“Male?” Donna blushed, embarrassed for asking. She tightened the grip on her closed eyelids.
“A fellow professor,” Sergeant Cramer added quickly. “Harry Terkle.”
Donna opened her eyes and shook her head. “Professor Terkle is a small guy not big enough to catch David.” But she didn’t want to think about David’s accident. “One time,” she said, “David caught a professor who fell down the steps in the Physics building.” Everyone was staring at her, so she added, “In West Hall. Back then the building was called West Engineering.”
“There’s a water tank to test out submarines in the basement.” Sam added to the non-sequitur.
“Really?” John said.
Donna could tell they thought she was babbling. “The other professor was old, rather frail really. David is a big man. Harry could not have helped.”
“He broke several bones,” Sergeant Cramer said.
“Which bones did Harry break?” Donna asked, completely confused by the ambiguous pronoun.
“Not Harry,” Sam said. “Your husband.”
“Professor Terkle did break four fingers of his right hand.” Sergeant Cramer added.
“He may have struck her husband.” Sam stood, sounding appropriately outraged.
“He claims,” Sergeant Cramer corrected, “his hand was holding onto your husband’s belt.”
Whirling contradictory pictures swirled in Donna’s brain. “Tell me again, did my husband sustain broken bones?”
“Yes,” Sergeant Cramer said. “His right femur and ankle were both shattered.”
“And his neck,” Sam added, stopping any further details at the sound of Donna’s sharp intake of breath.
The doorbell rang and Sally commented, “Saved by the bell.” Sergeant Cramer stood up and tugged at Sam’s sleeve. Donna thought a dressing down was going to occur shortly, as soon as the woman superior officer could get Sam out of earshot. She imagined some guidebook covered visiting wives with gifts of widowhood.
Norman, David’s youngest son, came in and sat down next to Donna. “I called Joseph. We need to tell him when to fly in for the memorial services.”
She looked diligently at David’s. Not many, if any, of his features resembled David’s. Joseph possessed David’s light coloring, but he was a head shorter, as was Norman. Donna excused herself and called her brother, Steve. “David’s fallen,” she said. “I’m afraid it was fatal. I’ll call the undertaker. We decided to be cremated. Am I forgetting anything?” The phone dropped out of her hand. She looked at the useless thing lying on the carpet as if it were a bug too big to step on. Sally picked up the phone and further explained the situation to Steve.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
“Tell Donna, I’ll come down tomorrow morning and help with the arrangements,” Steve said. “I’m so sorry. He was the love of her life.” Steve kept talking but Sally did not pay attention. Her thoughts went off track. The love of Donna’s life. But was Donna the love of David’s life.
Norman took the phone from Sally’s hand. “Yes,” Norman said. “Everyone is pretty upset.” Norman turned toward Donna for a moment. “Do you need a doctor?’
Donna shook her head. “I’ve never taken drugs and I’m not going to start now. Tell him there’s going to be an inquest.” She looked like she felt a strong urge to vomit and rushed to the guest bathroom at the front entrance.
After a decent interval, Norman knocked on the door. “Steve wants to know why there will be an inquest.”
“How the hell should I know?” Donna answered between heaving up breakfast and lunch.
After Norman and the police exited, Sally fixated on the dining room table again, which was set for dinner.
Donna followed Sally’s gaze to the table. “This morning David prepared breakfast, as he has every morning for the last sixteen years. I heard him opening the refrigerator door to bring the milk and juice to the table. Sometimes his compulsive behavior drives me crazy; but when things get tough, like this morning, I appreciate his slightly nutty traits.”
Sally thought it best to let Donna rant on about the last time she saw her husband alive, before asking pertinent questions about the accident. Sally vividly remembered being catatonic, unable to move away from the window above her kitchen sink. Locked in unmoving time, she imagined her late husband, Danny, was taking the garbage out and would return in a minute. But he was gone, seven years ago. John reclaimed Donna’s coffee cup.
