* * *
When she arrived at her parents’ house, she took a bracing breath before entering. “Hello, everyone,” she called.
There was no response. She looked into the family room where her brother was playing a video game with his son while her brother-in-law and another niece and nephew watched.
“Happy birthday, Nick,” she said.
He glanced up and said, “Thanks,” before wincing as he narrowing avoided getting blown up by aliens.
She went through to the kitchen where her mother was busy cooking, helped by her sister-in-law, Julie, who was laying dinner rolls out on a baking sheet. Over at the kitchen table, Beryl’s older sister, Marian, was scanning the newspaper and munching cashews from a bowl on the table.
“Where’s Claire?” Edith asked as she stirred a pot on the stove.
“Oh, she had some work reports she had to have done by Monday,” Beryl lied, remembering that she’d used a migraine as the excuse the two previous times Claire had begged off a family dinner. “She asked me to send her love,” she added, imagining the expression on Claire’s face if she’d heard.
“What can we do?” she asked with a pointed glance at her sister who didn’t look up.
“Could you girls set the table?” Edith asked, opening the oven to check on the roast.
Beryl ferried stacks of plates and bowls to the dining room where the table had been stretched to its max with three leaves. Soon, she had all the place settings laid with silverware. Returning to the kitchen, she pulled down water glasses for everyone. She carried an armful out to the table and went back to find her sister with the last two glasses in her hands.
Edith glanced into the dining room as she bustled by. “Oh, Marian, thank you so much. The table looks lovely.”
“No problem, Mom,” said Marian. “Hi, Beryl,” she added, as if she’d just realized her sister was there. She deposited the glasses on the table and went to the doorway of the family room.
“Hi, Marian,” Beryl sighed. “Dad in the den?”
“I think so,” Marian said vaguely, already absorbed in the ongoing video game.
Beryl let herself quietly into the den, where her father sat in his chair, listening to classical music as he read. Pulling a book off the shelf, Beryl sat in another chair.
“Dinner almost ready?” Gerald asked after a few minutes.
“I think so,” Beryl said.
“Okay. Go tell your mother I’ll be right out.”
Sighing again, Beryl put her book back on the shelf and returned to the kitchen. A short while later, Edith summoned everyone to the table.
“Whoa, Beryl,” Nick laughed as they gathered to sit. “You’re turning into a barrel. Don’t you get any exercise?”
“Nick!” Julie scolded, noting the dull flush creeping up Beryl’s neck to her cheeks.
“What?” he snorted. “I’m just saying. Maybe she can borrow Marian’s bike and get some exercise,” he teased.
“Let her borrow yours,” Marian laughed.
Beryl’s shoulders tensed again and she kept her eyes glued to her plate, refusing to reply as the tired taunts began to fly.
“You don’t need your own bicycle,” Edith had said in exasperation when Beryl was seven. “Your brother and sister will share. You can ride theirs when they’re not riding.”
That, of course, had almost never happened as the bikes had been jealously guarded if Beryl so much as looked at them. This became the cornerstone of the constant teasing Beryl had endured at the hands of her siblings.
“Why don’t you ever tell them off?” Claire used to ask, but “It only makes it worse,” Beryl always said, speaking from years of experience. The only way to stop them was to ignore them.
You’d think, she thought now, keeping her face carefully neutral, that after nearly thirty years, they’d have tired of this, but it continued until, “That’s enough,” Gerald said quietly. He was the only one who ever seemed to notice. She shot him a quick smile of gratitude.
As soon as she was done picking at her food, self-conscious now about what she ate, Beryl rose from the table and began loading the dishwasher. She was uncomfortably aware of her abdomen pressing against the counter as she stood at the sink, and she was glad to be left alone in the kitchen. Waiting for the rest of the dinner dishes to be brought in, she began hand-washing the pans and baking dishes. Marian brought in her plate and opened the dishwasher as Edith came in to get the birthday cake.
“Thank you for cleaning up, girls,” she said.
“It’s the least we could do,” Marian smiled, wrapping her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “After all, you cooked.”
Chapter 8
“Beryl!”
Ridley reached over and gave her chair a little nudge.
“I’ve been talking to you for, like, five minutes.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his blue eyes probing.
“Nothing,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “What did you need?”
“I’m doing a presentation at the new student orientation later today,” he said, “and I wanted you to look this over if you have time, see if I’ve forgotten anything.”
“Sure,” she said, swiveling her chair so she could see his monitor. “Here,” she pointed, “remind them that there is a charge if they want sources we don’t subscribe to.”
“Oh, right,” Ridley said, typing in some additional notes. “Thanks.”
He glanced over a few minutes later. Beryl was sitting, fingering the corner of a small book. He’d seen her with it frequently and had assumed it was a devotional. On a Jesuit campus, many students and staff attended Mass and prayer groups on a regular basis. She got up to put some books away. Ridley rolled his chair over, feeling a little guilty for being so nosy. Beryl returned to the desk to find him smiling at the inscription.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, her face scarlet.
Ignoring her indignation, he said, “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If they stayed together? If their love lasted?”
