To Diana, Love, Dale

CW: grooming

Head in my hands, I stare down at the phone in my lap, willing it to ring. The hospital staff insisted I go home to rest, but sleep eludes me. How can I, when the only family I have left lies unconscious in an operating room? The life of the man who helped raise me is in someone else’s hands.  

Pushing to my feet, I pace my brother’s study. His house is closer to the hospital and I find solace from being in the place he inhabits. The map I gave him several Christmases ago is centered on the wall, pins mark over a hundred countries that he has traveled to. A manila envelope in his outgoing mail tray catches my eye. The envelope reads simply: To Diana, Love, Dale

A chill runs down my spine. Is it a will? Could he have sensed something was wrong? Before I can even properly weigh my options I open the envelope and pull out what appears to be a manuscript.

******

It was the summer of my sixteenth birthday. I was busy, as usual, with all the odd jobs I did around the neighborhood. I tended gardens, mowed lawns, washed cars and the like. My mom died when I was ten and Dad never really recovered. An electrician whose hands had gone shaky from nerves and drink, he worked intermittently and had a habit of not restocking our groceries. My younger sisters, Molly, Alice, and Geraldine, were my reasons for working so hard.   

Mrs. A was the widow that lived down the block. She had lost her husband six months prior to me knocking on her door. A lanky, angular kid, I rang the doorbell and waited as I stared at the jungle of weeds and three-foot tall grass that was her front lawn. 

The door swung open suddenly. “Can I help you?” Her words were kind but her tone was anything but. She might as well have said, “get off my stoop.”

It was dark inside and I could only see her silhouette. She had one hand on her hip and the other on the doorframe. The screen door was closed between us. “Good afternoon. I would like to offer to mow your lawn, ma’am.” 

“Thank you, son. But I don’t need the grass cut.”

She was already shutting the door when I interjected, “Free of charge, ma’am.” She paused and then opened it wider so she could take another look at me.“It wouldn’t cost you anything.”

“Now why would the poor neighborhood boy who works all night and every weekend to compensate for his lazy, good-for-nothing father, offer to cut my grass for free?” She was looking at me hard, observing my reaction. 

“Because I know that things are difficult.” I shifted my weight but didn’t break eye contact, or at least where I expected her eyes were. “And I wanted to do the right thing.”

She stared at me for a while without saying anything. Then, mind made up, she said, “Fine. But I’ll pay you for the work. Never offer to work for free, especially when your customer can afford to pay you.” She shut the door in my face and I gave a sigh of relief and went to work. 

I ended up mowing her lawn all summer. And she did pay me, better than my usual going rate. Her behavior was consistent with the impression that she gave me on that first encounter. She was a pill, but she was compensating for whatever perceived deficiency she believed she had, just like I was.

It was the end of August, the twenty-fifth to be exact, when I went to mow her lawn as usual. I finished the job and just as I was packing up, the door opened and she beckoned me inside. The dining room table was set for two, with what must have been the most beautiful and decadent spread of food I had seen. She asked if I would do her the favor of staying for dinner, that she had made too much and didn’t want it to go to waste. The excuse was flimsy, but being a hungry, growing boy, I sat down at the table. 

Under the glinting lights of the chandelier, I could finally get a better look at Mrs. A. Elegantly put together, in an A-line knee-length dress, she wore her hair in curls, just above the shoulders as was the fashion. A natural beauty, besides mascara and lipstick, she didn’t need much in the way of makeup. We conversed pleasantly about school, my sisters, and some of the neighbors on the block. 

After we’d finished eating she offered me dessert. The cake, seven layers of rich chocolate, had sixteen candles on it. How had she known? I hadn’t had a birthday cake since my mother passed and the gesture from a near stranger made me choked up. On my way out the door, as I fumbled to adequately express my gratitude, she leaned in and innocently kissed my cheek. Her hand squeezed mine, as if to say, “don’t mention it.” I looked down at her long, red fingernails in the palm of my hand and longed for my mother. 

