Eye of the Storm (23 page)

"Your mother would run from the sight, of course. She would get so upset she would have to rest, and he would go to her and have to comfort her. We can't let something like that happen; we can't let that ever happen." she said.
I was too tired and in too much pain to stop her from babbling, but her words registered and I did feel shocked and a little terrified by the crazed look in her eyes when she rattled on and on.
I screamed when she washed some of the cuts and bruises, the soap cutting into me like tiny teeth.
"It's all your own fault, all the pain. Pain's good when it teaches you something. Hopefully, this time you'll learn," she said. As she worked, her eyes continued to widen and narrow like some telescopic lens being opened and closed.
"What do you mean, this time?"
She looked lost in a daze, her lips trembling softly above her teeth.
"We have to put antiseptic on it. Sister dear." "I'm not your sister!" I screamed.
Her eyes blinked and then she pulled up stiffly.
"It's just an expression," she said curtly. "You don't have to get so uppity about it. We'd be better off if you now thought of me more as your sister and not some distant aunt anyway."
I closed my eyes and groaned. I've got to get out of here. I thought. Her mind is like some clock that stops ticking and then starts at a different hour or on a different day.
When she put the antiseptic on, she did it with a vengeance, enjoying my screams and cries. I know it was supposed to be good, but in her hands, it was like some Chinese torture invented nearly two thousand years ago. Finally, it was over.
"You'd better lie down for a while," she advised.
I sat there, breathing hard, struggling to regain my composure. but I was exhausted and the pain was coming at me from so many different places. I was on the verge of passing out. Too weak to oppose her, even with shouts, I did little to prevent her from lifting me and swirling me onto my bed.
"I imagine you didn't even eat," she said, standing over me and breathing hard, her narrow shoulders lifting and falling. Her eyes drifted and she blinked rapidly. When she looked at me now, it was as if she was looking through me.
"I don't understand how you continue to look so well with the junk food you eat. You never even had a pimple problem and if you did have an occasional ugly little bump, you acted as if it was Mount Vesuvius erupting on your cheek or something," she said.
"What are you talking about. Aunt Victoria?" I asked in a voice that was barely a whisper.
'Of course you wouldn't remember. Anything ugly you block out immediately. Go to sleep. I have work to do," she said and started out.
"Wait." I called weakly. She didn't turn and a moment later, she was gone.
I'll rest.
I
thought. I'll rest and get back my strength and then I'll get out of here. She's going mad, drifting in and out of her own unpleasant memories. I let my eyes close and in moments, I was asleep.
I had been so exhausted from the ordeal.
I
slept hours and hours. In fact. when I awoke, the twilight had already begun and clouds made it even darker. Without a light on in my room, it looked so dreary. I groaned and pulled myself forward on my elbows, but the aches in my arms and in my hips were so great. I cried and collapsed on the pillow.
"Aunt Victoria,' I called. "Aunt Victoria!"
I waited. Except for the sound of the wind, now stronger, brushing over the windows and the walls of the house. I heard nothing. Was she even here? My head began to pound and I realized I hadn't eaten a thing all day and not even sipped a little water. My lips felt like two strips of sandpaper.
"Aunt Victoria!"
How could she not hear me? I was shouting now at the top of my voice?
"Are you here?"
The hallway looked dark. She was probably not here. I thought. I looked at my wheelchair. She had left it too far from my bed. Back to crawling if I wanted to get into it. I thought, but just the thought of making that effort exhausted me again. I might as well decide to climb Mount Everest, I lay there, trying to think of what I could do. The pain in my head felt like a band of electricity stretching from one temple around to the other like a crown of static.
"Aunt Victoria, please answer me if you're here," I pleaded. but I heard nothing.
Maybe she was in her office on the phone and that was why she didn't hear me. I continued to listen hard, waiting for a sound to indicate I wasn't alone in the house, but the silence lingered and seemed even deeper.
I called again and again and lifted myself on my elbows and shouted as well. Still nothing.
Desperate now. I reached over and grasped my alarm clock. As best I could. I flung it out the door and into the hallway where it hit the far wall and bounced. It made a great deal of noise.
I listened.
