Family Inheritance (14 page)

Suzanne turned her head toward the ceiling. “God, if you really are up there, you've
got one cruel sense of humor.” Slipping off the chair to lay facedown onto the floor,
Suzanne submitted to the sobs that racked her body.

Chapter 15

Northern Minnesota

The hospital room was dark, the blinds were closed, and the door to the hallway was
shut. The only sounds were tiny beeps from the monitoring equipment. Helene stood
at the end of the bed staring down at the still figure of the woman she hadn't seen
in over twenty years. She knew her mother was getting older, but she was startled
by the effects of aging. Her mother's skin was dry and wrinkled from lack of care
throughout the years, the thin hair clinging to her head was a dull steel gray. An
IV tube protruded from one of her hands. Sadness pulled at Helene as she stared at
the still form.

When Helene arrived at the hospital, she'd stopped at the nurse's station to understand
what was going on with her mother. She was told that her mother was in a diabetic
coma. They did not know if or when her mother would regain consciousness.

Why did I come? What did I expect to accomplish?
Yet she couldn't leave. Finally
settling into a chair by the window, Helene closed her eyes in exhaustion. Rest was
just starting to settle over her when the door opened. Because of the darkness of
the room, Helene was not immediately visible to the newcomer. In quiet seclusion,
she watched the woman approach the bed, expecting it to be one of the myriad of nurses
that fluttered in and out, checking the tubes and equipment.

My goodness, this woman is huge.
The figure seemed to waddle toward the
side of the
bed where she stood staring down at the patient. Slowly the woman reached out and
touched Helene's mother's hand. Helene shifted her position, and the startled visitor
turned toward the noise. “Hello?”

“Hello,” Helene replied. “I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Mrs. Miller's daughter.”
She stood and walked toward the bed.

“Helene?” the woman questioned.

As Helene inched closer, a lump formed in her throat. She barely recognized her sister.
Alice had been heavy for a long time, but Helene wasn't prepared for this. As she
stared at her sister, Helene felt disgust. All she saw was the lack of self-control
and self-discipline. Her eyes passed from the top of Alice's tightly curled hair,
over her bruised face, and down her huge body clothed in a blue polyester pantsuit,
and she was embarrassed. Even on noticing the bruises, the concern wasn't enough
to overcome the negative reaction welling up in Helene.

As Alice and Helene sized each other up from across the bed, silence permeated the
room. The stillness was broken by an entering nurse. She checked their mother and
turned to the two women. “Visitors must be kept to only one at a time. We have a
small private waiting room for the intensive care families. I'll show you where it
is.”

Alice's large body seemed to plant itself by the bed, so Helene smiled and followed
the nurse from the room.

Suzanne arrived that afternoon and the three sisters barely acknowledged each other
as they rotated from the waiting room to their mother's bedside. At first, they were
like adversaries who stayed far away from each other, sizing up their opponents.
As the evening approached and the exhaustion of the whole experience took its toll
on each of them, they slowly began exchanging a few curt words here and there. Neither
Helene nor Suzanne had been back to Minnesota since they graduated high school. And
none of them had talked to each other, even on the phone, for close to ten years.
They were strangers who shared the same childhood.

At the end of the day, Helene returned to her hotel room exhausted, and vowed that
the next day would be better. She would begin trying to build a relationship with
her sisters and come to terms with her childhood. She was now back in the place she
had started, and it was up to her to make the best of it. She had to make sense of
her family and her past so she could try to make
sense of her present. She wasn't
sure how she was going to do it, but she was determined that she would. While her
body was exhausted, her mind would not rest, and a cauldron of convoluted feelings
stirred inside of her. She cried until she was too tired to cry anymore. To Helene,
it seemed as though the alarm sounded just minutes after she had climbed into bed.

Helene stopped by the nurse's station to see if there had been any changes during
the night. There hadn't been. Her mom was still in a coma. “The doctor will be by
to see you later this morning,” the nurse behind the desk informed her.

Upon entering her mother's hospital room, she was surprised to see Suzanne already
there. Suzanne rose to leave as Helene entered, but Helene motioned her to stay when
she noticed that Suzanne was crying. “Are you crying for Mom?” Helene asked the question
without being aware that she'd asked it.

Suzanne shook her head and in a very soft voice replied, “No . . . for me.”

Helene
sat in the chair on the other side of the bed. “Me too. I cried myself to sleep last
night, but it was more for what I missed and what I wish I felt than it was for Mom.”

Suzanne eyed Helene. “I thought you and Mom were close—you being the oldest one and
all. She always seemed to be so proud of everything you did. Alice and I couldn't
come close.”

Helene's mouth fell open in surprise. “Mom? Proud of me? She never said so. When
I used to stay in touch with her, all she did was complain about what I wasn't doing
or how good I had it and how bad she had it.” Anger flushed through Helene's body.
“She always made me so damn mad. Why didn't she ever do anything about her life instead
of just complaining about it? Why did she put up with Dad? Why didn't she stand up
to him and protect us and make life better for us? She was our mother for God's sake!
If we couldn't depend on her, who could we depend on?”

Alice walked into the room as they were talking and sat down in a chair close to
the door. “You both think you have all the answers, don't you? Life has always gone
so smooth for you two. What do either of you know about being
trapped with a man?
Feeling you can't do any better and you've got children to support. What do either
one of you know about that?” Her voice began to rise. “You come home with your fancy
clothes and your fancy lives and you sit here and judge Mom. Sure, she whined a lot.
She drove me crazy with her whining and she was always nagging on me, but I understood
her.”

