by Gail Cleare
Bridget looked flushed, and Jake had put on a clean shirt. His thick white hair was neatly combed, and he had shaved.
Nell narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
Bridget spoke in her most charming tones. “I’ve invited one more for dinner, darlin’. I hope that’s convenient.” She looked at Nell, flashing her a quick mental message that demanded a positive response.
Nell opened her eyes wide and nodded obediently. “Sure, that’s fine. Plenty of food,” she stammered. Far be it for Nell to question a psychic order from her big sister.
She looked at Jake, standing behind Bridget as though she were his bodyguard. He met Nell’s eyes without the usual sullen expression. In fact, he looked… friendly, that was it. Sort of hopeful and relieved. Nell decided to experiment by smiling at him.
He smiled back.
Very interesting. Bridget had apparently inspired Jake to clean up his act and behave, but Nell still didn’t trust him.
The women went into the kitchen to pour wine, and they served crackers and cheese while Jake started a fire in the grill. He came inside, and they all sat down at the kitchen table.
Bridget nudged Jake. “Tell her. Go on.”
“Tell me what?” Nell said.
“It’s about the night his wife died, Nell,” Bridget said. “That’s what you’ve been trying to figure out, isn’t it?”
“Don’t tell me you already know something I don’t. And you only just got here. Typical Bridget. You’re such an overachiever.” Nell turned to Jake. “How come you told her and you wouldn’t tell me? All you ever do is growl at me.”
“All you ever do is tell me what to do.” Jake met her eyes, and the tension began to rise.
“If you weren’t so grouchy all the time, I might trust you more.”
“If you didn’t tell me what to do, I wouldn’t be so grouchy.”
Bridget burst out laughing, but the other two didn’t join in. They glowered at each other across the table.
Jake leaned toward Nell. She shifted and sat back in her chair, moving away from him.
“The fact is I adored your mother the first time I saw her. So did Ginnie. We thought she was the most sophisticated, beautiful person we ever met.”
Nell and Bridget exchanged questioning glances, and Jake answered their look.
“Ellie was traveled, and educated, and she’s older by almost ten years, you know. She always looked so damn good for her age, you’d barely guess it, but it showed in how she acted.” Jake leaned on his crossed arms. “We all followed her lead, that’s for sure.”
Nell nodded, remembering how Mom always liked to be in charge of things.
“Ellie didn’t want to hurt Virginia. Neither did I. So that was how we kept it. Nothing happened, and everything was fine.” Jake paused as his voice faltered. “Until that night out on the lake,” he said, tension in his face. He looked down at his hands.
Nell waited, skeptical about what would come next.
“My wife was what my mother called ‘high strung.’ Everyone around got sucked into the drama, whatever Virginia had stirred up on any particular day. That was the fun of high school —living dangerously, making a statement. Back before I found out what real fear was and took crazy off my Christmas list.” He rolled his eyes, sat back, and put one hand on his hip, shifting in his chair. “I came home from ’Nam and should have known right then. But Ginnie said she’d changed, too, was ready to settle down now, wanted a family. We got married, and Adam showed up. Then we went to couples therapy. Then separate therapy for each of us. Then family therapy when Adam was a little kid. Ginnie was diagnosed as manic-depressive, bipolar II, which explains a lot. But it’s damn hard to live with. Your mother helped a lot. She was so patient and generous.”
Jake looked at Nell and Bridget. “She’s a born healer, you know. She has magic in her hands—I’ve seen it. And heard it in her voice.” He smiled, love in his eyes.
Nell’s prejudices began to crumble. She had a flash of sympathy for the man and lowered her guard.
“At the time of the accident, Ginnie was delusional, on and off. She had a history of hormone troubles, only had one ovary left after uterine-cancer surgery, but it sure did kick up a lot of fuss. Keeping the one ovary was supposed to be good for her, but it was the opposite.” He scratched his chin then laced his fingers together and put his hands on the table.
