Once Upon a Day: A Novel

by Lisa Tucker

  “God has turned his face from me,” O’Brien whispered, reaching out and touching Stephen’s arm. “I pray for death, but he will not let me die.”

  “God didn’t do this to you,” Stephen snapped. But then he said, “All right. Come on.” He wrapped O’Brien in the blanket, leaned down and put one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees. He grunted as he lifted the man and started lugging him to the door.

  Once they were outside, Stephen shivered as his sweat turned cold in the night air. He kept going until they got to the back of the house, and he managed to shift O’Brien’s weight so he could turn the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked, but no one was home. He yelled for Dorothea, for anyone, until he finally gave up and asked O’Brien where the phone was.

  “I don’t want to be saved,” the man said.

  “I don’t want to save you either. Just tell me where the phone is.”

  After O’Brien did, Stephen put the old man in a chair and ran upstairs. He dialed 911 and found out how to get to the nearest decent-size hospital, ninety-five miles away, in Pueblo.

  When he got downstairs, O’Brien was asleep again. He didn’t wake when Stephen picked him up and Stephen realized what an effort it must have been for him to talk for so long, given how weak he was. It wasn’t until they were in the Checker, bouncing along the dirt road, that O’Brien woke up and looked around, obviously surprised he wasn’t at home, maybe also that he was in a cab. But the only thing he said was he wanted Stephen to explain all this to Dorothea and Jimmy. He wanted them to know he was sorry.

  “No way,” Stephen said. “You’re not getting out of this one. You’re going to tell them yourself.”

  O’Brien coughed, but even the cough sounded hollow.

  Stephen was squinting at the road, determined to avoid hitting a pothole. If he got a flat tire now, it could be serious. O’Brien needed to be seen within the next few hours.

  “Where is Dorothea?” he said. “I need to know.”

  “California.”

  “What?”

  O’Brien struggled to sit up. “Last week when she asked for the death certificate.” He exhaled. “I sent her instructions about the plane I’d chartered to take her to L.A.”

  “Last week?”

  “She told me when I called that she wasn’t ready to go yet.” Stephen could feel O’Brien looking at him. “She said she was happy in St. Louis and needed more time.”

  Stephen didn’t say anything. The road was his excuse. He was off O’Brien’s property, and he had to watch for cars in the other lane, and make sure he didn’t miss the turn to Pueblo.

  He thought the old man was asleep when he suddenly said, “You didn’t tell her about your wife, did you?”

  “No,” Stephen admitted.

  “Ah,” the man said, too knowingly, as if he’d found some kind of connection between them.

  He wanted to tell O’Brien to go to hell, but the old guy’s eyes were closed again. Even as he slept, his breathing was quicker now, and shallow.

  “You’re not going to die on me, old man,” he muttered. “You’re important to her. Whether you deserve it or not, you’re getting your ass saved.”

  twenty-three

  IN MY FATHER’S movie, a man’s life is changed forever by one moment. If his son hadn’t seen the car coming, if the car hadn’t been coming, if the man and his son hadn’t been on the street that day, presumably Mr. Lanigan would have stayed as he was before, an unhappy man who didn’t appreciate what he had in his family. It would have been another kind of movie entirely, the kind I’d heard Stephen call a “dud” because, as he explained it, “nothing happened and everyone stayed just as miserable as they were in the beginning.” I asked him if there were duds that worked in the opposite way, where nothing happened but everyone stayed as happy as they were, and he said that wouldn’t be a dud, but it would be unrealistic.

  I found it strangely cheering to remember this as I rode on the plane with Lucy at sunrise on Wednesday morning—a plane that was owned by an old friend of my father, Lucy said, a man named Walter who owed her a favor. Though I was profoundly confused and miserable, at least my life had become much less unrealistic.

  Of course the situation had a positive side. If I no longer understood my father, I now had my mother, and I was already growing fond of her. She was so much like Jimmy. Even her usual expression—friendly but reserved, as though there was something right below the surface that she was both struggling to keep in and wishing to let out—reminded me of my brother, at least the way he used to be.

