Mason's Daughter (14 page)

There stood my father, sorting the day’s mail, briefcase at his feet, frown on his face. He glanced at me, and I could tell he was tired by the way his mouth drooped. Without saying anything, he tossed the mail onto a table and stooped to pick up his briefcase, but I was too quick for him. Smiling up at him, I grabbed the handle and then followed him into his office.

Mrs. Gussmann had already switched on the green-shaded banker’s lamp on his mahogany desk and I hauled his briefcase to the center and laid it flat on top. I expected him to sit behind his desk, but he chose the leather sofa instead. With the
Wall Street Journal
across his lap, he propped his feet on the coffee table.

“Daddy, I already finished my homework and didn’t need any help.”

He shuffled the newspaper.

“Clyde says I must be getting smarter, or probably just more grown up.”

“Maybe so.” Yawning, he turned the page.

“I picked out my clothes for school every day this week, without Mrs. Gussmann.” I scooted around the end of the sofa and stood at the edge of the coffee table. “Would you like me to order dinner for you? I can ask one of the servants to bring it in here.”

He shook his head. “Not now.”

I launched into my prepared speech, but before I could get out my logical explanation, he said no. No matter how many times I apologized or said it’s my fault, his answer was always, “No.”

“You don’t realize Mother needs me.”

“I believe
you
think so.”

“You don’t know how mature I’ve become, how capable I am. Look at me.”

He glanced around the edge of his newspaper. “I see you.”

“I promise never to make her cry, ever again.” I stamped my feet.

He folded up the newspaper and tossed it to one side. Several sections slid off the slippery leather sofa and landed near my ankle. I planted both feet firmly on the floor, but he rose to tower over me. He glared down at me. “Don’t ever bring this up again.”

If I believed I held the power to make Daddy change his mind, I must have imagined it, but I couldn’t give up. The very idea of losing was hateful and I shoved it from my mind. I kicked his newspaper under the table and stomped out of his office.

I stare out the window into the diner’s busy parking lot. “Colton treats me like I’m the enemy. It’s so . . .” Not fair because Colton fails to realize a big difference. Unlike my father’s choice to banish my mother, I didn’t decide to cause Jack’s death. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Can you see how he feels powerless?” Angelique asks.

“I can try to reinforce for him that he’s not to blame for anything.”

“That’s a start.”

I tell Angelique about the money Jack took. “Also Colton doesn’t want anyone making his father look bad. That’s why he’s been so resistant to my efforts.”

“Mike will be sensitive as well, when he speaks with Colton tomorrow. Try to remember Colton can’t direct his anger at himself, so you’re the next best target. Moms usually are.”

“And he chooses me because I’m tougher than dirt and I’ll love him, no matter what he does.” As I speak those words, I pray they are true and hope my battle fatigue doesn’t make me give up.

The sound of exploding glass, followed by a high-pitched scream, hits the room like a bolt of thunder. A split second without any commotion gives customers a chance to look around for a dropped tray or a brick through the window. Then the voices crescendo as everyone speculates on the cause of the noise.

Lois comes running toward our table, pointing to the bakery section. “Come quick,” she pants. “It’s Colton.”

I follow her, but she moves too slowly, so I race around her before we get halfway across the dining room. In the bakery, Colton stands in front of the display case, holding a small loaf of bread.

Everything shifts to slow motion. I can’t reach him fast enough. Blood from the back of his hand soaks into the bread and drips onto the linoleum floor amid the shattered glass.

“Colton!” I call. “Colton, what happened?”

“He put his fist through the glass,” Lois tells me, but she sounds far away.

My son looks at me with his large sad eyes, dark and mysterious like Jack’s, and opens his mouth. His jaw muscles move, but no sound comes out. Then his knees buckle and he falls faint to the floor, surrounded by the shards and blood, both arms stretched out sideways like wings.

Before I can bend down to help him, Angelique comes up behind me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get him up and out of here.”

Squatting on either side, we clutch him by the shoulders and try to lift him, but his dead weight proves too heavy for Angelique. Lois appears offering ice cubes in a clean white towel and wraps his hand. Two men I vaguely recognize step forward to help, and they all but carry him out to my car. He doesn’t resist when they buckle his seat belt.