“We all had a few drinks that night. Ginnie had a few too many. She called your mother terrible names, accused her of trying to break us up. I guess that’s why I was so distracted. And the tequila… it was my fault.” There was a solemn look on his face. “I was the captain.”
Nell felt a lump in her throat as she imagined how her mother must have reacted. Knowing she was partially responsible for Ginnie being upset in the first place. No wonder she was so quick to defend Jake to the police. “So Mom didn’t lie. Ginnie’s death was an accident. You tried to save her.”
“I sure am sick of how everybody in this town still acts like something different happened.” Jake sent Nell a sullen look.
Then there came a knock at the front door, and the dogs ran barking into the living room. Nell let Adam in and introduced Bridget, who gazed up at his tall form with approval. Father and son did not seem surprised to see each other. They pounded each other on the back, the macho hug. Nell knew the air had been cleared between her and Jake, though she guessed there was still more to discover.
The men grilled the meat and the women made the salad, tasks divided as they’d always been since cookouts were invented. A light rain had started to fall, but father and son stood under the overhang on the back porch and drank beer while they talked about politics and flipped the burgers. Bridget and Nell giggled at the sink while they washed lettuce and chopped carrots, and their mother’s music filled the air with a woman’s husky voice and a smooth saxophone. Nell kept expecting to look up and see Mom standing nearby, watching them.
Nell and Jake didn’t fight, and Bridget didn’t flirt with Adam enough to upset her sister. Adam watched Nell like a cat at a mouse hole. Jake looked at Bridget like a kid who had just opened his Christmas package and found the most wonderful, magical present in the world. At around nine o’clock, the phone rang. Nell answered it while they all listened.
“Mrs. Williams? It’s the ICU at Hartland General calling. I’m so sorry…”
Mary Ellen Reilly had ended her struggle for life. Her spirit had moved on.
“Is there anything we should do?” Nell asked the nurse, her voice calm and rational while her heart pounded loud in her ears and tears began to roll down her cheeks. “Should we come over there? Are there papers to sign or something?”
“Why don’t you give us a call in the morning? We’re all so sorry. She was a lovely person.” Then the woman said good-bye.
Nell turned to the others. They were all staring at her.
“It’s awful.” Her voice started to shake as she was flooded with guilt, and her throat contracted painfully. “While we were all here in her house having a good time, Mom died alone. We should have been there.”
“No.” Bridget stood up and went to her. “Because we gave her some privacy, she thought it was all right to stop hanging on for our sake. It was a good thing. She pushed us away, remember?”
Jake escaped into the garden and stood alone in the rain. Adam took the dishes over to the sink and began to wash them while Nell grabbed a clean towel and dried, tears rolling down her face. Bridget sat down at the kitchen table again, her face in her hands.
The jazz album ended, and the cottage was silent.
Lightning flickered, and a little while later, thunder rumbled with a rolling crash.
Adam and Nell worked smoothly, their movements efficient. They seemed to fit together like parts of a machine. Nell realized she was still crying.
Mom’s image was before her eyes, and her familiar scent seemed to fill the room. Adam cupped Nell’s face in his hand and wiped her tears with the dishtowel. His eyes were solemn.
“Go for a walk?”
She nodded.
They grabbed slickers and took a big umbrella from the stand near the front door. He took Nell’s hand and led her out into the night. It was dark under the clouds and the trees, and there were no streetlights along the lake road. Rain was coming down steadily now.
Lightning flickered again, closer this time, and the boom of thunder followed soon afterwards. Nell saw the lake illuminated briefly, its dull surface textured by lashings of raindrops. Blasts of wind tossed rain under the umbrella, immediately soaking Nell’s hair. The water ran down her neck inside the jacket, but she didn’t care. They walked along briskly, her arm tucked into his.
She’d been waiting for this to happen, expecting it. But now it seemed unreal.
Mom was dead.
