Abomination (8 page)

He remembered turning on Samantha and glowering at her, the wrath of hell evident on his face by the way she cringed, before storming out.  He drove home at ninety miles per hour, his bag of relaxation goodies still at his side.

They didn’t talk again until Wednesday.  She apologized for what had happened when she eventually called, for lying to him, and begged him for another chance, promising that it wouldn’t happen again.  And like a fool, he had given it to her.  Because he loved her.  Because he had three years’ worth of time and money and emotion wrapped up in this relationship, and if nothing had happened between her and Peter except for a little wine, if the worst was that she had deceived him a bit, well he could get past that.

He had gone down to visit her two straight weekends after that, and he allowed things to normalize.  She showed him how sorry she was in amazing and wonderful ways that left him gasping for air.  For those two weeks, he thought everything would be all right.  He willfully muted that voice in the back of his head that wondered at how many condoms Samantha and Peter had burned through during those stretches when she had asked him to stay away for the weekend.

But then last night’s phone call had happened and he needed to accept that, despite Samantha’s protests otherwise, he was now Mister Architect-Still-in-Maryland.

No, he was Mister Dentist-Now-in-Newark.  Different name but
same game.  A cuckold in every way that mattered.

As Jamie sat on the motel room bed, pen in one hand, notebook on his lap, ESPN playing on the TV, he knew he needed to make a decision.  Did he allow her to play him, to string him along, in the hope that it would all work out in the end?  In the hope that all Peter Fauerbach was was a distraction to get her through the lonely nights and
not
his replacement?  Or did he take control of the relationship, make a preemptive strike, and pull the rug out from under her.  He didn’t know.  He just didn’t know.  He loved her despite everything.  Still wanted to marry her.  But at the same time, he hated to be manipulated.  And he hated not knowing whether or not he could trust her

He wondered for a moment if Mister Architect-Still-in-Maryland had
had these very same thoughts three years ago. 

Did he hold on to hope?  Or was it time to start over?  He would be the first to admit that that thought scared him more than a little. 
Start over
.  At twenty-five, he felt old.  Too old to be single.  It was a ridiculous notion, of course, that he was too old and there was no time to begin again, but he allowed himself to feel miserable at the possibility for a moment anyway.

Jamie looked over at the ten dollar alarm clock on the nightstand and the moment was over.  It was five minutes to five.  Time to meet his parents and go visit his grandfather.  He tossed the notebook and pen onto the bed, stood and stretched. 
The television was still on.  He reached toward the remote control, which rested on the bed, but stalled out midway, his hand grasping nothing but empty air.  From the corner of his eye, he spied his notebook.  The page where he should have been scribbling a tribute to Grandma Anna instead of thinking about Samantha should have been blank. 

It wasn’t. 

He didn’t remember writing anything during his daydreaming, but he obviously had, as a single word spelled out in big black letters, all caps, stared back at him, the thick dark print standing in heavy contrast against the white paper.  A single word written by some miserable, subconscious part of his mind.  A single awful, terrifying word that sent his spine tingling.

ABOMINATION

Chapter 7

The distance from the motel to Jamie’s grandfather’s house was only ten miles, but the trip took thirty minutes because of the holiday traffic that congested every road.   Jamie returned to his previous position of looking out the window as Steve drove, watching as the sun began its gentle fall behind the horizon and the purple haze of twilight began to darken the world outside the car. 

His mind was scattered.  For most of last night and today, he had done nothing but think about his grandmother’s death, his mother’s emotional state and his possibly soon to be ex-girlfriend.  They all affected his life in a very profound and immediate manner, and he couldn’t help but wonder how each situation would influence the direction of his life, both in the coming days and in the more distant future. 

Lost in the emotional turmoil of the past twenty-four hours were the old gypsy woman and her confusing, hateful words.  While his conscious mind had buried the entire episode, rendering it effectively forgotten, some dark, primitive part of his consciousness wanted him to remember what she had said, expressing itself through pen and paper while he daydreamed.  And for the first time since his trip home from work yesterday, he found himself thinking about her, about her words, trying to understand what they meant and why they still unnerved him. He spent the entire half an hour car ride replaying the conversation in his head, trying to make some rational sense of Elena Ionesco’s irrational accusations. 

You are a
monstru
.

An abomination.  An anathema to the purity of life

Just because you do exist does not mean you should exist.

They were nonsensical concepts that didn’t intersect with the rational world.  Absurd allegations
from a diseased brain that simply made no sense.   As such, the words shouldn’t have bothered him.  True, his history was stained by violence, but that was a lifetime ago, and now he was nothing more than an average twenty-six year old dealing with the usual life problems of a guy his age.  But the words, the accusations, they nibbled at his brain anyway, at some dark, hidden part of his mind like an internal, impossible-to-reach itch.

What made him truly upset
, though, were not the words themselves, but the irrational fear that, somehow, despite the impossibility of it all, there was some truth behind what she had said.

It wa
s a fear he just couldn’t shake.

