Family Matters

by New York Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime

  The old man picked a bag and dunked it with a long exhale. “We are all patriots here, madame, no matter from whence we came.”

  “Are we really?”

  “Have you considered, given the major’s expression of heartfelt concern, that it’s you Robert no longer trusts?”

  “Dad isn’t like that!” I shouted, finally overcome. “He likes Chet better than me, but he likes you best of all, Mom. Everybody knows that!”

  “First Santa, now this,” she said softly, and kissed my forehead, which made me cringe. “I think you’re the bravest boy who ever lived.”

  The major poked his head in. “I’m almost done, except for the living room. I know how you fret over your grandmother’s hutch . . .”

  “Don’t presume you know anything about me.”

  The major’s eyes opened wide and he ducked back out. Mom followed. I followed her to avoid being alone with the old man.

  MOM put herself in a spot where she could observe the major, and where, through the kitchen doorway, the old man could keep his eyes on her. She crouched down and met my eyes, amazing me by speaking softly and clearly, keeping each word separate while hardly moving her mouth at all. She could’ve been on TV with a dummy.

  She said, “The old monster has to be close or watch someone’s lips. Too many explosions. His hearing is shot.” While she pretended to fix my collar, which I hated slightly less than being kissed, she continued in the same way, but not toward me. “This is an ugly business, Jimmy. You’re not cut out for it.” The major kept working as if he hadn’t heard, picking up a family of ceramic rabbits one by one. “I pour information into you, another sucks it out. But you’re like a drinking glass we all can see through.”

  Suddenly and much louder she asked me, “Did you know Jimmy’s a test pilot?” She nodded, so I knew she wanted me to answer.

  “You never told me that,” I said accusingly. How many more secrets didn’t I know? My father’s and brother’s leaving seemed unreal, but I understood aircraft and test pilots. Any kid from the base did.

  “Nothing’s been made that Jimmy can’t fly. He’s an ace, and that’s almost as rare a talent as your father’s, so we can’t stay mad at him.” Mom’s voice lowered again, each quiet word plinking like a pebble. “But he’d much rather dogfight than lie, and that makes him a problem. He ought to fly away from all this.”

  The major didn’t look up, but he fumbled a crystal bell as he set it down. His voice carried over in a hush. “Could we fly away?”

  “There is no we. Only a foolish man sent to charm confidences from a bored housewife. An idiot who fell in love with his assignment like I fell in love and married mine.”

  As I tried to understand, to compare any of this with my assignments from school, there was a noisy crash from the kitchen. I jerked, but didn’t jump, and was proud of myself. Sounded like the old man dropped his cup and saucer into the sink from ten feet up. Mom went to see about it, calling over her shoulder, “That blue dish came over with Robert’s people, Jimmy. Don’t break it just because you can.”

  I stayed in place, because she hadn’t said I could move. As much as I hated how strange and kissy she was acting, I dreaded more taking a wrong step, being the player out of position.

  She returned to my side, smiled, and I was proud again of playing it right. To Jimmy, she spoke once more under her breath. “When Robert stops, he’ll think it all through. He’ll know what’s true. He may figure things about me that disappoint him, but never that I was unfaithful. Now, you have to look out for yourself. That old man holds grudges.”

  The major shut the hutch doors very carefully, and took a step around us to address the old man who’d joined us from the kitchen on those big, soft-soled shoes of his.

  “Guess I’m done here,” he said loudly, retrieving his hat from the chair.

  Mom pushed me forward, and I bounded ahead to unlock the front door, anxious to be rid of them. The old man took Mom’s hand and kissed her knuckles. I wanted to brain him, but I bet she did, too.

  “Until the memorial service, madame.”

  “And forever after that, I’m sure.” Her cheeks were still blotchy, and her eyes were pink, but dry.

  “Our condolences again on your tragic bereavement,” the old man said. “Please return the signed documents at your leisure.”

