Eye of the Storm (21 page)

For a moment or two. I just fought to catch my breath. Shivering more from my own fear than the cold. I carefully wheeled myself into the bedroom and started to remove my wet clothes. I had to get a towel to dry myself off. After that. exhausted. I got into bed and there I lay, waiting, feeling miserable. Despite my fatigue. I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard more noise. The periodic boom of thunder echoed through the open rear door, up the corridor and into the house. My teeth chattered. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could.
Why did I convince Austin not to come? I should have been more selfish.
The thunder seemed to get lower and farther away finally. I stopped shivering and felt myself start to relax. The rain didn't seem to be falling as hard either. Maybe it was over at last and the storm had moved on. I waited and listened and hoped and then I was sure I heard the front door open and close.
Austin. I thought. He did come. Good. I couldn't wait to throw my arms around him and hold him closely to me. We'll do what he said. We'll run off together.
Quickened footsteps could be heard. I sat up in the darkness and looked toward the open door. A flashlight's beam appeared and moments later. Aunt Victoria appeared. The disappointment nearly caused my heart to stop.
"What is going on here!" she screamed. "The rain is coming right into the house. Why did you leave the backdoor open?"
She turned the flashlight on me and I covered my face. "Why are you naked? Are you expecting him? Is he here?"
"No one's here," I cried. 'Take that light off me,"
She lowered it to the floor.
"You're a mess," she said. "It's lucky for you I've come just in time
"I don't want you here after the trouble you have caused Austin and his uncle. I told your secretary to tell you. Now get out of here." I screamed at her.
"I did what any concerned and loving aunt would have done," she replied coolly. "Even that uncle of his agrees. We've reached an understanding," she added. As long as he makes sure he keeps up his part of the bargain, it will be okay."
"You're horrible. I want you out of this house. It's mostly mine, after all. Grandmother Hudson wanted it that way and
I
understand why now more than ever. Get out. Did you hear me?
I
said get out!"
She brought the light up and grasped it with both her hands pointing the beam at her own face so I could see her eves glowing, her smile like a mask with fire behind it.
"Don't be silly," she said in a voice so calm it made me shiver. "you can't handle this yourself and I have a great interest in all that happens. I'm here to help you for as long as it takes," she added, her lips practically dripping the sweet poison in her heart.
"For as long as it takes?" I gasped. "What are you talking about? What are you going to do?"
"What I should have done from the start," she said. I'm moving in so you won't be alone."
"What? I'd rather be alone." I said.
"Of course you wouldn't, dear," she said. "And after all, with my poor sister so shattered and my poor brother-in-law with his hands full, who else can do what is necessary?
"Indeed, who always does what's necessary?"
"No," I said shaking my head. "I won't let you stay with me. I won't."
"You can thank me some other time,'" she said as if I hadn't spoken. "For now, let's just do what has to be done. Let's be family.
"After all, Rain, it's the least I can do for my darling sister isn't it?
"The least I can do is take care of her daughter," she said and flicked off the light leaving me once again in complete and utter darkness.

13
A Love Discovered
.
Forbidding her to move in with me was one

thing, but enforcing that prohibition was another. If I believed my life before Aunt Victoria moved into the house was difficult, it now seemed those days had been nothing less than a picnic compared to what life would now be like.

At first I thought she can't really be serious about living here with me. It was just another idle threat, something else to get me to cooperate with her as far as Grandmother Hudson's will and our business interests were concerned, especially after I had threatened not to be cooperative.

However. I should have realized that the maddening light I had seen in her eyes the night of the storm was not similar to the lightning, a temporary flash of anger. Something evil and dark had been festering like an open sore in her ever since she had learned my mother was being released from the mental clinic and Grant was not only taking her back, but still trying to make their marriage a success. despite Brody's tragic death and my mother's secret past.

Of course. I had no concept of just what Aunt Victoria had been doing behind the scenes, how much time and effort she had invested in undermining my mother's marriage. I imagined she was like Iago in Othello, whispering tempestuous thoughts in Grant's ear, reminding him of my existence and the dark night of Brody's unnecessary death. Just as she had been talking negatively about my mother to me, she must have been filling Grant's mind with images of Megan as a spoiled girl who always had someone cover up her blunders and keep her from feeling any regrets.

"She never had to let go of her security blanket. not Megan," Aunt Victoria bitterly remarked to me and surely now to Grant.

