“Where’s Grandma?”
“She’s here. In the front room. She sure didn’t want to let me in after the night of the fire. I had a time convincing her I could help.”
“You didn’t mention this little bullet hole, did you?”
“Of course not,” said Toni over her shoulder. “Give me some credit.”
Bertha fell back on the bed and closed her eyes.
Though the dark-green shades blocked the late-August sunlight, the room was warm.
Bertha couldn’t remember how much she’d told Toni about the events of the past twenty-four hours. She didn’t think they’d talked since she’d taken Aunt Lucy to the train yesterday. If she had to mark a time when everything started coming unraveled, it was at the station. That seemed like days ago.
Bertha rolled back across the bed. She’d have to get up soon, take Grandma to the store, and go on with her life. She wanted a drink and pushed the thoughts away. With a little coke, she could get out of bed and do all the things she needed to do. But that led back to trying to score in the projects, to making a mess out of everything. She knew that much.
Toni came back into the room. “Sit up.”
Bertha tried, then fell back. “My head hurts.”
“Honey. I’m sorry. But I think it’s best if you keep moving. Here, I’ve brought you something to drink. Now try to sit up.”
Bertha managed to pull herself to a slumped sitting position. Then Toni stuffed the two pillows behind her back, and Bertha collapsed on them. She felt for the cold, wet glass. It was iced tea. Grandma had made her favorite drink, strong and full of sugar—Bertha had grown up on the stuff. As a child she’d wanted Grandma’s tea more than soda pop. She remembered summer evenings, coming in from working in the garden, sipping the cold, sweet, drink. And now the tea seemed to settle her stomach. She heard the adhesive tape tear and felt Toni cover the graze on her shoulder with a spray-on antiseptic and gauze. Bertha’s eyes were closed against the warm room, and the cold tea made its way into her system like the medicine of love.
“Do you think you can get dressed?” Toni asked.
Bertha nodded, relinquished the empty glass, and pushed her legs over the edge of the bed. She sat still for a moment and then stood.
Toni handed Bertha her clothes, one object at a time, while Bertha related the events of the past twenty-four hours. Toni listened silently and helped Bertha adjust the holster and pull the day-old red camp shirt down over it.
After Toni helped her with the socks and tennis shoes, she said, “Your grandma put some lunch on the table.”
Bertha nodded and knew she’d have to try to eat. She might be hungry. She moved slowly to the kitchen and sat at her place. Canned chicken-noodle soup had been heated on the stove. Toni poured it into a bowl. Two pieces of dry toast sat on a saucer next to a small glass of tomato juice. Grandma knew about hangovers; she’d seen her share of them. Toni refilled the iced tea and sat down across from her. Grandma slowly made her way into the kitchen. Then they were both sitting there while Bertha ate.
With the food in her system Bertha, felt stronger.
“I have to talk to Sally today,” Bertha said, as she sipped the tomato juice.
Grandma glared at her. “You need to stay away from that woman.”
Bertha touched Grandma’s arm., “She’s in the middle of this mess somehow. I need to find out the truth.”
“I’ll go with you.” Toni offered.
Bertha shook her head. She wanted to talk to Sally alone.
“Come on,” said Toni. “Your hands are still shaking.”
Bertha sighed, put down her soupspoon, and said, “She’s my mother. She’s not going to hurt me.”
Toni nodded. “Assume you’re right. What about all the people around her. The old man? Cal Mossman? Kim Cornwell? Or Morescki’s brother—what’s his name?”
“Frank.”
“Right, Frank. What about him?”
Bertha sat up straight and fixed Toni with a stare. “I’m going alone. I’ll see you afterward. End of discussion.”
“Honey,” Grandma said. “Maybe you should listen—”
“I’m going alone.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
The Jeep was partially hidden behind the neighbor’s hedge and a leafy barberry bush on the corner of Sally Morescki’s lot. Bertha watched a slender figure in a broad-brimmed sun hat kneeling, loosening the soil in the flowerbed by the stone walk that led to the front door. A small yellow wheelbarrow filled with newly pulled weeds sat near the woman. She poked the trowel into the earth. A set of sprinklers produced a fine mist that left the fresh-cut grass glistening and several tiny rainbows suspended in the atmosphere above.
