Deadly Blessings

by Julie Hyzy

  Growing up, I looked more like my best friend Rene McLaughlin than I did my fair-haired sister. Back then, I had no clue where babies came from and the fact that I didn’t resemble my parents, nor Lucy, nor any of my Polish cousins had never bothered me.

  All of a sudden it did.

  My mom answered my slew of questions, but there was much she didn’t know about the woman who’d given birth to me. All Catholic Charities had said was that my biological parents were young, unmarried, and at that point, healthy. Nothing else.

  At about age ten I came up with the idea of searching out my birth parents, spending long nights planning the new quest. All the Nancy Drew books I was reading at the time inspired me to find mysteries everywhere, and here was one, involving me, that I could attempt to solve. I was thrilled.

  Bounding into the kitchen one morning full of excitement, I laid out my strategy to find my birth mother. I was five minutes into an explanation about how I planned to accomplish this, before I noticed the look on my mother’s face.

  With one of those smiles that can tear your heart out, she nodded, listening. Standing next to the kitchen table, the aluminum pot tilted, ready to pour hot Cream of Wheat into my bowl, a small saucer of brown sugar ready for sprinkling over it, she bit her lip and smiled. The smile didn’t reach her eyes, which had taken on a glassy look. A lot like she looked when my Nana had died, just a couple of months before.

  Across from me, her elbows firmly on the table, Lucy, eager to share my excitement, kept asking me what I meant. Offering to help, too, with whatever she could do. Neither my mom nor I answered her, and, after a few moments she stopped asking, sensing I suppose, the heaviness that had settled in the air.

  I never mentioned finding my birth parents again.

  But I never forgot, either.

  Now, by myself, I walked through the house I grew up in and saw it through new eyes. This was no longer my parents’ place. This was my house, my home. I was in charge and in control. For the first time, really, I was alone, too. When I’d gone to college, I had roommates, and even when I got my first apartment after I started working full-time, I had to share it to make ends meet. For a short time I had the place to myself when Becky moved out to be with her fiancée. But then Dan had suggested I join him, and that was that.

  This was a small house, by any standard. A tiny cottage, it was sandwiched between a stolid brown Chicago bungalow and a red brick two-flat on a short city block that boasted only six homes and a gas station on the corner. The street outside was fairly busy, and I remembered my mother’s angst any time we wanted to play out front.

  Two bedrooms, mine and Lucy’s, took up the west side of the home, while the living room, bathroom and kitchen lined the east. My dad built a third bedroom in the basement for him and my mom right around when I was eleven.

  My parents had taken most of the furniture to Arkansas and there were big rectangular spaces on the living room carpet where the deep brown rug was clean and never walked upon, like ghost images of what had been. It was just as well. I had money saved from not having to pay rent, and I want to give the house a bit of a lift, anyway. I preferred light colors and cheerful décor. My parents had redecorated in the seventies and hadn’t bothered to change it since.

  They’d left the kitchen pretty much as it was, furniture and all, and my kitchen table wasn’t all that different from Sophie’s. Formica top, chrome sides, and matching chairs that squeaked when you sat in them. My dad took it upon himself to update the set a decade ago, so now all four chairs sported Naugahyde covers and casters that made you careful about sitting down too quickly. I went sailing across the floor a couple of times myself.

  Although I’d been sleeping back in my own room for the past couple of weeks, it looked different to me now, too. I stood in the doorway, remembering the many years of writing in my journal, of talking on the phone, of agonizing over how to rearrange the room so that I maximized its limited space.

  Back when I was about twelve, I’d realized that I could touch two walls from anywhere in the room. Not only was the square footage so minuscule, but because of built-in cabinets in the kitchen, a bumped-in pantry on one side, and a set-back from the hallway door, it was a very odd-shaped room.