She had no one to run to anymore when things fell apart. No one to call on the phone when something really great, or really awful, happened. No one to remember the things she had forgotten, like Grandma’s middle name or how old she was when they first went to Disneyland. The matriarchy was Nell’s responsibility now.
Time raced along so quickly. Nell’s whole life had passed in a flash. Already, it was nearly over, especially with Mom and Daddy both gone.
I miss you. I miss you guys.
The sound of her pain caught in her throat. A wave of bleak desolation swept over her, and she wept. Striding along on the uneven ground, stumbling over rocks and through deep puddles, Nell clung to Adam’s arm and sobbed as he pulled her along. Rain came down in thick, wet sheets, slapping her in the face to mingle with the tears, but they kept on going. The wind gusted and turned the umbrella inside out then ripped it out of their hands. They had reached the town beach. Adam led her down to the docks, where the big yacht was moored.
“Come in here,” he yelled over the sound of the storm, jumping aboard and holding out a hand to help her onto the tossing deck. He opened the doors to the cabin, and they climbed down the stairs. He slammed the doors shut, and they were standing in a small, dark space. It was like a secret clubhouse. She could hear the sound of water dripping on the floor while the storm raged outside. Her heart was pounding, and blood pulsed in her cold cheeks and fingertips. She tried to slow down her ragged breath.
A match scraped, and Adam lit a candle lantern that hung from the ceiling. The little cabin was revealed, neat as a pin and fitted with wooden cabinets and two berths, a built-in table with two bench seats, and a tiny galley kitchen. He opened a cabinet and took out a towel.
“Get out of that wet jacket.” Water streamed from his hair, chin, and eyebrows, but he offered her the towel first. Nell’s heart melted, and she reached out to him. He folded her in his arms and sat her down, rocking.
They talked about Nell’s mother for hours, lying together in a single berth with their arms entangled. They remembered things she’d said and done, and the warmth of her eyes filled with love. They remembered how she had called them both “sweet pea” and how she’d kissed them on the back of the neck after tucking in their shirts.
“But wait,” Nell said drowsily, her eyes still leaking tears but calmer at that point. “How old were you then?”
“Oh, ten or twelve, I guess. All gangly arms and legs—no butt. My pants were always falling down.”
“You must have been in your early twenties when Mom bought the cottage. The oldest photos in the album I found in the den were dated 1991.”
“Oh, I knew Ellie way before then. She came to visit when I was a kid, maybe even still a baby. I don’t remember exactly. Seems like she was always part of my life.”
Nell frowned in confusion, but her head ached, and her heart was sore, so she let it go.
When they got back to Mary’s cottage later, the rain had stopped, and the moon was coming out from behind the clouds. It shone down on the raindrops sprinkled like millions of fallen stars in the wet grass under their feet.
Nell kissed Adam on the cheek and watched him drive away. Then she wept again for Mary, and for Thomas, and for Ginnie too. But mostly, Nell cried for herself.
Chapter 31
Mary ~ January 31, 1968
Mary’s ward was quiet that night. The GI who had lost both his legs to mortar fire had stopped crying in his sleep. The three infantrymen who’d come in together the previous week after walking into a trip wire attached to a grenade were still playing cards, but they were keeping their voices down. She didn’t mind night shift when it was nice and slow like this. Her stomach had been bothering her that day, so it was good they weren’t swamped with new patients. The pace wasn’t likely to pick up since the next day was Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, and there was an informal ceasefire agreement in effect. Saigon would be in full celebration mode with decorations and costumes and fireworks in the street.
“Nurse?” A sweet kid from Iowa called to her. He said he was eighteen but looked about twelve.
She walked over and stood next to his bed. “Private? Some water?” He nodded. She held the cup to his mouth. Both his hands were covered with gauze where the skin had been burned off by Napalm when he’d rescued a little girl caught in the crossfire.
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” He smiled up at her. “How long before I can have more meds?”
