"He couldn't come, Grandmother. They're in Tibet," she lied.
Rose Windham closed her eyes and sighed. A moment later, her fingers tightened. "Thank you, darling girl."
She sat by Rose's bed for several silent minutes, watching as the woman fell asleep. Then, she went looking for answers.
Sabrina found the nurse in the kitchen. The steaming teakettle stopped whistling as the young woman lifted it from the flame. She looked up briefly, nodded at Sabrina, and then concentrated on filling her teacup with the boiling water.
"Hello. You must be Miss Windham," she said, setting the kettle back on the stove. After wiping her hands on her blue hospital scrubs, she extended one to Sabrina. "I'm Shirley Piper. I'm an R.N., and I'll be taking care of your grandmother."
Sabrina nodded, pleased by the woman's confidence. "Call me Sabrina, please. It's nice to meet you."
"And call me Shirley. You'll want an update on your grandmother but can I fix you a cup of tea first?"
Sabrina recognized fragrant chamomile and grimaced. After drinking herbal tea all her childhood, she forswore it as an adult.
"Thanks, but I'll pass. I've got bottled water in my bag."
Shirley nodded and leaned against the counter. She lifted the cup to her lips and blew.
"Your grandmother fell, injuring her pelvis. Or, at her age, her pelvis may have fractured first, causing the fall."
"Excuse me? How does that happen?"
"Your grandmother has severe osteoporosis, also called brittle bone syndrome by some people. It is a wasting away of the bone that happens as women age. Bone breaks down more quickly than it is replaced so bones weaken and may fracture. There are medications that prevent or treat osteoporosis, but she has not been taking them.
"She also suffered a transient ischemic attack. You may have heard them called mini-strokes. These occur when the supply of oxygen is cut off to an area of the brain. Unlike a stroke, which is often permanent, the symptoms of a transient ischemic attack last less than a day, usually less than ten minutes."
Sabrina took a deep breath. It was the first piece of good news she'd heard today.
Shirley sipped her tea again. "The problem is that anyone who has a transient ischemic attack is at risk of developing a stroke in the future. Your grandmother is at risk, and a major stroke can be crippling, or even cause death."
"What can we do?"
"She refuses to stay at the hospital, and since she has plenty of money and her doctor under her thumb, she's insisted that we take care of her here. The problem with that is the limited amount of medical equipment available. We have established a hospital-room setting here, with oxygen and a heart monitor. I've started an I.V. to make sure she has her liquids. She's also on a blood thinner. We have contractors coming in tomorrow to modify the downstairs bathroom, to make it more accessible."
"Do you think she should be in the hospital? Do you want me to try to talk her into going back?"
"You can try if you like, but I've known Mrs. Rose for a few years, and I've never met a more stubborn, hard-headed woman. You see, my daddy is Dr. Piper, the physician under her thumb." Shirley gently added, "You need to understand that Mrs. Rose is getting old, and she is a frail woman. We can take care of her to a certain degree, but her biggest battle is time and nobody wins that one."
Sabrina nodded. "I understand, and you're right. It's important to make her comfortable. Is this a hospice situation? Is Grandmother Rose dying?"
"No, nothing like that. She can recover from this and live many more years. On the other hand, she could suffer more TIAs until she has a major stroke. There are no guarantees. She knows that. That's why she wants to be home. I suggest that you make the most of the time that's left. Do you plan to stay awhile?"
"I really don't know. I haven't made any plans. I found out this morning that she was ill, so I hopped the next available flight out of Baltimore."
"Well, I can take care of her body. Only you can help her soul. Seems to me, that's what's been causing her the most pain."
Sabrina thanked the young nurse, wise beyond her years. She returned to her grandmother's bedside and, for the next hour, held her hand, comforting the old woman.
At midnight, Shirley Piper went off duty and another nurse, an older woman with beefy arms and a kind face, began the late shift. Rose would have around-the-clock care.
Sabrina stood and stretched. She looked for her suitcase and briefcase, and found them by the front door where she dropped them. Exhausted, she dragged them upstairs to her yellow rose room. Too tired to undress, she kicked her shoes off and climbed under the covers. Within moments, she was asleep.