When the family finally arrived at his grandfather’s home, Jamie still hadn’t stumbled upon some great epiphany which explained away
the gypsy’s behavior in some rational way.  But seeing his grandfather’s house made him once again forget the old woman and her accusations, at least temporarily.

The house was a simple one-story affair, the stucco siding the dark beige color of sunbaked clay.  A narrow driveway led to a single garage, and a stone path constructed of multi-colored paving stones curled from the driveway to the front door.  Several short bushes set in mulch beneath the windows and a single tree erupting from the center of the lawn compromised the entirety of the home’s landscaping.  The entire block, both sides of the street included, were populated by identical houses, the only differences between them being the color.  There was a wide assortment of shades along the road, including white, pale yellow, sky blue, and gray.  But all the homes shared the same dimensions and landscaping.  It was suburbia at its finest, dull and
drab and uninspiring.  But Jamie imagined that the elderly people who lived on the street found comfort in the conformity.

A dozen or so cars were already parked along the street by the house.  Steve parked the rental car behind a rust-brown Buick that appeared to have been assembled during the year of the flood.  The three of them clambered from the car and started towards the house
in silence.

Once inside, Jamie was amazed by the number of people present.  There must have been at least forty people crammed inside the two bedroom sardine can his grandparents had called home for almost ten years.  The number of cars outside seemed too few to bring this many people, but he assumed that a fair share of the mourners had walked from their homes.  Grandma Anna had always been popular wherever she lived and she no doubt had purchased the loyalty and friendship of many of her neighbors with fresh pies and a kind laugh.

In the living room, to the left of the front entrance, the catering staff had set up two long tables covered with black cloths.  The tables brimmed with platters stacked high with warm deli meats, including turkey and roast beef and ham, assorted cheeses (sliced and cubed) and vegetables, including pickles quartered the long way into spears, sliced tomatoes, and lettuce.  There were several bread baskets loaded with rye and white breads and several different kinds of rolls.  Small plastic containers of ketchup and mustard and Russian dressing had been placed in strategic places along the tables.  A small square poker table, similarly draped in black and bearing several dozen cans of soda, was set up in the far corner.  Jamie inspected the food and found that he wasn’t hungry, the McDonalds still heavy in his stomach, resisting digestion.  But he did take a can of soda, tearing off the top and pouring the contents into a cup with ice.

The air in the small house was uncomfortably warm despite the November chill outside, and the smell… the odor was sharp to Jamie’s nostrils, unpleasant, medicinal, like being in a hospital or a nursing home.  It may have been politically incorrect to imply that old people smelled funny, but it was true, and the scent of this many older people stuffed into a cramped, warm space assaulted his senses.

Doing his best to breathe through his mouth, Jamie separated from his parents and slowly made his way through the house.  From what he could tell he was the youngest person there.  In fact, he didn’t think he saw anyone younger or even the same age as his mother or Steve.  The guests were exclusively people in their seventies and eighties,  a collection of women with blue or white hair and dressed in their Sunday finest, and bald and balding men dressed in slacks pulled up to their nipples, plaid shirts and suspenders.  For a brief moment, Jamie imagined he was in a community center on Bingo Night.  He half-expected someone to whip out a hopper and start drawing out balls. 
I 25.  I 25, ladies and gentlemen.  I 25.  Next is O 67
. 
Anyone have O 67?

But it wasn’t a community center and it wasn’t Bingo Night.  It was his grandparent’s house and the people there weren’t there to have fun.  They were there to offer their sympathy and remember a dear departed friend.

Most of the people were strangers to Jamie, friends from the neighborhood he had never met, bridge and Mahjong partners and drinking and smoking buddies.  Between his grandfather’s family and grandmother’s family, there weren’t too many surviving relatives, just a handful, and it appeared that some of them had decided not to make the trip. He recognized only a few people: Aunt Barbara (who had driven up from Miami with her third husband, Peter), Gary and Margo Fallon from across the street, and Gail and Norm Goldman from next door.  He stopped when he saw someone he knew, made small talk and accepted condolences when offered.  Pretended to recognize strangers who seemed to know him, faking it so as to not offend them.

He slowly made his way from the foyer to the kitchen, making his way through the den and family room
as he shuffled along.  His progress was purposefully slow.  Part of him didn’t want to see his grandfather, who he knew was sitting at the kitchen table with his mom and Steve.  His grandmother was dead—a fact that was indisputable—but seeing his grandfather without Grandma Anna at his side, tears staining his wrinkled face, would solidify the reality.  If he could avoid seeing his grandfather he could pretend that Anna was still alive.  It was silly and childish, of course, because dead was dead was dead—this wasn’t a fucking comic book where the dead never stayed quite dead—but he wanted to hold onto the fantasy as long as possible.

