The House On Willow Street (52 page)

Tess sat up late in the kitchen, worrying about Suki. Zach was upstairs, studying or listening to music, and Kitty was asleep. She was alone at the kitchen table with nothing but the Something Old account books and a glass of red wine.

This had been her plan for the evening, but Suki’s frantic phone call had upset her so much that she could barely concentrate on anything.

Poor Suki. She hadn’t been exaggerating: if this nasty biographer twisted the story the wrong way, Suki’s name would be mud. If only Tess could do something. But she couldn’t. Money and power were the only things that could hold off people like that, and the Powers had neither.

She herself was broke. The business was on the verge of bankruptcy, nothing could save it now. Her only option was to sell her remaining stock to other antique shops or go to one of the big auction houses and let them offload it; either way, it would probably mean selling at way below what the stuff was worth. And you never quite knew what was going to happen at an auction house, it was like betting on a horse. Who knew which horse would win, which horse would lose?

Tess drank her wine and tried to concentrate. She couldn’t help Suki, but she had to work out how to make enough money to keep herself, Zach and Kitty going. The problem was that the anxiety over her situation was so overwhelming it had paralyzed her mind; try as she might, she couldn’t think what she was going to do next. The only plus was, she seemed to have reached the point where she no longer cared that Kevin wasn’t there to hug her and tell her it would be all right, to give her the fake assurances that they’d get through it.

She had finally realized that, in letting him go, she had made the right decision. At the time of the separation, she hadn’t really been sure. For months afterward, she’d wavered,
wondering whether they should get back together. When Claire had come into his life she’d felt anger at having been replaced so quickly. But that’s all it had been: anger at being replaced. It wasn’t the realization that she
did
love him desperately. It was more a feeling of incomprehension that her love didn’t matter and another woman’s love would do.

At least whatever she had to face now, she’d face on her own, with darling Zach and Kitty. They wouldn’t suffer, she’d make sure of that. There was no telling what sort of job she’d get, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t care what she did; she’d be a cleaner, she’d take in ironing, anything—although nobody wanted cleaners or people taking in ironing anymore. Nobody could afford it. There had to be something she could do to make sure they stayed in their home. There were a few things she’d hung onto from Avalon House that she could sell. Precious things, like the portrait of her mother, a beautiful oil by a minor artist who’d been popular in the 1960s, but it would be worth something now. Her mother had been so beautiful. Plus, there was a story to it. A beautiful woman cut down in her prime, killed in a car accident. The story might add to its salability.

She’d bring it to Adams to get it valued. And there were a few pieces of her mother’s jewelry too. Sadly, jewelry, albeit jewelry with precious stones, made very little. So many people were trying to sell off jewelry these days. The market was flooded with diamonds and rubies and emeralds. It was sad, seeing them in the shops. Gifts, given in love, sold out of desperation.

But Tess didn’t care, the sentiment behind her jewelry and her mother’s picture was immaterial now. What mattered was taking care of Zach and Kitty.

Blissfully unaware that their mother’s business was disintegrating, Zach and Kitty were both blossoming. Zach was
totally in love with Pixie Martin; the pair of them were now inseparable. Plus, Kitty loved having her around. Loved the sense of finally having a big sister to play with. And Pixie was endlessly kind to her. Helping dress dolls and playing Sylvanian Families at length, and listening to Kitty explain how she was going to be a big sister to whatever baby Claire had. “So you’ll have to teach me how I have to do it,” Kitty would say self-importantly to Pixie. Despite her pain, Tess smiled. As long as her children were happy, they’d muddle through. As long as they had each other, she would keep going no matter what.

D
anae wasn’t sure how she felt about accompanying Antonio to the hospice. She had always assumed that the nursing home would care for him right until the end, but the director had explained to her that they couldn’t do that in Antonio’s case. The cancer had metastasized into his bones, making it incredibly painful, and Refuge House was not equipped to provide the kind of pain management he would need. “We simply don’t have the staff,” he said. “It’s too difficult. I know you’d prefer him to be here, but . . .”

“No,” said Danae. “I understand, totally. We want him to go as painlessly as possible.” It seemed like the last gift she could give her husband.

They’d been so lucky that a bed had become free.

“This is the right place for your husband in his final days,” the lady from the hospice had said to her when she phoned during her lunch break. “We’ll see you tomorrow. He’s going into a lovely room overlooking the garden.”

It was that last little detail that had made Danae want to cry. How wonderful these people were, how caring, in their love of the dying, their gentleness, their kindness. She’d sobbed
on the phone. And the lady, who was clearly used to it, told her it would be all right. “You don’t think you’ll get through it, but you will,” she’d said. “With your husband’s brain injury, you’ve clearly gone through so much over these years. You must miss him terribly.”

Danae had felt like a charlatan, because she didn’t miss him at all.

And then she’d hung up the phone and shut the post office and ventured out to buy herself some more tea bags. A short journey, maybe one hundred yards, and she’d slipped on the ice and fallen down. She knew immediately that she’d done something unutterably painful to her ankle.

The doctor, summoned out of his surgery, took one look at it, bound it up and said, “I’m afraid it’s hospital for you, my dear. You need to get that X-rayed.”

Mara had immediately whisked Danae off to the local hospital, where she’d been told she had a fractured ankle bone that would need to be strapped up for at least six weeks.

“No weight on it,” the orthopedic A&E doctor said, looking at the X-rays again. “Absolutely no weight on it. This is a tricky little fracture.”

