Scattered Leaves (30 page)

"Well, look at you, a young woman, a beautiful young woman.'
"Daddy." I said. even though I soaked in the compliment. He laughed.
"I guess it all comes natural to you girls." "What?"
"Never mind. You'll know. Now remember, you don't look the queen directly in the eyes," he joked. I started toward the limousine. "Tell her I made you sleep on a bed of nails in a closet," he shouted after me. "Tell her I installed the chair lift on her stairway."
"I will not. Daddy," I said, and he laughed.
Moments later, we were on our way, and my heart was beating as quickly as the wheels were turning on the road. The ride wasn't as long as I'd anticipated. Grandmother Emma was in a building that Felix said had been recently bought by a group of Yen' wealthy people and was supported through charity balls and events and heavy donations. The building and the Grounds had been constructed to make it look like anything but a place to house and treat stroke victims. In many ways it looked like the March mansion.
It was a large, light-gray stucco structure with beautiful stonework around its entrance and first-floor windows. With its round tower, it did look like the castle my grandmother thought she owned. I wondered if she now imagined she was really the queen she pretended to be.
The parking lot was in the rear so that anyone who approached it and didn't know what it was would not assume it was in any way a medical facility or any sort of institution. There were no big sips announcing it either. I asked Felix about that and he said. "If you have the money to be brought here, you don't need signs telling you you're here."
I guess he was right. Exceptionally detailed care was taken with its grounds. The perfectly trimmed hedges looked like they had been pruned with scissors from a beauty salon. The small ponds had water percolating over colored rocks, and there was statuary placed everywhere I looked. Some of it was of people, some of angels and some of birds.
I
saw some benches and smiled in amazement at the beds of beautiful flowers full of rainbow colors. Were they real?
I saw the curtains on the windows as we drove closer and then around the building. They looked like velvet drapes. In the rear there were a few dozen automobiles and a large van. The rear lawn flowed on and on in wavelike ripples until
it
reached a wooded area. Two men on large grass cutters were busy leveling out the autumn grass, and when I stepped out of the limousine, the sweet aroma perfumed the air around me.
There were still flocks of birds fluttering about in the clear sunshine to make for a pleasant, happy, melodic morning. If someone couldn't recuperate here. I thought. they couldn't get better anywhere. Looking out your window at this world certainly had to raise your spirits.
Felix led me to the entrance off the parking lot. Whoever had designed this place had basically put a false front on it, because the real entrance opening to the lobby and receptionist was here, and not up front.
Even inside it didn't look at all like a medical facility. The lobby was plush, with big, soft leather sofas and chairs, beautiful standing lamps and table lamps. There were flowers in vases everywhere and, spread evenly over the panel walls, large oil paintings of scenery, ocean views and lakes. The floor was an immaculate-looking black marble, so shiny it worked like a mirror reflecting all that was on it. Soft classical music was being piped in through invisible speakers.
A tall man in a dark blue suit, with curly light brown hair, and carrying what looked like a briefcase spoke quietly with a nurse in front of a counter that looked more like the kind seen in hotel lobbies. I saw another two women behind them working on files and papers, one at a computer. As we continued to cross the lobby toward them, the nurse and the man she was speaking to turned our way.
"Can I help You?" she asked Felix.
"Yes. I've brought Jordan March to see her grandmother."
"Oh," she said and smiled at me. "I'm Mrs. Sanders," she said. "Chief administrator and head nurse." She smiled at me. "I know your grandmother is waiting anxiously to see you. She asked after you four times already this morning."
No one keeps my grandmother waiting I thought. I remembered my mother once saying how she pitied a dentist who ran late and kept her in the lobby for nearly forty minutes. "He'll be wishing he were haying his teeth cleaned instead of cleaning hers," she told me.
"Right this way." Mrs. Sanders said. "I'll have that report for you in the morning, Dr. Stevens," she told the man with whom she had been speaking. Doctors didn't look like doctors here either. I thought. He didn't wear a doctor's coat or carry anything that doctors carried. He looked more like a lawyer or a banker.
"Fine. I'll call first. Marion," he told her.
"This way. Jordan," Mrs. Sanders said, nodding at a door. I trailed just a little behind her.
"I'll be waiting here for you, Jordan," Felix said, moving toward one of the sofas and lifting a magazine off the side table.
I continued to follow Mrs. Sanders through the doorway and down a long, wide corridor.
"Your grandmother has made very good progress." She stopped and turned to me. "You know how we know?"
I shook my head.
"She doesn't stop complaining,'" she said and laughed,
That's
what Daddy told me about Ian in his new place
, I thought.
