Forever and a Day: Chapter 4
“The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.”
– William Blake
The weather shifted from a balmy to a rainy morning. Mom and I had gone to the Home Depot and gotten Early Girl and Sweet One Hundred tomato plants, along with pansies and verbena to put with them in the prepared soil. We had a long discussion where the perennials would go, as accents along the borders of the vegetable or in pots on the deck. As the rain pelted us, we decided to line them up on the deck in their green pots and finish the project under more auspicious skies.
I had just finished texting Annie for the fourth time since I had awakened at 7:30 am, sending her another funny e-card, this one with a little girl in tutu, upside down on the barre, obviously entangled as all the other girls were doing it right. The caption read “Get me outta here!” It was a running joke with us when were young girls in ballet class that I had exceptional talent for getting it backwards and Annie, ever graceful and focused, was the prima ballerina.
“CU afternoon. Bye.”
I had just sent the text off when my cell rang. “Dusty! Is everything all right?”
“Fran,” her voice was soft and scratchy, “I need to talk to you.”
I was standing by the boot box and I popped one shoe off with my foot, then the other. “Sure, want me to come over?”
“No, Fran, come to the hospital. Swedish. Room 1119, South wing.”
“What happened?” My hands were shaking I was so frightened.
“I lost the baby. Frank…he beat me up, Fran. Kicked me in the stomach.” Her tiny voice became emboldened. “Did you mean it when you said you would help me leave him?”
“Yes, yes. I’ll call Dean and tell him. We’ll figure something out. Where is William?”
“My Mom has him. The doctor is here. Bye.”
My Mom laid a hand on my arm. “What?”
“Dusty is in the hospital. She miscarried.”
“I’ll drive you. It would do no one any good for you to be in an accident because you are distracted.”
“Oh, mother, you can’t leave Grandma. I’m fine. Really.” Her hand lay warm on my arm. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, anyway. I’ll be extra careful, I promise.”
I called Dean, told him that we had to get Dusty somewhere safe.
“She and William can stay with me. I’m alone for the week. But she’ll need some money, Fran, to live on. I can help some, but honestly, I don’t have much.”
I pondered that for a moment. “My folks would, but then I’d have to tell the whole story. I’ll ask her father to help out. I’ll go by his place and ask him before I go to the hospital.”
I sat in the car in front of the house where Dusty’s father, his wife Sylvia and their eight-year-old daughter lived, running my hands over, up and down the steering wheel for what seemed an hour before I screwed enough courage into my backbone to get out of the car and go to the front door and knock.
Sylvia answered. “Fran! This is a surprise! Come in, please.”
I know Dusty disliked this woman, but my! she was gorgeous, impeccable in dress and make-up, and giving out nice vibes as she led me to the living room.
“Can I get you coffee or tea?”
“Actually, I need to talk to Mr. Connor. It’s really important.” My hands were sweaty and I could feel droplets running down my back. Dusty would disown me for sure if she found out I had come here.
“He’s out of town, Fran. He won’t be home until a week from Thursday.” She eyed me like I might have drugs on me. “What is it, Fran? Talk to me. You’re obviously upset and worried by the tension in your face and your fluttering hands. Is it Elizabeth?”
“Yes!” I fairly screeched. “She’s in the hospital.” How was I going to make my case unless I told the truth? “She miscarried because Frank kicked her. Dean and I are going to take her and William to a safe place, but she’ll need money to live on and we just don’t have it. Do you think her father will give her some support?”
Sylvia, stunned, opened her mouth to say something, shut her mouth, looked at me for moment before she said, “We didn’t know Elizabeth was pregnant. Where’s William?”
I took a deep breath and shook off my panic. “With Dusty’s Mom. I promised I’d get to the hospital right away to see Dusty.” I glanced at my watch, more out of nervousness and to break the intensity of eye contact with Sylvia, because I really did not see the time.
“Wait here a minute. I’ll be right back.”
I caught a glimpse of Sophia through the opened door of her pink bedroom, sitting on her bed with a fluffy pink and blue cover. I saw a beautiful child who would likely be a beautiful woman.