Chapter Two
For the next few days, Sabrina visited quietly with her grandmother. She gave the nurses the space and privacy they needed as they developed a routine for caring for the elderly woman. Rose slept for hours, thanks to the scheduled morphine shots to ease her pain. Sabrina filled her free time wandering around the mansion, organizing books on shelves, dusting knickknacks, and rearranging photographs of Norman and Marta in foreign locales.
Ricardo Brothers began forwarding her mail, and she arranged an alcove in the sitting room as her new office. The kindly landlord also adopted her houseplants, keeping them on his patio until her return. She had few clients since her business was new, and for one-on-one consultations, she referred them to a reliable financial pro. She hoped they would reconsider her services when she returned.
One afternoon, bored and snooping, she discovered a scrapbook and a collection of letters and journals tucked in the antique chest in her grandmother's dressing room.
Sabrina felt guilty as she untied the lilac ribbon that encircled the letters. She seldom ventured into her grandmother's bedroom as a child, intimidated by the lavender gloom and the overwhelming scent of roses. It reminded her of a mausoleum.
This afternoon, however, she pulled the long, heavy drapes away from the window, turned on the bedside lamps and spread the items on the satin coverlet. Some of the letters were in her grandmother's handwriting. Others were from Don Windham, Rose's late husband. There also were some letters with no return name on the envelope. Sabrina didn't know where to start, and her stomach flip-flopped.
I'm not meddling. I'm researching family history, she told herself.
She sorted the letters according to the dates on the postmarks. They ranged from 1955 to 1975, twenty years of Rose's life. She also organized the journals, starting with the earliest. They began in 1965, and ended in 1975.
"As if she stopped living when Grandfather died," Sabrina murmured. "Why? What happened?"
Sabrina never knew her family's history. Norman preferred to live in the present, never mentioning his father, never talking about his own childhood. Marta talked about her childhood, but it was a bittersweet story of a young Brazilian orphan brought up by affectionate Catholic nuns. Marta did not know her mother or father, and had no family until she met Norman in college. It was an important connection: Both felt abandoned, alone, until they found each other. The difference was, Norman did have Rose, a wealthy, yet distant, mother.
When Sabrina was born, the couple was thrilled, but they had no idea how to form a family. Instead, they viewed Sabrina as a toy, almost a pet.
Impatient, Sabrina picked up the last letter, dated December 12, 1975. It was a small, creased envelope with no return address. With shaky fingers, Sabrina extracted the one-page note. The edges were torn, the blue ink faded and, in some parts, stained. Tears?
"I must see you again. It can't end this way. Meet me tonight. Believe me, Rose. We can do this. We deserve this. D."
Sabrina frowned, then re-read the letter.
"D?" Don Windham? Was she planning to leave him? Had she already left him and he wanted her back?
She picked up another letter, this one a brief note from Don Windham.
"Rose, Delivered the boat. It handled well, even in Force 8 winds off Bar Harbor. Be home soon. Love, Don."
Sabrina
glanced at the postmark on the envelope: September 21, 1975. She picked up the first letter and held one in each hand, comparing the handwriting. They were different. Even the paper and the envelopes were different, although that wouldn't make much difference.
The style of writing and the context were different. One was passionate and pleading, the other, matter-of-fact and upbeat. Two men: A lover and a husband, and she lost both sometime in 1975, because Sabrina knew that Rose moved to Eaton, alone, in 1976. Norman, enrolled in a prep school in Virginia, seldom came home.
She opened several more letters, three from the mysterious "D" and two from Don Windham, dating from 1974 to 1975. They were similar. Again, "D" wrote short love letters begging her to meet him, while Don Windham wrote of various business contacts he made while traveling throughout New England, boat orders, and sea conditions.
Sabrina didn't bother reading any of the other, older letters. Instead, she picked up the latest journal and tabbed through the pages to the final entry.