  It was something I was proud of, in a strange way. That I could find myself comfortable in such a small room, that I had the smallest room in the house, by far. As a teen, I’d covered the walls with white latex, then used masking tape to delineate the lines for a rainbow of colors I mixed myself. Still here, cheering up the room with faded versions of color, they made a complete and active circuit and it made me smile at the memory. It was dated, but I liked it. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

  I stood now, in the very center of the room and touched one wall, then reached to touch another. I grinned with the light-hearted memory of life being easy. I felt transported back. I was home again. Some things never changed.

  And then the phone rang.

  I thought about not answering it, but I hadn’t hooked up an answering machine yet, and my parents had never gotten Caller ID.

  It rang again, intrusive in its own way.

  I sighed and reached for it, thinking it had better be important to ruin my reverie. Damn important.

  It was.

  A hysterical Sophie told me in halting, crying tones, that they’d found Matthew … dead.

  Chapter Nine

  When I got to her apartment I didn’t understand why she’d called me. The place was filled to capacity—milling groups of young women, all busying themselves with the mundane tasks of cooking, cleaning, and phoning that accompany a death. Smells of simmering Polish foods: spicy sausages, tangy kraut, and the tomato sauce of cabbage rolls permeated the small area. Coffee percolated on the stove.

  They looked up at me, as one, when I walked in the open door. Some faces were vaguely familiar from the salon, and I smiled at them—hesitant.

  When, through hiccupping cries on the phone, Sophie had said that Matthew had been found, apparently murdered, the shock hit me first. Then the sorrow. Remembering our conversation from the other day, I rushed over, not knowing what I might be able to do for her, but knowing that I had to try.

  There must have been at least a dozen people in the apartment, and in the close quarters, they passed each other amid bumps and murmured pardons. It was a cacophony of Polish speech, but the mood was subdued.

  One of the young women, a petite girl with very straight, light brown hair, approached. “Are you Alex?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  I could tell that she’d been crying by the redness in her eyes and the dark smudges of mascara beneath them. She gave me a serious smile, however, and took my arm. “Tenk you for coming for Sophia. I am Helena. We are best friends.”

  Helena was a pretty girl. Not beautiful, nor voluptuous in the same way Sophie was, but tiny and pert, with pale eyes and pale skin that should have made her look washed out, but didn’t. There was an undeniably foreign look to her, and her accented English let me know that she hadn’t been in the States very long at all.

  “There are a lot of people here,” I said, for lack of anything else.

  She nodded, understanding at once. “We take care of Sophie. It terrible thing for her. She take care of Maciej,” she said, exhaling a breath that seemed to shudder out of her. “She like mother to him. She feel—how you say? Like her fault.”

  I hadn’t seen Sophie in the crowded room, and Helena now led me to one of the doors toward the back of the apartment. “She in the bedroom. She not good. Maybe you talk with her? She think you maybe are able to help?”

  “Of course,” I said, having no clue of what I was in for.

  * * * * *

  Sophie’s whisper as she called my name sounded like “Ah-lex,” and held just enough hopefulness and desperation to put a lump in my throat. I eased the wooden door behind me till it was nearly shut.

  Darkened, the room’s shades had been pulled to keep the late-aft
ernoon sun from bringing any brightness to the room, but a slice of gray-blue light shot in, angling across the bed. There was enough daylight to see, though everything had that sort of non-color blur like flashbacks in a mood-movie. I could see a heavy dresser, covered with assorted makeup essentials and toiletries and the old-fashioned double bed where Sophie reclined. She pulled herself up onto one elbow when I came in, and I sat in a kitchen chair that someone had thoughtfully left there. I was sure each of her friends had been taking turns sitting with her, hoping to comfort, all the while knowing it was too big, too much to bear.

  “Sophie,” I said, taking her outstretched hand. It was cold and clammy, and where there should have been fingernails, were crusts of dried blood. “What happened?” I asked her.