Grant surely loved my mother very much. I thought, to forgive her for her past, to not blame her for the death of their son, to want her to recuperate and go on with their marriage. In the face of that determination. Aunt Victoria's insidious remarks and poisonous whispers must have been ineffective and discarded. Perhaps Grant had finally seen who and what she was and turned her away unceremoniously. If she mentioned him at all now, it was always bitterly, always with reference to the stupidity and selfishness all men shared, always depicting him as a willing victim of my mother's little deceits. For her descriptions of him to have undergone such a radical change-- from the man of her dreams, the man she claimed she deserved and who deserved her, to the blithering idiot led by the nose that he had become-- Grant surely had to have rejected her sharply and firmly.

Rebuffed, spun around and sent away, she now turned her venomous eyes on me, seeing me as the cause of it all. In her twisted logic, she went so far as to conclude that because I had returned and because Brody had been killed, my mother was able to win back Grant's love through his pity, a love Aunt Victoria otherwise might have won for herself.

"I know my sister well," she said bitterly. She knew that if she pretended to be weak and sick and full of remorse. Grant would be blind to her basic weaknesses. She's happy you're here, happy you're crippled and even happier you've created all these problems. It gives her more opportunity to moan and groan and cry. I wonder how many times Grant's been made to kiss away her crocodile tears and urge her not to be sad, promising her a new day."

Aunt Victoria would rattle on and on like this the first few days after she had moved back into the house. I had sat in utter disbelief, watching from my wheelchair as two men she had hired carried in her things, which not only included trunks of clothing and personal items, but cartons of files that they brought to Grandfather Hudson's old office. She took it over completely and had business machines, faxes, copiers and her computer hooked up. Upstairs, she moved into what had once been her room.

I wanted to call my attorney and complain. but I was afraid of how angry that would make her and how she might take it out on poor Austin and his uncle.

The same day she moved in, she hired a new maid, but not a live-in. The new woman's name was Mrs. Churchwell and she was well into her fifties, a widow who was left after her husband's death with barely enough insurance to survive.; she therefore hired herself out for part-time work. She was dour with brown and gray hair cropped short, the strands thin and hard like wire. Her beady dray eyes were always watery and the lines etched in her thin, pale face resembled scars more than wrinkles because they were deep and scattered over her chin and cheeks randomly, suggesting scratches and tears in her thin, sickly and almost translucent skin. She was as tall as Aunt Victoria, and when they stood beside each other in the dimly lit hallway, their nearly indistinguishable figures made Mrs. Churchwell resemble a shadow Aunt Victoria had cast.

It was clear from the start that Mrs. Churchwell was terrified of my aunt and wanted to please her and keep the job and what were apparently generous wages, generous especially coming from my aunt. However. Aunt Victoria had ulterior motives for providing such an ample salary. She wanted Mrs. Churchwell's complete loyalty and obedience, especially as it regarded anything to do with me. Unlike Mrs. Bogart who became a willing tattletale. Mrs. Churchwell was deliberately planted like some living bug device to report any contact I had with the outside world, especially any contact with Austin. Whenever my Aunt Victoria wasn't there. Mrs. Churchwell was there to watch where I would go the moment I wanted to leave the house. When I looked back. I saw her face at the window.

After the storm, the phones were repaired, but for some reason, mine remained out of order. I was told the wiring had to be completely redone and that had to wait for other repairs the company had to make in the area. So, if the phone rang in the house. Mrs. Churchwell usually got to it first, claiming it was someone soliciting. I couldn't imagine Austin not trying to call me and yet I didn't want to risk calling him and causing any more trouble. I didn't learn until nearly a week after she had moved in that my aunt had the number changed and unlisted. Neither Mrs. Churchwell nor my aunt volunteered the information.

Mrs. Churchwell. unlike Mrs. Bogart, had no experience with someone in my condition. She was truly only a maid and a cook. Once I learned her relationship with my aunt. I wanted her around me less and less anyway. The feeling was mutual. The sight of me displeased her, and not only because I was handicapped. It was pretty clear to me after only a day or so that she was quite prejudiced and was put off by my having a black father. If and whenever she spoke to me, she always looked away as if she could convince herself she wasn't really talking to me and definitely not working for me.

She was a mediocre cook. I told my aunt so immediately, but that didn't seem to matter. I started to cook for myself, which displeased Mrs.
Churchwell.

"I was hired to do the cookin'," she told me the first time I went into the kitchen and started to prepare something.