We walked on, then stopped at a doorway. She glanced at me, then knocked and opened the door. There was a small entryway with a closet on the right and a bathroom on the left. Instead of a rug or tile, the floor was a rich-looking dark wood. There was a kingsize bed with a large headboard. The bed had matching end tables and lamps. The large television set was mounted on the wall across from the bed. and I saw there was a stereo unit of some sort beneath it. The wall to my left had shelves of books, interrupted by vases that looked like they contained fresh flowers,
This room is almost as big as Grandmother Emma's room back at the Mansion, I thought. Directly ahead of us, there was a sliding glass door opening to a tiled patio with a table and chairs, potted plants and a view of one of the bigger ponds.
Grandmother Emma was sitting outside, wearing a fur-collared ruby robe. Her hair was spun and tied with a light green ribbon, and she looked a lot better than she had when I had seen her in the hospital.
"Your granddaughter has finally arrived. Mrs. March," Mrs. Sanders said.
Grandmother Emma didn't respond. She nodded at the chair across from her, which was her way of telling me to get to it and sit.
"Is there anything you want or need? Should I bring the young lady something to drink?"
"No," Grandmother Emma said with perfect clarity and sharpness.
Mrs. Sanders smiled at me.
"Enjoy your visit, dear." she said and walked out.
I took the chair and sat back with my hands folded in my lap.
When Grandmother Emma spoke, her lips seemed to writhe because some of the muscles in her face weren't working well. Her tongue looked swollen, which I imagined made it difficult for her to speak. The words streamed together, parts of one tacking onto another before it had been pronounced. but I could understand.
"I know about Frances," she muttered. "That woman," she added. and I wasn't sure if she was complaining about Great-aunt Frances or Mrs, DeMarco.
For a long moment we just stared at each other. What was I supposed to tell her? Was she waiting for the story? Was she unsure about what I knew and didn't know?
She made it clear.
"What did she tell you?" she asked, this time almost perfectly.
"That Great-aunt Frances is really my grandmother." I replied. She was blinking fast, and her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. She struggled to keep herself erect in the chair, and she pounded the arm in frustration. This time the words she wanted to come out were stuck in the mud. She took a deep breath. Then she just nodded.
"Does..." She had to wait, as if the air to make the words had been coming up out of her lungs like a bubble rising to the surface of the ocean. "Father know?"
I shook my head. She pointed at me.
"I didn't tell him," I said. understanding.
She nodded slowly. but I saw how her eyes focused on me, a slight relaxing in the corners. It was hard to tell whether she was smiling, trying to smile, or it was nothing,
"Why?" she managed to ask.
"Because he wants to be your son now," I said. Her eyebrows rose so fast that I thought they would lift off her head.
She pointed at me again. I understood.
"It doesn't matter now whether she's my greataunt or my grandmother. It's too late. but I love her." I wanted to add. "I love her more than I love you," but I didn't.
She sat back, nodding slowly.
"Do you want me to tell Daddy?" I asked. She shook her head and pointed to herself. "Okay," I said.
"Your mother?" she asked.
"She might be getting better." I said. "We're going to visit her. Ian's getting better. too. They moved him to a nicer place. Daddy says."
She nodded, She knew that.
"How long are you going to stay here?" I asked. She looked at me and then shook her head.
"It's a nice place."
She grunted.
"As niiiice as a cema... cema..."
"Cemetery?" Figuring out her words was almost like playing a game.
She nodded.
"You're not dead," I told her. I said it so matterof-factly that her eyebrows rose again, and this time I was positive she was smiling.
"Why did you send me to live with Great-aunt Frances?" I asked. "Did you want me to find out the truth?"
She just looked at me, her eyes saying nothing, her lips crooked, turning in and out.
"Why didn't you want to have your own baby?" She shook her head,
"It was mean to leave her alone there."
She looked away.
"She wants to come to see you."
She looked at me with skeptical eves.
"She does. Daddy said he would bring her to the mansion. He's taking me to see Mommy and Ian. He's getting a special car so he can drive me." Suddenly I felt a burst of verbal energy, a need to say everything. "He wants to be a better father. He isn't full of self-pity anymore. He's getting someone to be with Great-aunt Frances. I made a friend named Alanis and she's... coming to see me, too. I learned how to talk to Mommy with telepathy and she's coming home. She is. We're all going to come home, and you should try to come home. too."
I thought that made her laugh, but she could have just been choking on her effort to speak.
Why did she have me brought here?
I wondered.
She is tying to find out things behind my father's back. She does want me to be like a little spy. Well, I won't be.
I stood up. The anger in me felt like boiling oil.
"My daddy shouldn't have been born in the attic," I said. "You better come home and tell him the truth. No secrets, no lies." I declared.
Then I turned away and ran out of the room, not even looking back.