  “A police officer came to my door.” Sophie’s face was coming more into focus as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Her face had welted up again and her hair had ratted behind her, from tossing on the pillow, no doubt. She spoke slowly, in Polish, as though pushing out each word, punctuating every sentence with hiccups and sobs. “I was afraid. I didn’t answer the door when I looked out the window and saw him. But he saw me and he knocked and knocked and called out to me until I opened the door. I was very afraid, Alex.”

  A niggle of curiosity wormed through my brain. Why would she be afraid of the police coming to her door? Especially if she’d been anxious about her missing brother.

  “What did he say? What happened?”

  “Maciej was my baby brother. I should have been more protective. I should have taken better care. It’s all my fault. He is dead and it is all my fault.”

  She broke down again, her words coming out with a high-pitched, keening sound. I could hear low mumbles outside the door and I had no doubt they could hear Sophie. I wondered why no one came in. They all appeared to know each other, but they didn’t know me. Why they trusted me here, I didn’t understand.

  Her grief, even her blaming herself was understandable. I gave her hand a squeeze. “Tell me what they told you.”

  “The policeman was very nice to me. He asked me for a picture of Matthew, and he took me down to the station and asked me many, many questions about Matthew’s friends and where he might have gone. He asked me why I didn’t call them when Matthew didn’t come home, and I didn’t know what to say. I just cried. They took me to the morgue for me to identify him. And then they let me come home. The policeman brought me home.”

  I nodded. “But they think Matthew was murdered?”

  Sophie sat up in the bed and pulled the covers away. I noticed bruises on her uncovered arms and bare legs. “What happened?” I asked.

  She pulled the quilt back, in a defensive move. “I hurt myself. At work.”

  She was lying, but I didn’t push it. “What about Matthew?”

  “They found him in some place. Near the road. In a bad neighborhood. They took all his money and they hurt him.” The words coming out of her mouth made her cringe in pain as she said them. Her face contorted as she tried to hold back while she spoke, but she couldn’t manage much more than a whisper. “They hurt him, Alex, they broke his neck. And he was just trying to help me.”

  It wasn’t the first time she’d used those words, that Matthew was trying to help her. It had piqued my interest the first time. Now, with her hand squeezing mine and her eyes on my every move, I knew there was no better time to get information from her. “What was he trying to do, Sophie? What do you mean he was trying to help you?”

  I felt her reaction as much as saw it. Her hand went limp before she let go completely. Dropping her head backwards onto the pillow, her eyes searched the ceiling for answers to questions I couldn’t even begin to guess at. I wanted to find whatever it was that caused the vacant stare, and a tiny flicker of fear in her eyes, but I knew I had to tread lightly.

  “Sophie?” I asked, keeping my voice soft.

  “I have done many bad things.”

  Her words were so quiet that I had to lean forward to hear her. She turned to me, fat tears quivering in the wells of her eyes.

  “What?”

  She pressed the bitten-nail fingers of both hands hard against her face. I waited till her breathing shifted from erratic to some semblance of normal. “I will tell you,” she said. She sat up again, sending a nervous glance over to the bedroom door. I got up to close it completely, turning the knob to keep the sound quiet. The hum from the kitchen outside remained a constant, touching reminder that life went on.

  “Matthew, my Maciej, did not approve of my … job.”

  I conjured up my recollection of the Hair to Dye For salon. “Why?” I asked. “Did they take advantage of you somehow?”

  She smiled then, but a more pained smile, I’ve never encountered.

  “I have wanted to be a hair stylist since I was a small girl in my village outside of Krakow. I have wanted nothing else. Back in Poland, I could not follow this dream. I could only work in the factory, with metal and punches and stamping. I never even knew what I was making. I only knew that there must be a better life. And the machinery frightened me. I didn’t want to lose my fingers the way many of my friends did. Then how would I ever realize my dream?”

  I kept eye contact with Sophie, knowing that if I let my gaze wander, it might break the spell. There was more; I watched and waited.

