Every Woman's Dream (16 page)

“I'm on my way,” I said.

Chapter 27

Lola

I
WAS GLAD
M
AURICE WAS WITH ME AS
I
STOOD BY THE SIDE OF
Bertha's hospital bed. I was also glad that Libby and Marshall had come and gone.

The sight of my pitiful stepmother lying on her back, looking like she belonged in a mummy's tomb, was excruciatingly painful. It reminded me of the last image I had of Daddy.

“I . . . I'm so glad you're here,” she rasped, struggling to sit up. When she realized Maurice was with me, she froze. A profound frown appeared on her face and she coughed a couple of times. “Who is this strange man, Lola?”

Maurice gave me a puzzled look and we shrugged at the same time. I forced myself to smile as I returned my attention to Bertha. “This is Maurice. Don't you remember him? You and I talked about him before I went out tonight.”

She rubbed matter from the corners of her eyes and blinked. “Humph!” Then she looked at Maurice with so much contempt, it made me flinch. The next few words shot out of her mouth like missiles.
“How could I forget that nose?”

Maurice sighed and dropped his head. No matter how many times Bertha said something unkind to or about him, he always maintained his composure. He and I had discussed her desperate attempts to keep me in her life on her terms a few times, and I had assured him that I'd do whatever I felt was best for
me.
I was glad that I had not yet told him about the promise I'd made to Daddy. Maurice was totally devoted to his family, so I knew he was the type who would honor a deathbed promise.

“Bertha, I'm sure you'll be up and about real soon, as long as you do everything the doctor tells you to do,” he said. The smile on his face was just as fake as mine. “My grandmother tells my grandfather all the time, ‘God ain't through with you yet.' He's had three heart attacks and a stroke and he's still with us.”

Bertha did not comment on what Maurice said. She just glared at him, with one eye twitching and her lips quivering.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

She turned to me with a blank stare. “I might make it and I might not!” she snapped coldly.

Despite the chill in Bertha's voice, Maurice's tone was gentle and warm. “I'll be praying for you day and night,” he told her.

“Don't waste your breath!
You
don't have to do that or anything else for me, Mister Man! I'm in God's hands. I don't need any help from
you.
” I was shocked at how strong she suddenly sounded and the coldness in her eyes as she continued to glare at him.

Maurice shifted his weight from one foot to the other. There was so much tension in the room now that even a sword couldn't cut through it. “I think I'll split so you two can have some privacy,” he said, clearing his throat. I had a feeling he knew that
he
was the reason Bertha was in the hospital. “I'll call you,” he said as he squeezed my hand. He didn't kiss me or offer me the hug I needed.

“All right,” I mumbled. He bolted so fast I didn't have time to say anything else to him, or give him a hug like I always did when he departed. Something told me that this might be the last time he and I would be in the same place at the same time.

The doctor entered the room a couple of minutes later. He greeted me and introduced himself with a nod and a wall-to-wall smile on his moon face. Then he strolled over to the side of the bed and felt Bertha's forehead with his hand. “How are we feeling today, Mrs. Poole?” Dr. Brown asked. He smiled some more. I didn't care how much Bertha moaned and groaned and twisted her lips as if the Grim Reaper had already entered the room; I knew that the doctor would not be so cheerful if her condition was as serious as she wanted me to believe it was.

“I guess . . . I'm doing all right,” she blubbered, looking more pitiful than ever. Tears were threatening to spill out of her eyes and her lips were trembling so hard I could hear her false teeth click-clacking. I knew that this was all as much for the doctor's benefit as it was for mine.

“How serious was the heart attack?” I asked in a quiet voice.

Dr. Brown whirled around so fast to face me, the stethoscope around his neck slipped to the side. “‘Heart attack'? What
heart attack
?” he mouthed with one eyebrow raised as he adjusted his stethoscope.

“My stepbrother led me to believe that she'd had a heart attack,” I explained with a gulp.