Daddy's car came, but he had to spend time learning how to drive it before he would take me anywhere in it. Felix drove us to my old school and wheeled Daddy in to meet with the principal and take care of the reenrollment. My teachers were happy to see me. I thought some of the students I had been with now looked at me in a very different way. It was almost as if I had been in some war or involved in some major event and had returned. I could see their curiosity, and afterward, many of them did attack me with questions about where I had been, what it had been like, why I had been brought home.

I found myself becoming Alanis, enjoying the elaborations and exaggerations I could create. They believed everything and were envious when I described the wild parties and being on my own. I could almost see the way their pity for me turned into respect.

Everyone seemed to want to be my new best friend. It was as if they expected I could guide them into maturity, teach them how to handle boys and be sexually sophisticated, especially when they saw the name Stuart written on my white shoes. They competed for my attention, each trying to impress me with what she already knew. Some even revealed things about their own sexual experimentation and experiences, begging me to keep their secrets locked away. When I looked at them all now. I thought my lenses had been washed clean and I could see each for who she really was. I felt I instinctively knew whom I should trust and whom I shouldn't.

Thank you, Alanis
, I thought as I sauntered down the hallways, my head never held as high. Even my teachers looked at me differently. I could feel it in the way they spoke to me. They all saw me as older, wiser.

Was I really?
If only Ian could see this I thought.
By the weekend. Daddy was confident enough

in his driving to take me to visit Mommy. He'd even mastered getting his wheelchair out and unfolded. although I leaped to do that for him. The hospital had ramps, of course, and we took the elevator up to the floor Mommy was on.

When the elevator door opened. Daddy wheeled himself out, but then stopped. I stood there. waiting.

"Okay. Jordan," he said. "I haven't told you everything because I didn't want to get you frightened or disturbed when you were readjusting to returning home and your old school."