Sylvia came back into the room with an envelope that she handed to me. “It’s all I have for now, Fran. It’ll tide Elizabeth over until her father gets home and we can figure out what is to be done.”
“Oh, gosh, oh, thank you.” It was at least a thousand dollars, if not more. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell Elizabeth it is from her father, not from me. We’re not exactly buds.”
She walked me to the door. “Drive safely, Fran. Please no texting or using your phone.”
Do all mothers come with some sort of manual with stock cautionary lines for each appropriate occasion?
“I won’t, I promise.” I felt about twelve years old, but strangely did not resent Sylvia’s motherly advice because she seemed so genuinely caring.
I got to the hospital fine, even though the traffic was slow, it moved along, and I found a parking space on the third floor, called my mother to let her know I was safely there as I got into the elevator. However, I got lost and wound my way through corridor after corridor before I found the skybridge and a sign that indicated the south wing.
I came through the door, stopped and waited for the nurse to finish adjusting the bed. If it had not been for the setting, Dusty might have been a model posing for a shoot. Her beautiful long red hair with copper highlights spread over her shoulders and framed her face artfully; her lips were slightly parted, and if she had not looked so pale, had not an IV in her arm and a sensor on her finger for the monitor, I would have taken a picture of her. I would regret that one day, that I had not taken the picture of the last time I would see her.
I inched over to the chair beside her bed and sat, and waited. The nurse left with a smile and nod at me. Dusty did not look at me right away, but twisted a lock of her hair, then wet her lips. I could see the other side of her face had turned purple and green, and she had a black eye.
“I lost the baby. A girl.”
She was so calm, matter of fact that it took a minute for me to respond. I swallowed, but the words just stuck in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I croaked.
“Fran, you said you would help me leave Frank.” She turned and looked me straight in the eyes, still calm, matter of fact. “Will you?”
I straightened up, reached for hand and held it. “Yes, I will. Dean will, too. I’ll call him and we’ll get a plan. You won’t leave the hospital with Frank; you’ll leave with us.”
“William, too.”
“Of course. the both of you—-we’ll find you some place safe and make plans. Don’t worry, by tomorrow, Dean and I will have a game plan. Have you called Dean?”
“No, just you.”
“Don’t say anything to Frank about this! Anything! No matter how tempted you might be to tell him don’t. Okay?”
“Yes, of course.”
I was furiously texting Dean and trying to line my thoughts in some sort of order. “Where’s William?” I remembered asking her this already, but needed to say something other than blurt out that I had gone over to see her father, who is on a trip. Does Dusty know that? Then she would know that Sylvia had given me money for her sake.
“My mother’s. He’s safe.”
“What happened?” I whispered, though I do not know why I was being secretive; my battered friend’s face told me what happened.
“He started yelling at me for not having dinner ready, then taunting me about being pregnant. William was crying and Frank smacked him, told him to shut up. I snapped, slapped Frank as hard as I could. He’s bigger and stronger than I am. I lost.”
We sat wrapped in the silence of our friendship, just being there with one another, until footsteps snagged our attention. Frank came into the room with a bouquet of at least four dozen white, pink, yellow and red roses.
The warmth drained out the room and the silence was awkward. Frank looked at me and nodded to the door, indicating I should leave. I sat and stared at him.
“Fran,” he exaggerated his words, “if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to talk to Elizabeth. My wife. Alone.”
“No.” Though I had thought of saying it, Dusty said it first. “She is going to stay right there until she wants to leave.”
He shrugged, approached her, offering her the roses. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Really, I am. About everything. Everything.”
She looked up at him but did not reach for the vase of flowers. “The baby was a girl.”
Frank turned away and cleared a spot for the vase on a countertop close to the door, then came to stand beside the bed, the profile side of Dusty that did not show the bruise and black eye.
“Look, you know how you always say God has a purpose, sometimes we just don’t know what it is?”