I paused, looked at her and said. "That's not what you were hired for. And you weren't hired only to clean and maintain the house either."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean,' she said, but before I could elaborate, she left the kitchen. Somehow, despite my being in a wheelchair and relatively helpless most of the time, she seemed intimidated by me and couldn't face me down. I borrowed from the memory of my stepsister Beneatha's angry eyes for inspiration.

It turns out Austin had called that first week before the telephone number had been changed. My aunt told me later that she had answered so he didn't speak. She knew the silence on the other end was Austin's silence and later came to tell me so.

"It looks like that young man is not listening to his uncle," she said. "I know he's trying to reach you despite the warnings. As soon as he heard my voice, he didn't speak. but I knew it was your fortune hunter."

"Stop calling him that and anyway, you have no right to stop him from calling or seeing me," I told her.

"If I ever see him near this house or you. I'll reinstate the legal proceedings against his uncle and have his license revoked and you know I can do that," she threatened.

"Why are you doing this?" I cried.
"I'm only doing what's best for you. You're not capable of making these sort of decisions at this time. I'm looking for a new therapist for you and will have one shortly," she promised with that weak, plastic smile.
"I don't want another one. I won't cooperate with anyone else."
"Suit yourself." she said. "You're only hurting your own rehabilitation by biting off your nose to spite your face. Remember." she said waving her long, honey right forefinger at me. "the moment I learn he's been within ten feet of you, I call my attorneys." After her admonishment, she left me sitting there. fuming.
As soon as
I
could. I tried to take the van and drive away, but I discovered the keys to the van were gone and naturally, her precious Mrs. Churchwell knew nothing about them. When I asked my aunt, she told me doctors have advised her that I'm not ready for driving.
"But I already have driven!" I screamed. "I've done it many times and gone shopping and
everything."
"That was a mistake, something that fortune hunter got you to do for selfish reasons," she told me.
"I want my keys. That's my van!"
I
shouted at her. She stared as if
I
had barely raised my voice. "I'm calling Mr. Sanger and tell him about all the things you've done and are doing. We'll
sue you." I said. It was my turn to threaten, but she was always a step ahead.
The phone in my room was still inoperative. When
I
wheeled myself out to call from the kitchen. I was shocked to discover that now it didn't work either.
"Why are all the phones dead?" I asked Mrs. Churchwell, Whenever I asked her anything, she always acted as if she didn't hear me. I had to repeat myself and be louder and more demanding before she would finally acknowledge my existence.
"They're not all dead." she said dryly. "The one upstairs works."
"What? Only the one upstairs?"
"And in your aunt's office, of course." she said and I quickly whipped myself around and rolled down to my aunt's office because I knew she wasn't home. I should have saved my strength and realized that the door would be locked. I wheeled back and demanded Mrs. Churchwell open it. Again, she ignored me until I practically ran over her foot.
"I can't open it." she said. "I don't have the key and even if I did. I wouldn't open it without your aunt's permission."
"My aunt's permission. You can't breathe without my aunt's permission," I spit at her.
She glared at me and then she walked away and upstairs to clean my aunt's bedroom and bathroom.
In the evening after dinner, after Mrs. Churchwell left. I would go out on the portico if my aunt wasn't home and hope that Austin would just come driving up to rescue me. Usually my aunt returned before I saw any sin of him. I was sure once he saw her car parked in front of the house, he would simply turn away.
"Why are you out in the cold evening air?" she would ask. "Surely you know that can't be good for anyone in your weakened condition."
"I'm not in any weakened condition. You're treating me like some prisoner and I won't stand for it. I want my phone turned back on and I want the keys to my van."
"Just like your mother, not showing any gratitude. Here I decide to sacrifice my time and my energy for you and all you can do is threaten and complain."
"I don't want your help. How many times do I have to tell you?"
"Megan. Megan. Megan." she muttered shaking her head.
"I'm not Megan. Stop calling me Megan,"
"You're getting yourself overly excited. Calm down. You'll end up in the hospital again." she warned, but at the moment, that sounded like a good place to be. I was actually considering complaining about severe pains just to get myself out of the house. But before I started my act. Austin showed up.
I had returned to my room after dinner. Aunt Victoria had called to say she would be late as she was at a meeting. She asked Mrs. Churchwell to remain a little longer.
I