To his confusion and dismay, Beryl burst into tears and ran to the bathroom. It was quite a while before she came out, red-eyed and sniffling. She found the small tome sitting on her chair.
“I’ve got to go give this presentation,” he said, wheeling himself around the desk, “but we are going out for a drink after work.”
“I can’t –” Beryl started to protest.
“You owe me,” he reminded her.
“For what?”
He raised one eyebrow. “My firedance.”
“Oh. That.”
Just the day before, Ridley had lost his balance while standing. In an effort not to fall, he had hopped about madly – a difficult thing to do on a prosthesis – before he was able to stabilize himself.
Beryl, who was discussing something with one of the other librarians at the time, had dissolved into tears of laughter. “You look like someone is lighting a fire under your foot,” she gasped, wiping tears from her cheeks as the other woman looked scandalized. “Not that you’d feel it,” she added and the other librarian actually clapped a hand to her mouth in horror.
“Oh, very funny,” he nodded, laughing with her at first, and then his grin faded. “But you shouldn’t be laughing at a handicapped person.”
The other librarian looked as if she wanted to crawl under the desk.
Beryl tried to compose her face into a suitably contrite expression, but unexpectedly snorted with laughter again. “I’m sorry, but you just looked so… so…”
“Ridiculous?” he finished for her.
All she could do was nod as tears were once again rolling down her cheeks while she laughed uncontrollably. The other librarian excused herself and left quickly.
“Okay,” he conceded, grinning again. “But you owe me a beer. For being so insensitive.”
“Oh, God,” Beryl said, wiping her eyes, “we’ll be alcoholics if I have to buy you a beer every ti
me I’m insensitive.”
“You’re paying up,” he told her now as he wheeled to the elevator. “No excuses.”
* * *
A few hours later, they were seated at a tavern not far from campus. Ridley had rigged an ingenious system for fastening his crutches to his chair like ski poles. When they got to the tavern, he asked the hostess to store his collapsed wheelchair in a corner while he swung on his crutches through the closely arranged tables and chairs back to their booth, the last one, where he sat with his back to the wall.
“This would be a real pain in my chair,” he muttered as he lowered himself to the booth’s bench.
“So,” he began after their server had brought the first round – a Stella Artois for Beryl, a Guinness for him – “what was going on today? And I know,” he added as Beryl opened her mouth, “that it wasn’t just today.” He took a long swig of his beer. “What is it?”
Beryl looked at him. She wasn’t normally someone who talked about deeply personal matters. Frowning, it hit her that she had no friends of her own, no one outside the small circle she shared with Claire in whom she could confide. She couldn’t say she knew Ridley well, but “I trust him,” she realized.
“Problems at home?” he prompted.
Beryl nodded and it all began to come out – “gush would have been a better description,” she could have said – the frustrations of Claire and Leslie, how lonely she was, her continued sadness at David’s death, her family’s apathy toward her. “And I’m fat,” she concluded, snuffling a little.
“Well, damn,” Ridley said, sitting back. “I think we better order dinner. You’re in worse shape than I thought.”
Beryl smiled despite her misery. “Told you. I’m more handicapped than you are.”
“Between the ears, I agree,” he grinned.
She laughed. He signaled their server and they ordered food and another round. She pulled her cell phone out.
“I’d better let Claire know –”
Ridley covered her hand with his. “It might do Claire some good to wonder where you are. She can call you if she’s that worried,” he said gently. “Let’s just have fun tonight.”
By the time Ridley dropped Beryl off at home – “I am not letting you ride a bus this time of night,” he insisted – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a good evening.
When she got up to the main floor of the rowhouse, she half-expected to see frost on the windows, the chill emanating from Claire’s general direction was so intense. Fighting her normal impulse of trying to wheedle a few words from Claire as she stared resolutely at the television, Beryl embraced the silence and went into the kitchen where she fed a yowling Winston and then began to empty her lunch bag and wash her dishes.
“I think you owe me an explanation,” Claire said, breaking the silence at last.
Beryl hid a small smile. Bracing herself, she said, “I went out with a co-worker.”
“And you couldn’t call?” Claire asked testily.
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
Beryl swallowed a yell of triumph as Claire’s eyes flicked to the telephone, trying to check the caller I.D. Beryl stepped out of the kitchen.
“You’re never home anyway,” she said bravely.
There was a curious glint in Claire’s eyes and her tone changed, warmed as she said, “I was just worried, that’s all.”
This more conciliatory tone took all the wind from Beryl’s sails as she stood braced for a storm. “I’m… I’m going to bed.”
“Beryl?”
She turned.
“The kitchen.”
Beryl went back to the kitchen where she dried and put away her lunch dishes, wiped down the sink and dried it before turning out the light. As she headed toward the stairs, Claire called, “Good night.”
Beryl clenched the handrail as the words hung in the air for three… four… five seconds. “Don’t do it,” she could hear Ridley whisper, but, “Good night,” she said.
Chapter 9
Aggie wasn’t sure who was more excited about the end of summer school – her or the kids. Friday of that week was worthless as far as getting anything done, so she spent the day letting each of her ten students read something they had written at the beginning of the summer and something more recent so they could show off their improvement. Most of them had nowhere else to show off – either because no one was at home because everyone was working, or because they knew they’d be teased about showing off anything as lame as school work.