  His reaction to Lucy was nothing like mine had been. As soon as I told him who she was, he embraced her immediately, and then they sat together on the bed, where Jimmy and I usually sat, locked in each other’s arms. When she told him about the day of the robbery, he touched her face and said he was sorry for what had happened to her, a reaction that hadn’t even occurred to me. I felt so stupid that I almost said, “See, Jimmy, you didn’t cut her yourself,” which was the only thing I’d been consistently right about, but which was also both irrelevant and self-serving. I refused to stoop that low, especially as I felt Jimmy and Lucy had earned this reunion because each had looked so hard for the other.

  Even though Jimmy had thought our mother was dead, he’d not only tried to find her family, but he’d tried to find the truth about her using only his mind and his memories. I greatly admired him for this, even as I regretted that I had not helped him, and in some ways had actively hindered him. Who was it, after all, who’d insisted Father could not have lied about his name? Who’d dismissed so many of Jimmy’s very valid questions about our family as merely his rebellion talking?

  I owed my brother an apology, and I tried to give him one, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He agreed with Lucy that what I’d done for him had required courage. “If you hadn’t come looking for me, if you hadn’t found Mom, I might have rotted in this place forever.” He smiled; they both did. “You’re my hero, Thea.”

  “I didn’t actually find her,” I said, nodding at Lucy.

  “Yes, you did, because it was your questioning that finally forced Charles Keenan to hand over the truth.”

  Jimmy had been calling him Charles Keenan all morning, as if he were someone neither of us even knew.

  “I don’t think so,” I said softly. “I think Father sent me to California because he was as worried about you as I was.”

  “No, or the Liar would have told me the dream I was having was something that had really happened. Why couldn’t he tell me that? All those times he sat with me after the nightmares, and he never said one fucking word.”

  Jimmy had a point, but the other side was that Father had sat up with him night after night. Why would he have done this if he wasn’t worried? What could this be other than love?

  Lucy was looking at me, and her eyes were sympathetic, as though she understood what I was going through. Perhaps she did, but her sympathy, though appreciated, only added to my confusion. The more I liked her, the more I couldn’t fathom how Father could have done this.

  When Dr. Baker came in to give Jimmy the many release papers he had to sign—because he’d agreed immediately to go home with Lucy; she wanted him to, he wanted to and even Dr. Baker thought it was a good idea as long as he continued his medication and started working with an outpatient psychiatrist—I slipped out of the room, mumbling that I needed some air. I planned to walk until my mind was clearer, but after ten minutes, when it hadn’t worked, I found myself standing at the pay phone, holding my poem with Stephen’s number written on the back.

  I had no plan of what I would say to him, but I knew just hearing his voice might be cheering. Even the way he said my name might be cheering because the word had always seemed so easy in his mouth, not weighted with significance the way it sounded every time Lucy said it.

  I dialed the number three times before I could accept that he wasn’t home. I assumed he was out driving his cab, and for a fleeting moment, I wanted to ru
n to the entrance of the hospital, thinking the cab might be sitting in the parking lot, as it always was before. Was it possible that I would be in St. Louis and not see him? We would be leaving soon, maybe forever. I might never see or even speak to him again.

  My spirits were very low when I finally went back to my brother’s room. He was dressed in the clothes Dr. Baker had found for him, which didn’t fit well, but were the only option since the clothes he wore to the hospital were so bloodstained they’d had to be discarded. He’d combed his hair too, and he was standing by the window.

  “Where is Lucy?” I said.

  “She went with Dr. Baker. I think they have to settle the bill and then we can get going.” He smiled. “I can’t wait to see the house again. Mom said my room has so much natural light that it’s perfect for an artist.”

  I sat down on the bed across from him. “Our house had natural light too.”

  “But it didn’t have any real paints, thanks to Charles Keenan. Paints are poisonous, remember?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t keep calling him that.”