When he finally reached the small
kitchen, it was empty save for his parents and grandfather.  His mother and Steve sat uncomfortably on a pair of ancient wicker chairs.  Between them, sagging uncomfortably in his own chair, sat his grandfather.  A walker, complete with split tennis balls pushed over the front two feet, stood before him.  Jamie hardly recognized the man.  He last saw his grandparents three months ago when they came north to visit during the summer.  His grandfather had looked old—he was eighty-eight after all—but it was a healthy, dignified old.  Now he looked sickly and old.  Dark, wrinkled skin had given way to a pale, pasty complexion.  All of the meat was gone from his bones, the skin dangling from scrawny arms like melted wax.  His clothing hung loosely on his body, rags on the straw frame of a scarecrow.  His eyes, always so full of life and wisdom, had dimmed.  The only feature that remained recognizable was his the top of his head, which was mostly bald except for a ring of gray hair that circled from ear to ear around the back of his scalp.  When Hal Whitman finally looked up at his grandson, acknowledging his sudden arrival, his eyes seemed to focus on something behind him, over his shoulder, and Jamie wondered if he even saw him.

“You’re looking good, grandpa” Jamie said as he leaned over to kiss him on the forehead.  He pulled a chair over and joined his family. 

“You never were a good liar, Jamie,” Hal Whitman chided, his voice deep and strong despite the withering of his body.  “I look like shit and I feel like shit.”

Jamie nodded, respecting his grandfather’s up-front attitude.  “You’ve look
ed better.”

“Like when I climbed the temples at Chichen Itza in Mexico with you and Steve four years ago?”

Like you did three months ago,
Jamie thought as he nodded.  His mind suddenly flashed back to that trip to Cancun four years ago, when his grandfather was in his early eighties but looked like he was in his fifties and acted with the mischievous enthusiasm of a man in his twenties.  He had scaled those steep steps at the Mayan ruins in a matter of minutes, never once looking down, never once faltering, reaching the summit well before he or his stepfather had.  His grandfather had aged considerably between that trip four years ago and last summer, but it had been the normal, gradual aging of a man in his eighties entering the twilight of his life.  The last couple of months, though, had not been kind to his grandfather, aging the man a decade in a quarter of a year.  He was a dentist, not a physician, but Jamie knew that something was wrong with him besides just grief.

As if reading his mind, his grandfather said, “Pancreatic cancer, Jamie.  Eating me up from the inside out.  Diagnosed last month.  Aggressive.  Terminal.” 

Jamie felt tears begin to form at the corner of his eyes.  He looked up at his mother and Steve, and their somber expressions told him that they already knew.   He turned back to his grandfather and opened his mouth to speak, but his grandfather lifted a single finger to his lips, silencing him.  “We’re not here to talk about me.  Or feel sorry for me.  There will be time for that later.  We’re here to remember your grandmother.  No one else knows and I’ll not have anyone finding out now.  There will be time for the living later.”

Jamie
nodded in agreement then studied his grandfather’s desiccated body, saw hints of his own face in his grandfather’s wrinkled features, and he suddenly understood why Steve was so insistent that he speak at the funeral tomorrow.  He was all that was left, the last of the Whitman legacy, the only true family that remained.  His grandfather had no brothers or sisters, no nieces or nephews, no other sons or daughters or grandchildren.  Jamie’s mother and stepfather were family but not in the truest sense of the word.  They were visitors in his grandfather’s life, introduced by chance and circumstance, but they were not bound by blood.  They could sever all relations with Hal Whitman and never look back.  But Jamie couldn’t.  He was blood, and that made all of the difference.

His mother would speak tomorrow.  Aunt Barbara would, as well.  Other friends would also lend their voices to the memory of Anna Whitman at the small service, and his grandfather would find comfort in their tribute and prayers.  But the sentiments that would mean the most to the dying man would be those that spilled from his own lips.

Jamie promised himself that as soon as he got back to the motel he would take up his pen and paper again and compose a tribute to his grandmother that would make his grandfather proud.

“So what exactly happened?” Leslie asked. 
She had obviously been waiting for Jamie to arrive so Hal wouldn’t have to repeat the story twice. “You said Anna had a heart attack?”

Hal Whitman nodded slowly.  “She went up to bed at five last night.  Said she wasn’t feeling well.  You know Anna.  She had no love for drama.  If she said she wasn’t feeling well, it’s more than just a small chest cold or sinus headache.  The woman wouldn’t complain about anything or slow down for anything unless her body physically couldn’t do what her brain told it to do.”  He took a sip from a glass of ice water on the table.  His movements were slow, jerky, and Jamie was surprised he didn’t spill half the contents on his shirt.

“She had been cleaning up.  The bridge game was supposed to be here last night.  She said she felt short of breath, thought it was just her asthma acting up.  She went to lay down for a couple of minutes to catch her breath.  I was watching the news on the couch in the den.  When I didn’t see or hear from her an hour later, I went to check on her.  I saw her lying in bed, and I knew, I just knew… I knew something was wrong.”  His voice quavered slightly and tears formed in his eyes.  He slowly collected himself as Jamie and his parents watched patiently.  “I went to her and looked at her and I saw she wasn’t breathing and I called 911.  They got here in five minutes but it was too late.  Would have been too late if they were only seconds behind me when I first discovered her body.   Someone told me she had been dead almost half an hour by the time they got here.”