Facing the Past

by J. J. Cagney

  This area of town was supposed to reek of wealth and prestige. And Danielle was sure it did for most residents. But after stepping into the 1960s-tiled entry and then into the small, formal sitting room with its old, faded blue carpet, Danielle did not feel prestige or permanence or whatever the hell else people here in this insulated heart of Dallas elite felt. She felt as she always did: duty-bound and sad.

  Danielle placed the plate of cookies in Nancy’s lap. Her mother picked one up—a circle—and took a bite. Nancy set it back down on the small teak side table next to her recliner, the small rounded teeth marks noticeable at the cookie’s edge.

  “Thank you, Danielle, but I don’t have much of an appetite right now.”

  “Have you eaten anything today?” Danielle asked as she shuffled into the kitchen. She came back to the sitting room and set a cup of chamomile tea next to the nibbled cookie.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Mom . . .”

  Nancy made an impatient gesture with her hand before it collapsed back into her lap.

  “Leave it alone. I don’t want to eat. If I get hungry, I’ll enjoy the cookies you brought. They taste better than any of those frozen things.”

  Danielle’s back stiffened. She couldn’t help it just as she couldn’t help the hint of hurt that crept into her voice when she said, “I made you a roast on Friday.”

  Nancy turned her head. Her hair had faded to a sallow gray and thinned at the top enough to show peeks of pale-pink scalp. Danielle barely remembered the thick, mink brown it used to be. Nancy’s eyes, though, were still as green as Danielle’s. Only her mother’s were different: shadows lurked in the back, deep, flitting upward during conversations, then fading back as her will overpowered their need to come to light.

  “Honey, I know you did. I know it was a lot of work. I appreciated it then, just as I do now.”

  Danielle bit back a retort. “I’ll bring you something else tomorrow, then.”

  Nancy shook her head a little. “Don’t bother. I’m nauseated, and I don’t much feel like putting any effort into eating, no matter how good the food. You always were a good cook, much better than I ever was. Now, tell me about the boys.”

  “I will, but first I want to talk to you about this,” Danielle said, pulling the letter from her overstuffed purse leaning against the papered wall. The sheet of large, gold-foil flowers peeled away from the drywall beneath. Danielle detested this wallpaper.

  Nancy stared at her letter, her mouth tight and her cheeks sagging over the edge of her jaw. “It’s self-explanatory. You’re a smart girl. Always were smart as a whip. Just like those two boys of yours. Is Kevin liking third grade any better now that he’s settled in? That’s a tough year.”

  “He’s doing very well in school now that he’s got geography down. We have some problems with east and west, but they’re getting better.”

  Her mother’s eyes crinkled a little, and her lips lost their grimace. “You never could do left from right,” she said.

  Danielle’s lips twitched. “It helped when I got engaged.”

  Nancy looked down at her hands. They were starting to spot a bit with age but remained smooth and pale. Never been much for the out-of-doors, even before Jonny died.

  “Only took you nineteen years to get that trick worked out. I got engaged at twenty-one.”

  “Is that your engagement ring?” Danielle asked, one of those details she always craved. The ring was the only piece of jewelry her mother habitually wore: a large square-cut diamond with tiny, barely visible baguettes on either side in a brassy-looking gold band.

  “No, this was my mother’s. She gave it to me a few months before she died.”

  “Oh.”

  Nancy continued to stare down at it, twisting it around and around. It was looser than it used to be, spinning on her finger as she touched it. She eventually clenched her hand closed around it.

  “I’ve got the one your father gave to me. It’s in my jewelry box along with our wedding bands and my parents’.”

  “Mom, are you sure you don’t want me to invite Aunt Mel to your funeral?”

  Aunt Melinda was her father’s sister. She was a veterinarian who lived with her husband in Memphis. She called Danielle every year on Christmas and her birthday, filling Danielle in on what was happening with her kids and nine grandchildren. Danielle gave up wishing she was part of her aunt’s family when she met Garrett.