“Well, I'm pleased to tell you that your stepbrother was wrong.” Dr. Brown chuckled and shook his head. Then he got serious. “This was nothing more than a severe anxiety attack.” He paused and turned to Bertha with an amused look on his face. “Mrs. Poole's heart is in better shape than mine.”

“So she's going to be all right?” I asked with my heart thumping hard as I silently prayed for a positive response. I grabbed Bertha's hand and squeezed. It felt like a piece of cold wood.

“My dear, she's going to be ‘all right' for a very long time.” The doctor gave me a hopeful look and patted my shoulder. “You can expect your mother to be around for at least another twenty to twenty-five years.”

“Oh” was all I could say at first. It took a few seconds for me to process Dr. Brown's prognosis.
Bertha could live another twenty to twenty-five years?
It sounded like a prison sentence for me; and in a way, it was. Or was it? What if I married Maurice and things didn't work out? I cared about him, but marriage was a huge step and could be another form of prison—especially with a man I had known for such a short period of time. With him, I could end up with a “sentence” twice as long as the one with Bertha! For all I knew, he could have bad habits and other faults too hellish to imagine. Then I'd be in the same boat Joan was in with Reed! One thing I could say about Bertha was that I had learned how to read her like a book. There were no more surprises with her, not even her fake heart attack. What if I married Maurice and moved to some faraway location and things didn't work out and we parted ways? With my skills and work history, no matter where we were, landing a job that could cover rent and other living expenses would not be easy. Then I'd really have something to worry about, such as me wanting to move back in with Bertha and her not letting me.

No matter what I did, if it impacted Bertha, Libby and Marshall would get involved. It would be just like them not to let me move back into her house. My life had become such a mess. There were times when I wished I could go to sleep and wake up and find out that the last ten years had been a bad dream. I would have given anything in the world to have Daddy, Mama, and even Shirelle back in my life. But I was not dreaming. I was determined to find a way to be happy again whether I gave up marriage and stayed on with Bertha (another twenty or twenty-five more years!) or not.

I could still hear Dr. Brown talking to Bertha, but I had no idea what he was saying. It was only when she addressed me that I put the thoughts running through my head on hold.

“Lola, you can go on home. I'll be fine,” she insisted, sounding much stronger.

Dr. Brown gave me a guarded look. “I'd like to keep her overnight. She can go home tomorrow morning between ten
A.M.
and noon.”

 

I dialed Maurice's number as soon as I got home. “Baby, we need to take a break for a while. My stepmother needs more time to get used to you,” I told him when he answered. I braced myself and held my breath. The inside of my mouth tasted like I had been sucking on a cotton ball. I had to swallow hard to keep from gagging.

Maurice took his time responding. He grunted and began to speak in a hard, detached voice. And that didn't surprise me. But I was surprised that he was still speaking to me at all after the way Bertha had talked to him in the hospital. “I've been expecting you to say something like that.”

“She's getting old and she really depends on me to take care of her. She's afraid that the more time I spend with you, the less time I'll have for her.”

“Lola, that woman has two grown-ass children. They both live just a couple of miles from her. Shouldn't the bulk of the responsibility of taking care of her be on their shoulders? This woman is only your stepmother.”

Maurice's last comment was a sad song that I'd been singing to myself since the day Bertha latched onto me. It didn't matter to me that she was only my stepmother and that her children lived nearby. The emotional tug-of-war, which I couldn't seem to get rid of, had won another round. “I have to hang up now. Can we talk more about this some other time?”

“I guess we'll have to.” He paused for a few seconds. Then he began to speak in a voice that sounded even harder and more detached than a few moments ago. “You've made your decision. Good-bye, Lola.”

“Good-bye, Maurice.” I had a feeling this was our last “good-bye.”

I was right. I never heard from him again.

