by Mary Campisi
She shook her head to all three. No husband. Thank God. No boyfriends, not the kind she’d want to see her stripped and raw, hurting like a wounded animal; too open, too exposed, too personal.
No, to the mother question, too. If not for her recent hip replacement surgery, Virginia Romano would be here right now, demanding answers and results from Dr. Shaffer and the entire staff.
“The girls,” Jenny murmured. “Grace has two little girls.” She tried to sit up, but nausea forced her back down. “I have to find them. I don’t know where they are.”
“Just try to relax,” Dr. Shaffer said, taking her hand and speaking in a voice that sounded like the man on her meditation tapes. “That’s it. Relax.”
Her breathing slowed and she started to drift off. “I’m tired...so tired. California...time difference.”
“Sleep, Miss Romano.”
“Jenny,” she mumbled as sleep claimed her. “My name’s Jenny.”
* * *
A bright light shone in her face, stripping shades of sleep from her one layer at a time. Los Angeles sure beat Pittsburgh, but sometimes there was a bit too much sun. She’d forgotten to close the blinds. Again. She turned from the light and inched her eyes open. They were gritty and it took a few seconds to adjust her vision. What was the nubby, caramel fabric staring back at her? This was not her bed. She blinked and turned her head. White walls. Television in the corner. Scattered chairs of the same fabric. A table covered with magazines.
And then the last several hours came back in crisp detail. Jenny pushed into a sitting position and scrubbed both hands over her face. The girls. They weren’t much more than babies, seven and five years old. Who was going to help them, take care of them? There was no one but her. She’d have to keep them safe…but first she had to find them.
She pulled out her black bag and dug past notepads, matches, pens, bubble gum, and two tubes of lipstick, until she located her address book. What was the name of that woman who watched Natalie while Grace taught morning kindergarten? Lana? Linda? Laura? She flipped through the pages, went to B for babysitter. There it was: Laura Montgomery.
* * *
“Aunt Jenny! Aunt Jenny!”
Two screaming bundles of wildfire leapt at her, almost knocking her down with their exuberance. Jenny gathered them in her arms and buried her face in their hair. They smelled like raspberries and peanut butter. Her chest tightened, her throat clogged.
How was she ever going to tell them?
Natalie wriggled away first. “Did you bring me any gum, Aunt Jenny?” She had her father’s green eyes, and his dimples, one on each cheek. Her hair was like Jenny’s, a jumble of black curls falling halfway down her back. When people saw them together, they thought Natalie was Jenny’s daughter.
“Was somebody drinking grape juice?” Jenny asked, pointing to the faint purple line above Natalie’s lip.
“Uh-uh.” Natalie shook her head. “Grape pop. Mrs. M says that’s for special.” She snaked her small hand toward Jenny’s black bag. “Gum?”
“Natalie!” This from Danielle. “That is not nice. Wait until Aunt Jenny offers.”
Danielle was Grace in miniature with her chestnut hair and big brown eyes. She acted like her, too, always playing the mother, taking care of her younger sister, keeping things in order and on schedule. Danielle and Natalie were Grace and Jenny all over again.
“It’s okay.” Jenny reached into her purse. “As a matter of fact, I have two packs of strawberry bubble gum.” She held out one for each girl. “Now, who’s been practicing blowing bubbles?”
“Me! Me!” Natalie yelled.
“Okay. Show me.” She ripped open a third pack and stuffed two wads of strawberry bubble gum in her mouth. It wasn’t nicotine, but at least it kept her mouth busy. There was a pack of cigarettes, unopened, of course, stuffed in the bottom of her suitcase, a security blanket of sorts…just in case. After five months of not smoking, Jenny didn’t anticipate lighting up, but she’d never had a sister in a coma either.
“Good, good,” Jenny said. “Now, let me see you, Danielle. Natalie, try again.” She watched the girls puff out their cheeks as pale, pink bubbles emerged between their lips.
How was she going to tell these innocents about their parents? She glanced at the woman in the kitchen and attempted a smile. Laura Montgomery was tall, sturdy, with kind blue eyes and full lips. Her skin was fair, her hair the color of wheat. She was Grace’s friend and she would help Jenny figure out how to tell the girls.