A pinpoint of Bertha’s headache remained and threatened to explode into something painful and debilitating. This is my mother, she told herself. This is the long-lost woman I dreamed about. Images from her childhood: her first day of school, the beautiful handmade dress, watching other mothers hold their daughters’ hands and lead them into the building—sitting next to Grandma at the Youth For Christ mother/daughter banquet, eating green Jell-O with cabbage in it—the day she got her first period, Grandma showing her how to use the bulky pad—the warm, lighted kitchen in the early winter darkness, drying dishes after Grandma washed and rinsed them beneath the swan’s neck faucet. All those years Bertha had wondered where her mother was and what she was doing. Now she knew that her mother had been less than five miles away for a very long time.
“Some things are enduring,” Grandma’d told her. “Those are precious things.” Grandma tucked her in at night and read her stories. Grandma told her, even now, all she knew about her mother. Why was she angry with Grandma? How long would the anger endure?
Bertha’d gone home and changed from yesterday’s clothes to the day-before-yesterday’s clothes. The only ones left in basket had been there so long they didn’t fit anyone she knew. So here she sat in the wilted red camp shirt, wanting another drink. This didn’t surprise her. Others in AA had told her that to stay off the stuff was easier than to get off.
A red bird flew from the bush in front of the dusty Jeep—another color in the animated frame. Bertha looked back at Sally Morescki and found her standing, pulling off her sunglasses, and looking in Bertha’s direction.
Bertha reached for the door handle and got out.
Sally walked toward her. They stopped, Sally at the edge of her yard, Bertha several feet away, standing in the gutter.
“Bertha. What a nice surprise.”
“I need to talk to you.”
Sally’s expression changed. “What is it?”
“It’s about us.”
Sally nodded. “I see. Well, won’t you come in?”
Bertha followed Sally along the sidewalk between the sprinklers. The quiet foyer smelled of furniture wax and stale cigarette smoke.
Sally pulled off her bulky garden gloves. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Bertha lips were dry. She croaked, “Water, please.”
“Make yourself comfortable in there.” Sally gestured toward the living room. “I need to wash up, and I’ll be right with you.”
The couch and love seat were off-white leather. The carpet almost matched. The drapes were pale blue with white sheers that blocked direct sunlight. At one end of the long, rectangular room was a sand-colored brick fireplace with a mirror suspended above and framed pictures on the marble ledge—a wedding picture of Sally and Joe, graduation pictures of two young men, probably Joe’s sons. A china hutch contained crystal goblets, a tiny cedar music box, and more silver-framed pictures. Bertha turned toward the fireplace, studied the studio images of the Morescki boys, and caught her own reflection in the mirror. The bright-red camp shirt and her brown skin seemed out of place in the soft-white room. She saw a reflected movement behind her and turned. Sally set a silver tray on the glass coffee table.
“You have beautiful things,” Bertha said, shoving her hands in the pockets of her
cutoffs.
“Thank you.” Sally held out a tall glass of ice and an opened bottle of Perrier.
Bertha sat in a powder-blue armchair. She didn’t know where to start.
Sally lit a cigarette, inhaled, and blew smoke out her nostrils. “Lucy told me she was going to talk to you.”
“She talked to me,” Bertha said, remembering the few words as the train pulled out of the station yesterday morning. “I also talked to Grandma.”
“And she was forthcoming?”
Bertha shrugged. “I guess.” She blinked several times as her brain set up an internal mantra—don’t feel, don’t feel, don’t feel.
Sally leaned forward. “Please don’t take this wrong—”
Bertha’s rage bubbled up unexpectedly. Her headache spread and pounded.
