night, I considered Drew or Addie at all.

I close my eyes, wishing I could clear away the memory, but the scene is always in my mind. It plays so often that it’s like a chronic hiccup I can’t cure, an unwanted infliction continually interrupting the rhythm of my life.

A siren screams in the distance, and my eyes fly open, and for a moment, I’m trapped between then and now. I scan the parking lot, blinking rapidly, until finally, the air returns and the memory recedes.

I’m not a good person, a conscientious citizen, a concerned mother worried about her husband driving drunk. I’m just scared. That night changed so much—the insults, slaps, punches, and kicks diminished to minor offenses.…
You first, then the kids, then I’ll take care of myself
—escape and survival rising paramount, the only things that matter.

Could he? Would he? Addie and Drew?

His threats were no longer rhetorical bluffs. He could kill me…would kill me…so easily.

That night I ran to my father, the one person I knew would believe me and protect me. And just as I hoped, my dad took one look at my bruised throat and tear-streaked face and charged. He collapsed before he reached the door, suffering a massive brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him.

My dad doesn’t remember that night or the stress trigger that caused his stroke, but he struggles each day because of it.

I pull from the parking spot, my hands clenched on the steering wheel. I’m just scared, a coward terrified of history repeating.

12

W
e drive home in excruciating silence. The day and my multitude of failings fill the air between us like a pressurized chamber. Addie fell asleep the moment the car began to roll, Drew stares intensely out the window, and Gordon sits beside me rigid and unmoving.

I roll into the garage and hit the remote to lower the door.

Gordon climbs out and bundles Addie in his arms to carry her. Drew bolts ahead of them and is through the door before I manage to climb from my seat, an obvious avoidance tactic. He knows I won’t confront him about the toad in front of his father and is hoping to be in bed and “asleep” before I manage to find him alone.

As I climb the stairs, I hear Gordon singing Addie a lullaby from
Tarzan
, his voice slightly off tune, but in perfect pitch, a soft tenor that always takes me by surprise coming from such a large man. “…I will protect you from all around you, I will be there, don’t you cry…”

I continue past to Drew’s room. The sign on the door says, “Do Not Enter. Keep Out. Danger Zone.” I ignore the warnings.

Drew’s Tigers uniform has been stripped to his T-shirt and boxers, and he’s beneath his blanket feigning sleep. Beside him, on top of his Spider-Man bedspread, is a shoebox with a shoelace bow holding a folded lined sheet of notebook paper that says, “Mom.”

The card is typical Drew. He doesn’t mince words. “Happy Birthday Mom. Love, Drew.”

I pick up the present and sit beside the pretend sleeping body.

The box is light and shakes like a tiny maraca, making me wonder.

I slide off the ribbon, lift the lid, and whisper the word out loud. “Hollyhocks.” Like vermilion, the name is half the attraction, the way the syllables roll off the tongue.

Forgetting he’s supposed to be asleep, he asks, “That’s right, isn’t it?”

And my anger disappears. The gift so beautiful, it destroys me. Tears leak from my eyes and the small package drops to my lap—an act of torture, a perfect present delivered with such tenderness it makes me believe I can still change things.

“You okay?” he asks, sitting up and putting his small hand on my back. I pull him into my embrace and kiss his warm head that smells like sweat and boyhood.

Four months ago, a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Los Angeles prompted the family outing. Aline Barnsdall’s home was the third on the tour, but the only one I really wanted to see.

Addie thought the Barnsdall home was creepy. Drew thought it was like a medieval castle and he was almost right. Mayan castle was closer, but the Mayans are rumored to have learned from the Spanish Moors, so the vernacular was similar.

“This is youwr favowrite?” Addie asked, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell.

I nodded. “The owner, Mrs. Barnsdall, was a lot like me, and I wanted to see what she created.”

“She was?” Addie studied the small portrait in the brochure. “She doesn’t look like you.”

Mrs. Barnsdall was twice my weight, lived at the turn of the nineteenth century, and was well past her prime when she endeavored to build her opus.

“Nope, but our hearts were the same. She loved architecture and her favorite flower was the hollyhock, and in this house, she combined both. I always wanted to see how it turned out.”