"December 10, 1975. Christmas shopping today. I'm in New York at the Plaza, loving every moment. Macy's is fantastic and I had the best time at FAO Schwarz. I picked up a Pong game for Norman, some kind of video game that connects to the television. Now that he's fifteen, he doesn't want to play with his action figures anymore. I also found a pretty cashmere sweater for Margaret. Don wouldn't come. Said he had work to do and couldn't afford the time. He infuriates me. He certainly can afford the time; he just will not do it. He refuses to use any of daddy's money, as usual. Obstinate man. We could be living in a beautiful home instead of a hovel. I'm so tired of doing without, when we have my inheritance just sitting in the bank. He won't let me invest a dime in the business, saying its 'the man's job to take care of the family.' At least he couldn't stop me from sending Norman to school. It felt so good to spend money today without Don asking to see my checkbook. I'm glad he didn't come with me. I'm going to take a long bubble bath, and I've ordered champagne and dinner for two. I damn well intend to enjoy my last night in New York. D will be here soon. I'm sure he'll appreciate my shopping today."
Sabrina flipped through the journal, checking entries for the initial "D," and finding it on nearly every page.
"Grandmother Rose! I can't believe what I'm reading," she said, biting her lip.
Sabrina picked up the scrapbook and slowly turned the pages filled with newspaper clippings, postcards, locks of hair, and photographs. This book, too, stopped in 1975.
It's as if she died, too, Sabrina thought as she found a folded newspaper clipping shoved between the last two pages, unlike others that were carefully taped or anchored with black corners. She read the headlines and gasped.
"Boat Builder, Partner Killed in Midnight Blaze, Factory Destroyed in Three-Alarm Fire."
There was no date at the top of the clipping. She read the rest of the article.
"NEWPORT – Boat builder Donald N. Windham, 45, and his partner, Derek F. West, 44, died Friday in a midnight blaze that destroyed the Zephyrus Boatyard and injured one person, Rose Windham, 35.
Three fire companies and the local police responded to the tragedy, which is still being investigated. Fire Chief Flip Jenkins reported that the inferno started in an office, perhaps by a faulty kerosene stove, and spread throughout the shop quickly. Fifty-gallon barrels of resin and stacks of plywood, used in the manufacturing of fiberglass boats, were "like jet fuel on the fire. The Jakes (fire fighters) couldn't get close enough to put it out," Jenkins said.
Fire fighters were forced to battle not only searing flames and choking black smoke but also a lack of water. Jenkins said that there were no fire hydrants nearby, and the plant's water supply was inadequate for fighting such a massive fire. The roof and all but one wall of the two-story metal building collapsed, forcing firefighters to flee the structure.
Rose Windham was treated for smoke inhalation and second-degree burns at the scene. Police responding to the fire said she will be questioned later and that, at this point, she is the only eye-witness to the tragedy."
Sabrina stared, open-mouthed, at the newspaper article. She assumed that Don Windham had died of natural causes. No one volunteered details and she never asked about her family's history.
Her hands shook and she wanted to call her father, but he and Marta were already in Tibet, wandering about on the backs of ponies. How much does he know? He must know all, Sabrina reasoned. But why hadn't he ever told her?
* * *
That evening, Sabrina sat quietly at her grandmother's bedside. Together, they watched the news and then the cable's travel channel with Rose hoping for a glimpse of her famous son. His and Marta's documentaries were popular reruns.
Sabina adjusted the bed at a slight incline, enabling Rose to view the large, flat-panel television the contractors installed on the dining room wall. Sabrina wondered how long the 150-year-old plaster walls would support the heavy screen.
The nurse placed a nightstand with a portable telephone and a pitcher of violet-scented water next to the hospital bed, and plumped satin cushions behind Rose's back. Morphine and glucose water dripped steadily into the back of the old woman's blue-veined hand.
A hairdresser came by after lunch and washed and styled Rose's hair. Wearing a frilly ivory nightgown, her silver hair combed into its smooth chignon, she appeared to be on the mend.
"Grandmother," Sabrina cleared her throat. "May I speak to you about something personal?"
Rose flinched, then closed her eyes. "Of course you can."
