Missing Pieces

by Joy Fielding

  “Your fiance called me this morning,” I said, instead of hello.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You know?”

  “He told me he was planning to apologize for any misunderstanding there might have been …”

  “Misunderstanding?” I repeated incredulously.

  “I told him it would be a waste of time.”

  “If he ever calls me again, I’ll complain to the warden. They’ll cancel his phone privileges altogether,” I warned, discovering how easy it was to threaten the already vulnerable.

  “Thanks for your call,” Jo Lynn said icily.

  “I’m not finished.”

  She waited. I could see her eyes rolling toward the ceiling with disgust.

  “Mrs. Winchell says Mom can’t live at Palm Beach Lakes anymore.”

  “So?”

  “So we have to find her somewhere else to live.”

  Silence.

  “I’ve made an appointment with this nursing facility in Delray. It’s called the Atrium.”

  “Fine.”

  “It’s for eleven o’clock this morning. I thought you should be there.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I just thought you might like to have a look at where Mom might have to go,” I persisted.

  “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Jo Lynn!”

  “So can you.” She hung up.

  “Jo Lynn …” Once again, I slammed the receiver down, only to watch it bounce off its carriage and tumble toward the floor, where it jerked to a sudden stop mere inches from the carpet, hanging by its white cord, like some misguided bungee jumper. “What the hell is the matter with you?” I scooped up the receiver, dropped it into its carriage, plopped down on the side of my bed, and stared out the window at the curving coconut palm. “Why couldn’t I have a normal sister?” I shouted.

  I was still screaming as I drove down to Delray. Screaming and speeding, for which I was duly pulled over by a waiting police officer and ticketed. “Any idea how fast you were going?” he asked. Not fast enough, I thought.

  Mrs. Sullivan was a moon-faced, pleasant-voiced woman of around sixty. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and legs the size of toothpicks under an otherwise sturdy frame. She graciously showed me around the grounds, which were well manicured and attractively landscaped, then the building itself, a relatively new structure that was low and white and Mediterranean in feel. It didn’t look like a nursing home, I tried to convince myself, refusing to allow the vaguely medicinal scent permeating the halls to penetrate my nostrils, ignoring the low wails I heard emanating from behind the closed doors of several of the spacious rooms, pretending not to notice the empty eyes and slack jaws of the residents lined up in wheelchairs against the walls. “Hello there, Mr. Perpich,” Mrs. Sullivan said gaily, receiving no response from the white-haired, toothless old man whose body was twisted and gnarled, like the trunk of a long-dead tree.

  How could I abandon my mother to a place like this? I asked myself as I raced to my car. “Don’t be silly,” I said out loud, fumbling with my keys. “There’s nothing wrong with this place. It’s a perfectly acceptable place, nicer than the ones you looked at in Palm Beach.” What was I always telling clients in similar positions? You have to think about yourselves. Your mother will be happier there. She’ll have people to look after her. You won’t have to worry about her falling down the stairs or getting enough to eat. You can get on with your life.

  Sure. Easy for you to say.

  How could I get on with my life when the woman who gave me that life was losing her own? How could I abandon her to clean but sterile hallways, leave her sitting in a wheelchair for hours at a time, staring into space, into a past she could no longer connect with, into a future that held no hope. She could last for years this way, I reminded myself, her life effectively over, death a slow tease away. I couldn’t put my life on hold indefinitely. Yet she was my mother and I loved her, no matter how many pieces of her former self were missing. I wasn’t ready to let go.

  Still, it was clear she could no longer stay where she was. If I wasn’t prepared to put her in a nursing home, that left only one other alternative. “I was wondering how you’d feel about my mother moving in with us for a while,” I rehearsed into the rearview mirror, seeing my husband’s eyes widen in alarm. “It would only be temporary. A few weeks, maybe a few months. No longer than that, I promise.”

  “But you’re gone all day. Who’s going to look after her while you’re at work?”

  “We could hire someone to come in. Please, would you do it for me?”

  I knew he would. No matter what his reservations, I knew that ultimately Larry would do whatever he thought would make me happy.

  So, what was I going to do? I asked myself repeatedly as I drove aimlessly through the streets of Delray. The office building that housed radio station WKEY suddenly appeared before me like a mirage in the desert. Had I been heading here all along?

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” Robert said as I stepped inside his office. I heard him close the door behind me.

  I turned around and into his arms, his face a handsome blur as his lips fastened on mine, my body collapsing into his with an eagerness I hadn’t anticipated. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I heard myself say, but the words never made it past my mouth as I swayed, ever closer, against him.

  He pulled back, just slightly, pulling me with him, like a magnet. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “I didn’t know myself.”

  “I have a lunch appointment in a few minutes.”

  “I can’t stay.”

  He kissed the side of my mouth, the tip of my nose. “I would have kept my schedule free.”

  “Next time.”

  “When?”

  “What?”

  “Next time—when will it be?”

  He kissed my forehead, my cheek, the side of my neck. “When?” he repeated.

  “I don’t know. My life is such a mess right now.”

