Seasons of Her Life

by Fern Michaels

  “The door, sir,” Andrew said respectfully, holding it wide open. Ruby wanted to laugh, but she cried instead. Hard, dry sobs racked her body and tears flowed down her cheeks. Amber was crying just as hard against Nangi’s chest.

  The four of them huddled by the front door, their faces pressed against the wide pane of glass.

  “Look how tall he is,” Amber said tearfully. “He’s not even looking back at us. Oh, God, we don’t have a father anymore,” she wailed. “Ruby, let’s call him back. He’s our father!”

  Ruby felt her shoulders sag as she watched George open the car door. He settled his long legs beneath the steering wheel before he pulled the door shut. “Now he’ll look at us. He knows we’re here. He knows we’re watching. He thinks we’re going to run out. No, he doesn’t think that at all. He’s disowned us. He’s going to drive away.”

  “Ruby, we’re never going to see him again,” Amber wailed.

  Ruby worked her thick tongue around the inside of her mouth. She thought it strange that she had no saliva. “I know,” she whispered. Her hand twitched as she reached out to Amber. “We’re free,” she croaked. “We never have to worry about him again.”

  “What about Mom? Ruby, what about Mom?”

  “I don’t know, Amber.”

  “Lieutenant, I would be very pleased to buy you breakfast if you have no other plans,” Nangi said quietly as he ushered the girls back into the house. “In the meantime, my girl ... and yours ... can compose themselves.”

  Andrew looked at the dapper little Filipino and grinned. “What the hell, if you’re paying, I’m game.”

  Ruby cried for her grandmother, and for Opal, and for Calvin. His career, and their future together, were ruined.

  Amber cried for herself and for her mother.

  “I’m going to get dressed and go to Sacred Heart. We’re too late for morning Mass, but we ... I can say a rosary. Do you want to go, Amber?” She nodded miserably.

  They walked down the hall together. “That’s some guy you got there, Amber. Can he really kill with a kick or a smack?” Ruby said just to hear her own voice.

  “Yeah,” Amber said proudly. “You know, Ruby, Andrew is ... maybe you can make something out of him. That other guy ... I’m sorry. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Do you have any idea how I feel right now? Any idea at all?”

  “No,” Amber whispered.

  “Then let me tell you. I feel completely empty. Bubba’s gone, Pop’s gone, and now Calvin’s gone. Even if I could make things right, it’s too late for me to go to the airport. I’d never get there in time. The plane is probably leaving right now.”

  “Tomorrow, Ruby, tomorrow you can make phone calls. Tomorrow you can make things right with Calvin. If he’s half as smart as Nangi, you’ll be able to fix it up with him. Why, he’ll probably call you when he gets to California. It will all work out.”

  “No, he won’t call, Amber. I know Calvin. He’s thinking I deserted him. He’s thinking he’s not good enough for me. I don’t know why he feels that way, but he does. And now his career is wrecked because of me. There’s no way I can ever make this right.”

  Her step faltered. Amber reached out to steady her.

  “What is it?” Amber asked, full of concern.

  “I was thinking about Bubba,” she said, and then her voice cracked so that she couldn’t speak. Her grandmother’s death was so devastating, she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it.

  “Listen, Ruby, that sounded real good ... what you said about not paying your debt, but it wasn’t very realistic,” Amber said to her. “If you don’t pay, it will go real hard on Mom. Do you want that on your conscience?”

  “I want to know how you managed to pay off yours, Amber,” Ruby said, testing her voice a second time.

  “Nangi loaned me the money.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about that?” Ruby demanded, knowing Amber spoke the truth about the debt. “I should have been told.”

  “Why, Ruby? Would you have done anything differently? It served no purpose. He’s gone now. We can do whatever we feel like doing.”

