The Daughter She Used To Be

by Rosalind Noonan

  Bernie couldn’t remember the last time she rode in a car with her older sister, but they were both heading over to their parents’ and Mary Kate had wheels. So here she was in the passenger seat of a modest but clean Chevy Aveo, discussing how they were going to get their dad out of his depression.

  “Dad would pop a vein if he knew we were talking about him this way.” Mary Kate turned onto their parents’ block and cruised slowly, looking for a place to park on the street.

  “Oh, I know. He’s always got to be the parent.”

  “Sarah’s here,” Mary Kate said as they passed her car. “And I think that’s Conner’s car up by the service road. What’s going on? Is someone throwing a surprise party we didn’t know about?”

  “Just another night at the Sullivans’.” As they got out of the car, Bernie wondered what it was about Mary Kate that had changed. She seemed lighter, not so critical. It had been fun driving with her. She reached into the back for the box of cookies. MK had agreed to stop at Marietta’s Bakery so that Bernie could bring a peace offering.

  “Or a bribe,” Mary Kate had said with a sanguine smile.

  “Wish me luck,” she said as they approached the house, its golden windows a contrast to the purple night. “Dad promised to throw me out if I ever stepped foot inside again.”

  “Stick with me and you’ll be fine. There’s safety in numbers.” Mary Kate led the way up the driveway. “Though I might have fallen from Dad’s good graces, too, if he’s heard that my husband is being indicted.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not that bad.” Bernie’s last words were nearly blotted out by the sounds of a party: half a dozen conversations, footsteps, a tinkling piano, and laughing voices.

  “Sounds like a party.” Mary Kate stepped into the kitchen to find Sarah handing two little girls juice boxes from the fridge.

  “Come on in, join the show.”

  Bernie slid the cookies onto the table and gave Sarah a quick hug. “What’s going on?”

  “Hey, stranger. Some of Maisey’s classmates are here, rehearsing a number for the end-of-year show. Your mom’s all over the piano accompaniment.”

  “Of course she is,” Bernie said, exchanging an amused look with Mary Kate. “Ma’s still annoyed that none of us sing in the church choir.”

  The living room was thick with warm air, chipmunk voices, and children. Peg sat at the piano practicing chords, and wonder of wonders, Sully stood tall at the center of the room, directing the dozen or so little girls to take their places in two lines in front of the couch.

  Resurrection was in the air.

  “Dad, where’d you find all these kids?” Mary Kate teased.

  He looked up and winked. “Hello, ladies. You’re just in time to hear them rehearse their song for the Spring Show. But wait, did you hear the good news?”

  Mary Kate winced at Bernie.

  “Apparently not,” Bernie said.

  Sully flung his arms wide. “The family’s getting bigger. I’ve got another grandchild on the way!”

  Bernie and her sister looked down the line of little girls, wondering ... Their eyes landed on the end of the line, where Conner was hitching Maisey up behind him for a piggyback ride.

  Conner’s jaw dropped as he caught wind of their conversation. “Don’t look at me.”

  “It’s Sarah!” Sully announced.

  “That’s right.” She stepped into the living room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “I’m pregnant.”

  “Congratulations!” Mary Kate swept her sister-in-law into her arms and patted her back as the news penetrated Bernie’s consciousness.

  Another baby, without Brendan. He had wanted a third; he’d never made a secret of that desire. Bernie wasn’t sure which weighed on her more heavily, the sadness of Sarah doing this on her own or the loveliness of having another touch of Brendan on earth.

  After that, Sully called the group of little girls to order and they formed two crooked lines, clinging to each other and scratching and sipping from juice boxes. Peg showed them their notes on the piano, and Sully acted as conductor as they sang “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music. The song was sweet and flawed, but Sully savored it all like a true maestro leading the choir.

  Halfway through the song, Sarah sank into the upholstered chair that had been pushed off to the side, and Bernie joined her, leaning on the rolled flared arm.

  The song ended with a flourish, and everyone clapped, including the little girls.

  “Don’t forget to bow!” Peg got up from the piano to praise them, as MK engaged Sully.

  “Hey, Mommy.” Bernie rubbed Sarah’s shoulder. “You okay?”