“Stop it, Frank! Don’t you dare go there! You,” Dusty snarled at him “have no right!”
Frank put out his hands in a self-defensive gesture. “Calm down! Calm down. They’ll come in here and sedate you if you get hysterical. Look, all I’m saying is maybe this happened for a reason. With your mother’s help and my step-mom, they can babysit William and you can go to college, just like you’ve always wanted. You know, to be like her.” He gestured to me with a wave of his hand. “You’ll have something to talk about other than dirty diapers.”
“Go away, Frank. Get lost.” Dusty smoothed her blanket.
“Come on, honey, I’m kidding you. I want you to smile.”
“I can’t Frank, it hurts to smile.”
The soft slap slap of Dean’s loafers interrupted their conversation. Frank looked over his shoulder and scowled at Dean. “Why don’t you take Fran for a cup of coffee? Come back in twenty minutes, okay?”
The look Dusty gave Frank could have melted an iceberg. “You don’t give the orders here.”
Dean folded his arms and leaned ever so casually against the wall and did not reply.
Frank shook his head, as if we were the imposition, then studiously ignored us, turning his back to me and Dean so that Dusty could only see him. “I have to work overtime tomorrow. Be there an hour early and leave an hour later. I’ll come by after work. William is staying with your mother tonight and tomorrow. He’s fine, really. Don’t worry about us okay?” He bent down close enough to kiss her, but Dusty blocked him with an upraised hand.
“Go home. Go wherever. Just go.”
Frank turned at the door before leaving with a parting shot. “You’ll get over this and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”
It was minutes before any sound came out of her, the wracking sobs. Both Dean and I embraced her, none of us saying anything. Dean stroked her hair and I handed her a box of tissues.
“Thank you, thank you both. You sure you can do this for me? Help me leave? You’re not afraid of Frank?”
“No,” Dean snorted, “it’s three against one. It always has been, always will be the three of us.”
Dean can say something like that and it sounds like the right thing to say, the right thing to believe.
“We are going to see Annie. If you need us, we’ll be in the building and you can text either one of us.” Dean tugged the blanket and tucked it around Dusty’s legs. “Try to get some rest. Okay?”
Dusty nodded. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be here early tomorrow. We’ll have a game plan and you’ll be all right. You will be all right.”
“Okay.” She blew her nose and nodded vigorously. “Yes, I will be all right.”
As Dean and I left her, we truly believed that tomorrow we would engineer Dusty’s escape from an abusive marriage and set the world right again.
As were leaving, an older, matronly woman dressed in a grey pantsuit, white shirt and sensible black walking shoes, clipboard hugged to her chest, bustled into Dusty’s room.
Dean lifted an eyebrow and said in a low voice, “Social worker.”
Dean and I did not speak to each other as we walked side by side down the busy hospital corridor to Annie’s room. Just before entering, Dean paused and turned to me. “Let’s go to my place from here where we can talk this thing out. I’m all by myself for the next week, so I’m thinking Dusty and William can stay with me.” He waved me into the room. “That’s our first move tomorrow.”
I smiled to see Annie propped up by pillows in bed, in spite of all the tubes snaking on her arms, sensors on her chest and fingers, looking regal, holding court with her parents. The difference was palpable, the tension gone from Annie’s whole body. For the first time I’d had seen her here, I felt hopeful that she could get well. Dean felt it, too, as he visibly relaxed as he shook hands with Annie’s father.
We talked openly about the treatment center Annie would be going to as an outpatient. Dean stated again that it was a good choice and Annie had an excellent chance of a complete recovery. On a that note we said our goodbyes and left to go to the lobby.
“Look outside,” I said to Dean as we neared the parking payment box in the lobby. It was still early afternoon and the sky had gone back to severe blue and cloudless. “Typical Seattle June weather: sun, rain, sun. I hope it doesn’t snow tonight.”
Before Dean could say anything, I blurted out, “Do you think Annie’s going to make it? She looks so emaciated. How did that happen? Didn’t Jon, her parents, for the love of all that is sacred, see what was happening to her?”