  “Yeah, now, when it’s too late.” God, she was never going to see her grandmother, never feel her arms, those wonderful protecting arms. Never see the apple peel in one piece again. Never sit on the back porch again. When it was her choice not to return, she’d been able to come to terms with it, but now it was different. She wouldn’t be allowed to return. It was all lost to her, just the way Calvin was lost to her.

  “Mom ...” Amber said tentatively.

  “What about her?” Ruby asked coldly. She wondered what her uncles would do with her grandmother’s wicker chair on the back porch.

  “She . . .”

  “She what? She didn’t give a damn about us. Especially me. She didn’t even say good-bye to me. She never patted me on the head, never kissed me good night. She never even told me what to do when I got my period. Bubba had to ... to show me how to fasten the sanitary belt. I should have known about boys, how to act, what to do, and I didn’t. Mothers are supposed to be your friend. If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that you have to have guts to survive. Mom doesn’t have any. She should have called the sheriff the first time.”

  “The town, the gossip . . . Pop . . .”

  “Bullshit, Amber,” Ruby snarled. “You believe whatever you want to believe and I’ll believe what I want. I wonder if they’ll dress her in one of those awful purple dresses.” She realized she would never know. She also realized there would be no more letters from Opal. Wet, hot tears pricked at her eyelids as she closed the door to her room, closing Amber out of her life.

  Calvin Santos’s eyes scanned the busy concourse. His watch told him Ruby was late—by five minutes. They’d synchronized their E.T.A.’s right down to the last second, military style. He’d allowed for grumpy cab drivers, morning traffic, Ruby’s busy bathroom, and the weather. He’d even allowed two full minutes in case Ruby decided to eat toast or cereal instead of waiting to have coffee and danish in the coffee shop.

  Something was wrong.

  Calvin started to sweat when he looked at his watch. Somehow she’d found out he was distantly related to Nangi Duenas. He should have told her. For the life of him, he didn’t know why he hadn’t. Maybe Nangi had told him not to, he simply couldn’t remember. He’d been so stupid to tell Nangi what he was planning, but his cousin had sworn on the name of his father, his uncle, and every priest he could remember that he wouldn’t tell Amber. Maybe Ruby overheard Amber and Nangi talking. Ruby would consider keeping a secret of that nature from her unforgivable. He knew he was lying to himself. He’d deliberately not told Ruby because he thought Nangi could feed him information, via Amber, about Andrew Blue. Damn!

  Ruby changed her mind for her own reasons. If he had to decide what to believe right this second, it would be that Ruby changed her mind because he wasn’t good enough for her. It had nothing to do with Nangi. In his gut he knew his cousin wouldn’t betray him. He looked at his watch again. If he called, he’d hear the words.... Once words were said aloud, they couldn’t be taken back. He simply could not handle that kind of rejection, that’s all there was to it.

  A squadron of bees swarmed inside Calvin’s head, a battalion of them in his stomach. He felt dizzy, disoriented. When his vision cleared, he was certain all the busy travelers were staring at him. He had to do something. He blew his noise in a white handkerchief that smelled of Clorox.

  He had been so sure she would come. So certain. He felt like crying. He loved her. He really did. He’d told Nangi so, and Nangi in turn had said he loved Amber. They were going to marry in the spring. He’d felt so damn good when he told his secret, and Nangi had slapped him on the back and said something about still waters and then called him a son of a gun. He’d felt so damn good thinking he belonged at last.

  It had all been a lie. Ruby didn’t want him. He simply wasn’t good enough for her. The hell with it. If she did want him, she’d
have to do the calling. He wasn’t sticking his neck out again to get it chopped off.

  Calvin ached for his loss. He shackled his defense, this time more securely. He’d never trust anybody again. He sealed off the place in his heart allotted to Ruby Connors. At least she would always be with him there.

  George’s voice was so normal sounding, Irma cringed against the pillows. He’d gotten home a short while ago, just in time to speak to Dr. Ashley, who had been on his way out. She couldn’t hear what they had said.

  “Do you need anything, Irma?” She shook her head. “Where’s Opal?”