“Okay, girls, why don’t you give me a few minutes with Mrs. M and then we’ll go home?”
“Are you gonna stay with us until Mommy and Daddy get home?” Natalie asked, her green eyes wide and curious.
“I’ll be staying for a while,” she said, avoiding the question. “Now shoo.”
The girls scampered toward the stairs, Natalie yelling that she’d made a half-bubble. When they were out of sight, Jenny stood and made her way to Laura Montgomery. “Thanks for helping out.”
Laura smiled. “Of course.” And then, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Most people have.”
“Grace thinks the world of you.”
“Grace thinks the world of everybody. Me, you, the local grocer, the mailman.”
“How is she?”
The soft bantering disintegrated into palpable silence. “She’s in a coma with tubes coming out of every part of her body.” Jenny shook her head and pushed past the images of her sister. “And the respirator...She looks so...insignificant. Not like the Grace we know.”
“I’m praying for her.”
“Thank you.” Jenny blinked, but the tears came anyway, spilling down her cheeks, pouring out her pain.
“It’s just so hard to believe…and tomorrow was their anniversary.”
It was? “Yes,” was all she said. What kind of person didn’t know her own sister’s wedding anniversary?
“Grace had planned a surprise for Grant. Lunch at a fancy restaurant,” Laura paused, said in a soft voice, “a room at a hotel afterward. She bought this gorgeous teddy, too. Pale pink, kind of see-through.”
“My sister?”
“Well, she needed a little convincing, but it worked. And you should have seen what Grant bought her. I’ll bet she hasn’t even seen it.” Her blue eyes grew bright. “It was a gold necklace with rubies and diamonds to match the bracelet he bought her three years ago.”
“How sad.” And then, “Why did this have to happen? They were perfect together, so much in love, so…right for each other. How is Grace going to go on without him?”
* * *
A short while later, Jenny gathered up the girls and headed home. They lived three doors away in a two-story house that mirrored Laura’s. White siding, small porch, black lamp post in the front. The only exception was the color of the shutters; Grace’s were green, Laura’s blue. Their choice of spring flowers varied, too. Laura’s flower bed sported daffodils and hyacinth while Grace had opted for tulips. White and pink. Other than those minor deviations, the houses looked the same.
Jenny glanced down the street. The houses were so…identical. Did Grace really like this sameness? Didn’t she ever feel stifled, like her own ideas had been sucked out and replaced with someone else’s? Didn’t she ever want to just once say screw it, and do something totally off the wall, like maybe put a totem pole in her yard? Okay, so maybe that was more Jenny’s style, but Grace could choose something more discreet, say a fountain, perhaps, done in a muted stone-gray. Anything would be better than this.
Pink tulips. White tulips. Pink tulips. They formed a perfect border around the oak tree in the front of Grace’s yard, and the pink tulips were the same color as the prom dress Grace wore senior year. Ted Beebleson had asked her to go. Tall and skinny, with wire-rimmed glasses and a deep dimple in his right cheek, they said he once found an error in his calculus textbook and wrote to the publisher so it could be corrected. He asked Grace to the prom as she was leaving the l
ibrary one Monday night and she told him yes, which sent her into an immediate tailspin over the “proper attire necessary to accompany the smartest boy in the school.” That Saturday afternoon, their mother dragged Grace and Jenny out for a frenzy of dress fitting; too short, too long, too tight, too loose. Too white, too black, too velvet, too polyester. Until, finally, Jenny spotted the perfect gown stuffed between a pink organza and a sky-blue taffeta. Red, silky, with double-wide shoulder straps, and a small slit up the back.
“Gracie,” she said. “Look what I found.”
Grace turned and looked at the gown in Jenny’s hands. Her forehead wrinkled and she just stared for a minute, in her cotton bra and panties, saying nothing.
“Do you like it?” Jenny whispered, not sure why she wasn’t using her normal voice.
Grace nodded. “Yes,” she whispered back, fingering one of the straps. “I like it.”