Sally squared her shoulders and flicked her cigarette ash into a gold ashtray. She waved smoke away from her face and tried to meet Bertha’s eyes. “What can I tell you?”
Bertha poured water from the green bottle and put the glass to her lips. The cold water floated across her dry tongue, not penetrating her thirst. “Why don’t you start by telling me how your husbands died. The first one, then the second.”
Sally glanced at a glass cart that contained two crystal decanters. “Do you mind if I fix myself a drink?”
Bertha thought a drink right then would be perfect. What she wanted to do was join her mother in polishing off whatever was in those bottles. “Yes,” she heard herself say. “I do mind.”
Sally simply nodded and said, “You want to know about your father,” then kicked her sandals off and tucked her legs under her. “He was a good man.”
“How did he die?”
“He owed money to a powerful man. That man sent someone to talk to him and he was murdered. I don’t think they intended to kill him. They wanted to convince him to pay. He was no good to them dead. They roughed him up. He had a bad heart.”
“The two of you weren’t together then?”
Sally leaned forward and stubbed out the cigarette. She stared at the ashtray for a moment, then said, “No. I was in Chicago.”
“What about Joe?”
Sally looked up. “What about him?”
“How did he die?”
“He was tortured and murdered. I understand you saw the body.”
“Why? By whom?”
“Ironically, he was a lot like your father.”
“The only thing the two men had in common was you,” Bertha said. “I’ve been told you had a public argument with Joe. You threatened to kill him in front of several witnesses.”
Sally smiled. “You have been digging around, haven’t you?”
“Yes. But some of the information fell into my lap, you might say. Mark Mossman came to see me before he was murdered.”
The corners of Sally’s lips turned down briefly. It wasn’t really a frown. Just an quick, unguarded expression. “Mark was all right.”
“He was a goon.”
“Yes,” Sally said. “But a good goon.”
Bertha pressed on. “He was fond of you.”
Sally reached for a leather cigarette case and opened it. There was a long silence. Somewhere, in another room, a phone started ringing. Sally didn’t move. On the fourth ring Bertha heard the machine pick up. The caller didn’t leave a message.
“Why did you leave me?” Bertha hadn’t meant to say it. The phone had distracted her. Now it was too late.
“You,” Sally said, her eyes growing round. “I never meant to leave you.”
“But you did.”
Sally nodded, flicked the ash of her cigarette, and stood. “It happened so fast—you becoming an adult. Then more years passed...” She looked directly at Bertha and said, “This is my house and I will have a drink.” She reached for one of the decanters and a glass, and she poured alcohol.
Bertha slumped back. For a moment she was sure she would join Sally in a drink. She held onto the arms of the pale-blue chair, and the moment passed.
Sally sat back on the couch. “Your father gambled. Every time we had the money for something, he lost it. I was tired of living with Grandma Brannon and wanted our own place. The only time we were ever alone was at a fishing cabin he won in a card game. Six months later he lost it the same way.”
Bertha remembered her dream that morning, a theme repeated since childhood. The cabin. The rutted road between the cornfields.
Sally went on. “He lost the money we’d saved for our own place three times. I told him if it happened again, I was leaving. It did and I did.”
Bertha stared at Sally. She sipped the ice-cold water and waited.
“I took you with me, back to Chicago. The only one who could help us was my Grandma Cozzello. It was bad. She wouldn’t accept you. It broke my heart, seeing you trying to please her. I let Grandma Brannon convince me that you were better off with her. It was a long time ago, when things were different for mixed-raced people. I was worn out fighting everyone. There are things you can’t possible understand.”
Bertha watched Sally struggle to go on and felt little sympathy.
Sally gulped the last of the alcohol and stood to refill her drink. Her back was to Bertha when she said, “As a little girl, I didn’t fit in anywhere. White people saw me as black. Blacks saw me as white. I didn’t want that for you. I saw your home with Grandma Brannon as a place where you could belong. She has been good to you, hasn’t she?”
Bertha pressed her lips together, trying to control her demeanor.