Finally. I heard footsteps, but they were so slow and so weak sounding, more like an old person shuffling. I couldn't imagine them to be Aunt Victoria's footsteps. It seemed to take forever for her to reach the door, but she finally did. She was dressed in that ugly, faded pink robe and she was wearing what looked like man's leather slippers. She appeared more distraught and tired than I felt. Her hair looked like a pack of rats had run through it. Her eyelids drooped and her eyes were as dark as two pools of ink. Without her usual perfect, if not stiff posture
_:
her sloping shoulders made her older. thinner. She moved as if her muscles and joints ached more than mine and for a moment I wondered if her efforts to get me off the driveway and back into the house hadn't exhausted her after all.
"What is it? What's going on now? I was asleep," she muttered.
"I want to get out of bed." I said. "I need my wheelchair and I want to get something to eat and drink. I'm parched."
She stood there, staring at me as if she hadn't heard a word. "Aunt Victoria, did you hear me?"
"Guess what came in the mail this afternoon,"" she said instead of answering.
She smiled and dipped her hand into the big robe's side pocket to produce what looked like a picture postcard. She held it up and waited as
if
she expected I would understand.
"Who's that from?" I asked. Was it from England or from Roy?
"From them. Who else? Who else would have the audacity, the nerve, to send me such a card? I'll read it to you."
"Aunt Victoria..."
"Dear Vikki," she began and then lowered the card and looked at me. "She likes to do that sometimes, call me Vikki like we're loving sisters and she can use a nickname. She knows I hate nicknames and always have. I never let anyone call me Vikki in school. I wouldn't answer, but she got them to do it just for a joke. She began again:
Dear Vikki,
I just couldn't help but send you this card so you could see how beautiful it is here. We are having a very nice time. It as if Grant and I are on our honeymoon. We're getting to know and love each other all over again.
I hope you're well.
Love, Megan
She lowered the card and the put it back into her pocket.
"Love Megan." she said. "They're getting to know and love each other all over again. You see? She always gets what she
wants in the end." She laughed.
"Don't work hard. Cry at the first sign of unpleasantness, wilt in front of your man, bat your eyelashes, sulk and you'll get what you want in this life. That's the lesson to follow as long as men hand out the prizes.
"So why am I working so hard. right? Go on, ask me. Ask me," she commanded.
"I'm hungry and thirsty," I said. "Please push the chair up to the bed for me."
She smirked, shook her head and went for the chair. After she brought it to the bed, she shuffled out of my room and down the hallway.
"Got to get strong, got to get out," I chanted. My mantra gave me the strength to get myself into my robe and into the chair. As soon as
I
had. I wheeled myself out of the room.
I was truly surprised at how dark the rest of the house was. She hadn't bothered to turn on the hallway lights. I glanced at the office. The door was open and from the look of it inside. I imagined a single small lamp was lit and nothing else. I went to the kitchen, turned on the lights and began to prepare myself some supper.
As I worked and finally ate. I kept expecting her to appear, but she didn't until I had finished and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Eating and drinking restored some of my strength and energy. The cuts and bruises were at least only dull aches. I had just turned to start back to my room when I heard an unfamiliar click of heels in the hallway. The sound of the footsteps suggested someone full of energy. Who was here? I wished for my mother.
At first I didn't recognize her. My instant response to who is this was maybe she was someone from Aunt Victoria's office, maybe her secretary. It took a moment for me to get past all the changes and realize who it was.
I felt my own blood drain down toward my feet: a stinging sensation began behind my ears as my strength grew small, and I stared at the woman who seemed a stranger now, a distorted exaggeration of some fantasy.
Her hair had been rinsed in some coloring that had turned it into dry straw. Her face was caked in makeup to the extent that some of it flaked on her forehead. A bright red lipstick had been applied to those thin lips, making them look thick and wide, but clownish, too. The eyeshadow wasn't put on badly, but the false eyelashes just didn't fit and looked very artificial.
She wore high-heeled shoes which lifted her into the stratosphere. Drop earrings, gold with diamonds in their center, dangled to match the gold necklace. Her small bosom had been enhanced by one of those Wonder bras-- or something-- because she suddenly had cleavage, clearly visible in the low Vneck collar, tight dark blue cotton dress that was so snug it revealed her boner hips. The skirt of the dress was the shortest I had ever seen on her.