"No, she's better, a lot better. She's conscious. but--"
"But what?"
"She doesn't remember very much. It's like being in a haze or a daze."
"You mean she doesn't remember the accident?"
"No, honey. She doesn't remember anything. She didn't remember me, for example. She probably won't remember you, so don't be upset. In time--"
"She'll remember me," I said. smiling. "She's been talking to me. Daddy. Remember? I told you about the telepathy?"
He sighed deeply. "Okay, Jordan. Let's go," he said and continued wheeling himself down the hallway. I followed alongside.
The nurses at the station midfloor saw us coming, and
I
saw the nurse I remembered Ian calling the case manager. Her name was Mrs. Feinberg, and she had been very angry at us when she'd found out Ian had brought me here without permission. It seemed like just yesterday.
"Mr. March." she said, smiling as she drew closer.
"Hello, Mrs. Feinberg. I believe you know my daughter. Jordan," he said.
"Yes." she said, looking at me with her head tilted a little and a wry smile on her face. "How are you doing?"
"Fine," I said quickly.
"She's doing a little better every day. Mr. March," Mrs. Feinberg told my father. "It's going to take time."
"Yes," Daddy said, He started to wheel himself toward the room.
I felt as if my heart had become something so light and airy that it floated about in my chest. I know I was holding my breath. We entered the room. Mommy was propped up and looking vacantly at the television set as if she had been hypnotized by the light and had no idea what was playing or what people were saying. She looked at us. but I saw no
recognition, no change in her expression. Daddy reached for my hand and looked up at me. I know he was expecting me to cry.
I didn't.
He wheeled close to her bed, and I followed. "You can give her a kiss," he whispered.
I did. I kissed her cheek. She brought her hand to it and stared at me.
"Hi. Caroline. I brought Jordan because she's come home. Remember I was telling you how she had gone off to stay with Aunt Frances for a while? Well, she's back now. I enrolled her in school this week. She's doing fine:' he added.
Mammy listened and then looked at me, but her expression didn't change.
"Talk to her," Daddy said.
"I have been talking to her." I told him.
"Talk to her some more. Jordan," he said, closing and opening his eves.
He doesn't believe me
, I thought,
That's all right. It's not important.
I started to talk to her as if she knew everything already. I began with my return to the mansion and the school. I told her about my classes and all the things I hadn't told her telepathically. She listened, her eyes on me, her expression never changing.
Daddy sighed and shook his head.
"Patience," Mrs. Feinberg whispered. I hadn't realized she was standing behind us the whole time. Daddy nodded.
"Keep talking to her," he said but without enthusiasm,
"Oh, I see the doctor is here. Mr. March," Mrs. Feinberg said. "Would you like to speak with him?"
"Yes," he said. "I'll be right back. Jordan. Just keep talking to her," he told me, turned his chair and wheeled out of the room.
Mommy followed him with her gaze, then looked at me.
Now that Daddy was gone. I began to tell her everything about my discovery, about Mrs. DeMarco and about visiting Grandmother Emma. She listened, and I could see her eyes darken and feel her fingers tighten a little in my hand.
"What should I do. Mommy? What should I do?" Her fingers moved in my hand, but she didn't speak. Daddy wheeled back into the room.
"How's it going?"
"Good," I said, and his eyes widened with surprise at my calmness.
"Okay. Now that you know how it is, we'll return regularly and hope for a quicker recuperation. We've got to leave now, honey. I have some other things to do."
"All right," I said.
He wheeled closer, took Mommy's hand, and told her we would return often and told her how much he wished for her to recover. She didn't say anything.
She's not ready to forgive him, I thought, but I knew in my heart she would someday.
He looked at me, turned and started to wheel himself out. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
I felt her breath on mine. She trying to speak, I thought and leaned closer, bringing my ear to her lips.
I heard her.
No one would ever believe it. but I heard her. "Don't tell him." she whispered.
I smiled at her and nodded. Then I kissed her again and hurried out after Daddy.
We did visit her frequently, and her return began first in small ways and then in bigger and bigger ones as the memories started to reemerge in her brain.
"She's returning from a dark place." Mrs. Feinberg told me one time. "It's like climbing out of a deep hole into the light. There's more and more as you get higher and higher."
"I know," I said with such confidence that she pulled her head back. "She told me."
Everyone thought it was cute or funny, but I didn't care. I'm like Ian now, I thought. I know more than they do, and I'm comfortable about it. It doesn't matter what they think.
On Thursday of the following week. I was called out of class to the principal's office. All I was told was that my father was coming for me. I was surprised to see Felix actually come to sin me out.
"Your father's in the limousine," he said.
"Why didn't he drive himself in his special car?"
"He wanted me to drive him this morning, Jordan," he told me.
I hurried to get into the limousine. Daddy was sitting in the corner. waiting. Felix closed the door.
"Why are you taking me out of school. Daddy?" I asked him. "I'm afraid your grandmother has passed away, Jordan."
I'll never forget that for a moment I wondered whom he meant. Emma or Frances.
"Considering the limits to her recovery, it's probably for the best. My mother wasn't anyone who could accept anything less than perfection, especially for herself. I could almost guarantee you she decided her heart should stop. herself. She was always in charge. She would even tell Death what to do and when. Your great-aunt is being brought to the funeral," he added.
I didn't say anything.