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Morning sickness. That’s what gave me up. I’ve been spending lots of time sitting on the edge of the tub. I think Sully and Peg were ready to send me to bed, thinking I had the flu.”

  “Bernie, did you hear the other news?” MK called across the room.

  Bernie turned toward her older sister.

  “Dad is going back to work. He’s opening up Sully’s Cup tomorrow morning.”

  “Really?” Bernie couldn’t believe how much could change in a day.

  “I called the Realtor and took the shop off the market today,” Sully said. “When I heard Sarah’s good news, it just gave me a boost. Life’s too short to sit around in a funk. I won’t be able to get Padama and some of the others back right away, but I know how to brew a cup, and I’ll have enough staff to get by for now.”

  “It’s a good move, Dad.” Mary Kate nodded up at him. In her pretty turquoise sweater, she looked poised, but younger. Younger and more confident. She’d married so young. Bernie wasn’t sure, but she suspected that MK had quit college to get married because she was pregnant with Erin. Married at twenty. She’d been married and responsible during the fun years.

  Suddenly the noise of the giddy girls and the warm air spiraled too close around her. “I’m going to step outside a minute.”

  “I’ll go with,” Sarah said.

  Outside, the night air was cool but a soft whisper, no longer the menacing shriek of winter.

  Pulling her wool blazer closer, Sarah buttoned it, then tugged on the hem. “Anne Klein. I’ve got all these gorgeous work clothes, and suddenly I have nowhere to wear them. Pretty soon I won’t have the body for them, either.”

  “You’ll get it back. You look great after having two.” Bernie still couldn’t believe that God or fate or whatever was rotating the planet had left Sarah pregnant with Brendan gone. “So you’re really going to have your hands full with three.”

  “You know what they say: Three’s the charm!” Sarah’s brows shot up and her eyes went wide.

  And then suddenly those eyes shone with tears. “I’m scared, Bernie.”

  “Oh, honey ...” Bernie slid one arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “You’ve got a right to be scared. And angry. And thrilled and ecstatic, all at once.”

  “It’s worse than you think. When I first found out, I didn’t know how I would cope. I still don’t. But I went to the doctor with every intention of ending the pregnancy. I just wanted out.” She sniffed. “I hope you don’t think I’m a terrible person.”

  “Never. You’re my hero.” Bernie put her arms around Sarah, her own eyes misting over.

  No, she wouldn’t judge Sarah. Bernie had always been a defender of Roe v. Wade, but the idea of aborting Brendan’s last child, the final genetic trace of him, was a knife in her heart. As she hugged Sarah, she felt her St. Bernadette medal shifting under her clothes, the chain pulling against her neck as if to remind her of the saint’s promise.

  Healing, not hurting.

  “I’m a mess.” Sarah sniffed.

  “You’re allowed to be a mess right now,” Bernie said. “At least for a few minutes, until you have to face your daughters and ten other shrieking girls again.”

  They leaned against the porch railing, folding their arms against the cooling night. There were no stars to be seen in the overcast sky, and Bernie’s
eyes were drawn instead to the small brick- and vinyl-sided two-story houses that ran up and down the street. As a kid she had always created scenarios of what went on behind the lit windows and neat façades of these homes. She had imagined kids studying under the light of a desk lamp, moms who baked cookies, and dads who had the house under control, the evil held back from the front doorstep. All these years, she had thought she was imagining magical families who inhabited the homes up and down the block, but in truth, that scenario described her own family.

  At least it had been the Sullivans until recently.

  Sarah leaned back, sucking in a deep breath between her teeth. “I hope you’re good with a screwdriver. I’ve got a crib to reassemble.”

  “I’ll help you. I’ll take the girls for overnights, cook and clean for you. I’ll be a night nanny for the baby. It doesn’t look like I’ll be having any of my own, so I might as well get the mother thing out of my system.”

  “The mothering instinct is a strong one,” Sarah said. “I learned that when I heard this baby’s heartbeat in the doctor’s office. Don’t count yourself out yet.”

