The Memoir of Johnny Devine (37 page)

Pain
sliced through her head like slivers of glass piercing her
brain.

Eliza forced her eyes open. She seemed to be
lying in a brightly lit, swiftly spinning room. Her feet, covered
by a white sheet, were the only things she could keep her focus on.
At least, she hoped they were her feet …

She opened her eyes again.

The light was gone now. The room wasn’t
spinning, but it was hard to see in the dark. Plain gray walls.
Dials and knobs. Her skull felt like it had gone through a tumbler
and was then shrunken several sizes and crammed back onto her
brain.

Eliza licked her dry
lips.
I’m thirsty.

Maybe if she tried saying it aloud …

Sometime later, voices pulled her up from a
deep pond, thick as mud. As she approached the surface, she heard a
woman’s voice.

“
A girl scout could fold a
better dressing than that. I guess if I want it done right, I’ll
have to do it myself.”

Eliza kept her eyes closed to block the
piercing light. “Where am I?” she croaked.

“
Nurse, she’s
awake.”

“
Get the
doctor.”

But Eliza couldn’t keep afloat anymore and
sank back into the mud.

Eliza hoped to stay awake long enough this
time to find out where she was. It was a hospital, that much she
could guess. But the rest was fuzzy. And excruciating. The harder
she tried to concentrate on where she was and how she’d gotten
here, the more her head hurt.

“
You’re awake.” An older
woman’s voice.

Eliza turned her head slightly and saw a
nurse’s broad shape. “Where am I?”

“
St. Luke’s
Hospital.”

“
What’s wrong with
me?”

“
You’ve suffered brain
swelling from a blow to the head,” the nurse said. “Can you tell me
your name?”

“
Eliza,” she whispered.
She squinted and focused on the points of the woman’s white cap.
“What happened?”

“
We don’t know. An orderly
found you bleeding in the alley. But you’re doing far better than
doctors first expected. What’s your last name?”

“
Saunderson.” She tried to
swallow, but her sticky throat made it difficult. “Can I have a
drink?”

A straw touched her lips.

She sucked until cool water trickled down
her throat.

“
Do you remember what
happened?” the nurse asked.

“
I was on my way to …” The
effort to think sent stabbing pain through her head. Eliza gripped
the sides of the bed, hoping she wouldn’t pass out. But the room
spun and swayed, threatening to make her sick.

“
We think you were
mugged.”

“
Mugged?” She reached up,
turned her head slightly, and felt the stitches on the back of it.
Had someone hit her? Or had she fallen?

“
Your broken purse was
lying several yards away from where you were found, but there was
no identification in it. Looks like someone stole your
pocketbook.”

Stole her pocketbook? Yes, that was it. A
fanatic desperate for proof …

She could think no more and drifted into
blackness.

A new
nurse awakened Eliza with a tray of food. She smiled. “Honey,
has anyone ever told you that you look like Gene
Tierney?”

She swallowed the sudden ache in her
throat.

With slow, careful motions, the nurse helped
Eliza sit up and then arranged the tray for her. “How do you feel
today?”

“
Still a little dizzy.”
Her head no longer throbbed like a steady gong, a marked
improvement. “But much better, thank you.”

“
Good, because there’s
someone here to see you,” the nurse said.

Betty burst into the room. “Eliza!” She
rushed to the bed and hugged her.

Eliza winced.

As the nurse left them, Betty straightened
and studied Eliza. “Are you in pain? Are they taking proper care of
you?” She glanced over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. “The
staff here is incompetent. But what would you expect in the slums?
I am going to have you transferred to a hospital in Richmond
Heights. You’ll get much better care there.” She looked around the
room with a grimace. “Darling, what on earth were you doing in this
part of town? And why didn’t anyone call me sooner? They told me
you’ve been here for days!”

The sound of Betty’s rising tone pierced her
brain like a siren. “Please, not so loud.”

The nurse was back. “She had no
identification, so no one knew her name until she gained
consciousness. She suffered acute brain trauma.”

Betty gasped.
“
Brain
trauma?
Good heavens! What happened?”

“
We still aren’t sure, but
it’s clear she took a very bad blow to the head.”

Betty moved closer to Eliza’s side,
frowning. “Tell me what happened.”

Eliza closed her eyes. “I was on my way to
see Millie, but that HUAC agent followed me and caught me in the
alley.”

“
Wait … who is
Millie?”

“
John’s housemaid.” Tears
filled Eliza’s eyes. Millie was lying in the basement of this very
hospital—
if
she
was even still alive. She turned to the nurse. “Can you tell me if
there is an elderly colored woman named Millie in the basement
wing?”

Betty frowned. “You came
to the slums to visit a
maid
?”

Eliza wiped her eyes. Millie wasn’t just a
maid. She was a wise, kind, saint of a woman who would never judge
someone based on her station in life.