  “What do you want me to call him? O’Brien isn’t his name.”

  “Couldn’t you call him Father, the way we always have?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because he’s still our father.”

  “She’s our mother, and you haven’t called her anything but Lucy.”

  “I’m trying, but I don’t know her that well yet.”

  “Whose fault is that, Thea?”

  I was silent for a moment. “Do you really believe he had no reason for what he did?”

  “No, but I know I don’t care what his reason was.” Jimmy’s voice was emphatic. “What he did was so morally reprehensible that all the reasons in the world wouldn’t excuse it.”

  He sounded so much like Father then that I might have smiled under different circumstances. As it was, I decided not to argue the point any further. I was too confused about my own reaction, and I was afraid of depressing him with my sadness. This was his day.

  Both Jimmy and Lucy seemed so happy for the next two hours, as we left the hospital and went to the airport, and then boarded Walter’s jet. While we were waiting to take off, I asked Lucy if I could use her small portable phone to call Dr. Humphrey. He hadn’t called me back yesterday and neither had Father. When Dr. Humphrey didn’t answer again, there was no reason to assume anything was wrong. Both of my calls had been close enough to noon that he could have been at lunch, and I knew there had to be dozens of other possible explanations. Still, I suddenly knew that something was very wrong. I handed the phone back to Lucy and thought for a moment; then I asked her how Mrs. Fowler used to feel about my father.

  “It’s clear that she doesn’t like him now,” I said, “but were they ever friends?”

  “Where did that come from?” Lucy said.

  “It’s very important.”

  “Okay, then no, they weren’t friends. I think it’s fair to say that Janice never liked Charles. She always had a grudge against him.”

  I stood up and told Lucy that I had to get off of this plane.

  “Now?” she said.

  The very loud engine noise had begun. I knew in a few minutes, the plane would be moving. “Please. I have to see my father. It’s urgent.”

  “You’re not making sense,” Jimmy said. “We already told Mom we’d come with her to California.”

  “But he needs me. It’s very—”

  “Mom needs you too. She’s been waiting nineteen fucking years for this. You can’t do this to her.”

  My eyes were stinging. I looked at Lucy. “Please don’t interpret this as having any meaning about the future you are hoping for. I will come to California, I promise. But first I must go back to New Mexico. I have to—” I felt the plane lurch and looked out the window. “Oh no. Now it’s too late.”

  The tears were coming, but I sat down at the table with Lucy and Jimmy, knowing it wasn’t safe to stand during take-off.

  “Dorothea, I don’t understand,” Lucy said.

  “He was very ill when I left. That’s why I went to St. Louis to find Jimmy.”

  “Charles is ill?” she said softly, tilting her head. “Is it serious?”

  The plane was speeding up.

  “No,” Jimmy said, and looked at me. “Dr. Humphrey told you he’s getting better. You can wait until we get to California and call him again.”

  “But it’s not true.” I sniffed, but it didn’t help; I couldn’t control my emotions. “Dr. Humphrey has been telling me what Father wants me to believe. But he isn’t getting better. I think he might be dying.”

  As the airplane left the ground, Jimmy’s face grew paler, but his fear was for Father, I could hear it in his voice. “How do you know this, Thea?”

  “This is why he sent me to a person who he knew didn’t like him. He wanted me to hear the worst about him, so I would stay in California. He doesn’t want to get better. He wants to die.”

  The sadness was too much for me then. Lucy came over and held me; she also told me to take deep breaths, but my heart wasn’t racing. I expected an attack, but instead my heartbeat was as stubbornly normal as though nothing terrible was happening, as though it didn’t even know it was breaking.

  After a few minutes, she said, “Hold on. Let me speak to the pilot.”

  She went through a door in the front. A moment later, she was back. “What is the name of the town in New Mexico where your father lives?”

  “Tuma,” Jimmy and I both said at once.

  “Do you know where the nearest airport is?”