The whole way to the emergency clinic, Colton doesn’t speak. He says nothing when the doctor gives him a shot to deaden his hand, or when he stitches his flesh back together. In silence, he lets the doctor wrap a bandage around his hand, up past his wrist, and put his arm in a sling.

After the doctor places a thermometer into Colton’s mouth, he motions me to one side. “Your son shows some signs of being in shock, but possibly not from the injury. He hasn’t spoken one word.” He fans the papers on his clipboard. “Something’s not right. Any idea what’s bothering him?”

I shake my head.

“No? Well, these episodes are seldom related to just one incident. I’m going to recommend a drug test and a psychiatric consult. We’ll need a urine sample. Sign here.”

His words hit me like a shove to the chest. Colton on drugs? Impossible. Unless Skipper has corrupted him behind my back.

How could the ER doctor possibly believe my son requires a psychiatrist? Does he think I haven’t done a good enough job maintaining a normal home life? I refuse to give my permission.

He doesn’t get it, Mother. You’re the only one in the family labeled as crazy. And that’s how it’s going to stay.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Once we leave the emergency clinic, Angelique points out I can’t manage to pick up Colton’s prescriptions and get him home without her help. She stays in the car, both of them in the back seat, while I collect his antibiotics and pain medications at the pharmacy. Ignoring the total amount, I tell the cashier to charge it to my account, sign the ticket, and drop my copy in the bag. I’ll worry about the bill later, when I decide whether to buy groceries or go without heat for the next two weeks. The payment to the emergency clinic all but drained my checking account, and I feel too hammered by exhaustion to remember the balance in savings. I pray our health insurance will reimburse me for some of the expense.

As I steer my car into the garage, Colton moans. Angelique strokes his hair and croons, “There, there, sweet boy. We’ll get you into bed right away so you can sleep for hours and hours if you feel like it.”

It pains my heart to realize if I touched him and spoke in such endearing terms, he would shake me off and stomp away. We drag ourselves from the car and teeter into the house, with Colton clinging to Angelique as if he were blind.

“The pharmacist recommended not waiting too long between doses of painkiller,” I say, as I flick on the kitchen light. “Besides, he said it’ll help you sleep.” For a moment, I consider swallowing one, too. No, I need to stay alert through what is bound to be an uncomfortable night for all three of us.

Angelique pours a glass of milk for Colton while I peruse the instructions accompanying the bottles of medicine. “We’ll continue the antibiotics in the morning, but you should probably take a painkiller now.” I hand him a white tablet half the size of my thumbnail and hope he won’t choke on it. “If you wake up hurting during the night, the doctor said you can have another one.” I slip the bottle into my pants pocket. “I’ll keep my door open so I can hear when you call me.” If he awakes in enough pain, he will have to speak to me.

Colton takes a big swig of the milk, swallows the pill, and turns toward Angelique. She links her right arm through his good left one and says, “Of course, I’ll help you get ready for bed.” They hobble out of the kitchen together, and a short while later the stairs creak. Whether they scale them slowly for his sake or hers, I can’t tell.

“Good night, Colton,” I call after them.

When did Angelique develop radar to answer his unspoken questions? To my knowledge, she had never helped a child of any age get ready for bed. Will she read him a story, too?

I catch my pique before it storms out of control. I should be grateful she came along to keep Colton steady, but it is hard to accept that someone with no parenting experience whatever can so easily replace me. Besides, if she spends her energy comforting Colton, it could be to her own detriment.

After I remember to close the garage door, I trudge across the patio along the back wall of the house until I reach the entrance to my greenhouse. Inside, I fumble in the dark for the light switch. As soon as the light sputters on, bright fluorescence bathes the greenhouse, distorting the pinks and greens of the begonias and geraniums.

There is no point in watering them again, so I occupy myself by rearranging terra cotta pots, short ones in front, taller ones behind. Soon I lose track of time in the rhythm of bending and lifting, enjoying the clatter of the pots, until Angelique’s voice catches me by surprise.

“It’s cold outside. Guess I can’t smoke in here, can I?” She sets her pack of cigarettes and the lighter on the edge of the potting table.

I shake my head. “I’d rather you didn’t smoke at all. Why don’t you quit?”

“Too late now.” She scans the area as she pats her sternum. “I need to sit down. I’m not used to all those stairs.”

