"It's Amity, Beth. She's in the hospital. Intensive care." He rubbed his forehead with a shaking hand. "She tried to kill herself."
Chapter Nineteen
Beth looked up at Karim with eyes wide from shock. "Suicide? Oh, my darling, I'm so sorry! Are you sure? Who was it who—"
"Nick Cuddon called," he said, anticipating her question. "And yes, there's no doubt about it. He found three empty bottles of prescription sleeping medications next to the bed—she must have gone to several doctors. " He covered his eyes with his hand. "She left a note."
Beth waited, but when he volunteered no further information asked, "Was it addressed to Nick?"
"Addressed to Nick, but I'm to blame, Beth. For Amity, for Jess... especially for Jess. It was too much for her. I tried to pretend that time would heal, but it didn't; the wound just festered until—"
Beth reached up and gripped his arm.
"Karim, you're not making any sense—who is Jess?"
He took a deep breath and sat down on the bed beside her. "Was, Beth, not is. Jess was my grandson. Amity's illegitimate child. You never saw such a beautiful child. Slim and blond, with a pale oval of a face—he looked like an angel. Amity didn't know who his father was. 'I don't have a clue,' she said.
"God! When I think of her life during those couple of years before she got pregnant.…” He shook his head. “She was drugged out, more often than not, but by the time Jess was born she had pulled herself pretty much together. It was hard—three steps forward, one step back—but she went back to school for the last few credits she needed for her degree in psychology and signed on with a practice specializing in eating problems.”
He clutched Beth's hand. "I was so proud of her and her beautiful, lively son! Then, just as she was beginning to feel confident about making it, Jess's hyperactivity began spinning out of control." Karim suddenly looked ten years older. "He had eyes as blue as a cloudless sky, and just as empty. He was autistic."
Beth slid her arm around him. "Oh, my poor darling... and poor Amity! Is that why she came to live with you and Val?"
"Yes. She had no choice, and neither did we. As I said, her pregnancy had motivated her to wean herself from drugs, but Jess's diagnosis damn near sent her back over the edge."
He sighed. "Anyway, her problems made Val's and mine seem petty by comparison. We tried to sweep our differences under the rug in order to serve their needs, but they kept crawling out. Even little Jess, socially limited as he was, sensed the tension." He shook his head. "It was a nightmare."
"But why didn't you tell me, Karim?"
He didn't hear her. "You can't imagine what it's like living with an autistic child, Beth. They lack the ability to manage information in any coherent or meaningful way. He learned to talk very early, but he sounded like a robot. He'd wander around the house endlessly repeating words and phrases without any idea of what they meant. Any alteration in routines, even the way a napkin was folded, provoked an uproar that continued until the action was performed the way Jess considered 'right.' If you've ever known a hyperactive child, multiply it by ten—maybe twenty, and you have Jess."
Karim got up and began pacing in front of her, his hands thrust up in an urgent, prayer-like gesture. "It was bad enough during the day; by the end of it, he'd go wild. Emptying drawers and cupboards, throwing things, hurling himself at us, screaming the whole time. All three of us suffered from chronic fatigue. In addition, Amity felt tremendous guilt, which, in her usual way, she directed outward, at Val and me. Especially me."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Beth repeated. Her voice was very low.
Karim stopped and turned towards her, raking his hand through his silver-laced hair. "Why? Because if it weren't for me Jess would still be alive. How could I tell you that?"
"How could you not?"
"Because you are the widow and mother of two men responsible to the very core of their beings!"
"I don't believe you were responsible for anyone's death! I can tell from the way you described Jess that despite his problems, you loved your grandson very much. You could never have done anything to hurt him."
"You don't? My daughter does. I do." He took a deep breath. "It happened one October morning. I was working on a paper I hoped to have published, and the time was getting short. Val had suffered all night from a terrible toothache, too bad for her to safely drive alone, so Amity volunteered to take her. I don't remember her saying anything about leaving Jess home, I really don't. All I know is that I was grateful for the quiet...