“So what do you think?” Gordon asked, obviously about as impressed as his daughter.

I turned a full three-sixty in the main living space, a sunken cavern with deep recessed highlights framed by massive carved pillars that supported a soaring, coffered ceiling.

“I think sometimes combining the things you love just doesn’t work.”

Addie nodded.

“She never ended up living here,” I mused. “She spent ten years building it, spared no expense, hired the greatest architect of the time, and yet, when it was done, it just didn’t work.”

Drew stood near the giant fireplace trying to look up the chimney.

“I guess the lesson is…” I took Addie’s hand to lead her back to the sunshine. “…hollyhocks bloom once a year, they’re a fleeting glory, and they just don’t work in concrete.”

I hadn’t even thought Drew was listening.

13

B
ravely I walk from Drew’s room to my own.

Gordon waits. He stands bare-chested in his pajama bottoms between the door and the bed, his hands behind his back.

My heart thumps wildly as I face him, my eyes on the carpet between my feet.

“Happy birthday,” he says, and when he whips his hands from behind his back, I fall back a step and cower away from him.

“Jill, here. Your present. You okay?”

Again, it’s as though I’m the one who’s crazy and my reaction was completely irrational. I reach out, my hand trembling, and take the silver Nordstrom box with the pretty, pink satin bow.

He’s smiling, excited to give me my gift.

I pull off the lid, and like a few minutes earlier with the present from Drew, tears fill my eyes, my heart unable to reconcile the beauty of the gift with the previous pain.

Swirling layers of silver and teal sit on the bed of cotton. For months, I’ve admired the Chan Luu wrap bracelets at Nordstrom, each handmade and unique, polished stones woven in an abstract web of wire and glass. Somehow he knew, somehow he picked the perfect one.

“Do you like it? I couldn’t decide between the turquoise and the hematite. I almost bought both.”

He’s like a little boy eager to please. It’s not an apology, but an overture of his love that says, despite what he did, he loves me.

He pulls me into an embrace and kisses the top of my head. “Happy birthday, babe.” Something in the tone lets me know that, in addition to the bracelet, his mercy tonight was part of his gift.

14

T
he alarm buzzes, and I roll across the empty bed, hit the snooze, sneer at the fifty-seven frozen men and women who laugh and smile at me from across the room, then put the pillow over my head to return to sleep. There’s a bare spot in the middle of the wall for the five porcelain partiers still missing.

Gordon’s already up, probably gone for a run.

My mind returns to the memory the sculptures inspire as my predawn dreams have every morning for the past twenty years.

In my memory, my dad is already old, gravity and too many Wild Turkeys making his face sag. I’m young, and the prettiest I will ever be.

It was the spring of 1990, and we’d already rock hunted in Quartzite, ridden mules into the Grand Canyon, and watched Dale Earnhardt bring his Chevy into the victory lane at the Phoenix International Raceway.

My dad drove with his left arm out the window, the palm of his right on the top of the Jaguar’s mahogany wheel. My hair, long at the time, whipped in the wind. Sometimes I tied it back. Most of the time, I didn’t.

The great saguaro cacti kept us company as they reached for the sky at the painful pace of an inch a year. Most of our drive was quiet, accompanied only by the wind and the jazz from the CD player. A few times we talked, but most of what we had to say had already been said. At one particularly long stretch, my dad told me a story. When I was little, his fantastic tales were frequent. As I got older, there was less time or maybe he had less inspiration.

“I ever tell you the one about the lion who was in love?”

I shook my head.

“The maiden was beautiful, not much more than a girl, the father old and ugly, but still wily.”

I smiled. The story was about us.

“But because the daughter was a bit too much of a smartass for her own good,” he paused and gave me a toothless grin, “she chased off all her suitors.”

The story was definitely about me.

“The father worried there was no man brave enough or strong enough for his beautiful daughter and prayed for the gods to bless them with a worthy soul who would provide for her and protect her.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Not that she wasn’t completely capable to fend for herself,” he amended, “but as a father does, he worried that should something happen to him, she would be left with only her mother, who was not so good in the ways of the world.”