From that point on she was cooking for me at least once a week, often more, and sending me home with leftovers for my sisters. “You need to eat more.” “You work too hard.” But once past her hard exterior, she was a caring, sensitive woman who had trouble trusting people. She let me talk and talk about my mother, listening with soft, gentle eyes. Although she remained somewhat of an enigma, she did reveal some things about her past. The most surprising revelation was that she was not a widow, but a divorcee. 

When I walked through Mrs. A’s door, a transformation occurred. I no longer had to play the role of caregiver. I was taken care of. Our evenings spent together became longer and longer. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say, the dynamics of our relationship were forever changed one night when I didn’t go home. Love, or what I believed was love, had sunk its claws in me and I was powerless to its effects. 

Our affair fell into a comfortable pattern. That is, until one day, shortly before another birthday.

“I think you should enlist after your eighteenth birthday”, she said, staring down at her chicken cordon bleu. 

This statement was so far out in left field it took me a moment to process it. Absorbing the implications of her remark, I put my fork down. Still studying her plate, I could tell she was uneasy, as she should be to make such a suggestion. 

“You very likely will be drafted anyway–”

“They aren’t drafting anyone until age nineteen. And you don’t know that I will be drafted.” I was suddenly defensive, but why shouldn’t I be? This woman had just dropped a bombshell on me.

“Now that you have your high school diploma you have to think about what you will do with your future. You can learn any number of skills in the military.” Admiring the stem of the wineglass that she twirled on the table, she continued, “I think you should go down to the recruitment office and discuss your options.”

“If you want me to stop coming by you can just say so, you don’t have to send me off to war”, I snapped. The anger in my voice startled her, her eyes flicked to mine. I had never raised my voice or shown any kind of temper in front of her, but the indifference with which she discussed my fate pushed me over the edge. 

“That’s not it at all.” Her tone softened and her eyes searched mine. There was some emotion behind her eyes I had never seen in her before, guilt. Reminiscent of the first words I spoke to her, she added, “But this is the right thing for you to do now. One day you will understand.”

But I didn’t and she wasn’t making sense to me. “Why now? Why can’t I wait and see–”

“Because you can’t”, her tone was hard and her eyes desperate. “It has to be now. If you don’t leave now…” She didn’t finish but she didn’t need to. 

On my birthday I enlisted and asked for the earliest available date to be sent to basic training. They were only too pleased to acquiesce. I agreed to not contact Mrs. A for at least two years, and she promised to make sure my sisters were well taken care of. 

Through no fault of my own, it was a long time before I was able to return home. So much time had passed and so much had happened to me. I was no longer the same person that had left Mrs. A four years prior. How could I go back to the way things were, having done and experienced these things? I was a good man, and she was a good woman, but we were no longer compatible together. That said, I had already given up over three years of knowing my daughter. I refused to sacrifice any more.

How could we start our lives in a place where everyone knew us? It was impossible. The only way to make a fresh start was to move somewhere else and fabricate a story. 

The noticeable difference in our ages would have made living as husband and wife dubious at best. Surely wherever we lived there would be suspicion and malice towards a woman married to a man more than twenty years her junior. But, what was a plausible explanation for why the two of us would be living under the same roof? The prospect mortified us, but it was the only conceivable option. I was to assume the role of her son, and Diana, my daughter, would know me as her older brother. The burden of the story we told the world weighed on me for the next thirty years. 

******

Gripping the pages in my hands, my stomach drops. Diana. He used my name as a moniker for a character in his story. That’s all it is, right? But even I am not that naive. Mrs. A? As in Mrs. Ackerman, my mother? The tightening in my chest and the prickling of my skin makes me want to throw the manuscript down and run. My breath is shaky and I struggle to slow down my flight response. 

The rest of the story chronicles the familiar highlights of my relationship with my brother. Had I not been the one reading it, I think it would be a heartwarming tale of a man that would do or say anything for the sake of his love for his daughter. Instead, heart wrenching devastation descends on me. The sacrifices he made, the nonsense I witnessed him put up with to stay living at home with us, it must have been awful.