  Nancy looked up at Danielle then. Her face animated for a moment, showing the signs of the beauty that lingered under pills, loss, and secrets.

  “Why would you want to do that? Melinda and I were never close and she proved less fond of me after your father left. You were there that day, same as your aunt and her kids, when your father and I fought. She overheard enough of it to blame me. And she never forgave me for it. Said I should have been easier on your father because he lost his son.”

  Danielle did remember. She’d been in the hall, heard more of their words than Aunt Mel.

  “You could have apologized,” Danielle murmured.

  “To Melinda? No, I couldn’t. I told you, she wouldn’t even talk to me after that weekend. And she shouldn’t have been eavesdropping anyway.”

  “I was there, too,” Danielle said. She waited until her mother’s eyes caught her. “I never told you before, but, yeah, I heard all of it.”

  “You were gorgeous in the moonlight, that first night we were together. For years, I could see that; it was so close, I could almost touch you there again. We had those memories for years, Nancy. I want those days back.”

  “Our relationship died with Jonny.”

  “Why can’t you let go of the anger?” Hank’s voice rose.

  “Why can’t you say your son’s name?” Nancy snapped back. “What are you hiding, Hank?”

  “You haven’t tried to understand me in years.” A fist slammed against something—the countertop, maybe?

  “And you were . . . that day. You didn’t answer your phone,” Nancy hissed.

  “I was busy.”

  Nancy’s laugh was caustic. “Aren’t you always busy?” Silence. “I told Detective Hardesty. In case something happens to Danielle.”

  Hank drew in a ragged breath. “What?”

  “You heard me.’”

  Nancy closed her eyes, her lips tugged tight together in irritation or pain. “Your father always was a convincing bastard. Hell, he had his own sister hoodwinked into hating me.”

  “What does that mean?” Danielle asked.

  Nancy sat still, her forehead furrowed into rigid lines of tension. “He used Jonny’s death, Danielle. He benefited from it—opening the foundation, getting national attention for his pet project.”

  Danielle shivered at the venom dripping from Nancy’s words. No wonder her parents split—the betrayal Nancy had lived through still blazed out of her emaciated form.

  Danielle wiggled in her chair, trying to ignore the urge to scratch her legs—a nervous tic she had to consciously work to stop. Stress had always made her itchy. “I don’t understand. Any of this. What are you saying?”

  Her mother turned toward her. Her green eyes were dark, a bog of unlived dreams and painful revelations. Her eyes took a faraway look. “I called him. The detective.”

  “Mom . . . I’m so sorry Dad hurt you.”

  Her mother’s eyes flashed up to hers, the green vibrant with anger, though the pain Danielle always saw still lurked. “He wasn’t much of a husband even before Jonny died. You knew about the women. We all knew. You have to understand . . .” Nancy sighed. “After Jonny, I just didn’t care.”

  Danielle frowned, her fingers unable to settle and remain still. “Women. You mean he had multiple affairs?” She’d known about Janice, her father’s young, pretty secretary, but had said nothing, hoping her silence would somehow protect her mother.

  Nancy’s scowl deepened. “Look, Danielle, I told you how I wanted my death to be. I expect you to follow my wishes. I know you will because I
wrote it down for you. Now, I’d just as soon watch some shows.”

  She picked up the remote beside her chair and clicked it. A young chef’s bright face and happy chatter filled the screen and air around them.

  Danielle sat there for another few minutes, willing Nancy to turn it off. She didn’t.

  Danielle checked through the large, plateglass window that showed the stately, if overgrown, front yard. Sure enough, Sunny, her mom’s nurse, was just pulling up to the curb.

  “I’ll see you on Wednesday,” Danielle said. Talking loudly over the inane monologue about mushrooms.

  Danielle grabbed her purse and went to open the front door.

  “She’s in the living room,” Danielle said as Sunny approached the door.

  “Not feeling that well?” Sunny’s middle-aged face was more lined than her mother’s and a lot livelier.