Donna looked up at him. “I have been racking my brain to see if I said anything particularly mean last night. I turned away from him, when I told him to stop dating other women when I was busy.”
“David would never …” John began, but Sally gave him a look to keep silent.
“The crazy woman next door waylays David every time he leaves the house. She usually claims her cat is lost, but I know she’s referring to a more delicate need. I wish I’d been able to summon the courage necessary, at the time, to judge David’s facial response. Instead, I escaped to my safe-haven in the studio.”
Sally almost asked to see if a new painting resulted from the turmoil, but she restrained her curiosity.
Donna droned on. “The morning light caught the edge of my breakfast spoon as I lifted it half mast, expecting his routine question. He always asks me what I dreamt. But David didn’t look at me, just started filling his dish with bran and milk. I waited for him to lift his head, before I told him I dreamt I was screaming again, locked in cement. He called it a nightmare, but without a sympathizing tone. So, I asked him what he would like for dinner to placate his side of the table. He asked me if I needed anything to make a chicken pot pie.” She turned to Sally. “I hate to cook.” Then she returned to her soliloquy, “I told him I’d cut up the roast chicken from Busch’s.” She looked at her twisted hands as if the effort to concentrate on David, alive, required shutting out the reality of Sally and John’s troubling presence. “I wondered if he would miss me if he deserted the marriage for another woman. Of course, his behavior this morning denied any intention of packing up before he left for the office.” Donna rushed on, as if afraid to face the present reality. “David asked me which book we should read as he opened his Old Testament.” She took Sally’s hand to explain. “David is teaching himself Yiddish. I compete by attempting to learn at least one word of Italian each day from my Italian Bible.”
Sally asked, “Which verses did you read?”
“The twenty-third Psalm. I hoped he would understand the implication of my mood, at the time. Instead, we read Ecclesiastes. You know, dust in the wind?” Sally realized nothing traumatic happened between the couple, other than a jealous accusation. Donna sighed. “I wish he shared my quick temper, then he might realize the remorse I felt. I always make up first. He is beautiful.” Sally admitted the dead man’s vanishing hairline emphasized the noble slope of his forehead and nose. No wonder women threw themselves at him like daft hens in need of a rooster. Donna lifted her chin. Sally hoped Donna’s innate stubbornness would help her adjust to her loss. “David took my hand and held it to his chest, when he asked me, ‘Where would I go? I love you.’ I felt the deep bass of his words resonate through his chest to my hands. I do love him.” Sally knew the truth when she heard it. Donna loved David too much, beyond her own good sense. Donna stood and invited them. “Come up and see the painting my anger produced this afternoon.”
John followed Sally and Donna up the stairs. The fresh painting was still on the easel in the studio. With a background of fiery orange, graduating shades of red, purple and blue storm clouds burst upward across the surface of the canvas as if fisted clouds were unleashing their impotent energy. The black silhouette of a boat with a broken mast secured a small central place amidst storm-tossed waves. The sea spray atop the waves resembled sprinkles of blood. “Geez,” John muttered. “Wait till Zelda gets a load of this ‘effort.’ She’ll think you’re as crazy as Van Gogh.” John was right. The carnage depicted didn’t compare with the normal style of Donna�
�s still life studies, animal portraits or farm landscapes.
“You’ve crossed some kind of artistic barrier.” Sally patted the widow’s back. “This is certainly not as tame as the rest of your work.” As if to hide the evidence of her anger, Donna covered the canvas with a bath towel. “Are you ready to answer a few questions now, Donna?” Sally asked as gently as she could.
“Yes,” Donna said. “Let’s go down and drink some more of John’s coffee.”
They sat down at the festive supper table, which David had not been able to enjoy. John picked up the unused crockery and silverware, retiring them to the kitchen. He returned with three mugs of coffee. “Did David say anything unusual before he left this morning?”
Donna seemed about to doze off. She stood as if to keep herself awake. Sally noticed the time, one o’clock in the morning. “Come into the den.” Donna got up from the table. “I’ll try to remember.”