knew she offered her time and a half for it because she put up no resistence. She sat like a sentry in the living room thumbing through magazines and watching the driveway, ready to leap up and run to the upstairs phone if Austin appeared.
Fuming, frustrated and enraged. I wheeled back to my room and sat there, mumbling to myself, trying to decide what to do next when suddenly I heard a gentle tapping at the window and turned to see his face in the glass. My heart leaped for joy. I quickly went to my door and locked it as he pushed up the window and climbed into my room.
I started to cry and he rushed to me, kneeling down quickly to embrace me.
"Rain, don't cry. What's happened?"
'Oh Austin, my aunt has moved into the house. She's hired the most horrible maid to be here during the day and spy on me constantly. She cut off my phone, too."
"I know. I tried to call and was told the number was no longer in service and there was no listed replacement. I wanted to come here days ago, but your aunt's attorney called my uncle and told him I had been trying to reach you. I had to lie to him. I felt terrible about it and then I just decided this was silly. I'm coming to see you somehow. I just knew you weren't doing well."
"Doing well? I'm a virtual prisoner here. She took the van keys and hid them, too, claiming doctors told her I wasn't ready for driving. She said if I violated one rule she would have her lawyers reinstate the complaint against your uncle and destroy him. She's capable of doing just that. I want to leave here. Austin. I want to leave here forever."
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
"I know," he said. "I know." He wiped away my tears and kissed my cheeks. "We'll do just that. I'll plan it."
"I have money, Austin. A lot of it.
I
just have to get to my attorney. I'll have him advance us enough money and we'll go somewhere else and I'll leave her here in her own hell. Then I'll have the house sold out from under her. I swear I will," I vowed, mean it, every syllable. Oh. Austin. I can't stand it another minute."
"Rain, just let me plan it out," he said in a soothing voice to calm me.
I shook my head.
"I can't stay here much longer. Austin."
"I know, I know. The problem is she might still go after my uncle. I've got to think about how we will manage this."
"No, she'll leave your uncle alone. I'll have my attorney negotiate with her and give her what she wants as long as she lets me go. You'll see. Just take me there tomorrow. okay?"
He nodded, but didn't look convinced. "Let's just take it a step at a time." he said. "I've got to plan where we will go and what I will do afterward."
"We'll have enough money. Austin. Don't worry about it."
"Money's not our only problem. Rain. You have greater needs. I've got to be sure you'll be well attended to," he said.
"I'll have you. What could be better?"
He smiled.
"I'm just a therapist. Rain. I can help you with your basic needs and get you strong, but we have to be concerned about your health needs. too. Let me plan." he repeated. "C'mon. Relax. Rain. Let's let things calm down."
I nodded. "Now that you're here. I'm calm."
He smiled and kissed me. I held onto his neck while he put his arm under my legs, lifting me out of the chair and setting me down gently.
"I really missed you," I said. "And I missed you."
He knelt beside the bed and kissed my hand. His smile was like sunshine, warming me all over, restoring my hope and my strength, like a rainbow after a storm.
"What have you been doing?" I asked him.
"Working with my other clients. Still, as always. all I could think of was your face." He laughed. "I even called someone else by your name and she got upset with me. The only way I could calm her down was to describe to her how much in love with you I was
"Describe it to me," I urged.
As he spoke, he quietly and gracefully began to undress me and himself. For me it was hearing the fairy tale of fairy tales come true.
"It's like I don't have to eat anymore or sleep or do anything to keep myself alive: only think of you. I dream so vividly. I can actually feel your lips on mine. All day. every day. I see your face in someone else's face. I spin around and wonder if you've just gone by. My heart pounds. Every part of me is filled with longing and loneliness.
"I can't read, watch television, go to a movie, do anything. Nothing will take my mind off you. I wrestle with the temptation to come to you constantly. It's only la
^-
lowing how much of his life and money my uncle has put into his company that keeps me from defying your aunt and her attorneys.
"But finally, the love raging in my heart burst and I couldn't stand being away. I drove here, parked my car far enough away, and ran through the darkness and the woods to sneak onto your property and to your window.
"And now," he said lowering his body to the bed and crawling in beside me. "I am here and I feel complete again."
We kissed. I clung to him.
"It will be all right," he whispered. "We will be all right."
It was our they-lived-happily-forever-ending for sure, I thought.
Contentment led to passion. I couldn't keep myself from crying out. That witch of a maid must have been hovering in the hallway. She came to the door and actually had the nerve to try to open it.