  Bernie tried to imagine herself living with Keesh in the house across the street, the one with the little fake balcony over the front porch. There’d been a FOR SALE sign on the lawn forever, and renters were living there. Would she make spaghetti for dinner? Would Keesh figure out how to mow the lawn? The scenario was hard to picture.

  Her future was like the sky: opaque and gray as an old strand of pearls.

  Chapter 51

  What the ... ?

  Peyton rolled to the edge of his cot. He needed to get a drink, get up and get a drink, man. But his body just hooked onto the bar at the edge, his arm flopping down to the floor. Useless.

  He did all the exercises. He went through all those sessions with Austin P. And just when his arms and legs were finally starting to move and get strong, they broke all over again.

  Curtis’s body had imploded. His muscles ached and his head ... his head was swollen so big it was filling up his cell. The sounds from the other inmates in the cell block scratched and poked at his head, like ice picks dragged across his skull.

  And the earth below him kept rocking and tilting, shifting back and forth beneath his cot. Like it was going to vomit him and the bed up through the concrete roof of the prison.

  In the frenzy of twists and turns, he was hot and cold and hot and cold. He shivered through tongues of fire. What the fuck? What the fuck! Mama had taught him not to curse, but she couldn’t hear him now. No one could hear him even though he was yelling, shrieking through time and space.

  The face of a guard loomed before him, as if Curtis had fallen into a fishbowl and the world around him was warped. Bruner’s nose was huge. His whole face was enormous.

  “Curtis. What’s wrong?”

  Peyton could only stare with unblinking eyes.

  “Come on, man. We got to get you to the infirmary.” The guard’s voice shot past him and ricocheted around the four walls of the cell. Curtis watched it bounce like a little black ball. A peppercorn. A hockey puck.

  Why is Bruner playing hockey in my cell?

  Hockey was not his sport, and Peyton would have to be careful or he’d be hit by a hockey stick.

  He wished he had a stick. His walking stick, with the smooth white handle. Faux scrimshaw, carved into a rat. That rat used to fit into his hand so nicely. A perfect fit.

  But he couldn’t move his hand.

  My hand!

  It was tied down, with a needle taped into it.

  No needles! I don’t do drugs!

  He tried to rip the needle out, but his other hand was strapped in, too.

  Buckle your seat belt. This bed is ready for takeoff.

  His fingers curled around the metal rails as the bed lifted, spun, and then rocketed through space so fast that the stars that surrounded him like Christmas lights became lines of light against the blackness of the universe.

  The cool, quiet universe. Here you could float around forever and never meet another person, good or evil. He liked the nothingness. The dark, empty sea of space was peaceful.

  This was where people went to die, and Peyton was okay with that. In the end, he made it to a place where he’d be left alone.

  When he opened his eyes, his cell had grown larger and brighter, and the smells were sharper and cleaner.

  A hospital.

  Maybe he didn’t die.

  But he was still on the edge, one foot in deep space and the other in this bizarre world of pain. Blistering hot skin and icy cold chills. His head was still swollen and he thought that his brain must be infected, a huge, swelling canker sore that would explode and spray pus through the rest of his body.

  He faded in and out, hot and cold. Night and day. Time didn’t matter, but the restless ache in his head told him to get up. Get up and out.

  Where? Back to deep space?

  “Get your ass out of bed and out of this hospital!” He opened his eyes to see Darnell hovering over his bed like a cartoon genie. Darnell floating in a thought bubble.

  Peyton would have laughed if he wasn’t so pissed off to have Darnell like a bug up his ass. “I can’t move. Can’t you see I’m dying?”

  “You always got something wrong with you.” Darnell’s flared tooth showed when he smiled; his grin was always mocking.

  “Go! Get out of here!” Peyton rasped.

  But Darnell settled down behind his head, a thorny ache in the back of his neck, and much as Peyton tossed his head on the pillow he couldn’t shake Darnell out.

  He went off again, this time to a restless gray place of dust, ashes of dead bodies that the hospital burned in their incinerator. Every time he tried to breathe, the dust swirled up into his nostrils.

  Ash Wednesday. No ... soon it would be Palm Sunday. And they burned all the palms to use the ashes for next year. He had fallen into the ashes from the burning palms. He coughed, and gray ash blew into his mouth.