"I heard the rhythmic sound of a skateboard in the drive...back and forth, back and forth...but coming through a closed window like that, it was almost soothing. To this day I don't how I could have been so...so obtuse." His voice broke. He stood, head bowed, and pounded his fist into his hand.
"Karim, don't do this to yourself," Beth pleaded.
He looked down at her. "I knew Jess related to mechanical things more than he did to people. I knew that skateboard fascinated him. I should have realized the boy next door who owned it would be in school at that hour.…"
He resumed pacing. "On and on it went. Zoom, zoom, back and forth, back and forth—then suddenly a long, grating swoop, followed by the screech of brakes.
"I recall breaking into a cold sweat; I think I must have suspected what had happened even before I heard the frantic knocking at my door. Amity's never forgiven me."
"I would have," she said, reaching out to him, “but you never gave me the chance.”
"I couldn't, Beth. Not yet; especially not here." He turned away from Beth's imploring hand. "I...I couldn't face risking the joy we've come to know."
He opened the wardrobe and brought out his suitcase. "I wish we had more time now, but I have a plane to catch." His voice was gruff. "I was able to get only one seat on the first flight out. I'm afraid I didn't think to ask about later flights for you. If you'd like to stay on—"
Beth shook her head. Under the circumstances the idea was too painful to consider. "I'll take care of it, Karim. Save your concern for Amity."
She finished packing his clothes as he dressed. He emerged from the bathroom, toilet case in hand. "You'll call me when you get home?" She nodded. He tucked the toilet case into his bag, snapped the locks, and checked to be sure he had his checks, ticket and passport. "I guess that's everything—you have enough money?"
"Yes." She avoided his eyes. "Karim? I think maybe you should take this." She handed him the leather ring box.
He opened it and stared at the carved gold circlet for a long moment. "So. It brought bad luck after all."
"This has nothing to do with luck, Karim."
"No, I guess it doesn't." He snapped the box closed. "You know, the more I heard about the Volmar men, the more afraid I was that someday you'd decide I didn't quite measure up." He stuffed the box in his pocket.
Beth's nostrils flared with sudden anger. "This has nothing to do with measuring up. It has to do with trust. What else haven't you told me?"
He picked up his bag. "I told you I loved you. I told you I wanted you to marry me. I'm sorry that wasn't enough."
There was quiet tap on the door. "Mr. Donovan?" a voice called softly. "Your taxi is here.
"Goodbye, Beth."
They stared at each other. He started down the stairs.
"Goodbye, Karim," she called softly after him. "I'll be praying for Amity."
He turned to look at her with a smile so sad it almost broke her heart. "Thank you." And then he was gone.
Shielded by the curtain, Beth stood at the open window, watching as he entered the cab; watching until its taillights disappeared around the corner. The wailing cry of the muezzin spiraled up out of the darkness from the great Sultan Ahmet mosque across the square. It was intended, she knew, as a prayer to Allah, but that night it expressed the anguish she felt in her heart. She turned away, numb. Stumbling to the bed, she threw herself across it, one hand splayed across the shallow hollow where Karim had lain, and cried herself bac
k to sleep.
Beth's flight left late the next afternoon. The only seat available was in first class, but she gladly paid the considerable difference between it and her economy ticket. At breakfast, the waiter expressed surprise when she chose a table other than the one she and Karim had shared. All she could recall of her visit afterwards to Kariye, the Church of St. Saviour, whose Byzantine mosaics and frescoes Karim had so highly praised, was a meaningless blur of color and gilt.
Restless dreams accompanied her on the long trip home. Exiting the long-term parking lot, the courteous conduct of the drivers she encountered seemed astonishing after the cowboy manners of Istanbul, where one-way street signs were an invitation for lawlessness. On her back-road route home, feeling as if she'd been away for months rather than days, Beth caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of the vineyard Karim had asked about when she drove him to the airport six weeks earlier. What was it he had said? Autumn is the vintage time.