  “Messes become you. You look sexy as hell.”

  “I look sexy or I look like hell?”

  “You’re driving me crazy, you know that.”

  And then he was kissing me again, this time full on the lips, our mouths open, his tongue circling mine, and suddenly I was seventeen years old, and he was pressing my body against the hard bricks of the high school we attended, his knee pushing my legs apart as his hand tried to sneak underneath my blouse. “No, I can’t,” I said, pulling back, hitting my head against the window of his twelfth-floor office, snapping rudely back into the present tense. “You have a lunch appointment,” I said quickly, trying to catch my breath, tucking my blouse back inside my skirt. “And I really should get going.”

  “We have a few minutes,” he said, pinning me against the glass. “Tell me what you want,” he whispered.

  “I don’t know what I want.”

  “I think you do.”

  “Then you tell me.”

  He kissed me, one of those soft, lingering kisses that leave you limp. “No, you tell me. Tell me what you like.”

  “I like it when you kiss me,” I managed to say.

  His tongue grazed the outline of my lips. “What else do you like?” His tongue grew more insistent, pushed its way between my teeth. “Tell me what else you like.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me when we can be together.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about next week? I’ll arrange to take next Wednesday off. We’ll go somewhere special, spend the day making love.”

  “I can’t next Wednesday.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “I can’t. I have a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Cancel it.”

  “I can’t. It was the only way I could get my mother to go.” His lips muffled the last of my words.

&
nbsp; “When, then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He pulled abruptly away. For an instant I felt as I had during my mammogram, as if part of my flesh were being ripped from my body. Robert straightened his tie, smiling sadly. “We’re not kids anymore, Kate,” he said. “There’s only so long I can play this game.”

  “I’m not playing,” I told him, my body aching for his return.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Everything’s just moving a little fast for me.”

  “It’s been thirty years,” he reminded me, and I smiled. “Look,” he said, walking to his black marble desk, leaning against it, “I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do …”

  “I don’t know what I want,” I interrupted.

  “I think you do.” The intercom on his desk buzzed. Robert reached over, pressed the necessary button. “Yes?”

  His secretary’s voice filled the room, ricocheted off the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Melanie Rogers is here.”

  “Send her in,” he said easily, eyes glued to mine. “The next move is up to you, Kate.” The door to his office opened and in walked a beautiful woman with dark red hair and a wide, full mouth. “Melanie,” he said, kissing the side of her cheek, as he had mine only moments ago.

  I raised my hand to my face, stroked the place where his lips had lingered, felt it burn.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” Her voice was soft, hypnotic.

  “Don’t be sorry. It worked out perfectly. Let me introduce you to an old friend. Melanie Rogers, this is Kate Sinclair. We go back a very long way.”

  I don’t remember Melanie’s reply. I only remember thinking she had the greenest eyes I’d ever seen, and wondering what she was doing having lunch with Robert.

  I muttered something like “I won’t keep you,” then headed to the door.

  “I look forward to hearing from you again soon,” Robert said as I stepped into the reception area. Seconds later, the door to his office closed behind me.

  My mother moved in with us that Friday night.

  She’d had another run-in with poor Mr. Emerson, this time attacking him with his own cane, whacking him against the side of his head and actually knocking him to the floor. Both Mr. Emerson’s family and Mrs. Winchell were now demanding that my mother be removed from the Palm Beach Lakes Retirement Home. Mr. Emerson’s family actually threatened to press charges if this wasn’t done immediately.

  There was no question as to where to move her. We had no choice. She had to stay with us. “She can have my room for the weekend,” Sara offered, having made plans to spend the time studying for her history test with a friend from school. Without my prompting, she’d even supplied me with the name, address, and phone number of that friend, and granted me permission to check with the girl’s mother to make sure it was all right.

  “How long do you think this will last?” Larry marveled.

  “I’ll take whatever I can get,” I said.

  My mother appeared disoriented by the move. She kept asking when it was time to go home. I told her she’d be spending some time with us. She said, “That’s fine, dear,” then five minutes later asked if it was time to go home.

  “She’s going to drive you nuts,” Larry whispered, carrying his new set of clubs to the front door.

  “Who’s that?” my mother asked, her head swiveling after him.

  “That’s Larry, Mom. My husband.”

  “Where’s he going?”

  “Not going anywhere, Mom,” he answered. “I’m just getting everything ready for tomorrow.”

  “Good idea,” she said, although the blank expression in her eyes indicated she had no idea what the idea was, let alone whether it was good or bad. “Is it time to go home yet?”

  I tucked her into Sara’s bed at around ten o’clock that night, and she fell asleep almost instantly. “Sleep tight,” I told her, as I used to tell Sara.

  “Think she’ll sleep through the night?” Larry asked as I crawled into bed beside him.

  “I hope so.”

  “Did you call Mrs. Sperling?”

  “I said I was just checking to make sure that Sara wasn’t an imposition, and she said that Sara is a joy to have around.”

  “Are you sure you called the right number?”