  Irma licked her lips, made dry by the medication she’d been taking. “Your brother came over to get her. She couldn’t do anything for me, so I told her to go. Grace Zachary came over to help.”

  George replied in the same agreeable tone, “If she’s needed over there, you were right to send her. Don’t want that Zachary woman here, though. What happens in my house is none of her business. You hear me? Now, if you don’t need anything, I’m going to sharpen the lawn mower and then mow the lawn before it rains.”

  Irma tried to dig her body deeper into the bedding. “The girls . . .” she whispered.

  “Ruby won’t be getting married anytime in the near future. They’re bad seeds, Irma, they take after you. They’ve taken up with foreigners that look like niggers. Fil-yip-pinos. One of the little bastards informed me he’s marrying your oldest daughter. I called the other one’s commanding officer and told him what-for. Then I disowned both of them. They won’t be coming for their grandmother’s funeral, and they’ll never darken this doorstep again. We have only one daughter now.” It was all said so matter-of-factly, Irma knew it was true. “None of you women are any good. Underneath, you’re all like that one who lives next door. Filth, garbage. You all want the same thing, don’t you?”

  Irma closed her eyes. She wished she could die that very moment. When she opened them again, she stared through the window at the dismal gray day to where her husband was standing inside the shed, sharpening the lawn mower. This was normal, she’d seen him do the same thing hundreds of times from the kitchen window. If she didn’t think about her daughters, she wouldn’t cry. She continued to watch her husband while she thought of all the letters Ruby had written to her grandmother. She wondered what was in them. Bits and pieces of her daughter’s new life that she wanted to share with her grandmother and Opal. Opal had never once let on that she’d heard from Ruby. Why, Irma wondered, was God punishing her like this?

  Irma was shaken from her dark thoughts, when she noticed her husband do something strange. He threw the blades to the lawn mower onto his workbench. He smoothed back his hair and jerked up his trousers. Her hand flew to her mouth. She watched him walk out of the shed and cross the lawn, still in her line of vision, toward the Zacharys’ property. As far as she knew, he’d never stepped foot on their property, but he was stepping on it now, walking toward the back porch, where he would be cut off from her line of vision. She knew where he was going and what he was going to do. She screamed as loud as her dry throat would allow, but there was no one to hear her.

  The moment Grace heard steps on the back porch, she turned from the stove, where she was cooking up the last of the autumn grapes for winter jelly, a radiant smile on her face. When she saw that it wasn’t Paul, her hand, holding a wooden spoon, froze in midair. Her first thought was that Irma had taken a turn for the worse; her second was that George had found the frivolous locket she’d given Opal and had come to return it. Then she looked into his eyes, and she knew at once exactly why he was there.

  Grace backed up as she brandished the wooden spoon, grape jelly dripping to the floor. “I want you to leave my house, George. I want you to leave now! Paul will be home any second. He’ll kill you, George. I know he will.” God, Paul took the dog to the store with him. She was trapped and she knew it. To fight or not to fight. If she fought him, he might do to her what he’d done to his wife. She couldn’t just stand there and let him ... she couldn’t.

  “Slut!” George hissed. “Jezebel! Tramp!”

  “Why are you here if I’m all those things?” Grace demanded, trying to reach the drainboard and the butcher knife. She’d whack off his fucking balls. Too late. George read her intent. He reached out and ripped the criss-cross straps of her halter-style sundress, exposing her breasts. Grace shrieked as she tried to cover her breasts with her arms, one hand still clutching the wooden spoon. Grape jelly trickled down between her breasts. She was more vulnerable this way, she realized, and as she moved backward, searching for something to fight with, she tripped over the step stool she’d used to get the paraffin from the top shelf.

  He was on her then, ripping her sundress and red panties from her buttocks. With one arm he pinned her to the floor, while with the other hand he fumbled with his belt buckle.