“Maybe you should try to get some sleep,” Sally said. “I could stay with you tonight.”
“I won’t be able to sleep,” Donna said, nearly sleepwalking across the front room to David’s den. “He didn’t have much time this morning.”
Sally told John to go home, “I’ll stay the night. Okay?”
John hugged her good night. “I’ll be back at eight. Ginger will need walking.”
Sally kissed him longer than she usually did. Another good man suddenly gone, made John more precious to her.
Donna sat behind her husband’s desk. She ran her fingernails over the glass top. “David said he wished there was a God on speaking terms with him.”
“Why was that?”
“I don’t know. I worried more about the oil from David’s hand, which I would eventually need to clean off the glass top of the desk. I probably should just let him add to the grime on the antique desk and remove the glass protector. This morning he continued to stroke the glass. I noticed his face appeared melancholy. Maybe because his head was bowed. I asked him if he thought there was a genie in his desk.”
“Can you remember what he said?”
Donna shook her head. “We started playing with St. Francis’ prayer.” Donna rubbed her eyes, like a child with both fists balled up. “David said, ‘Confusion seeks truth.’ I corrected him. The word was ‘error’ in St. Francis’ prayer. ‘Where there is error let me bring truth.’”
“No,” David said, according to Donna, “Errors seek forgiveness.”
“Wrong seeks the spirit of forgiveness. I did forgive David.” Donna sat very still at her husband’s desk. “But I did not want to forget. I felt something change deep inside me. The seed of hope for first place in David’s affection was trampled into dust.”
Sally knew David would not have noticed the change in Donna’s mood. The truth was he did not pay close attention to his wife’s emotional life. Few men did. Like the rest of womankind, Donna needed to recognize her sole responsibility for her emotional landscape.
“If I asked him, for instance, what the priorities were in his life.” Donna’s sighing was becoming habitual. “David would surely answer research into the mysteries of chemistry came first. I know I was silly to be unhappy about the implied second place position in his affections.” Donna gave a short embarrassed laugh. “I lugged my cup of coffee up and down the stairs this morning. I removed every picture of the two of us from the walls of the living room, bedroom, hallways, and my painting studio. I stacked them all on top of the photograph albums in David’s closet. I didn’t want to face any evidence of our affection. When David is physically at home, his mind seems in the possession of some other thought, some other direction, maybe not some other person.”
David would not have missed the photographs, if he had been able to come home. Sally tried to explain to the widow. “David’s constant claim of pharmaceutical research demanding all of his attention was probably truthful. His disconnect from his surroundings surely felt as if he purposefully wiped awareness of you from his inner road map. But David was just being himself, a scientist without many clues to emotions.”
“At the time …,” Donna used the last tissue in the box on David’s desk. “The rejection smelled of fear, fed my anger, and drained affection away from him. Now he will never return. I will miss him.”
Sally ushered Donna upstairs to the bedroom, hoping for her to collapse at some point into the peaceful realm of sleep. However, Donna seemed to be just getting started on venting the problems she perceived with her late husband.
Prone on top of her wedding circle bedspread, Donna said, “If I used the brains God provided, I would have stopped insisting on the use of condoms. I wanted children. But I felt the victims of David’s lack of attention would then include children in need of a father. Only my promise to myself, about never being the one to leave, kept me tethered and childless. Research did claim more than David’s attention.”
Sally tried to comfort her. “Vows do matter or life is meaningless.”
Chapter Thirteen
Third Friday in November
Donna was still sleeping at ten o’clock the next morning. After consulting with John, Sally called Zelda Cameron and made a date for lunch at the City Club. John agreed Sally should encourage Donna to get out of the house. Did Zelda know all was not well at the Leonard household? Donna gave every indication she didn’t consider her painting efforts worthy of as much attention as Sally and Zelda. Zelda and Sally agreed on little else. According to Donna, painting provided the therapy she needed to maintain her marital status. Focusing on the process of creating a tangible idea, with the additional concentration needed for clarity in rendering significant details, as well as the flow of hours, afforded Donna a sabbatical from negative fixations, the black holes in her life.