  I laughed, settled into the crook of his arm, drifted off to sleep. At three-thirty, I awoke to find my mother wandering the house. I returned her to Sara’s bed, went back to my own. This was repeated every hour until, at six-thirty, I decided I might as well get dressed. Larry left for his golf game at seven. My mother asked who that nice man was and where he was going.

  When Michelle woke up, she offered to take my mother for a walk, and they left the house hand in hand. I finished making my bed and moved into Sara’s room, picking up the covers my mother had kicked to the floor and straightening the tousled sheets. Sara had done a great job tidying up. “You can actually see the floor,” I marveled, picking up my mother’s housecoat and heading for the small walk-in closet.

  I almost didn’t see the books. They were hidden behind some clothes in the far corner, and I was half out of the closet before I realized they were there. I’m not sure what made me look closer. Maybe it was just the novelty of finding books in a closet, or maybe it was my suspicious nature as far as Sara was concerned. At any rate, I picked up the books, opening them to confirm what I already knew: they were a history text and a world atlas. Didn’t Sara need these for her test?

  I walked to the kitchen and quickly called the Sperlings. The line was busy. I hung up and tried again. Still busy, as it was five minutes later when I tried a third time. “You’re being silly,” I told myself. “Her friend has the same books; what do they need with two sets of texts?” But even as I found reasons to reassure myself, my fingers continued punching in the Sperlings’ phone number. “Damnit,” I said, giving up when I heard the front door open and close.

  “Something wrong?” Michelle asked from the foyer.

  “I have to go out for a few minutes,” I told her, returning to Sara’s room and gathering up the history books. If she didn’t need them, fine. That would be just fine, I told myself, asking Michelle to look after my mother, assuring my mother I’d be back before she knew I was gone. “You’re being silly,” I repeated as I drove to the Sperlings’. “This is not the same thing as finding those empty packages of cigarettes. This is not like finding those bottles of beer. This isn’t the same thing at all. Sara has no reason to lie to you. She’s turned over a new leaf.” And if she hadn’t? “You spoke to Mrs. Sperling. She was expecting Sara. Sara’s a joy to have around. Remember?”

  The Sperlings lived in the gated community of Admiral’s Cove off PGA Boulevard. I pulled my car up to the front gate, gave my name to the serious-faced security guard in the access booth. He peered at his clipboard. “I’m afraid your name’s not on the list.”

  “Mrs. Sperling’s not expecting me. But my daughter is visiting for the weekend, and she forgot her books.” I indicated the books on the seat beside me.

  “Just a minute, please.” The guard retreated to his station and used the phone. “I’m afraid the line is busy. If you’d like to pull your car over to the side there, I can try again in a few minutes.”

  I pulled my car into the designated spot and waited, wondering who was on the phone for so long and would they ever get off. A minute stretched to five, then ten. “Just go home,” I told myself. “Sara obviously doesn’t need the books. What are you trying to prove?” She’s going to think you’re checking up on her, I continued silently, and that’s going to make her very angry. Is that what you want? Especially now when everything has been going so well? I looked toward the guard, watching his lips move as he talked on the phone.

  As I was about to signal the guard my intention to leave, he hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth.

  “Mrs. Sperling says your daughter isn’t here,” he announced, approaching my car.

  “
I don’t understand,” Mrs. Sperling said to me over the phone in the guardhouse a few seconds later. “Soon after Sara arrived, she got a phone call. She said it was from you, and that something was wrong with her grandmother, and you needed her back home. She said she’d meet you at the front gate.”

  I listened in silence, too numb to speak.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say,” Mrs. Sperling continued. “You don’t think anything’s happened to her, do you?”

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” I said, my voice expressionless, as if someone had sat on it, flattened the life right out of it.

  “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “I know exactly where she is,” I said, returning the phone to the guard’s waiting hand and climbing back into my car, staring at my lifeless eyes in the rearview mirror. “She’s at a wedding.”

  Chapter 24

  The scene unfolds as if in a nightmare—in fits and starts, images fading in and out, no conjunctives to connect one event with the next, to provide context. I see my sister, dressed in a short, yet surprisingly traditional white wedding dress, a shoulder-length veil covering, but not hiding, her radiant smile. I see Colin Friendly, dressed in blue dungarees and death row orange T-shirt, laughing as my sister walks to his side, his eyes looking past her to the beautiful young girl who follows behind. The girl is wearing layers of black and white, much like her hair, whose dark roots are encroaching ever further into her blond curls. Her forest-green eyes are huge and curious; her mouth quivers uncertainly into a smile.

  Close-ups of body parts: eyes, mouths, breasts, hands, fists, teeth.

  Men in standard blue prison garb stand to either side of the spectacled prison chaplain, who cradles the Bible between steady palms.

  More close-ups—stainless-steel tables and chairs, their legs bolted to the linoleum floor. Human legs mingle—white high heels, black Doc Martens, brown loafers, scuffed prison sneakers.

  I watch helplessly as the chaplain opens his mouth to speak.

  Do you take this woman?