Olive, Again: A Novel (14 page)

Bernie watched the river, the clouds made the river seem gray, and then he stopped seeing the river and pictured Suzanne instead, the poor child, so pretty, like her mother had been, and so…so dazed. When she had tightened her hug with him before she left, he had felt— What had he felt? He had wanted to pick her up and stroke her hair and make everything bad in her life go away. He remembered her then as she had actually been as a small girl; she had played with a doll very quietly in the corner of this room while her father had done business with Bernie.

Uneasiness sat with Bernie now, and he realized it was an uneasiness he had felt on and off for years. His life had been tainted, he thought, by some of his clients, but none more than Roger Larkin had caused him to feel this way.

He went into the bathroom; he heard the telephone ring, then stop. When he came out he saw the number and recognized that it was Suzanne’s; she had left no message. He called her back, but she did not pick up. And so he just sat. A tenderness flooded through him.

Suzanne was pulling into the parking lot of the Golden Bridge Rest Home. She had just left the Comfort Inn, where she had gone to pick up her bag, and the woman who worked there had frightened her; Suzanne had called Bernie; she was panicking. He had called her back as she was driving over the bridge and she hadn’t answered; she had been afraid to talk on the phone and drive, she felt that swimmy in her head. Now she sat in her car and glanced at her phone, but remembering how Bernie had pulled away slightly as she hugged him she dropped the phone into her bag and sat with her eyes closed, thinking
oh help me help me help me,
and then she got out and went inside. Even though she had been there just the day before, the place still took her by surprise. Built back from the road, pleasant-looking with its black shutters, it was a world unto itself, and the smell—of cleaning fluids and also a whiff of human waste—assaulted her the moment she stepped through the double doors.

She moved past a man sitting in a wheelchair in the hallway and walked down to her mother’s room. When she had come in last night, her mother had been asleep, and Suzanne had gasped at the sight of her; her mother lay with her gray hair—what was left of it—sticking out on the pillow, and she was as tiny as a person could be and still be alive. It was as though her mother had been in a science fiction movie and that her body—her essence—had been snatched. When her mother’s eyes flipped open, Suzanne had said, “It’s me, Mom, Suzanne,” and her mother had sat up and said, “Hello.” And when Suzanne repeated to her, “Mom, it’s me, your daughter,” her mother said pleasantly, “No, my daughter is dead.” Then her mother had sung a lullaby as she rocked Snuggles, and she was still doing that when Suzanne left.

Now, as Suzanne entered the room, she had to walk by another woman seated in a wheelchair not far from her mother; the woman looked at her with filmy eyes, and when Suzanne waved her hand at the woman, there was no response.

Her mother sat serenely in her wheelchair in the corner of her room, with Snuggles on her lap. Her hair had been combed, and she wore a sweatsuit of pale off-white, on her feet were clean white sneakers. “Hello,” she said to Suzanne. “You’re a pretty woman. Who are you?”

“I’m your daughter, Mom. It’s me, Suzanne.”

Her mother said politely, “I don’t have a daughter. She died. But when she was a little girl, she had this.” And her mother held up Snuggles. “His name is Snuggles,” her mother said.

“Mom, you remember this was Snuggles?” Suzanne leaned down toward her mother.

“I don’t know who you are,” her mother continued, “but my poor little daughter. She was always such a
good
girl.”

Suzanne sat slowly down on the edge of her mother’s bed.

“But her brother!” And her mother laughed then. “Oh, her brother was a nasty little boy. Always wanting his willie played with. Oh, he always wanted me to play with his willie, oh my, he was a bad, bad boy.” She laughed again.

Chills ran down Suzanne’s side, she felt them going all the way down her leg. “Doyle?” she finally asked.

Her mother’s face remained uncomprehending, until suddenly it became twisted in fury. “You get out of here right now! Get out! Get out!” Spittle flew from her mouth.

And then the other woman seated in her wheelchair began to cry. It was a terrible sound—a keening, almost. Suzanne stood up and went out into the hallway. “Help me, please,” she said to an aide going by. “I’ve upset my mother and also some woman who was in here, I guess visiting her.”

The aide was a small young woman, with no expression on her face, and she said to Suzanne, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Please come in now,” said Suzanne, but the aide was already going into the room next door. “Oh God,” said Suzanne. She went back into her mother’s room, past the woman who was crying so hard, and her mother was half standing out of her chair. She pointed her arm at Suzanne. “You! Get out of here right now!”

An hour later, Bernie still could not get Suzanne out of his mind. He kept having an image of putting her onto his lap, and holding her to him tightly. That’s enough, he thought, and took out a folder of a case he had to work on.

When his telephone rang again, he saw that it was her, and he picked it up and said, “Hello, Suzanne.”

He could hear that she was crying. “Oh, Bernie, I’m
so
sorry to call you, I really am, but I—”

“It’s quite all right, Suzanne. I told you to call me anytime, and I meant it. If you call me again in ten minutes, I’ll still mean it.”

“I’m just so scared,” she said. “I’m so scared!”

“I understand that. You have every reason to feel scared. But you’re going to be all right.” Bernie said this gently. “I’ve known you for years, Suzanne. And you have always been focused and smart, and you’re going to be just fine. You’re in the middle of a storm at the moment.”

“Don’t hang up,” Suzanne said.

“I’m right here,” Bernie answered. “You take your time.”