"Are you all right in there?" she asked. She wasn't asking because she was concerned about me. She just wanted to know what I was doing so she could make her report to my aunt.
"Leave me alone." I shouted.
We waited and then heard her walk away.
"My aunt must have gone to some prisoner of war criminal camp to find someone like her," I told Austin.
He laughed and kissed me again and again we made love. Then he lay his head between my breasts and we slept. Neither of us kept track of the time, nor did we hear anything or anyone outside my room.
I was sure about what happened next. My aunt returned and Mrs. Churchwell made her spy report. She told her how I had locked my door and chased her away. Full of suspicion because she herself was a veteran of deceit, my aunt located a room key and tiptoed up to the door. She stood outside with her ear to it and then slowly, quietly inserted the key and opened my door. She could see Austin beside me, bathed in the moonlight that streamed in from the window. How her heart must have skipped with pleasure at the discovery.
It was like an explosion. She snapped on the light and screamed. her right arm out, the finger pointed like a pistol at us,
"Rape!" she cried. "This is nothing less than rape. The girl is a helpless cripple and you've raped her again!"
Austin was flustered and confused, he could barely speak. Neither of us expected her to do what she did next. All I anticipated was her screaming some more and then slamming the door after her threats. But she was like an executioner who loved her work, someone who wanted and needed to throw salt on wounds.
"Come here. Mrs. Churchwell," she ordered. "and bear witness to this lechery."
Suddenly. Mrs. Churchwell stepped up beside her. Austin had only raised his head in disbelief. I was about to scream back at Victoria, but she surprised us both by lunging at the bed and grabbing the blanket. She pulled it away so quickly and completely. I was shocked at her strength. There we were, both naked. exposed. Austin dropped his hands to cover his private parts. Her eyes widened and she smiled.
"Deny it now," she said through her teeth. "Deny what you've done with her. Bear witness, Mrs. Churchwell, Gaze upon this
sordid, disgusting display." Mrs. Churchwell nodded. "Do you see it?"
"Yes," she said.
"Get out!" I finally was able to shout. "Both of you let out of my room!"
My aunt stood her ground. holding the blanket, enjoying her small victory. Then she turned to Mrs. Churchwell and they left slowly, my aunt dropping the blanket to the floor as she closed the door.
"My God," Austin said scrambling for his clothing. He scooped up the blanket and spread it back over me. "I've really gone and done it now."
"You see how terrible she can be?" I cried.
"Yes. There's no telling what she's going to do next. I'd better go."
He started for the door. then stopped and headed for the window.
"I don't want to face her again," he said.
"But Austin, you can't leave me here." He stood there a moment. thinking.
"There's nothing we can do right now, Rain. I'll just have to come back for you."
"Don't forget," I said.
"I won't, but what will I tell my uncle when her lawyers call?" He shook his head, looking troubled, before crawling out the window, closing it behind him.
A moment later he was gone. I never felt as alone, even in the hospital after my accident when I had first been told of my plight. It was impossible to fall asleep again. I could only lie there, trembling, and like Austin, wait for the second shoe to drop.
.
It did drop, but not the way he or I would have imagined. My aunt didn't return to my room. Mrs. Chuchwell left and then my aunt went upstairs. I finally did fall asleep for a few hours. I woke up to the sound of my aunt's familiar heavy footsteps. I struggled to rise and get myself into my chair and to the bathroom to wash and then to dress for what I believed was going to be a terrible day.
I
was sitting
up
in bed, the blanket wrapped around my shoulders when she opened the door and entered my room. She gazed around, listened and then nodded.
"He's gone,
I
take it?" she said in a sweet, almost pleasant voice.
She still wore her faded pink, terrycloth robe. Without makeup, her face wrinkled from her night's sleep and her hair unruly, she looked like one of those poor, disheveled homeless women who used to inhabit the alleys and dumps near the projects where
I
lived in Washington.
In
her right hand, she clutched a light yellow folder.
"Yes."
I
said. "He left right after you burst in on us. You have some nerve invading my privacy."
"Invading your privacy?" She laughed and then grew stem. "You don't have a right to privacy. Not if you're going to conduct yourself like some street girl in my mother and father's house where only dignity and proper behavior were ever tolerated. I'm sure my mother would have changed her mind about you on the spot if she had been beside me last night. And after all the warnings and all the advice
I
have given you!
"Just like Megan, bringing disgrace to our doorstep. How many times did my father have to pay someone off or buy someone's favor just to keep our good name as high as it should be? More times than I care to count. I can tell you that much," she said, answering her own question quickly.