  “We’ll be here, easy to keep tabs on, and easy for Robert to find when he chooses.” I wanted to ask if she meant it, meant that he and Chet would ever want to come home again. “A man like him can’t be allowed to be free, only to think that he is. Now that he knows how valuable and dangerous you consider him, I wonder what he’ll think of you.”

  The old man swayed for a second, and the major lent him an arm.

  Beyond them, across the street, there was a shiny, black car waiting, engine running. Mom and I faced them all down from our side of the front door. “And now, gentlemen, I have to make a grocery list. There’s nothing in the house and a horde of insincere officials and canasta-playing gossips are on the way.”

  The men turned and left. I slammed the door and latched it behind them.

  “Don’t worry, Mikey. Major Jimmy isn’t our only friend, not even our best.”

  I had a thousand more questions, and I thought Mom might even answer some, but the first one I thought to ask was, “Why do you even bother making those grocery lists? You always lose them at the store.”

  YOU ALWAYS HURT THE ONE YOU LOVE

  Lynne Lederman

  “IRONIC, that’s the right word, huh? Joey’s dad lives on salami and mozzarella, eats eggs and bacon for breakfast every day of his life, smokes those awful little black cigars, and has a heart attack at forty-two. Joey watches what he eats, works out, doesn’t smoke, takes one of those cholesterol drugs, and bang. Same ending.” Julie sighed. “He figured with his family history, he wouldn’t make it to a hundred, but he’d live to enjoy a few years of retirement.”

  We were sitting on the couch in the gathering dusk, finishing the open bottles of wine. Crickets in the yard were tuning up for the evening.

  “I might as well wash the glasses that can’t go in the dishwasher. I have to keep doing things,” Julie said. For someone who’d buried her husband that afternoon, she didn’t seem grief-stricken. Maybe it was shock.

  She rolled up her sleeves. I’d always seen her wear long sleeves since my husband, Dave, and I had escaped my in-laws and New Jersey for the greener pastures of Westchester County, and moved in next door. Sometimes, Julie pushed her sleeves up, working in her garden, hanging out the wash, but would pull them down the minute she saw me. Those few times when she didn’t see me, I’d seen the bruises on her arms, around her wrists, large and purple. Today, though, there were only the greenish ghosts of bruises past. The first time I’d seen them, I wondered if I should say something. I’d never heard any arguing or things being thrown. And if there had been, surely I’d have heard. True, the houses in this part of Harrison were a bit farther apart than where Dave and I used to live, in one of those so-called Bayonne boxes, downstairs from my in-laws. There, I could have reached out my window and picked a bottle of beer off my neighbor’s kitchen table. Here, even my much taller husband’s full reach couldn’t grab our neighbor’s wine.

  At first, I’d thought, well, maybe there’s a good explanation. But there is never a good explanation. Maybe it was a one-time thing. But it wasn’t. One of my friends always had bruises on her arms from a self-defense course. She bragged about it. However, I knew Julie wasn’t taking self-defense. I’d mentioned the bruises to Dave, and I was guiltily relieved when he’d said we should mind our own business. Turns out, Dave didn’t take his own advice.

  One day, it had to have been late that first summer we lived here, Joey came by to see if Dave was home, something about replacing knobs on the kitchen cabinets. Once Joey had heard Dave was a contractor, he’d started coming around about little repair jobs. When I told Joey that Dave was out that day, Joey grabbed my chin, pullin
g it up until our noses nearly touched, his cold eyes staring into mine.

  “I know about what you did before you met Dave,” he’d said. “I make it a point to know everything about everyone. You want to be friends with Julie, fine. But her wrists and any other part of her ain’t none of Dave’s business or yours. You enjoy living in your nice house with your big, dumb, lunkhead of a husband, no skin off my butt. But remember where you came from, and where you could end up. And I’m not just talking about your in-law’s house in New Jersey.” He looked me hard in the eye for a minute, dropped his hand, and left the house. After that, after that look, well, then I truly figured it was none of my business. I didn’t want to give him an excuse to prove he knew everything about me. Stay friends with Julie, I did, and avoid Joey, that, too, I did.