  “When Father Bruno came to our town and told us of the opportunities here in America, I wanted to come here right away. But Matthew, though he is younger … was younger …” she drew a ragged breath before continuing, “he insisted on coming with me, to protect me. And my parents were happy. They were so afraid that they would lose their little girl. And now they have lost a son.”

  She shook her head. “America is a land of hope and dreams. And I was so happy when Father Bruno found me a position at the salon. I went to school at night to learn, to get my license. And I have done a good job. I am proud of my work.” She focused high on the wall again, as twin tears made their way down her cheeks. “But, the owner of the beauty shop does not hire us because we are good hair stylists.”

  “She hires you because you’re new to the country and you work for minimum wage?”

  Sophie’s smile was one of deep sadness. Though she was younger than me by a good five years, I had the sudden feeling of being in the company of a much older, more world-weary woman, explaining the sad facts of life to me. “No,” she said, in English. “We are … what is the word? Prostytutka. We are their whores.”

  Chapter Ten

  Bass leaned back in the orange plastic chair, crossing his feet on an upturned wastebasket, which he kept in this mini-conference room for that express purpose. He’d chosen the only chair of the stackable set that didn’t wobble, and had dragged it to the head position nearest the door.

  Windowless, this minuscule section of the office had lived a prior life as a storage area up until several months ago. After much debate, the station had buckled under pressure from the constant complaints of frustrated employees about impossible-to-dig-out files. When space opened up, the administration leased more capacious facilities five floors above us.

  Our staff meetings, which Bass called from time to time with no discernible pattern, were always held in here, despite the fact that the large, windowed conference room was nearly always available. I sensed that Bass liked the close quarters; being in a smaller pond undoubtedly made him feel like a bigger fish. While I’m not claustrophobic, I disliked the tight airless warmth of these meetings. I wondered if Bass did that on purpose. Keeping us uncomfortable ensured our time here would be brief.

  Styrofoam cup of coffee in hand, Bass read his notes from the leather portfolio on his lap. He favored wide-striped ties and those blue shirts with white collars that went out of style when I was a teenager. But no matter what he wore, he looked scruffy and unkempt. If I had the chance to pick the perfect outfit for him, I would have gone with a navy blue bow tie and red plaid short pants. Maybe even a red clown nose, too.

  Willi
am sat next to me. We’d taken the two seats farthest away from Bass. To my right was David Gonzales and two seats away on William’s left was Fenton. There were three empty chairs, no longer needed, now that the research and writing staff had been pared down to just four. And in the center was a long, low table, ridiculously out of place in a business meeting. It might have been someone’s coffee table from a 1950s living room. Brown, with fake wood grain, it sported long matching angled-out legs with tiny gold caps at the feet.

  “Everybody here, then? Let’s begin,” Bass said unnecessarily. He leaned forward to place his cup on the squat table. His voice, just a couple of notches too high, took on an ominous quality as he dropped his feet to the floor and began his next conversation with a long, wound up, “Ohhhhkay.”

  I’d attended Bass’s meetings for a long time. So had David. We exchanged sidelong glances. When Bass went “feet to the floor” it was never a good sign. Next to me, David put his notebook on the table, then leaned back, interlacing his fingers across his stomach. While not an enormous man, David was big. A consequence of possessing an unhurried demeanor and a love of all things edible. On the few occasions we’d gone out to lunch together, I’d been amazed at how much the guy could put away. His dark hair, dark eyes, and olive complexion however, more than made up for the added weight. Taken as a whole package, David was a hunk.

  Bass shot an angry glance at each of us in turn. “So, what’s up? Why aren’t we producing stories here? Have you all gone on vacation and forgotten to let me know?”

  Fenton wasted no time. “You gave me an extra week on the Millie story. Remember? I told you all the problems I was having and you told me not to worry.”

  Bass telling somebody not to worry, was like the Pope asking new converts if they might not like to consider Judaism before taking the baptismal plunge.