  Danielle leaned on Sunny so she wouldn’t have to bring home to her family the anxious, slow march toward death. And she felt a small stab of satisfaction when the agency sent her father the bill, which he seemed to pay without comment.

  As a hospice nurse, Sunny understood the decay of the body much better than Danielle did. Danielle wondered, though, if she was the one with more experience with a crumbling soul.

  “She never is,” Danielle murmured.

  “What’s that?” Sunny said, glancing back.

  “Nothing. I just heated up her tea. She wouldn’t eat anything.”

  Sunny nodded. “She’ll have another round of pills right before dinner. She usually eats then.”

  “I’m glad you’re here.” Danielle sighed.

  Sunny’s sweet brown eyes remained earnest in her thick-featured face. “You don’t worry about a thing. I got this here.”

  Danielle squeezed her fingers lightly and strode toward her car without glancing back. She dialed her husband Garrett’s number to see if he was free for a late lunch. They met at their favorite Tex-Mex place a couple of miles from his office.

  Garett’s dark, wavy hair fluttered as it caught in the blasting air-conditioning. His eyes were warm, his smile crooked and happy. He kissed her lips in a soft but thorough fashion, and she melted into his warm body, so glad to call him her own.

  “How’s your mom doing?” he asked once they were seated. He grabbed a chip, letting it hover above the two bowls of salsa. He plunged the point into the crimson cup, brought it loaded and dripping to his mouth.

  “Not so good,” Danielle replied, looking around for their waiter.

  “Hot,” Garrett said. He picked up another chip and began to nibble on it as his eyes watered.

  Danielle rolled her eyes as she grinned. “You do this every time we come here. Haven’t you learned to wait for your drink?”

  He grinned a little. “Now why would I want to break a tradition? Anyway, the salsa’s great. Just spicy.”

  Danielle picked up her plastic cup of ice water the waiter had settled at her elbow and took a sip before she dipped her chip tentatively into the red sauce. Pieces of jalapeño seeds spread as she rotated her chip so that the drops of sauce expanded over most of the surface before taking a bite.

  “You’ve got to plan ahead. Can’t be too hard, Mr. Accountant.”

  “Not about hard, Dani. More about priorities.”

  Which got her thinking again about her conversation with her mother. What the hell had that letter really been about? Not her Aunt Mel.

  Once again, Danielle wondered if she’d ever known either of her parents. What secrets they kept from her.

  She looked down at the chip—at the crack that easily snapped the fried corn into pieces. Many secrets, she decided. Secrets that broke them.

  And most of those lies and omissions had to do with her brother’s death.

  5 Danielle

  As she left the restaurant, Danielle paused, a thought catching her by surprise: Nancy didn’t want Hank at her funeral.

  Danielle understood: her father’s indiscretions, especially if there were more of them than even Danielle knew about, proved upsetting. Granted, Danielle would never be able to resurrect her parents’ dead marriage, though she’d always puzzled over their lack of official divorce. She needed to ask her mother about her thought process there—except any conversation about her father seemed to upset Nancy. Danielle tended to avoid the topic altogether.

  Danielle pulled into the line of minivans and SUVs in front of the long brick-and-concrete school her sons attended. Yellow buses chugged around the corner, full of rowdy faces and a few arms hanging out the windows. Happy yells filled the air as more kids pushed out the front doors—a virtual cascade of bright eyes, open mouths and too-large backpacks bumping against small bodies.

  She hopped out of the car with a smile as Kevin, her older son, walked with his friends toward her. He saw her and dipped his dark, curly head, his eyes silently begging her not to come forward, not to kiss him.

  The pang of separation in Danielle’s heart grew as she stared at the miniature version of her husband, but she waited for Kevin to finish his discussion. She turned to the right in time to see Reid’s blond head bounce closer.

  “Mom!” his happy boy’s voice called, and she bent down on one knee, thrilled to scoop up her younger son, his superhero backpack banging on her arms as she pulled him tight to her body. Oh, how she loved being a mother.