I clear off a bench for her. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Gin, if you please.”

“I bet tomorrow the doctor will tell you to quit.” I stand with my hands on my hips and eye her with amusement.

“With tonic and lime.” She waits. “What, no fresh lime in the house? Bottled concentrate is okay.”

“You know, smoking causes a lot more health problems than lung cancer.”

“I’ll settle for bourbon instead, if you have any Maker’s Mark.”

I fill a paper cup with water from the fountain against the wall and hand it to her. “I hope you follow his advice.”

She sets it down on the bench. “Thanks, but I’d prefer to hear what Mr. Maker has to say.”

Angelique picks up her Virginia Slims and lighter and steps outside. I watch to make sure she keeps steady on her feet. As if drawing an ace from a poker deck, she extracts a long cigarette from the pack and lights it. The smoke hovers above her head until a light breeze chases it into the dark sky overhead.

By the time she returns to the bench, I have moved to one side to restack the plastic bags of pine bark mulch against the wall, next to the fertilizer. One of the bags has torn at the corner, releasing the earthy aroma of fresh pine mixed with soil.

“Brrrr!” Angelique rubs her upper arms. “How can Colton change Mike’s mind during their interview tomorrow?”

“I don’t have any idea what Colton will say, because he has refused to discuss it with me.” I wipe my forehead with the back of my wrist. “Around nine o’clock that night, Jack called home and spoke with Colton while I worked out here. All I know is, Jack told him he’d be home later and not to wait up for him.”

“But your whole argument hangs on the fact that appointment book shows Jack made plans for later in the week.”

“Mike is reconsidering whether all the mess with Jack’s job, the money he helped himself to, and the blow-up with his father caused him to feel depressed enough to kill himself.”

“Plus Jack was worried you’d divorce him.”

“Maybe I should have. It’d be easier than dealing with his death, suicide or not.”

“You don’t mean that, do you?”

“Not really.”

“What would Colton possibly have to say about Jack’s state of mind?”

I sit down next to her and dust my palms together. “Very likely the last person to speak to Jack before he died was Colton. If he can convince Mike that Jack was
not
depressed, but rather looking forward to working for my father, where he’d have job security and get a raise, then Mike will have to rethink his conclusion.”

“Assume Colton tells Mike exactly what you describe. Then you hope Mike can get the coroner to revise his finding?”

“I’m counting on it.”

“But Sally, my angel, it doesn’t work that way. The coroner’s ruling is official, registered at the courthouse, and listed with the IRS. You can’t expect a small town sheriff to get all those federal records changed just because you
know
something, which actually amounts to no more than a hunch. Mike doesn’t have that kind of power and influence.”

“But Mike wants to be on our team, and besides he has resources.”

Angelique frowns and squints at me, as if she can’t remember my name. “He’s certainly stepped forward lately with solutions to your problems.” Then her face muscles relax as her mouth forms a small ‘o.’ She points her index finger at me. “You mean Nate, don’t you?”

My head might as well crack in two. The voice on one side screams, “No, never, not possible,” while the other insists Nate can pull any string he wants and asks why not use him to get what I need. It is about time he shows up helpful on my terms for a change. Maybe I have been subconsciously maneuvering in that direction. Yet my heart refuses to let that line of reasoning prevail.

“Not him. Colton.”

“That’s a lot of pressure on one adolescent boy. Are you sure it’s worth it?” She hugs her quilted Oriental waistcoat tighter around her torso. “Hasn’t bringing this up had a negative effect on Colton? Look at all his so-called accidents recently.” Her voiced softens. “Have you considered getting professional help for him?”

“Like my father did for my mother? We know how that ended, don’t we? Colton’s behavior will improve the instant the ruling gets changed from suicide to accident. Then we can get on with our lives and handle our grief in a healthy way.”

“Why do you call it accidental?” Angelique wags her head until her earrings jingle. “Didn’t Jack lower the garage door himself, with the motor still running?”

“But he had gotten so drunk, he didn’t know what he was doing.”

“Happy drunk?”

I stretch out my legs in front of me and raise my arms over my head, elbow joints popping. “If Colton confirms it.”