“
That doesn’t matter now.”
Betty beamed a smile at Eliza. “What’s important is that you’re
going to be okay, isn’t that right?” She turned to the
nurse.

“
Chances are good,” the
nurse said. “The doctor wants to evaluate her again, but he may
release her as early as tomorrow.”

“
Did you hear that?” She
reached for Eliza’s hand and squeezed it. And then
gasped.

John’s ring. There it was, bigger than life,
sparkling so bright it sent another sliver of pain to Eliza’s
head.

“
What in heaven’s name is
this? An
engagement
ring?” Betty stared at the ring and then at Eliza, eyes
wide.

“
Betty, listen to me, this
is important. The man—Agent Robinson—he attacked me. He was fired
from the agency, and he’s trying to reinstate himself. He’s
convinced I’m a communist spy. I think he’s crazy. He followed me
and tried to take my purse. I’m sure he took my pocketbook. He’s
dangerous, Betty. I want to report him to the police.”

Looking bewildered, Betty only nodded, still
staring at the ring on Eliza’s hand. “Yes, of course, I will
contact the police for you at once. But, darling … when did you get
engaged? And to whom?”

Eliza’s eyes drifted closed. “I don’t want
to talk about that right now.”

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

At the sound of paper rustling, she opened
her eyes.

Betty had drawn an envelope from her purse
and held it up for Eliza to see.

“
This was tacked to the
door of your apartment. Would it have anything to do with that
ring?” Her head tilted as she waited.

Eliza stared at her name on the envelope,
written in John’s familiar hand.

So he had been to see her.

Betty studied the envelope. “I went to your
place to find out how your HUAC meeting went, but one of the girls
in your building said no one had seen you for days. And another one
complained that there was a fat cat howling on your balcony.” She
leaned closer. “What’s going on, Eliza?”

Going back to the night John proposed, she
told Betty everything, including her visit to the HUAC headquarters
and finding out she and Betty were no longer under investigation.
“But then they had some questions for John,” she said. “It turns
out he’s been … keeping a secret.”

“
Oh?” Betty leaned closer.
“What secret?”

Eliza opened her mouth.

But a happy little girl came to mind, a
child who loved the man she believed was her daddy, the man she
probably looked to as her hero. Eliza would never want any child to
find out such news through vicious gossip.

“
I can’t say. But he kept
something from me that a man doesn’t keep from the woman he loves.”
She stared at the envelope, then reached for it. “May
I?”

Betty handed it over with a sniff. “Probably
full of lies. What did I tell you about men like that, Eliza?”

This was no time for a reminder of Betty’s
opinion of John. She opened the envelope, drew out the paper, and
focused her aching brain on the familiar handwriting.

December 16, 1953

Dear Eliza,

I called and came to see you several times,
with no answer. I heard you’ve gone away, so I must assume you’ve
left me. I only ask that you hear me out this once, then I will
trouble you no more.

I know that my being a part of such a lie is
wrong. And you’re right to be angry with me for not telling you.
I’m so sorry.

If you’re still reading, may I tell you now?
Her name is Judy.

Eliza flinched and squeezed her eyes tight
to block the words, but it didn’t help. John had a daughter, and
her name was Judy.

Head pounding, she forced herself to read
on.

I went along with the secret in order to
protect a little girl from pain and public humiliation. And since
Deborah would not have let me see Judy in any case, I could not
bear to harm the girl by telling the truth when no good would have
come from it.

Now so much time has passed, making it all
far more complicated. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to
know I have a child that I can never see? Do you know what it feels
like to be denied any involvement in her life, to have missed her
first steps, never allowed to see her grow up? Not allowed to walk
her down the aisle?

If you think I should be ashamed of myself,
don’t worry—I am. I can’t even be a proper father. Deborah sends me
pictures and reports of her from time to time—I asked if I could at
least have that. But I can’t send her things. Deborah finally
agreed to let me send money for birthday gifts. She tells Judy
they’re from her. It’s the only thing I can do. What kind of a
father is that?

I’m asking you to forgive me for agreeing to
be part of such a lie. I fully intended to tell you, just not like
this. If it’s time you need, I will wait, but just so you know,
your silence is killing me. I will never forget the look on your
face. I should have told you everything before asking you to share
my life, I know that now. I guess I was so consumed with telling
you how I felt that I could think of little else.

I regret so many things in my life, Eliza.
Like a fool, I let myself hope you might actually escape being
affected by my past, but I see now that I was wrong. I hope and
pray that you will find it in your heart to forgive me. Your faith
in me has meant more than you’ll ever know.

I will always love you.

John

Eliza blinked tears from her eyes, ignoring
the dull throb in her head and an unbearable sense of loss. Had he
intended to tell her and simply gotten ahead of himself? While he
should have told her before proposing, perhaps he never intended to
leave her in the dark, to make a fool of her, as Ralph had.

Was she being unreasonable?

She lifted her gaze above the paper and met
her sister’s.