Sally wasn’t fond of Zelda. Zelda usually attended the Chemistry Department’s functions and gravitated toward the friendly clutch of Donna and Sally. Zelda was the significant other of Paul St. Claire, the research supervisor for David and his best friend, Harry Terkle. Sally was as sure of one thing as Donna was. Harry held no animosity against David. David was a living god as far as Harry was concerned.
Sally once heard Harry comment to one of David’s students. “He’s just an amazing teacher. Gifted.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Lunch time, City Club
Zelda knocked on Donna’s door wearing the outfit she donned for every outing. Zelda did not lack funds for a varied wardrobe. A silver fox graced the collar of her favorite three-quarter length coat. An admirer’s latest gift of an etched glass broach on her most dependable black sweater topped a long skirt ending with comfortable but expensive flat shoes. The only variation Zelda provided for the austere get-up was her extensive collection of Coach purses. To date, Sally counted 42. One of Zelda’s better grooming traits, as far as Sally was concerned, was that she shunned the use of perfume.
Once they had assembled at the City Club, Sally chose a table facing the doorway. With her back to the wall, she hoped her interrogation of Zelda and Donna would entice fewer listeners.
Zelda placed purse, number 43, on the chair next to Donna. “I heard about David.”
Donna bent her head and blushed. “Sally insisted I get away from the house.”
“I thought the show Sally arranged for you at the hospital started today.” Zelda flourished her coat onto the purse.
“It did!” Donna smacked her forehead. “Oh, well. Let’s eat.”
“I’ll order for you.” Zelda patted Donna’s hand. “Sally, do you need to leave?”
`“The show will manage without us.” Sally wondered why Zelda was bent on getting rid of her. “The whole town knows about David’s accident by now.”
“Maybe the committee chose my work in the first place because of David’s position at the university.”
“Nonsense,” Sally said immediately. She was surprised that Zelda did not follow her lead.
“So tell me,” Zelda asked pointedly, changing the subject away from the safe area of
art. “Why was Harry so angry with David?”
“Harry will be as upset about David’s accident as I am.”
“Why did you even ask?” Sally wanted to know. Everyone knew David was Harry’s best friend. They worked on the same chemistry project and were always seen together.
“You haven’t heard?” Zelda purposefully seemed to take a long time stirring cream into her tea. “The police arrested Harry for pushing David down the stairs.”
“Nonsense.” Sally wondered if she was repeating herself.
“I feel as if I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.” Donna loosened her barrette, draping her hair over her shoulder. She twisted the split-ends in a distracted manner. “I didn’t know anything was wrong between them. David was increasingly distracted.” Donna stifled a self-pitying sob. “He acted as if he learned a script for a play about marriage with no heart in the words.”
“Mercy,” Zelda said.
“When’s the last time he went to the doctor?” Sally asked.
“Everything’s fine there. I receive his medical reports. I even called Doctor Lorell to make sure he is okay.”
Sally’s heart went out to Donna. She was having trouble using the past tense in reference to David.
“He did seem pre-occupied, lately.” Zelda added.
“Maybe they were both worried about the research results? I realize I seem to be more interested in my husband’s reactions to me than to any of his other concerns.”
“What about his sons?” Zelda probed.
“Could be. I try not to keep up on the latest disasters.” Donna unfolded her napkin. “The one in Arizona, Joseph, is diabetic and Norman, the one living here, is immoral.”
“A cause for David’s pre-occupation?” Sally sought to defend the dead man.
Donna pushed the lettuce around her plate. “David gave his grandfather insulin shots when he was about nine.”
“Did you ask him about his sons?” Zelda always said the obvious things most people try to avoid out of politeness.
“I should have. It was cowardly of me not to bring them up.”
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