Alice lowered her head to look at the floor. “I understood how life had given her
a raw deal and she didn't know how to get out of it, and being so scared that you're
gonna lose the man you have. No, he might not treat you very good, but deep down
inside you don't believe you're good enough for him to treat you better. And you
don't know who you are except by the way he treats you. So, if he leaves, you just
become an empty box. What do you know about that?” She raised her head and her hollow
eyes peered in their direction. “If you can't understand that, you can't understand
Mom.”

Helene felt pinned to the wall.
Is that how Mom felt?
Despair plummeted into her
stomach and twisted and turned as Helene recognized that her feelings were the same
as Alice was describing. She was afraid of losing Bill. Afraid of what she would
be without him.

Silence permeated the room as the women withdrew into their own private worlds of
despair, remorse, and confusion. A nurse came into the room. Helene knew they shouldn't
all be in here at one time, but the nurse just glanced at each of them and quietly
left.

Helene's eyes softened and a single tear slid down her cheek as she observed the
woman lying motionless in the bed. Being secluded away in that darkened room with
her mother and sisters made her feel safe. Like being sequestered in the warm, safe
womb where you were protected before being released to the harsh realities of life.
Maybe it was the room, maybe the presence of her mother and sisters, or maybe the
timing in her life, but almost without realizing she was doing so, Helene began to
talk—at first to her mother, then to her sisters, and finally to the whole room as
a release.

“Maybe I've been unfair. Maybe I really didn't know you. Maybe I've judged you unfairly
all these years.” Turning her head to Alice, her voice took on a slight edge. “It's
her fault. How could we know what she was going through if she didn't say so? She
told you. Why didn't she tell me?”

“Mom didn't tell me,” Alice said defensively.

“Then how do you know how she felt?” Helene asked.

Sitting back in her chair, Alice's voice lowered. “I just know.”

“But how? I didn't know, yet here I am doing much of the same thing.” Helene stood
up from her chair and began to pace around the room. “Bill cheats on me. He's cheated
on me for years. I never say anything. I'm too afraid. I don't want to lose him.
Without him, I'm nothing.” She quickly sat back into the chair, her eyes dropping
to her hands in her lap.

Alice's mouth fell open in surprise. “But you've always been so sure of yourself.
You could make something of your life, and lots of men could fall in love with you.
Not like me. Jake was my only chance, but I can't let him hurt my kids no more.”

“What do you mean hurt your kids?” Helene demanded.

“He was hurting both of them, especially Sarah.”

“Did he beat them? Did he beat you? Is that how you got those bruises?” Helene's
words shot out like bullets from a machine gun.

“Yeah, he beat me and he sometimes whipped the kids, but he was hurting them different,
especially Sarah.”

Suzanne shifted in her chair. “How was he hurting Sarah?” she demanded.

“I don't wanna say.” Alice pulled on the edges of her jacket. “He was just hurting
her.” She made a weak attempt at a deep breath. “Somehow it was my fault, and I just
had to stop it. I didn't know.” Her eyes look pleadingly at Suzanne, begging her
to understand. “I mean, it was okay when he hurt me, but not my kids. You understand?”
Strength ebbed into her voice. “But not my kids!”

“Yes, I understand,” Suzanne snapped. “He was having sex with Sarah, wasn't he?”

“Well . . .”

“Damn it, Alice. Was he molesting her?”

Alice began to cry. Sobs flowed from her huge body and she leaned against the bed,
putting her face against the sheet as she gently touched her mother's leg. “I didn't
know. I would have stopped it, but I didn't know.”

“How in the hell can you live in the same house and not know?” Suzanne was now standing
with her hands on her hips, glaring at Alice. “You had to know! Just the way you
all knew when I was a kid. You don't want to do
anything now, and you didn't want
to do anything then!” Her voice was edging up and her face was flushed.

“Suzanne, keep your voice down. You're gonna get us kicked out of here. And leave
Alice alone. You can't know what she's . . .” Helene trailed off as Suzanne's words
penetrated her mind. “What do you mean she didn't do anything then? When you were
a kid? What are you talking about?”

“Helene, quit playing dumb and cute.” Suzanne swung her entire body in Helene's direction,
looking as though she wanted to throw a punch at her. “You all knew, but you knew
if I was the one, you wouldn't be.”

“You were the one for what?” Helene leaned forward, her mind trying to figure out
what Suzanne was talking about.

Alice gripped her mother's foot as she stared at Suzanne. “Tell me what you're talking
about,” she demanded in a low but powerful voice.

“I'm talking about Dad, damn you. Don't make me say it.” Suzanne slumped back into
her chair and buried her face in her hands. “You know. She knew. You all just abandoned
me to him.”

“I still don't know what you're talking about,” Helene burst in.

Alice's voice was quiet and calm. “She's telling us that Dad had sex with her. Aren't
you, Suzie?”

“Don't call me Suzie!” she sneered. “I'm not Suzie. That was Suzie way back then.
I'm not Suzie! Don't ever call me Suzie.”

Alice and Helene watched as Suzanne broke down before their eyes. Sobs burst loose
from her as she clutched her mother's hand. “Why didn't you protect me? Why did you
just abandon me to him? Why did all of you abandon me?”

A nurse came into the room
with a stern look on her face, apparently intending to tell them to leave. Helene
turned toward her and said, “We'll keep quiet, but please let us stay. Now's not
a good time.” Helene half-expected her mom to lift her head and snap at them to be
quiet the way she often had when they were children.