She checked his chart. “You were due when you were sleeping, so I’ll get them now if you like.”
“I like, ma’am.”
Mary smiled. “Be right back, then.”
She walked down the row of beds toward the nurses’ station, near where the card game was in progress. Using her key to open the drug cabinet, she spoke to the players.
“After midnight, boys. The casino is closing. Time to cash in your chips.”
“Casinos never close, Lieutenant. I should know. I’m from Vegas.”
“No kidding? Did you ever play one of those machines where you pull the handle and money comes out?” Mary counted out two pain pills into a paper cup, helped herself to an antacid, signed them out, and locked the cabinet again.
“You mean the one-armed bandit?” One of the white-gowned soldiers glanced at his buddy, whose arm had been amputated from the elbow down. Mary cringed, but all three of them burst out laughing, and the amputee chuckled loudest. He was heading home and would be discharged with a bronze star while the other two would be sent back into the war when their wounds had healed. After all she had seen and heard, Mary wasn’t sure which was worse.
She delivered the pain meds and helped her patient swallow them with another sip of water then straightened his clean white sheets and stroked his forehead with a cool hand.
“Back to sleep, baby,” she said softly. “It’s the best medicine.”
He gazed at her with a trusting expression and closed his eyes. His rosy cheeks and golden curls looked angelic. He didn’t even have much of a beard yet. Earlier, she had helped read his mail from home since he couldn’t hold it himself. There was a letter from his mother about getting a heifer he had raised ready to enter a competition at the state fair. Mary had wiped his tears for him when she finished reading it aloud.
That’s what I’m here for.
The look on that boy’s face had been her reward. It was hard not to get too close. After they left her care, many of these soldiers would go back to the war and be killed or injured again. She couldn’t think about that and still be able to do her job. She needed to stay focused on the here and now.
Mary helped the card-playing GIs back into their beds, turning off the lights clamped to their headboards. Everyone had settled down. Sitting at the desk, she turned on the electric kettle to make a cup of tea and flipped through Glamour magazine. At two in the morning, she got up to monitor vital signs,
taking her blood-pressure cuff out of the desk drawer. Glancing out the window as she bent over the first soldier, she saw some strange flashes of light in the eastern sky.
“Looks like the celebration is starting early. Fireworks.” Mary smiled at the soldier, who was quietly watching her pump the cuff. She looked at the dial, then the air slowly hissed out and the cuff relaxed.
More flashes caught her eye, and she turned her head to watch. She noticed glowing red-and-green lines in the sky. The distant sound of an explosion broke the quiet, then another.
“What’s that?” Mary wondered aloud, and the soldier sat up to see what she was watching.
He clutched her arm with excitement. “That’s mortar fire, Lieutenant. Something’s going on. Those are tracers, not fireworks.”
“It’s the air base.” Mary guessed what might be happening. “Could they be under attack?”
More explosions sounded, a thudding sound in the sleepy silence, and the water in the glass on the bedside table rippled. The eastern sky was full of tracers.
“Shit.” The card player from Las Vegas shuffled over to the window to look outside. “That’s Tan Son Nhut, where Westmoreland is headquartered. This is no ceasefire… it’s a trick. How the hell did they sneak into Saigon?”
The other soldiers were all awake at that point, and those who could walk gathered at the windows. Mary went to the telephone and dialed the hospital headquarters. The line was busy. She ran out into the corridor, where people were rushing around with supplies and clean linens, getting ready for incoming wounded. Mary spotted the shift supervisor, Captain Clark, a stout, black-haired woman who had served in Korea too and always seemed calm.
“Sullivan,” the captain snapped, her eyes wide with alarm. “Get those men away from the windows. It’s not safe.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mary hadn’t thought of it, but of course if there were Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army troops in the city, fighting could break out anywhere. Her heart raced and stomach clenched, just as they did whenever she heard ambulances driving into the compound. For the first time in her life, Mary felt the cold fear of real danger.