My head reels. But even as I try to repudiate the claims, these new truths make more sense the stories I’ve been fed. Encouraging me to become a flight attendant, we got to see the world together, away from mom’s scrupulous eyes. It worked out that our flight schedules were often synched up and we got to work some of the same flights, him in the cockpit and me in the cabin. The years spent sharing an apartment were some of the best of my life, the years I credit to strengthening our bond beyond a typical sibling relationship.

******

Despite the strain and friction between Anna and I as Diana got older, I always held her in great esteem. We were both doing what we thought we had to do, and I could not begrudge her for that. When she became terminally ill, I was shattered. My devastation was a surprise even to me. Why did I feel like I had been stabbed in the heart? Like I was the one who was dying? All I can say is that she was a motherly figure to me when I needed her the most, so perhaps my soul will forever associate her as such. 

During her last moments of coherence, before Diana could join us, Anna confided in me one last time. I was keeping vigil at her bedside, waiting for Diana to arrive. The hiss of the oxygen mask pulled me from my grogginess. 

“You need to keep that on”, I said while trying to replace the mask on her face. Pushing my hands away she said something I couldn’t make out. “What’s that?”

Her voice was a weak rasp and I had to lean in to hear her. “I’m sorry, Dale.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.” I fiddled with the sheets that she was wringing beneath her thin, bony hands. Her watery blue eyes gazed into mine, and for only the second time ever, I saw the guilt she carried. 

“You have your mother’s eyes.” I counted the beats of my heart while I waited. “I knew her, you know. I knew her well. We were good friends.” I blinked but didn’t look away from her gaze. “She would have been proud of you, but disgusted with me.” Her eyes rolled away from mine. “I should have taken care of you, not taken up with you.” She wheezed and I hastened to supply her with oxygen. Recovering her breath, she pulled the mask down again. 

“Anna, it’s ok. I am ok with how things turned out. I don’t have any regrets.”

“I need to say it”, she gasped, “or I’ll never be able to rest.” Fortified by several pulls of oxygen, she continued on. “The payments I received from my ex-husband weren’t just alimony. It was part of our agreement. He would continue to support me, and in exchange, I would never see them ever again.” 

Them? Had I misheard? As if reading my thoughts she said, “Yes, I had a daughter by him. But I…”, she swallowed hard, the painful memory residing in her expression. “My mind wasn’t well, and he took her and left.” Her breath quickened, but not from the lack of air. Tears moistened the pillowcase. 

I held her hand and gently dried her tears. “You should say all of this to Diana. She would want to know that she has a half sister, that her real father is–”, my voice falters and I’m surprised at my reaction all these years later, to the sin we promised to never utter aloud.

“No”, she said, her eyes wide with fear. “I can’t tell her. My last words in this world cannot be those.” 

I did not push the issue further. Diana was losing her mother. Why tarnish the memory of her as well? 

When Diana arrived, we held mother and told her how much we loved her. She fell asleep, comfortable and at peace, with the two most important people in her life. And that is how she left this world. I cried an exhausting, agonizing cry. Because when all is said and done, my life was better for having her in it. 

******

“Ms. Ackerman? Hi, I’m Dr. Leibmann. I performed your brother’s surgery. He is going to be fine. He’ll have to take it easy for a while but he should make a full recovery.”

The words wash over me. The only ones I absorb are ‘going to be fine’ and ‘full recovery’. I nod, but I’m hollow-eyed. “Can I see him?”

Sitting at his bedside, I watch his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. An IV supplies medication, a monitor displays a steady cardiac rhythm. I hold his warm hand in mine and feel the pulse of life course through him. He feels the same. Am I the one that is different? 

I settle into the industrial armchair. The roller coaster of emotions from the day’s discoveries has me dog-tired. Emotionally spent, I’m fast asleep in minutes. I dream, a hopeful dream of a new beginning, of Aunt Molly, Alice, and Geraldine, and the sister I will soon meet.