Her eyes stung with sudden tears. She slowed and opened her window. The scent wafting in from the dry grasses on the roadside verge and the ripening goldenrod beyond was unmistakably autumnal. Crimson-splotched swamp maples, always the first to dress for fall, bordered boggy patches in the hollows, and pretty soon roadside stands would replace sweet corn and tomatoes with Indian corn and pumpkins. The year was winding down. As she neared home, feeling weary and apprehensive, Beth feared that she was, too.
Beth dutifully left a message on Karim's machine. I'm home; let me know how Amity's doing. No frills. Even the basic Western Union telegrams of yore would have allowed two more words: Please call, or Love, Beth.
Her own machine was filled up with messages, many of them repeats—some plaintive, others irritable—none of immediate importance except one from a realtor who reported having a 'hot prospect' for the house. Beth dialed the number left for her to call. "Hi! It's Beth Volmar, returning your call... Well, I was out of the country... Turkey. Yes, Turkey. Your message mentioned a hot prospect, does that mean you received an offer?. Not yet? They're also considering a house in Roxbury? I see, I see. Then I won't hold my breath."
Luke-warm prospect's more like it, Beth thought as she hung up and began sorting through her mail. She dumped an armload of mail-order catalogs into the trash bin, and put aside to deal with later the inevitable bills and charitable appeals, an assortment of local newspapers whose reports of past events she had no interest in reading, a couple of letters and a silly postcard from—she flipped it over—Georgina.
I decided, the loopy scrawl said, that my voice was too precious to be lost in the welter accumulating on your machine. Welcome home! Housa keeps grinding out ideas like that mythical salt mill at the bottom of the ocean. I'm about to drown in brine, and the Terrible Turk's no help at all. What happened over there?
Beth stared at the dashed-off message. Good question, Georgina, she thought. She tacked the card to the bulletin board next to the phone, telling herself of course she'd call, but not right then. She should call Andy and Housa, too, but they didn't expect her home until late tomorrow. If she called sooner, how would she answer the inevitable inquiries?
She stood there, brooding. A drip from the faucet plopped loudly into the stainless steel sink, startling her. Is juggling the obligations due family and friends going to be the measure of my days from here on out? Closing her eyes, she saw herself thinner, slightly bent, worry lines permanently etched in place, jumping every time a faucet dripped.
"No!" she heard herself say. She turned to look at herself in the mirror over the sink. "No," she repeated. Buoyed by resolve, she decided to drive to Valley Fields to see how her mother was faring. She was tired, too tired for a confrontation, but duty is duty.
"To hell with jet lag," she muttered as she plucked her car keys from the counter. It'll just have to wait its turn.
* * * *
As Beth sipped the tea her mother prepared in her borrowed apartment's efficiency kitchen, she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Although Muriel Tomlinson's physical condition had not noticeably improved during Beth's absence—she'd reached a temporary plateau, the Valley Fields' therapist told her—the same could not be said of her emotional state.
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed on answering Beth's knock on her door, "Back so soon? Come in, come in!" A pot of tea was soon made, and they enjoyed a pleasant chat. She asked no questions about Beth's trip; she made no mention of Karim.
"A classic case of 'out of sight, out of mind'," Beth reported to Andy the day after next when she dropped in to see him at the clinic.
"No point in forcing the issue," he said. "This avoidance of things one would rather not face is characteristic of the aging process. I'm afraid you'd better accept it as an ongoing reality."
"Oh, I do, Andy. Reality and I are on quite cozy terms these days," she added with a wry smile. "I'm sure Mother was genuinely glad to see me, but..." Beth laughed, "... after we had our first cup of tea she kept stealing glances at the clock on the wall, and finally admitted she was expected in the Game Room for bridge in fifteen minutes. After I assured her I had no wish to interfere with her plans, she relaxed. I haven't seen her that serene in years."
"Amazing, isn't it?" Andy said. "Housa and I dropped in the day after you left. Oh boy. Talk about self-pity! Housa was ready to pack her up and take her home with us, but I said no, give it a little more time. Four days later she was a different person. Sarah and Elsie had rounded her up by then, and, well, you know how it is, there's nothing like having old pals show you the ropes. Before long, instead of feeling shut away, she began to appreciate the physical freedom Valley Fields offered her. Dana's still unhappy about it, but if you ask me, Murry's as happy as the proverbial clam. She won't come right out and say so, of course."