  “Oh, Lord! Just take me!” he cried. Anything would be better than this. Besides, he wanted to get to the gates of judgment because his angel would be waiting there for him. Saint Bernadette was her name.

  “Did you hear that?” a woman asked from far away.

  “Yeah, he’s been talking.”

  “Making any sense?”

  “Not really.”

  The voices echoed, as if coming through a tunnel.

  “It sounds like hallucinations, probably from the fever. His temp’s still high.”

  “I’m turning the television on. It helps pass the time ... time ... time ...”

  He tried to get back to deep space, but now there was a new noise: the tinny voices. These voices chipped away at his head. Relentless. Big. Fake.

  “News at eleven ...”

  “Our top story ... ”

  “Coffee Shop Killer ...”

  “That’s him,” one of the distant voices said. “Let’s see what they say.”

  Peyton forced his eyes open and tried to focus through the glare of light. Two figures, nurses or aides, stood beside his bed, but they were both looking up at the television screen.

  “Laurence Saunders, the attorney for Peyton Curtis, says his client may have been tortured and assaulted by police officers just days before the shooting in Sully’s Cup that killed three officers and injured a fourth. And in a bizarre twist, Saunders alleged that the cop leading the assault was Officer Anthony Marino, son-in-law of James ‘Sully’ Sullivan, the coffee shop owner.”

  Marino.

  Hatred flared in his chest at the shot of the man, the photo taken from his police ID. That twitchy smile ... those icy blue eyes.

  “It gets complicated, Chase. We actually have photos arranged in a family tree to show you. Retired NYPD cop Sully is the family patriarch. Marino is married to Sully’s daughter Mary Kate. Sully’s son Brendan was killed in the shooting. And Sully’s daughter Bernadette resigned from the district attorney’s office to assist with the suspecte
d killer’s defense.”

  Bernadette.

  He gasped under the mask at the sight of her. They had her tangled up with all the others on the screen.

  Bernadette ... his angel.

  And ... and St. Peter! The man who wanted to shoot him. He was there, too. Owner of the coffee shop, they said.

  He closed his eyes as one of the aides washed his leg down with a cool sponge. It cooled the burning inside, the fires of hell. Maybe St. Peter had already turned him away, sent him straight to hell.

  Or St. Sully.

  He owned the shop. Bernadette’s father.

  It couldn’t be. That was part of his nightmare.

  But reality was leaking through now, penetrating in uncomfortable ways.

  Peyton moaned as they rolled him to his side, fiery shards of glass sticking in all his joints.

  His angel ...

  She had deceived him. Her wide wings weren’t spread to protect him.

  A thumping sound grew louder, and he saw her mighty wings stirring the gray ash. Thumping, beating, ropy muscles pumping. Her wings were hideous weapons.

  Her wings were beating against him, knocking him from the sky, and suddenly, he was falling.

  Chapter 52

  This was cool.

  Keesh had stayed the night, and Bernie actually had milk for coffee and fresh bagels in the house. She schlepped around the kitchen in her robe, preparing a little tray of coffee and toasted bagels for them. While the coffee was still brewing, she opened her laptop and went online to check the weather. If the sunshine streaming in through the living room window was going to hold, maybe they could do something outside.

  It was a Sunday, so neither of them had to get out of bed and rush off to work. Her online calendar reminded her that it was Palm Sunday. Well, she should go to Mass, but she could work that out later.

  As she clicked her way to the weather, a headline about Peyton Curtis caught her eye. She clicked on the story, wondering if it was more of the same dreck that had been circulating since the story broke about Tony’s alleged torture of Peyton.

  When the Marino story broke, half their family had been dragged in somehow. She had been shocked to see her own face pop up online as the questionable lawyer who had left the district attorney’s office to join Curtis’s defense team. Someone had cropped her image from a photograph taken at Brendan’s funeral, and so she had appeared in newspapers, on TV, and online in her dark clothing with sunglasses shielding her eyes. Those idiots had used the same photo to extract images of Mary Kate and Sully, so the three of them, in their dark clothes and glasses, made their family resemble some sort of Irish mob family.