At this point, Danae had been given a shot of painkillers so she wasn’t feeling any pain, but the anxiety in her head was destroying her.

“What’s wrong, Danae?” said Mara. “What are you not telling me?”

“I didn’t want to drag you into all this, Mara,” said Danae, beginning to cry. “But I need your help . . .”

They were on the road early the next morning, hens fed, Lady left outside because she’d have gone mad locked inside the house. Mara had spent ages settling Danae, pushing the car seat back and arranging cushions for her back, more
cushions for her ankle to rest on, and blankets in case she got cold.

“Now,” said Mara finally, popping a CD in the car stereo, “it’s too exhausting for you to talk, so we’ll listen to music on the way up and only talk if you want to. We’ve lots of time, so we can take it slow, stop for a coffee and a bite of brunch on the way, then we’ll go to the nursing home and take it from there.”

“Thank you,” Danae said weakly.

They stopped at a small pub on the outskirts of Dublin, the sort of place that catered to passing trade and could feed you at any time of day. Mara ordered soup and a sandwich for each of them, even though Danae barely picked at hers.

“Come on, you need to eat,” said Mara, conscious of how their roles had been entirely reversed.

“I can’t,” said Danae. “I’m sorry.” She drank her coffee though and nibbled a bit at the tiny biscuit that accompanied the coffee.

“Afterward we’re going to have something proper to eat,” Mara insisted.

Mara admired the nursing home gardens when they got there.

“It’s lovely,” she said appreciatively, “but this place must cost a fortune. Does it? Have you been paying for it all by yourself?”

“Yes,” said Danae.

“Wow,” said Mara, resolving not to ask any more questions because she could see it was upsetting for Danae. She wished she could get her hands on this vengeful family who’d been too mean to stump up any cash for Antonio’s care, leaving it to his poor battered wife to pay for everything.

Inside, it was clear that everyone knew Danae, but they’d
never seen her come with anyone else before. They were fascinated by Mara and delighted to be introduced to her, delighted that for once Danae would have some support.

“Your aunt’s an amazing woman,” every second person said to her. “Incredible. Every month she’s here and she always brings him something—clothes, sweets, chocolates. He has an awful sweet tooth.”

“She is an amazing woman,” agreed Mara proudly.

“We have all his stuff ready,” one of the nurses said. “We’re going to miss him, you know, it’s so sad when someone leaves us.”

Quite a few of the staff were crying and Danae somehow managed to gather the strength to say: “You’ve been so good to him over the years, please, he needs to be in the hospice now. We know you can’t possibly look after him here, not right now, not for the end.”

“It’s all right,” one of the nurses whispered to Danae, “they’ve been trained in palliative care and understand the need to transfer patients like Antonio.”

“Right,” nodded Mara.

The man who was wheeled out in front of her looked ancient, far older than her aunt. Yet he had a shock of shiny dark hair with streaks of gray running through it and the most amazing rich, mahogany eyes. But there was no light in the eyes, no awareness, no recognition. His features were slightly distorted. His mouth sank a little to one side.

She thought of Danae’s monthly pilgrimages to the man who’d beaten her for years, and vowed that she would make this as easy as she possibly could for her sake.

“Hello, Antonio,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Now, Danae,” she said, putting her arm around her aunt, because it looked as if Danae might collapse on to the floor, her face was drained white. Between the shock and the pain
of her ankle, collapse was just around the corner. “Come on.” She put an arm around Danae to help her. “Let’s go. Are we going in the ambulance or in the car?” she inquired.

“You won’t both be able to go in the ambulance,” said one of the ambulance men.

“Fine,” said Mara, “then Danae and I will follow in my car.”

She was making an executive decision on this: there was no way that Danae was leaving her side today. She could sense that some strange masochism would have made Danae opt to travel in the ambulance, watching her husband’s lifeless eyes all the time. No, that was not happening. She firmly and gently steered Danae over to the car, going slowly so as not to hurt Danae’s ankle.

“I should go in with him,” Danae began to say, as Mara began the process of sorting out cushions for her ankle and a plethora of blankets to lay across her legs.

“No,” said Mara gently, “you’re coming with me. You should be in a wheelchair yourself with that ankle, you poor darling. It’s your turn to be taken care of now, Danae.” She turned the radio to a news station so there would be constant chatter in the background as they drove to the hospice. Every once in a while, Mara would remark on a news story: “Gosh, that’s very interesting isn’t it?” she’d say, but Danae could only stare blankly out the window.

The hospice was a beautiful building with lovely grounds for people to walk in. The ambulance had arrived before them and by the time they got there, Antonio had already been installed in his room. A woman with a gentle face and kind eyes led them to an office to complete the final bits of paperwork. “You’ve done most of it, Mrs. Rahill, already,” said the woman. Danae still seemed stuck in her trance, and Mara and the woman exchanged worried glances.

When Danae left the room, Mara looked at the woman and said, “Are most people like this?”

“Yes,” said the woman, “unfortunately. But we will do our best to love and to care for your uncle.”

He was in a room painted sunflower yellow. It reminded Mara of the sun on a beautiful summer’s day. It was both cozy and yet suitable as a hospital room. When Danae saw him there, already hooked up to various machines and with a drip already inserted to feed him the morphine he needed, she started to cry. Mara made one more executive decision: “Danae why don’t you kiss Antonio goodbye now? Then we can come back in a couple of days and see him. We need to get you home, put that ankle up like the doctor ordered.”