Sally said, “I have no excuse. I’m sorry.”
Don’t feel. Don’t feel. Don’t feel.
The room was quiet. Finally Sally said, “Do you understand a little bit?”
Bertha shrugged. “I can’t see that it matters.”
“It matters to me. I provided for you as well as I could. You are my only child. Sometimes I remember holding you in my arms. Middle-of-the-night feedings. Watching you take your first steps. Sometimes it seems so long ago I can’t believe the woman with that baby girl was me. I see a lot of your father and my father in you.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t even know you.” As Bertha said this she realized that Grandma was her family, not this woman. Sally might have provided a womb, she might have contributed some money, but she wasn’t her mother. How could she have been so angry at Grandma? What was she doing here? Bertha suddenly wanted to see the old woman, to make up the last twenty-four hours to her.
Sally leaned forward. “I respect how you feel. If all this trouble hadn’t started, I would have left you alone. I realized a long time ago that the best I could do for you was leave you the rest of the money. Joe and I fought about it.”
“What money?”
“My parents left me some war bonds. They were rolled over in the fifties and have been accumulating interest since then. I cashed a few for your education. Oh, one thing or another over the years. But most of them are still there.”
“You wanted me to have them,” Bertha said flatly. Grandma had given her more than money. Grandma had given her a childhood.
“You get to a certain age,” Sally went on, “and you realize you’re not immortal. The way things were, if something happened to me, Joe would get the money—or his boys since he’s gone. It’s not right. Joe was always broke. His kids are worse...”
Bertha remembered Kim Cornwell’s slip right before she fired the gun. She’d said bonds. She was looking for the “bonds.” The room was getting warm. Bertha shifted in her chair. She wanted to kick her tennis shoes off. She could smell her own body sweat in the rumpled red camp shirt. “Both Mark Mossman and his brother Cal mentioned a fight you had with Joe. They said you threatened to kill him.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Sally said.
“What was the fight about?”
Sally sighed. “The bonds.” She stood and poured another drink, this time filling the glass over half way. When she returned to the couch, she stubbed out her c
igarette and pulled her bare feet up under her again.
“We were broke, which wasn’t unusual. But Joe had this information about a new overpass the city was going to build. It went through your Grandma’s neighborhood. Jelly was putting the pressure on. Joe didn’t have the nerve to tell the old man that his architectural firm was on the verge of bankruptcy. At Jelly’s seventy-fifth birthday party, Joe cornered me. He was drunk and mean. He made threats—said he’d hurt you and your grandma if I didn’t let him use the money to buy her out. I told him in no uncertain terms that the bonds were yours. He took a swing at me. I told him if he did anything to you or your grandma I’d kill him. Those bonds are worth six million dollars by now. Not much by strip-mall or highway standards—”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.” Sally shook her head. “In 1956 when the interest rates were high, my father rolled all his war bonds over. Eight hundred one-thousand-dollar bonds purchased in 1956, thanks to Ronald Reagan, are worth over six million dollars.”
“I don’t understand how the bonds could help him. They were in your name, weren’t they?”
“Those are bearer bonds, honey. Whoever is in possession of them can cash them. I kept them in my safe-deposit box at the bank most of the time.”
Bertha thought about that. “What was he doing in my office?”
“Joe?”
Bertha nodded.
“I think he was looking for the bonds,” Sally said. “That was the only thing that makes sense. When you came to see me the next day, I wanted to throw my arms around you. I am so proud of the woman you’ve become. I can see now that you know who I am, an embrace is not what you want.”
Bertha met Sally’s eyes. If she made a move toward her Bertha’d push her away. “Who set the fire?”
“That was the old man, I think. Not him actually, but one of his thugs. I’m sure he figured he could get Grandma to sell if things got rougher.”
Bertha smiled. The worse it got for Grandma, the more she’d dug in. “You drove by that night?”
Sally nodded. “I wanted to make sure everyone over there was all right.”
Nine Nights on the Windy Tree Page 30