“Pops, really?”

“What? I’m telling a story.”

“Whatever.”

“Then one day, not so long after he made his wish, there was a knock on the door, and the father opened it to a shocking sight. On his porch was a lion, a magnificent beast tall as the father and with a mane that filled the frame.”

“A lion who knocked?”

“Shhh.”

“You’re kidding?”

“It’s a story.”

“Fine.”

“And the lion said…”

“The lion talks?”

“It’s my story.”

“Fine.”

“And the lion said, ‘Kind sir, if you would please do me the honor, I’ve been in love with your beautiful daughter since she was a child, and now that she’s of age, I would like to ask for her hand in marriage.’

“The father was terrified. The lion had teeth like sabers and claws like…well, like…well, like claws.”

I laughed.

“He didn’t want to insult the beast, but how could he possibly agree to betroth his precious daughter to this wild animal? The lion, while noble and beautiful, was…well, he was…he was…”

“A lion?” I finished for him.

My dad didn’t laugh, but instead flicked an annoyed look at me, pulled out a cigar, lit it, and began to puff.

“Well?” I said, irritated.

“So you want to hear the story?”

“Yes, tell your story.”

“No more sarcasm?”

“No more sarcasm.”

“Fine. So the father explained that he would be terrified for his daughter to be the lion’s wife; one accidental swipe or slash and she would be killed.

“‘But I would never hurt your daughter,’ the lion explained, ‘I love her.’

“Not intentionally, but in a rage or by accident you might. Your teeth and your claws are so sharp.’ As the father said this, an idea came to him. He was in quite a pickle. If he denied the lion’s request, the lion would kill him and his daughter, and if he agreed, his daughter would be married to a dangerous lion.

“‘Perhaps if you had your claws and teeth removed,’ the father suggested, ‘maybe then I would allow you to marry my daughter.’

“The lion eagerly agreed and, a week later, returned with his teeth and claws gone. ‘Kind sir, now may I have your daughter’s hand in marriage?’ he asked.

“The father laughed and shook his head. ‘Now you may go. You have no teeth or claws and I am no longer afraid. Leave my daughter alone.’”

My dad puffed on his cigar and turned up the music.

I turned the music back down. “That’s it. That’s your story?”

“Yeah, that’s my story. Get it, the father tricked the lion into defeating himself. It was brilliant.”

“It’s horrible.”

“What do you want? It’s a story.”

“I want a different ending. Here’s my ending. The father tricks the lion, but it’s too late. The daughter’s already in love because no one’s ever made such a sacrifice for her, so she goes with the lion. And they live happily ever after and never see the father again. The end.”

“That’s a terrible ending.”

“It’s a better ending than yours.”

We drove the rest of the way in silence, and the story was forgotten by the time we reached our destination, Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home—Taliesin West. The sun was low as we pulled into the parking lot. The fading orange light and long shadows concealed the compound’s age, same as my dad’s, and the masterpiece looked almost new. That was Frank Lloyd Wright’s genius; like a fortune teller or a time traveler, he created the future before it happened, or maybe, it’s arguable, he simply created the future.

Our tour guide was a woman with gray hair, a wide nose, and a name tag that declared her “Edna.” And when she warned us in a firm voice not to leave the group and not to take photos, my dad winked at me.

At the entrance, Edna pointed out a porcelain diorama of five Chinese men painted in garish teal and plum and blue, and I couldn’t decide, looking at the laughing men, if they’d won a war, won a game of Cujo, or had won nothing at all and were simply drunk. Wright had bought the piece along with eleven others from the clearance basement at Macy’s in San Francisco. He got a great price because the sculptures were damaged. The dioramas were sprinkled throughout Taliesin and showed Frank’s admiration for Asian art. They also illustrated how broke the architect was at the sunset of his life.

When the group moved on, my dad and I set off on our own. Our quest was never mentioned, but we both knew we were going to find the other dioramas. Of course, this was easier said than done. We needed to avoid the tour group, avoid security, and avoid the resident architects who lived and worked on the site. We found four before we got caught the first time, then another three before we were chased by a fat security guard to our car.