  “What did the doctors say?” I asked Julie. “I mean, about why . . . how . . . you know . . .” I’m so lame.

  “About why he just dropped dead on the tennis court? His doctor thinks maybe his medication wasn’t strong enough, maybe he was eating steaks, butter, who knows what else on his business trips. He was going on a lot of trips lately, taking that new receptionist along. Every last one of his arteries was clogged. The pathologist said he wasn’t that surprised when someone Joey’s age dies so suddenly.”

  “They did an autopsy? I thought there wasn’t any question it was a heart attack.”

  “No, but Ma, of all people, insisted. She couldn’t believe her Joey could just up and die, so she paid for it herself. If he was still living at home with her, like she wanted, he would have been dead already, the way she cooks. He used to stop over there on the way to work for coffee and pastries. He said he’d stopped doing that, but what do I know? I think the autopsy was Ma trying to make trouble for me. She never liked me.”

  “Why was that? The age thing?” I asked.

  “Why, thanks, Martha,” she said, close to smiling for the first time this week. “Actually, it bothered Ma less that I was half his age than that I wasn’t Catholic, let alone Italian, and, um. . .” She stopped, looking down at her ample chest. She had confided it had been worth every penny, an investment that paid huge dividends at her former job at FlashDancers, which is how she’d met Joey. Just in time, too, as strip clubs began calling themselves gentlemen’s clubs and invaded the suburbs. FlashDancer’s claim of having invented the lap dance was not sufficient to overcome the conveniences of proximity and free parking for those suburban bachelor parties. Not to mention, although she often did, what you could now watch online in the privacy of your own home, no tipping required.

  “Joey was the baby, he was supposed to stay home and take care of his Ma, not start his own business, not compete with the family. You know the first and second generation Italians in Harrison—the oldest son is supposed to go into the priesthood, the second son takes over the family business. Although if it was still happening that way, there’d be no shortage of priests in New York. Maybe if Joey had sisters, one could have stayed at home with Ma. I think Ma was hoping if he married anyone, it would be his mouse of an accountant, that Priscilla Flynn. Old Flynn had a thing for him. I’ll bet she would have been happy living in his childhood home taking care of the both of them. Plus Ma thought I never lifted a finger around here.”

  “We both know that’s not true,” I said. “I saw what you did for Joey, finding all those special recipes, making lunch for him to take to work every day, having dinner on the table every night. I don’t know how you did it, but everything was always so tasty. I’ve been on enough low fat diets myself. That food usually tastes like fodder.”

  “The doctor says he’s seen it before. A patient has some side effects from the medication, so he cuts back or just stops taking it, or maybe he feels okay on it, but starts backsliding on his diet and exercise. Then, one day, he’s out jogging or in bed with his secretary, end of story. At least Joey left me well-off, not like Joe Senior did to Ma. Joey got a good life insurance policy when he was young. He left Ma a few thousand, to make it clear he didn’t forget her. He said let her favorite priest of a son and Saint Gregory the Great take care of her. If she challenges the will, she gets nothing. You should have seen her face when the lawyer showed it to us. She couldn’t wait a decent time, either, not even until he was in the ground. I overheard Father Brother tell her she should have laid off Joey a bit, see what all her interfering got her. And Joey’s business is going to Miss Flynn. Ma was shocked, that’s for sure.”

  “He didn’t leave the business to you?” I asked.

  “No. When we got married he made me the beneficiary of his life insurance. He mentioned having another policy to cover him as a principal in his business. I told him then, great, leave your employees something, but don’t leave me that thing to run. Never understood it, like some politician dies and his wife takes over his office. I worked hard enough before I married him. You think it’s easy taking your clothes off, and worse, several times a night for a crowd of leering drunks?”

  “One of them turned out to be Joey, though,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “My lucky night. Bachelor party for one of his buddies who picked the place. Joey never thought of himself as a strip joint kind of guy. He prefers . . . preferred the casinos, thought it gave him a little class, like living in your own house without your in-laws on the floor below.”