We returned home, where we had a steady stream of visitors offering their condolences. Daddy wanted me at his side all the time. There were still many people alive who had been friends with my grandparents, even some former business associates from the steel company. Of course, there were all the people involved with all the charities Grandmother Emma had supported. It was. as Daddy would say, a true Who's Who. We even had a senator and two congressmen come to pay their respects.
I was impressed. but I waited eagerly for the arrival of Great- aunt Frances. No one was more important to me.
Felix brought her the day of the funeral. I was surprised at how good she looked. She had lost weight. Her hair was styled, and someone had helped her with her makeup, or else she'd finally realized how to do it conservatively so she wouldn't look silly.
She wore a very stylish black skirt, blouse and jacket. I imagined that whomever Daddy had gotten to be with her had been a really good influence.
She was really happy to see me, even more than Daddy or the mansion. I was full of questions for her about Alanis. Miss Puss. and Lester Marshall. She was overwhelmed by all the attention and by the mansion. Daddy was very nice to her. She looked at me almost every time he spoke to her. and I thought.
She's wondering if I told him
what Mrs. DeMarco told Alanis and me
. I didn't know how to speak about it. I was afraid I would stir up the same sadness in her that had driven her to lock herself in the attic and take sleeping pills.
How hard it must have been for her to give away her baby and be forgotten.
We were too busy all day anyway, with the church service and the burial with the aftermath, for us to have any private conversation about it. and I had the sense that it was something better left unspoken, sort of like her saying, "No unhappiness, no bad news in this house."
The church was filled to capacity, and more people came to the mansion afterward. To me it seemed to become a big party, almost a celebration. It was catered, and for a while I thought it looked like one of those extravagant golden age parties
Grandmother Emma had been so proud to show us pictures of and describe. She would be pleased with my father, I thought, pleased with the man she'd kept her son, maybe dying to be sure she would never say otherwise.
So many people were introduced to Great-aunt Frances that I was sure she would remember no one. She obviously enjoyed the attention, however. She should, I thought, It's
way overdue. Loneliness was a shadow that would never fall over her again.
Toward early evening, the crowd of mourners thinned out until there was no one left but Felix. Nancy, Daddy, Great-aunt Frances and myself. Daddy expected that Great-aunt Frances would be very tired, but the activity seemed instead to have energized her. I thought she looked upset it was all over, in fact.
As I watched him talk to her. I realized, of course. that Grandmother Emma's passing meant she wouldn't be telling him the truth. I wondered what I should do.
Before the sun 1,went down. Daddy decided he needed some fresh air. Great-aunt Frances was eager to go out. too.
I
followed behind them, listening to Daddy's conversation. He had many questions about Grandmother Emma when she was a young girl. and Great-aunt Frances was happy to answer them. With Grandmother Emma gone, she was free now, I thought. She was unafraid.
But she was really not unkind. She said so many nice things about her sister that I wondered if she had made up the terrible ones, but then
I
thought about the truth and lies again. Great- aunt Frances was just too nice to say anything that might upset Daddy, I realized, Did that mean she was lying? Or did it mean she was more caring?
They got ahead of me on the walkway toward the pool area, passing gardens and fountains, weaving along through the hedges. Great-aunt Frances suddenly paused and began to wheel Daddy. I smiled to myself, wondering if she thought she was like a mother wheeling her child in a baby carriage. It was something she'd never gotten to do.
Would she bend down, lean toward his face and whisper in his ear, telling him she was really his mother?
Or was there something magical that would happen, if not now, someday when Daddy would look at her and realize the truth?
Maybe he would learn how to do Ian's telepathy and he would hear Great-aunt Frances's thoughts.
The simple word would unlock his heart.
The word every child knows in his or her very soul even before birth.
Mother.
A week later, a letter came for me. It was from Ian.
Unopened, it was waiting for me on my bed in my room. My fingers trembled as I tare the envelope and pulled out the paper.
.
Dear Jordan,
I suppose you know I'm in a new place.
You know the reason
why they wanted to move me. I'm stronger now, so they're probably sorry.
And I've decided it's more important for me to get them to let me come home. I have spoken with Mother about it andit's what she wants as
well. Father was here to see me and told me hell be bringing
^-
you soon, too. He seemed different. I think he has changed or as Grandmother Emma might say, grown up.
They told me about her passing away.
I told them I knew and they just shook their heads of course.
They continually ask me if I am sorry about anything I've done.
I am sorry, but not for the reasons they would like to hear. I am not going to lie about it.
I am sorry because I realize I have left you alone out there.
So I have decided to do everything possible to come home.
Mother has told me she will need me as well and from what I can see of Father, he could use my assistance.
You only have value in relation to how you can help other people.
I told my new doctor that and he was very impressed.
I wouldn't tell him and I wouldn't tell Daddy and I won't ever tell Mother, but I'll tell you because you can keep a secret. We both know that,I'm tired of being alone.
Ian
.
The day after they brought Mammy home. Ian returned.
Great-aunt Frances was moved into
Grandmother Emma's bedroom.
Alanis was coming to visit me.
And suddenly it seemed like we had all been reborn, metamorphosing like one of Ian's caterpillars.
When I looked out my window, I saw the world was filled with butterflies.