“Where are you?” Suzanne asked. “So I can picture you.”

“I’m sitting right at my desk. Alone,” he added.

“Bernie,” Suzanne said. “First— Now, please listen to me and tell me the truth. Do you know if my father ever had an affair? The woman who works at the Comfort Inn, when I went back to get my bag, she said she recognized my name from the credit card I had paid with, and she said she had always loved my father—she worked at that gas station in Freeport—and she said my mother used to come into that gas station with him at noontime, always so nice with her red hair, but my mother never had red hair.”

There was a silence, then Bernie said, “I’m not going to answer that.”

“Well, I guess you just did.”

“No. I didn’t.” After a moment Bernie added, “You’re a lawyer, and you know that privilege does not end with the death of a client.”

“Okay,” Suzanne said. “But just hold on, okay?”

“I’m right here, Suzanne.” He added, “I’m not going anywhere.” He picked up a paperclip and touched it repeatedly to his desk. He heard her weeping, and then he heard her finally stop.

“Oh, Bernie. I know my father probably had an affair, he probably had a dozen affairs, and I don’t want to be like my father—”

“Suzanne.” Bernie’s voice was firm. He let the paperclip stay on his desk. “You are not like your father. Do you hear me? You have always been you. And you alone.” Then he said, “Where are you right now?”

“At a rest stop on the turnpike. There’s a mother with a little boy and they’re laughing about something and it reminds me of how I used to be with my boys.”

“And they’re still your boys,” Bernie said. “They always will be.”

“But, Bernie, can I tell you one more thing?”

“Of course you can.”

“I stopped to see my mother before I left town, and she told me that Doyle had always been a bad boy, that he—” Suzanne was crying again. “That he—he always wanted her to play with his willie. Oh God, Bernie. Oh Jesus.”

Bernie was silent for quite a while, and then he said quietly, “Oh, Suzanne. I don’t know what to say about that.” He leaned forward, setting a hand to his head as he held the telephone in the other.

“But do you think—oh, Bernie, do you think she ever? Oh God, I
work
with kids like this! Even my creepy therapist told me that a guy, however nuts he is, doesn’t stab a woman twenty-nine times unless he has a
lot
of aggression toward a woman. Toward, you know, I guess his mother.”

“I know what you’re saying,” Bernie said. And then after a moment he said, “I guess we’ll never know.”

“No.” And then Suzanne said, “But, Bernie, it makes me so
sad
for that poor boy! You know, I’m going to visit him more often. I usually go once a month to see him there in Connecticut, but now that the boys are gone and I have more time, I’m going to go much more often. I just am, oh God, Bernie, that
poor
child!”

“You go as often as you need to,” Bernie said.

When Suzanne spoke next she sounded exhausted. “Bernie, my father was abusing my mother. She had bruises all over her before she went into that home.”

Bernie sat up straight; a kind of jolt went through him. He said quietly, “I thought that might be true.”

“You did? Why did you think it might be true?”

Bernie closed his eyes, then opened them, and said, “It’s not altogether unusual in those circumstances.” Then he said, “We got her into that place ahead of other people.”

“How?” Suzanne asked.

“Your father had money. That’s how.”

“You helped him do that?”

“I did.” Bernie felt himself blush. He was lying to her by not telling her how her mother had called him to say she was in danger. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

“Oh, Bernie. Well, thank you.” She added, “You probably saved her life.”

“I never saved anyone’s life,” Bernie said.

Suzanne said, “Bernie. Bernie. Do you
realize
what I came from? Do you realize that? Oh my God, those people! How did I get out alive?” Then Suzanne said, “But you did too. You got out as well.” She added, “Except your parents were murdered, and mine were—well, they almost were murder
ers
, Bernie. And my brother
is
a murderer. Oh my
God
.”

Bernie said, “But you got out. Just as you said.”

Suzanne asked, “How did you get out of…where were you born?”

“Hungary.” Bernie spread his hand over his face briefly. He wanted to commend her for everything she had done with her life, to say that she had lived decently by helping those children every day through the AG’s office, and by raising her boys, and by her loyalty to Doyle. But instead he answered her question. “I got out when I was a kid, because my uncle came to America and my parents wanted me to come with him, they said they would join us soon. And then they didn’t.”

“I didn’t know you were born in Hungary. Do you remember your parents at all?”

Bernie glanced around his office before he answered her. It had been a long time since he had spoken of these things to anyone. “Well, I remember my father reading the Torah. I remember my mother setting the table. And I remember her reading to me when I was sick one time and in bed.”

“Oh, Bernie.” Suzanne’s voice sounded stronger now. “Bernie, can I just ask you one last thing?”

“Of course, Suzanne.”

“Do you have any faith? Religious faith, I mean.”

Bernie felt a physical response to this, as though a small wave had just rolled through his chest. He waited and then he said, “You know, I’ve lived for many years as a secular Jew, and I don’t believe I have any faith in that sense.”

“But?” Suzanne asked. “There’s a ‘but’—I can hear it in your voice.”

A tentative earnestness spread through Bernie now. He felt as though he had been called upon to give something of himself that was far outside his purview as a lawyer, and it was something he had never given to anyone, except his wife, vaguely, years ago. “Okay,” he said. “The ‘but’ is this: But do I have faith? I do. The problem is, I can’t describe it. But it’s a faith of sorts. It is a faith.”

“Can you tell me? Oh, please tell me, Bernie.”