“Try it on.”
“Okay.” She smiled at Jenny and her whole face lit up. Jenny helped her get the gown over her head, settled it around her hips. Then she zipped it up and stood back to take a look.
“Wow.” It was the only word that fit. The red gown made Grace look beautiful, or maybe it was Grace’s excitement shining through that made her look beautiful; it didn’t matter, either way, she looked beautiful.
Grace smiled, a wide-open smile that showed teeth and something else. Joy? She lifted her arms and twirled, stopping to watch the fabric swish around her ankles.
“You’re beautiful,” Jenny said in a soft, almost reverent tone.
Grace twirled again and then again, laughter bubbling up and over, spilling out of her like champagne.
“Get it, Gracie,” Jenny said. “Get it.”
“What are you two doing in there?” Their mother’s voice crashed through the dressing room walls. She yanked open the door, her lips pinched shut, her eyes narrowed on the red dress. “What is that?”
Grace shrugged, lowered her eyes. “I thought it was kind of pretty.”
“Pretty? It’s pretty if you plan to sit on a barstool all day.” She huffed a disgusted sigh, held out the pale pink organza gown. “Now this,” she said, “is perfect for you.” She handed it to Grace and said, “If it doesn’t fit, I’ll get you another size.” With that, she turned and closed the door behind her. “We still need to get you shoes, so don’t take all day. Help her, Jenny.”
Grace and Jenny looked at each other but neither said a word.
“Will you unzip me?” Grace asked, turning away.
“But this gown—”
“Isn’t right for me. Pink would be better.” Her voice faded. “I’m more of a pink person, anyway.”
Jenny said nothing, just reached up and pulled the zipper tab down. The fabric fell in a blood-red heap at Grace’s feet. When she stepped into the pink gown, her eyes didn’t shine and there was only a faint smile on her lips. No laugh. No sound.
All these years later, and still, Jenny remembered that day, remembered Grace’s laughter as she twirled in the red dress, remembered, too, her quietness, suffocating in its sadness.
As Jenny started up the driveway of Grace and Grant’s home, she noticed the wreath on the front door, decorated with tulips and other spring greenery. She’d seen a similar one hanging on Laura’s door, but it was covered in daffodils and hyacinth. Seriously? Were the people like this, too, all reconstructed to act alike, decorate alike, be alike?
She thought of her condo in L.A., thought of Stefan, who’d painted a galaxy of stars on the midnight-blue ceiling in her bedroom. Jenny loved to lie in the dark, gazing up at the glittery points as they winked and glowed in the night. But it hadn’t stopped there. Stefan had dug into his creative well, explored bold, abstract interpretations of art that excited and intrigued her as he and Gerald covered her walls with things like sunshine-yellow stucco and braided burlap. When Gerald insisted she have her own garden, he’d painted one on the kitchen wall—rosemary, basil, tarragon, and sage. Jenny loved that “garden” almost as much as she loved the two men who had filled her home with the beauty of their touch and creative genius.
But the people of Clairmont, Ohio, would never understand. Stefan and Gerald would be considered outcasts, their work a schizophrenic fantasia. What would Grace think? Would she agree? Would she?
It was hard to tell. Grace never veered too far to the right or left, but she admired, even encouraged, those who did. It was as if she wanted to get out of that middle of the road she always chose, that center line where nothing was dangerous, or unfamiliar, or challenging. Or exciting. But it was safe. And if there was one thing Grace wanted more than anything in the world, it was “safe.” Be safe, play it safe, stay safe. It was her mantra.
And it had failed her.
4
“Come here, girls. I want to talk to you.” Jenny patted Natalie’s bed, took a deep breath, and blew it out through her mouth. Her old yoga instructor said that was supposed to cleanse and refresh, help center breathing, diminish conflict.
It worked for about a half-second until Natalie bounced on the bed and asked, “Are you gonna stay with us till Mommy and Daddy get back?”