“We didn’t.” He put a flat palm out up to silence me. “I know, I know, we only saw her once in a while, but you know she moved to Spokane to go to Gonzaga. She didn’t come home that often. Her mother told me Annie hadn’t been home for four months. I imagine she hid out in her apartment and pretty much stayed away from people.” He leaned on the wall. “Her father was the one who went to the university, brought her back home and committed her to the hospital.”
This was us, like we had been, sharing our concerns for our friends. “The irony of it is, her father smacked her and her sister and her mother around. I didn’t think he cared whether Annie existed. I remember Dusty felt abandoned by her father after her parents’ divorce and his remarriage to Sylvia. There is a pattern here; fathers who don’t care enough about their daughters.”
“Maybe it’s more like fathers who don’t know how to care for their daughters.”
“I cannot even imagine my father hitting me; he hardly ever raised his voice. My mother either.” I picture my parents sitting at the dinner table, chatting about their day’s events over a glass of wine. “I guess I lead a pretty sheltered life.”
I flashed back to a day in ninth grade when Dean came to school with a blackened eye. “Did your Dad ever hit you?”
Dean shook his head. “No, no. Never hit me. I had a few run-ins at school. Brian.”
“Porker? Not surprised, I guess.” I look away, then back to him. “And you made nice with him at Colin’s funeral.”
“He’s not a bad guy, Fran. Really.” Dean snatched the parking ticket from me and paid for both his and mine. It turned out we had parked on the same floor, so it made it easy to follow him to his house. It was a small, brick house in the University district, on a crowded, narrow street, but luckily both cars fit in his driveway.
“Do you want something to drink?” Dean opened the refrigerator door and pointed to an array of cartons of orange juice, apple juice, and a variety of cranberry blends. “Wine, too.” He jerked his thumb to indicate a well- stocked wine cabinet.
“Water will be fine, thanks.”
He swooshed the door shut. “Cheap date.”
I looked at him hard as he handed me a bottle of water. He is so prissy, I thought. He poured himself a glass of orange juice. “All right, step around the elephant and let’s talk about it in the living room.”
There is always that moment when silence, like a rubber band, stretches through the memories and emotions. At first, there is so much to say, so much to convey, that it seems too much to even begin. Then the rubber band snaps.
Dean began by handing me a pillow from the couch he sat upon, the end closest to the chair I had chosen. I took the pillow and wiggled and adjusted until I felt comfortable.
“Fran…” I cut him off. “You know my problems seem so petty compared to what Annie and Dusty are going through. You, you’re such a good friend and always there to help. I know you and Dusty have been friends forever, and I don’t want to taint that friendship. Dusty and I have put this argument behind us. We’re good, we’re friends again. We had a blow out, but now that seems so insignificant. I just didn’t know.”
“Your emotions are just as valid as anyone else’s. You couldn’t know how bad things were because Dusty didn’t tell anyone. Not even me.” Dean can sound so doctor-ish, so patent sometimes. I noticed he no longer stuttered. “But Fran, us. I never meant to hurt you. I really did not mean…”
“No, no I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt me. You did though, you did, and so cowardly. Like I’m there at Dusty’s wedding thinking one thing and you both knew it wasn’t ever going to be that.”
“Cowardly? How did you get there?” The glass in his hand hovered near his lips.
“Oh, I’m in a crowd of people and so happy. If I had known otherwise, what you truly meant, do you think I would have been so bubbly? Not before the wedding, because that may have spoiled the occasion, but to give me that necklace at the wedding and then spring it on me you’re gay like you did was cruel. Just plain cruel. And that look between you and Dusty——I saw her look at you quizzically. And why might I feel like a fool?”
Dean put down his glass without sipping any juice. “You’re right. You are so right. I didn’t think that through.” He wiped his brow with his hand. “By the way, Dusty and I were going to come down to Reed during the Renn Fayre. We had it planned and everything until she broke her wrist ice skating.”