"Do you miss my grandfather? Do you miss Don Windham?"
Rose's breast heaved slightly, a deep sigh from a small, shrunken woman.
"Every day."
"Did you love him?"
"Of course I did. I love Norman and you, too. Is that what you want to know?"
"No, Grandmother. I know you love me," Sabrina said, reaching out and stroking Rose's quilted leg. "I know you love Daddy, too. It's just that you never talk about my grandfather, and I'd like to know about him. I'd like to know what your life was like when you were a young woman."
"I see." Rose paused, licking her thin, pale lips. "Well, I'm not sure where to begin. It's been so long ago."
"Why don't you tell me how you met?"
"Please, would you hand me a glass of water?"
Sabrina complied, and Rose sipped thoughtfully.
"Well, I was very young, barely seventeen when I first saw Don. He was a ten years older than me, and working at a boatyard in Rhode Island. That's where he was born. That's where we lived when Norman was born."
Sabrina nodded, but said nothing.
"We lived in New York and spent summers on Long Island, in the Hamptons. Oh, not the fancy side of the Hamptons. We had a cottage in West Egg like in the 'Great Gatsby.' Oh, I loved that novel."
Sabrina waited. Rose closed her eyes as if seeing her childhood home again.
"Daddy ordered a new, beautiful sailboat and a handsome young skipper delivered it from a boatyard in Rhode Island. Daddy asked me to handle the jib, and the three of us sailed all afternoon. Don Windham was so serious and capable. I still remember how his hair curled and whipped in the breeze. He was supposed to return to Rhode Island by ferry, but we kept him on the water so long, that he missed the last one. Daddy invited him to dinner and to stay the night. He slept on the boat."
Rose sipped her water.
"That night, I went to him and we talked for hours under the stars. We sat in the cockpit until dawn. When he kissed me goodbye, I knew I had to have him.
"Of course, Daddy was not happy about that. He had other plans for me. He wanted me to marry the son of his banker. A moron. I told him I wanted to marry Don. We wrote to each other. He would come to New York on the train and I'd meet him at a hotel. This went on for about a year, then Don said I needed to make a choice. Either I stand up to Daddy and marry him, or else."
"Or else, what?" Sabrina asked when Rose paused.
"I didn't want to know what else," she said. "I wa
s eighteen and could legally marry, so we went to the justice of the peace that afternoon. We told Mother, and she called Daddy. He never forgave me, and he refused to come home as long as Don was there."
"What did you do?"
"I packed a couple of suitcases and caught the train to Rhode Island with Don. We lived in a small cottage by the bay while he worked at one boatyard after another until he was able to open his own. I didn't see Daddy for two years, not until after Norman was born.
"Then, when Norman was five, my father died and I received my inheritance. We were suddenly rich. But Don wouldn't take any of the money. He wouldn't use it to build the business. You see, my father said terrible things to me after the wedding. He broke my heart and Don never forgave him.
"I forgave him. I would take baby Norman home to New York and visit my parents. We would go shopping or skating in the winter, and in the summer, we sailed around Long Island and played on the beach. It was almost like being a girl again, this time with Norman as a little playmate. But Don was never with us."
"How sad."
"I thought so, at first. Then I became angry. Don was stubborn and proud, even after my father died. He resented the man when he was alive, and more so when he was dead. He once told me he wished that I'd never inherited the money, that it only cursed our family."
"How did it curse the family?"
Rose glanced at Sabrina, then frowned. "What? Oh, I'm sorry, dear. I've been rambling. I'm very tired now. Would you turn out the light?"
Rose's recollections had been clear and she seemed eager to share. Sabrina speculated about the abrupt dismissal, but didn't want to upset her.
"Sure, Grandmother." Sabrina reached for the lamp and tugged on the cord. She picked up the remote control and placed it on Rose's lap. "Here; just in case you want to watch TV for awhile. Goodnight," she said, and kissed her grandmother's cheek.
Rose placed a trembling hand on Sabrina's face. "Goodnight." She closed her eyes.
West Wind Page 2