  “Dave’s with him on that. He couldn’t wait to move out of his parents’ house after we got married. Me, too. This may not be as upscale as Scarsdale or West Harrison, but having enough of a lawn so you can mow it, a two-car garage, a basement and attic that are all our own, and no relatives in the house, it’s been a real step up for us. I think my mother-in-law was going through my things. I’m not sure what she was looking for, but I made sure there was nothing to find. Anything else I can do?” I asked as I started the dishwasher.

  “There’s some trash downstairs. I was going to take it out, but then I saw Joey’s workroom, and I had to come back up. I’m not ready to face it.”

  “No problem,” I said, heading down the back stairs. The workroom contained a spotless workbench with tools arranged neatly on a pegboard behind it, all within carefully drawn outlines, price stickers intact, a shrine to the gods of getting someone else to do your chores. That explained why Dave was over here with his tool box whenever Joey needed to fix something. I picked up a couple of garbage bags, dropped one, and as I bent to retrieve it, noticed a small trash can shoved back under the bench. I picked that up, too. I started for the stairs, arms so loaded that I didn’t see my foot catch in a tangle of extension cords. I went down in a heap. Figures, I thought. The cords were the only things out of place. The top of the little trash can popped off, and a collection of pill bottles rolled out.

  Julie nearly fell down the stairs in her haste. “Martha, are you all right?”

  “Look at this,” I said, handing one of the bottles to her. They were labeled “Potassium Dietary Supplement.”

  “Oh, those. Old Flynn was always giving Joey vitamins, supplements, herbs, things she said would keep him healthy. I don’t blame him for not taking them. He said one cholesterol pill a day was all he needed. You might as well throw them out. They won’t do him any good now.”

  As I was placing the little can next to the trash barrels behind the house, I picked out several of the bottles and slipped them into my pocket, not sure why. Well, okay, all those bottles full of pills just sitting there? If Joey didn’t want them, why hadn’t he just thrown them out?

  Later, at home, I poured the contents onto my kitchen counter and inspected the white oval pills that looked similar to the potassium supplement I myself took. But they were a little smaller. And unlike mine, they had numbers stamped on them. If there was one thing I knew, it was how to look up drugs, what those little numbers meant. They’d tell you the drug’s identity, the strength, the manufacturer. Very useful if you wanted to make sure what you were buying was what its seller claimed it to be. Very useful in marketing to your customers and
dissing the competition. I had learned the business fast when I’d taken my dad to the doctor after he’d hurt his back. Someone in the waiting room took me aside and said he knew someone who’d buy any extra pain pills. And that guy had known more than a few doctors who wrote prescriptions for more pain pills without asking a lot of questions.

  One thing I hadn’t learned was how not to get arrested for selling those pills. It doesn’t matter if they are legal drugs, either, if you’re not authorized to be selling them in the first place. I was young; it seemed so long ago. I’d gotten off fairly easy being a young white woman willing to give up a few partners in crime—the doctors, not the dealers. After a few months’ diversion to a treatment program I didn’t need, I’d managed not to get caught again before I finally gave it up. Dave, bless him, was the best thing that happened to me after that. I should have told him early on, confessed everything when I had the chance. He’d probably have forgiven me. But as time passed, the opportunity never seemed to present itself, and for a while, I carried a silent fear he’d find out, and not be so forgiving. Then more time passed, and I forgot to think about it at all, until that day Joey reminded me.

  So I went online and looked up the code number of those pills I’d found in my neighbors’ basement. Not potassium, but a cholesterol medication. So was it Joey’s cholesterol medication? Well, maybe he decided not to take it after all, but why keep filling the prescription? If he was refilling it just in case someone checked, why not throw out a pill a day? Why keep them all? And why in supplement bottles? They were an expensive brand. He could have made a few bucks on the side selling them at the senior center, save someone a trip to Canada. If I just went back out to the trash myself before the next pickup . . . Whoa, stop thinking like that, I told myself.