“Frank broke it during a fight. She threw a dirty diaper at him when he came home from spending the night with one of his girlfriends. Did you know on their wedding day, he was in the changing room with the girlfriend of his best man?”
No, by the look on his face, he did not know. Sometimes it feels good to have the last piece of the puzzle that makes the picture complete.
But it hit me that Dusty had really wanted to come to Reed for the weekend, and probably her planning to come with Dean had precipitated the fight with Frank. For all the control and violence, Frank still could not completely dominate Dusty; it cost her big time each rebellion, but the spark, that inner force of being so strong and creative, was still there inside her.
There might not be an elephant sitting in the middle of the room, but there was a tiger, hungry enough to eat us both.
Dean twisted a ring on his left ring finger. A wedding band.
“You’re married?” I sipped from my bottle of water, relishing the coolness of liquid down my throat.
“Not formally. But we will be.” He leaned closer to me. “Fran, I think you’ll like Marcus.”
I doubt it I thought to myself.
He raised his glass in a toast. “To referendum 74! To equality!”
“Yeah,” I put my bottle back onto a coaster. “There’s so little of it.”
He drank some juice, then deliberately worked his glass onto a coaster, obviously buying some time; it was an old habit of his. “So, Fran, what about us? Can we be friends?”
I leaned back into the back of the chair and eyed him steadily. I could never really hate him, and now I felt an urge of desire to be with him; but I would not let him walk this one out the door. “What you are really asking me if I can trust you. No, not yet. Maybe with time, we’ll have something, another level of friendship. But it will never be the same.” A bone to the tiger.
He smiled his impervious little smile. “Never say never. It could be better than imagined.” He threw a sirloin steak.
“Oh, shoot, I have so little imagination. Just ask my profs.”
“Tell me about Reed. I want to know everything about your courses and professors and friends. Tell me all about that fantastic play you wrote and directed, Angry Chickens.” He saluted me with his glass of juice. “I hear it is still quite the sensation on ‘off-Reedway’—-playing at the town hall is it?”
I said, he said; we got caught up on our year we had not talked to one another. We shared memories, mending our ripped friendship back together like pieces of fabric that make a patchwork quilt.
“Do you remember the Washington State fair?”
“Oh, yes, the last time we went. When Frank wouldn’t let Dusty go on the rides with us.”
“Yes, I thought it was so odd, with you waiting in the car for us, that she ran back upstairs to put on those stupid dangling earrings Frank had given her. We were going on the Hammer and Twirl-a-Whirl and the swings, for heaven’s sake! And she wouldn’t pull her hair into a ponytail because ,” I mimicked how Dusty would say, “Frank doesn’t like that.”
“Remember when Annie got busted for shoplifting? How she changed from bad girl to saint?”
“Remember how we would line up our lawn jobs so that we could go by Annie’s house when she was on restriction and wave to her?”
“That was the year Colin died when the punk hit him with his skateboard. The same day you and Dusty gave that awesome presentation at the UW.”
“And you tried to save Colin’s life with CPR.”
“That was the year we were the Musketeers!”
“Let’s see. You,” I tapped the air with my pointing finger at him, “were Athos, man of seemingly no romance in his soul; Aramis, the religious one, Dusty; the rash one, D’Artagnan, Annie.” I leaned over closer to him, “Remember how Annie could pronounce ‘dar-tan youn’ so beautifully with a French accent?” I sat straight back and placing my finger delicately over my neck dimple, “I, the clothes conscious Porthos. There is some irony in all that, you know.”
“Oh, Fran, of the understatement.”
We laughed and we talked late into the evening, and bit by bit, a tenuous bond began to form. The tiger padded out the room with the elephant close behind.
Dean walked me to my car, holding the door open until I had buckled my seat belt, then leaned into the opened window. “Tomorrow, then agreed, you come here by nine?” He rapped the door with his knuckles. “Armor up, Musketeer.”
“Yes, we’ll spring the prisoner, whisk the princess and prince away from the Evil One.” I turned over the engine and backed down the driveway, confident that we had a working plan. But you cannot rescue someone who isn’t there.