"Well?" she sang lifting her arms above her head and turning slowly in a circle while she stood in the doorway. "how do I look?"
I couldn't find my voice. She was so bizarre. I was frightened. I tried to swallow, but the throat lump was heavy and large and wouldn't go down.
However, when she looked at me,
disappointment flooded her face at my reaction, those eyes of excitement quickly turning cold and alloy.
"What? What's wrong? I'm not as pretty? Even like this? Is that what you're thinking."
"No," I finally muttered. "No. I'm just surprised."
Her eves remained narrow for a moment and then widened and she smiled.
"Of course you are. That's the fun of it though. surprise. Well, wish me luck," she said.
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"For what?"
"For what? For my date. You always need a little luck on a date. You can't plan and plot every reaction. Youknow."
"You're going on a date?" I wanted to add. "like that?" but I didn't.
"Of course. I told you earlier. You just don't listen unless it involves you. Well, tonight is my night," she said. "And you have to stay home. You're the wallflower tonight, but I'll think of you when I'm eating something delicious and listening to the music and riding in the convertible and afterward. Yes, they'll be an afterward for me, too.
"Mind the store,' she said with a wave and a laugh. "I'll fill you in on all of it tomorrow, if you're good."
She turned and started away.
"Wait. Aunt Victoria," I called after her and wheeled as quickly as I could into the hallway. She walked toward the front door. "Where are the keys to the van?" I called after her. "Aunt Victoria!"
She turned at the door.
"What? What?" she shouted, her face reddening.
I wheeled closer toward her.
"I need those keys," I said as calmly as I could. "You promised if I signed the paper. Please," I said. "We made a bargain."
"I don't know where they are. I'll look for them tomorrow. Don't tell me about papers and signing things. I don't want to discuss business now, you foolish little girl. Don't you have any sense of timing at all? My mind is full of jelly beans. I can think seriously. You of all people should know that.
"Just try to be a good girl until I return."
"Aunt Victoria!"
She stepped out and closed the door. I sat there staring after her in disbelief. Then I spun around and wheeled myself down the corridor to her office, hoping she had forgotten to lock the door, but she hadn't.
She's mad. I thought. She's not going on any date. She's lost in some wild fantasy. I can't stay here a moment more, but I wasn't going to try to get down to the road again. That was for sure. I wheeled back to the staircase and contemplated it. Mrs. Churchwell had said the phone upstairs was working. The question was did I have the strength and the nerve to try to pull myself up all the steps? If I should slip and fall... At least I'll end up in the hospital and out of here, I thought. And then I thought, she might very well just pick me up and deposit me, broken bones and all, back into that bed.
Should I just wait and hope Austin returns as he promised? Or has Austin and his uncle been
sufficiently terrorized by Aunt Victoria's attorneys to stay away, especially after what had happened yesterday? I wondered.
My heart was pounding with indecision. How could I just return to my little prison of a room and simply wait? I'll take my time. I promised myself. Even if it takes me all night to do it. I'll go slowly and extra carefully and I'll get myself up these stairs and to that phone.
I'll get there if it's the last thing I ever do. That's just an expression normally, I thought, but for me, it might very well prove to be true.
Practically inching my way out of the chair and down to the first steps. I sat and took deep breaths. My heart was racing so. I thought I could possibly faint halfway up. Calm down, Rain. I told myself. Calm down or don't even attempt to do it.
It really wasn't all that difficult to go up a stairway, even with dead legs. I had the strength in my upper arms and shoulders, thanks to all my therapy with Austin. I sat on a step, put my arms behind myself and lifted myself up to the next step. I rested every two steps, holding onto the balustrade. To keep my mind from rushing into any panic. I counted the steps and then I became a little silly and sang. "Twenty-four steps on the stairs. if I do two more steps on the stairs, only eighteen left to go."
It took me the better part of an hour, but finally. I reached back to place my hands on the upstairs landing and lifted my body one final time. I was upstairs. My heart beat for joy now instead of in fear and trepidation.
I gazed down at my wheelchair at the foot of the stairs. I felt like I was looking over a cliff. Now, full of hope. I started down the upstairs hallway. All of the rooms had phones. as I recalled. but I felt most certain I'd find the working one in what had been her bedroom and where she staved now.