  Danielle’s mother wanted lots of kids—she knew this from her grandmother—whereas Danielle feared giving birth. Not the actual pain, because she asked to be hooked up to an epidural as soon as she made it past the observation room. Being responsible for such tiny, defenseless creatures ballooned her anxiety so high she came close to bursting from the what-ifs flying through her mind.

  Oh, Danielle wanted kids, desperately. She still did. More of them now, as she aged. More pacifiers dropped on floors and between couch cushions, more gurgles of delight. More middle-of-the-night feedings. More snuggles and soft, milk-laced sighs.

  She was thirty-two. At some point—whether thirty-five or possibly later—it became riskier for her to try to carry a baby in her body. Somehow, the years blinked past and she feared missing the opportunity even to try.

  But Kevin was almost eight and Reid was in kindergarten. Garrett sighed with relief each time he saw a baby. Not that he didn’t indulge in cuddling one. He’d been a hands-on father, changing diapers, feeding the babies whenever he was home—but their infancy took a toll on him since he’d also been working his way up in a large, prestigious accounting firm.

  After settling the boys and herself in the car, Danielle flipped on the radio, hoping to ease the melancholy of her thoughts. Probably just a response to spending time with her mother. Danielle glanced back at the boys in her rearview mirror as she pulled up to the stop sign, smiling at their antics.

  Her phone rang.

  “Danielle?” Sunny’s voice quivered.

  Danielle’s stomach plummeted at the tone of Sunny’s voice. “Where did you take her? Parkland Hospital?” she asked.

  “Yeah. And Danielle? I’m so sorry we’ve come to this point, honey.”

  “Thanks, Sunny.” Danielle tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, considering her options. Miranda, the boys’ other grandmother, was at home. She was Danielle’s first choice to watch the boys and this constituted the emergency Danielle feared would come. Just not this soon . . . she had so many more questions . . . about her parents’ marriage, Jonathan’s death . . . her mother’s feelings toward Danielle.

  “I’ll drop the boys at their grandparents’ house. I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can. Thank you, Sunny, for everything.”

  Ending the call, Danielle dialed her in-laws, fighting to get the words past her trembling jaw and the boys’ loud questions. Her mother-in-law told her to swing by, and she did, thankful they lived closer to the hospital than Danielle and Garrett did.

  Danielle raced from Miranda’s house to the hospital, her heart pounding loudly in her ears.

  Don’t let me be to
o late . . . I need to find out about my brother. I have to get the answers you didn’t want to share earlier. Before the opportunity is gone forever.

  Please don’t let me be too late.

  6 Nancy

  Her daughter entered the hospital room, breathless from racing down the long, sterile hall. Danielle’s long blond hair cascaded over her red cheeks and shoulders, her green eyes clouded with worry. Such a beautiful young woman. She never would agree, worried about her thighs or the dimple in her chin.

  For years, Nancy watched as Danielle mooned over the bright promise in Nancy’s old photographs, exclaiming over the fresh, laughter-filled gorgeousness captured there. Danielle often confided in her that she’d wanted to look like Nancy then. Now, she was sure Danielle knew enough to want to be her own person.

  If only Danielle could see herself as Nancy did: a survivor, someone who’d gone on to create a rich life despite her mother’s shortcomings.

  Danielle settled in at Nancy’s side, loosely grasping Nancy’s cool fingers. The drugs she’d been given—morphine, the nurse had said—shimmered through her veins, causing her tongue to loosen but also feel too big for her mouth.

  Nancy turned her head on the white institutional pillow to face Danielle. Her lips cracked under the effort to smile a welcome.

  “He knew.” Nancy’s words were soft, clipped, and way too hard to push over her tongue. So much to tell her daughter. Not enough time to get through even the tip.

  “He knew something.”

  Nancy’s lips twisted with bitterness both from the thought and her difficulty getting the words to form. Nancy gripped Danielle’s hand, Nancy’s nails were neat, a wasted extravagance she couldn’t bear to forego.

  “Do you remember Jonny? That day? Can you see him?” Nancy asked, her voice urgent.