“You don’t realize how far you’ve come,” she told them proudly. “You could have the most brilliant ideas in the world, but if you can’t express them, if you can’t communicate with other people, no one will ever know how brilliant you really are.”
At last the bell rang. Rather than bolting as they normally did, the kids dawdled, talking to her, seeming reluctant to go.
“Thanks… for everything, Ms. B,” said Julio.
“You’re welcome,” Aggie smiled. “And you be sure and read that last story to your grandmother. She’ll be so proud of you.”
He beamed and left with a swagger as Becka approached.
“I signed up for your British Lit class in the fall, Miss Bishop,” Becka said, sliding into one of the desks at the front of the room and showing every inclination of wanting to settle down for a long chat.
Aggie tried to look happy about this. Becka was a lonely girl with no friends that Aggie knew of, and it made her clingy. “You’re going to have to set boundaries with that one,” Shannon had warned her.
“Well, I’ll see you in September, then,” she said, gathering her bag and locking her desk. “You might want to get a head start on Romeo and Juliet. We’ll be reading it in class. Goodbye, Becka.”
Becka got up and left reluctantly.
Aggie said goodbye to the office staff on her way out. Walking to her car, she checked her phone. There was a voicemail from a woman at Aunt Cory’s bank asking her to call or come by.
Groaning a little, she decided to stop by in person. She went to her apartment first to collect Percival, wondering why she bothered keeping an apartment at all. Except for sleeping and showering, she was hardly ever there.
“We could move in with Aunt Cory and save some money,” she muttered to Percival as she flipped through her mail, pulling out bills for water, electric and cable. Grinding her teeth in frustration, she tossed the rest of the junk mail into the recycling bin.
“Ready?”
Percival barked and ran to the door.
When she got to the bank, she leashed Percival and took him in with her. She knew all the bank staff by name as this had been Aunt Cory’s bank for longer than Aggie had been alive.
“Hi, Aggie,” came a chorus of greetings, and Percival received dog cookies from three different people. He loved the bank.
“Hi, Tammy,” said Aggie to one of the branch managers. “I got your message. What’s the matter?”
Tammy gestured to one of the empty chairs near her desk and closed her office door. “Miss Cory came by this morning. She wanted to make a withdrawal,” she said apologetically.
“Oh, dear,” Aggie said, frowning. “How did she get down here?”
“I guess she walked,” Tammy said.
“Oh, my gosh,” Aggie said, putting a hand over her eyes for a moment. “How much did she want?”
“Only two hundred dollars, but…” Tammy paused, embarrassed. “Without your co-signature…”
“No, you did the right thing,” Aggie assured her. “Did she say why she wanted the money?”
“No,” Tammy said. “I’m afraid she was a little upset with us.”
Aggie gave a wry smile. “Probably more than a little, if I know my aunt. I’ll take care of it. Thank you for letting me know.” She stood. “Come on, Percival.”
Percival lolled, walking as slowly as he could while looking about, hoping for one more cookie. It worked. As soon as he had politely accepted the treat, he
trotted ahead of Aggie out the door.
Aggie clocked the distance from the bank to the house, getting angrier by the second at the thought of Aunt Cory walking nearly a mile each way. When she got to the house, she went straight to the garden. She’d guessed correctly and found Cory reading on her bench.
Cory kept her eyes glued to her book as Aggie paced back and forth, fuming.
“They called you?” Cory guessed shrewdly, breaking the silence at last.
“Of course they called me,” Aggie said angrily. “What were you thinking? Walking that far? Where was Veronica? And what on earth did you need two hundred dollars for?”
Didn’t Cory remember that the others had very nearly initiated a competency hearing to force her to relinquish the house? Didn’t she understand that only Aggie’s resistance had stopped them? That they had only relented when Aggie had agreed to be the co-signer on the bank account and had arranged for someone to look after her each day?
“I’m not a child, Agatha,” Cory said quietly. “And I ran that bank for nearly forty years before it was sold.”
Aggie stopped mid-stride, her mouth open in preparation for more scolding. Chastised, she sat heavily beside her aunt.
“I’m sorry,” she said guiltily. “I just worry about you.”
Cory closed her book and reached for Aggie’s hand. “I know you do,” she said, “but you need to remember that living so cautiously that nothing could happen to you isn’t really living.”
Aggie felt as if cold water had been thrown in her face. Was Cory talking about her own life, or Aggie’s?
Ever since Rachel had left for a new love – “my soulmate,” she’d said, leaving Aggie’s heart shattered – Aggie had lived in a safe space consisting of work, straight friends, Percival and a ninety-something great-aunt.
“Do you have any idea what it feels like to have no spending money?” Cory asked, still holding Aggie’s hand. “To have to ask permission to do anything? Go anywhere? It’s been months since I’ve been anywhere but the drugstore or some doctor or other.”
Aggie opened her mouth to respond, but Cory cut her off. “I know you agreed to be my keeper to keep the others at bay.” She glanced sideways at her great-niece. “And I know you’re paying Veronica out of your own pocket. You must be having a hard time making ends meet.”
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