  Jimmy shook his head. I told her, “I’m sorry, no. Up until Monday, I’d never ridden in an airplane.”

  She went back through the door. Perhaps five minutes went by before she returned, telling us that the pilot would land at a small airfield in Raton, New Mexico.

  Jimmy told her we’d both been to Raton when we left on the Greyhound bus, and it wasn’t too far from home. Lucy said she’d call a travel agent and have a car rental arranged. “But one of you should drive,” Lucy said, “since I don’t know the area.”

  “Neither of us know how to drive,” I said.

  “And we don’t know the area either,” Jimmy said.

  “But you do know how to get to your house,” Lucy said, blinking. “Right?”

  “I don’t,” I admitted. “I wasn’t paying close enough attention as Dr. Humphrey drove me to the bus.”

  “I think I do,” Jimmy said. “But I was walking on the way to the bus stop. The route may look different in the car.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lucy said. “Are you saying that you two never left the house until you took the bus to St. Louis?”

  “That’s right,” Jimmy said. “No school, no grocery store, nothing. The food came to us in trucks; the doctor came for house calls. We didn’t even go with Father to bury Grandma. He thought it might upset us.”

  Lucy’s voice was shaking. “No wonder none of the detectives I hired could find you.”

  “I’m very sorry,” I said. “I know it can’t be easy for you to stop in New Mexico. It hardly seems fair to put you in this position.”

  “It’s not about fair,” she said. She was still sitting by me, and she put her hand on mine.

  “I appreciate this so much,” I said, and then I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. It was really the least I could do, and I also wanted to see her smile again.

  By the time we arrived at the house it was late in the afternoon. Lucy was a good driver, and she made her way into Tuma without a problem, but the trip to our house was more difficult, primarily because Jimmy kept wavering about which way to turn, and how far to go before turning, and whether we should go back and try another way.

  We both told Lucy that she could stay in the car if she wished, but she got out without speaking. Her leg was a little stiff, and Jimmy helped her walk up the front steps and onto the porch. I ran inside and started yelling for Father, but he was nowhere to be fo
und. I went into his study and phoned Dr. Humphrey again, and this time he answered. He also confirmed my suspicion that Father had begged him to tell me that he was getting better, but he couldn’t say if he’d really gotten worse, because Father had refused to see him after I left. I asked how Father got my messages, and Dr. Humphrey said he called him each time. When I asked how they made the phone ring, he said he didn’t understand the question, and I realized that Father might have been lying about the way our phone worked too.

  “He’s not here,” I said. “But the Land Rover is. Do you think he might have left in an ambulance, the way Grandma did?”

  “Maybe,” Dr. Humphrey said. “Let me call the hospitals in the area and I’ll call you back with what I find.”

  “Thank you. The nurse isn’t here either. It’s very disturbing.”

  “Your father fired her the first day. She told me that he insisted he didn’t need her help.”

  I thanked him again and hung up. I sat at Father’s desk with my head down for several minutes until I heard Lucy and Jimmy at the door.

  I told them what Dr. Humphrey said, and Jimmy asked her if she wanted to see the house while we were waiting. I didn’t hear her answer, but they went on down the hall.

  It was at least a half hour before Dr. Humphrey called me back. I was still in the study, and the ringing sound of the phone made me jump. Father was in the hospital in Pueblo, Colorado. He’d checked in last night. His condition was considered critical, but when I asked Dr. Humphrey what that meant, he said it could mean a lot of things. I had a feeling he knew more than he was telling me, but I was too anxious to get to Father to press him for details. I took down the directions for the hospital and told him goodbye.

  I left Father’s study to find Lucy and Jimmy. I went down each hall, calling them, and finally I went into Grandma’s old room to look out the window. They were in the yard, as I suspected, but very far out, almost to Father’s shed. Then I noticed the shed seemed to have a light on, and the door was wide open. I thought they’d gone out to shut it, and I found out I was right, when I ran out there to tell them we had to go.