 

Three weeks after Maurice had dumped me, Joan took it upon herself to “cheer” me up by playing matchmaker. “Reed's friend Paul Sibley just broke up with his wife. If I invite him over for dinner, will you come?” she asked during a brief telephone conversation.

“I don't think so. I never have much luck with blind dates,” I told her with a dry laugh. “And Bertha would probably scare him off too.”

“Not Paul. Nothing scares him. He's the only one of Reed's friends I know who can really stand his ground. His ex mother-in-law was a real bitch, but it never bothered him.”

“Hmmm. What does he look like?” I wanted to know.

“Now, you know I wouldn't set you up with an owl!” Joan laughed. “He's tall, dark, and handsome—picture a young Denzel Washington.”

I gasped. “A man like that doesn't have a new woman yet?”

“Relax. He's only been back on the market for a couple of weeks. So if you're interested, you'd better move fast. The other bitches are in heat.”

I laughed. “Well, why not? I need something to take my mind off Maurice.” I sniffed and swallowed hard. “I'd love to meet a man that Bertha couldn't scare. How soon can I meet him?”

“He works on weekends, so is this coming Monday soon enough?”

“Sounds good to me. What kind of work does he do?” I was more than a little excited by now. Most of Reed's friends were in the medical profession. His closest friend was also a dentist and another one was an eye doctor. “Is he a doctor too?”

“Something like that.” When Joan paused, I got suspicious.

“Uh-oh. What does that mean?”

“He's the assistant coroner. . . .”

“Oh.” My heart skipped a beat. “So his ‘patients' are dead people. . . .”

“I guess you could say that.”

I let out a dry laugh. “I think I'll pass.” I recalled the image of Mama laid to rest in a yellow dress. A guest at the funeral had told me that it looked like me lying in that coffin. Then there was that eerie picture that Joan had taken of me lying on her bed with my eyes closed while wearing a yellow blouse. I looked like a dead girl. The last thing I wanted in my life now was a lover who was so closely associated with
death.

I didn't sleep much that night. And when I did, I had a dream that was so chilling it woke me up. In the dream, I lay dead in a coffin dressed in a yellow shroud.

I stayed busy so I wouldn't think about Maurice too much or the “premonition” of me being dead—which I kept telling myself was ridiculous! I waxed the floors twice as often as I used to and I ran more errands for neighbors.

Last Saturday, a month after my last conversation with Maurice, Joan and I spent almost three hours doing volunteer work for the senior citizens at the Happy Meadows nursing home. This was the second time in the same week. I washed and braided two old ladies' hair; Joan trimmed one old man's toenails; we played Chinese checkers with two other residents; we read the newspaper to two more. Afterward, we both felt real good about ourselves and couldn't wait to return and do something else. The director stopped us on our way out and told us not to come back because a few staff members had complained about us taking work away from them and were threatening to go to the union. Getting “fired” was bad enough, but to add insult to injury, they had a security guard escort us out of the building! We were just as stunned as we were disappointed.

“They
fired
us! Do you believe that?” Joan hollered as we trotted to the lot across the street where she had parked.

“And to think we were giving up our time to work for free. So much for that,” I said as we climbed into her car.

When she stopped for a red light at the corner, we looked at each other and burst out laughing. “I guess we'll have to figure out other ways to make up for taking money from those old men,” she said, laughing some more.

But at least we had made some amends for our crime by helping out at the nursing home. Now that that was over, I was going to look for other ways to redeem myself

Each new day, I felt a little better about myself and how much I had grown up since Daddy had died. I was determined to be the kind of woman he and Mama would have wanted me to be.

I often thought about my past and how happy I'd been during my childhood, even when Daddy was having affairs. Because of my age back then, I could not have said or done anything about what he was doing. I still wondered what made him do what he did, and what made Mama put up with it. One thing I knew for sure was that I was not going to be like her. If my future husband cheated on me and flaunted his affairs in my face, I'd leave him in a heartbeat.