Jenny coughed. Twice. She’d rehearsed the words enough times that she should have been able to say them without strangling on her own incompetence. But then there hadn’t been two pair of eyes staring back at her, one open and curious, the other hesitant and wary. So like their parents. Grant had always dived into every situation head first, no matter how deep the water. Grace wouldn’t dip a toe in until she’d strapped her life jacket on and consulted her compass. Even then, when every unforeseeable event had been taken into account, she hesitated. It drove Jenny crazy and she knew it frustrated Grant. He’d never said anything, but he hadn’t needed to because his expression was enough to give away the truth.
But Grace couldn’t help it. She’d been taking care of people and situations for so long that Jenny doubted she knew how to be spontaneous. She preferred to stand by with a net while the rest of the world did flips and somersaults through that crazy maze called life.
“Aunt Jenny?” Natalie tugged on Jenny’s ponytail. “How long are you gonna stay?”
“I’ll stay as long as I can.” What a horrible response. She’d always hated the way adults side-stepped issues with clever phrases, and yet, she’d done just that. She had to be honest with them. “I’m here because your mom and dad were in an accident. A car accident.” She bit her lower lip and pushed on. “A bad one. Your mom’s in a deep sleep and we don’t know when she’ll wake up.”
“If you tickle her toes, she’ll wake up,” Natalie whispered, her green eyes wide and serious.
Jenny reached out, tousled her curly hair. “No sweetheart. It’s not that kind of sleep.”
“What about Dad?” Danielle asked.
Fear and apprehension clouded her oldest niece’s pale face. Oh, how Jenny wished there were some way to protect them from the truth. Children shouldn’t have to deal with this, shouldn’t have to confront the maniacal face of death or feel its sharp claws digging into their reality, scratching away at their safe existences.
“Your Dad’s in heaven now,” Jenny whispered.
“Well, he can only stay until Tuesday,” Natalie said with the matter-of-fact innocence of a five-year-old. “He promised he’d take me to get my new bike on Wednesday.” She leaned forward and smiled. “Pink and purple with a white basket and sparkly streamers.”
“Oh, Natalie.” Jenny wrapped her arms around her niece’s small body and pulled her close. “Daddy can’t take you, honey.”
“But he promised.”
Jenny glanced at Danielle who sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded in her lap, back straight, staring at the floor. “Danielle. Come here.”
Her niece looked up and there were tears shimmering in her brown eyes. When Jenny reached for her hand, she bolted off the bed. “No! No! No!” she yelled as she ran from the room and slammed the door behind her.
“Danielle
! Come back!”
Natalie buried her face against Jenny’s shirt. “I’m scared, Aunt Jenny,” she said, her small body shaking.
Jenny drew her closer, stroked her silky head. “I know,” she murmured. “I know.” Of course she knew because right now fear had a stranglehold around her neck and threatened to drag her under. She wasn’t just scared, she was petrified. These girls were counting on her to make their world okay. How could she do that when she could barely make a toasted cheese sandwich?
Relax. You can do this. Think lavender. Think chamomile. You can be the big sister for once. The dependable one. The shoulder that people lean on.
You can do this.
Can’t you?
* * *
“What do you mean Grace has been in an accident?” Virginia Romano’s voice pierced the line, sharp and half-accusing as though she doubted her daughter’s words.
Jenny knew she should have waited to call as soon as her mother answered the phone. One more glass of Chardonnay might have prepared her better. Maybe two. Or perhaps, a whole bottle would have made the confrontation more palatable. But now her mother was on the other end of the line and she expected answers. “Grace has been in a car accident, Mom. It was pretty bad.” She hesitated, then pushed on. “She’s in a coma.”
“Dear God,” her mother sobbed. “Dear God. My Gracie. Poor Gracie.”
“I know.”
Silence. “I’m coming. She needs me. Those babies need me.”
Jenny closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose. “You just had a hip replacement, Mom. The doctor is not going to let you come.”
“These doctors don’t know anything. I’m fine.” Her voice dropped to a painful whisper. “I have to see her, I have to see Gracie.”
“There’s nothing anyone can do right now except wait. And you need your therapy.”
“Therapy? How can I think about therapy when my daughter is lying in a coma? I have to get to her.”