  Grace struggled, even though she knew it was futile. She couldn’t give in to this bastard without a fight. The more she resisted, the more incensed he became.

  He was like some hungry, frenzied animal as he drove into her, pawing and gouging her breasts, and when he’d had enough of them, he gripped her buttocks, cruelly kneading them. “This will teach you to mind your own business, you little tramp.”

  She whimpered, soft cries of pain. He continued to thrust and thrash as he tensed and then seemed to relax. In one terrifying moment she thought they were fused together, that he would die atop her and she would never be free of him.

  His own noises registered with hers, animal sounds, panting, groaning. When he uttered his last piglike squeal of excitement, Grace knew it was finally over. She rolled away and crawled to the doorway. He was on his knees, trying to pull up his pants with one hand while with the other he balanced himself.

  Holding on to the door frame, Grace noticed the sound of her jelly bubbling in the enamel pot. It was the last of the autumn grapes, the best of the season. Paul’s favorite. She wiped her eyes with the back of her arm. She wouldn’t wait for Paul to kill him.

  She moved so fast, she almost slipped as she reached for the bubbling pot of jelly. She blistered her hands, blisters she didn’t feel. He was up now, on his feet, but not steady. She pitched the still-bubbling jelly at him, catching him directly in the stomach and groin. His yowl of pain brought a grimace to her face, but she didn’t stop. She grabbed the frying pan from the drainboard and brought it down on his head in a mighty thrust. Still not satisfied with her retaliation, she dumped hot, melting paraffin all over him.

  Grace was panting, her fear gone now that she was in control. She wondered again if this animal would die in her kitchen. “You want to play with the big dogs, Mr. Connors, then you better learn to piss in the tall grass,” she spat out. “Get out of my kitchen, and don’t you ever come back. You’re an animal, but I took care of that, didn’t I, Georgie,” Grace cried hysterically. “You won’t ever, ever be able to do it again.”

  She watched through her tears as George struggled to get to the door. In her life she’d never seen such dead, evil eyes. She heard him fall down the back steps, heard his curses. She laughed, the sound strange and alien to her ears, then she sat down on the floor and cried, her toes digging and smearing into the rapidly cooling jelly.

  What had just happened ... had happened only if she ... allowed herself to think about it. It would kill Paul. And Paul would kill George if she told him. Paul would go to jail and her life would be ruined. The town gossip would be that Grace had been asking for it.

  She couldn’t burden Paul with this. He’d never feel the same about her. Even if he said it didn’t matter, it would. Nothing would ever be the same. She loved Paul too much to shame him.

  “It never happened,” Grace said over and over as she cleaned the kitchen and the back steps. They’d have to live with the grape stains. As long as Paul didn’t know, she could live with anything.

  Dr. John Ashley was just about to close his office when the telephone rang. He listened, his jaw going slack, then a smile spre
ad across his face. “I’ll be right there. Imagine that,” he muttered, “George Connors making grape jelly.” Everyone in the world knew men didn’t belong in the kitchen. And then a second call came from Grace Zachary as he was walking through the door. She’d burned her hands on a pot. He told her he’d be there shortly.

  Somehow John Ashley had lived through seventy years of life without swearing. A casual damn didn’t count. “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he muttered as he shuffled out to his ancient car. Who should he see to first—Grace or George? He cackled when he made the decision to see Grace. He wheezed and sneezed his way through town in his rickety car, wiping his old watery eyes from time to time.

  George Connors did not attend the rosary being said for his mother that night, nor did he attend the funeral three days later. He was in the hospital with a team of doctors, none of them specialists, who were trying to treat his burns and reconstruct his penis.

  One month later, the head of the nonspecialized surgical team looked at his colleagues and said, “I say we let him piss through a tube and call it a day.” They all agreed. “Put him in a private room. I think he’s going to want to be alone.”

  Count your blessings, Ruby Connors. Every day if necessary. Pep talks were good, important to one’s well-being.