"She did this morning—or damn near, anyway. After visiting with her, I stopped in at the administrator's office. Mrs. Tierney told me the apartment unit she had mentioned to me earlier had become available, so I took Mother to see it. It's really very nice, Andy—spacious and light, with its own terrace and a small flower bed already prepared for planting. The former owner—well, let's just say her loss is Mother's gain."
"So? What did she say?"
"Well, she stood in the living room the longest time, looking around, clutching her walker, not saying anything, but I just knew what was going on in her head. She was seeing her dining table against that wall, and the mahogany chest and Chippendale mirror there, and wondering if she could bear to part with all the things there wouldn't be room for—her mother's piano, for starters.
"’This apartment must be quite expensive,'" she said, and I nodded, and then she lifted her chin and she said—oh, Andy the effort it must have cost her!—" 'Well, I'll just have to sell the house.' "
"Murry always was a game old girl, Mom."
"Then she told me I'd have to do the lion's share of the work, and I said I'd do whatever it took, and she nodded and—”
Beth broke off. "I remember your grandfather telling me what business was like in the old days, when million dollar deals were clinched with a handshake? It was like that. Only in this case, it wasn't a deal we were making, it was a whole new way of life." Beth shook her head wonderingly. "So then I went right out and got Mrs. Tierney and we signed the necessary papers and—well, there's no need to bore you with details."
Andy looked at her. "Mom, aren't you forgetting something? Won't all this interfere with plans of your own?"
Beth smiled at her son lovingly. How tactful he is. "I don't know, Andy. At the moment, any plans I might have had are on hold."
"I heard about Amity Donovan," he said. "Nick Cuddon told me."
"Is she still in the hospital?"
"You mean you don't—" Andy broke off. He cleared his throat. "As far as I know, she is, but I believe her recovery is progressing satisfactorily. That's more than I can say for Nick. Poor guy's devastated. He feels responsible."
Beth's eyes widened. "But he's surely not!"
And
y shrugged. "That's what I tried to tell him, but Nick's the kind of guy who loads the world's troubles on his shoulders. Besides, he's crazy about her, which isn't exactly an aid to clear thinking."
Beth fell silent, thinking of the lives Amity Donovan's suicide attempt had left shredded in its wake. She got up. "Well, I've taken enough of your time. Tell the kids Grammy send them hugs and kisses, and tell Housa I promise to call her very soon."
"Please do!" Andy implored. "She needs someone new to bounce her notions off of—Georgina and I are battered and worn, and even Daisy's starting to give her the slip."
Sensing from his indulgent tone that Andy had come to terms with Housa's job at Peabody, Beth grinned. "Hey, once y'all give us shoes and let us out of the kitchen, there's no telling what us wimmen'll do."
"Okay, Daisy Mae, we'll just see what happens to that smirk of yours after a couple of hours with the Idea Lady."
Beth blew him a kiss. She tried to sneak past Doris without being seen, but to no avail. Long experience keeping watch over the unpredictable comings and goings at a geriatric clinic had fostered eyes in the back of her head.
"Beth! Welcome home! Shame about Mr. Donovan's daughter—"
"I'm late for an appointment, Doris," she called back over her shoulder. She drove off mentally cursing the medical community's grapevine, little suspecting the variety awaiting her at the agency where Monica Davenport worked.
Monica waited until the paperwork needed for the listing of Muriel Tomlinson's house was completed. "We'll send someone out to measure the house and take pictures, get details about the heating, well flow, things like that. You'll supply us with an extra set of keys?" she asked.
"I have them here," Beth said, producing them, tagged, from her purse.
"Very efficient," Monica said coolly. "But then you always were." She aligned the papers with a sharp tap. "And I suppose having been a surgeon's wife makes cutting family ties easier than it would be for most of us."
Beth frowned. "Monica, what are you trying to say?"
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