“So now, since Mike doesn’t quite believe you or the appointment book, you expect your son to provide the crucial testimony?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Have you forgotten about the money Big Jack demanded that Jack repay? What about the note Jack left in the front seat?”

I sigh and stare at my shoes. “Every word is burned into my brain. Thing is, it wasn’t like Jack to threaten me. It’s like he was talking to someone else. He was so angry.”

“If it wasn’t meant for you, who–”

I sit up straight and slap my thigh. “Big Jack.”

“What?”

“Now it makes sense. After Big Jack fired him, Jack wrote that awful note to his father, not to me. Big Jack was the one who would have to learn to get along without him and see how well he managed alone.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Oh, I’m absolutely sure. With that and Colton’s official testimony.”

“Unofficial or otherwise, maybe he’s not up to it.”

Before I can answer, Angelique and I turn our heads in tandem toward the sound coming from the entrance to the greenhouse. Pale and shivering, Colton stands there in his underwear looking up at the rafters as if he has spied an owl. His injured hand falls at his side, while the cotton sling around his neck dangles near his waist. He seems not to realize we are present, as he grunts and sucks in the cold night air.

“No quick moves,” Angelique whispers. “Try not to startle him.” Louder she says, “Colton, you’re chilled.” As I follow her, she walks slowly toward Colton, pulling her arms out of her waistcoat. “Did you have a bad dream? Let me wrap this around you.”

After she covers him, she coaxes him into the house and back up the stairs. I watch from the doorway of his room as she pulls a tee shirt down over his head, tucks him under the sheet, and sits on the edge of his bed. We wait until the twitching stops and his breathing grows steady and shallow. She leans forward to kiss his cheek and pulls the blanket up over his shoulder, and then she tiptoes toward the door and takes me by the hand.

“He seems comfortable now, but I’m still cold,” she says with a shiver. “Can you turn the heat up?” She drapes the silk waistcoat around her shoulders and rubs her upper arms.

“How about some coffee? I can make us some decaf.” I stare at the lump under Colton’s bed covers and wonder how long my son will sleep. “On second thought, maybe regular is better.”

“Regular will keep you up all night.”

“That’s the idea.”

Downstairs again in the kitchen, she suggests I call Mike and cancel Colton’s appointment tomorrow. I agree to postpone it until we can evaluate his state of mind, maybe until the pain medication wears off. No point in asking him questions if he can’t make sense.

“Someone will have to stay with him while I take you to the specialist.” I drain the last of my coffee from Grandmother Mason’s china cup.

“What about Judith?”

“I’ll call her in the morning. Let’s get some rest.”

Poor dear Angelique. Up the stairs for the third time in less than an hour. No wonder she is tired and out of breath. A good night’s sleep will work wonders for all of us.

But sleep is the farthest thing from my mind. Even when we are all in our beds, whispers from the edge of darkness call to me and help me keep my vigil.

Today I was up extra early to get ready for school while the house was still quiet. I should have read over my new spelling list one more time, to help me prepare for the sixth grade spelling bee. Also I wanted to draw a picture for Aunt Mary to cheer her up. The doctor has been coming each morning and again in the evenings to check on her. So far, Aunt Mary has been too weak to get out of bed.

Lately Daddy has looked really tired. It couldn’t be from working too hard, because he hasn’t left the house in three days. Maybe the doctor should give Daddy some of Aunt Mary’s pep pills.

Yesterday I heard Mrs. Gussmann talking in the kitchen. She said she was conversing with the Almighty, but I thought she should wait until Sunday morning when God settles back on His throne and just listens. She also sang church songs like “Shall We Gather at the River” or “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” I hoped Mrs. Gussmann wasn’t planning to go anywhere. Even though I was now eleven and grown very responsible, I didn’t know how we’d get our meals cooked or laundry done without her.

Life has been pretty dull around our house and I missed Clyde. Since Daddy hasn’t taken any trips this week, Clyde has gone to tend to business elsewhere instead of staying around Mason’s Crossing.

Aunt Mary liked the seashore, where she lived when she was a little girl, so I got out my colored pencils in blue and tan, plus green for the palm trees. I sat at the table in my room and sketched the beach, with seashells, sand dunes, and waves crashing on the shore. The seagull in the sky was almost finished when a voice down the hall called, “Mr. Nate, Mr. Nate!”