Chapter Thirteen
It was a clear, sunny day. A warm front had moved in and displaced the blanket of cold air that had lingered since the snowstorm on Saturday. Oh, the snow hadn’t lasted long on Sunday. Sure, there was a lot of it and with it came that moist, cold air that made everything feel somewhat wet. But the plows had made quick work of the cleanup. After all, by this time of year, everyone in the UP were experts at the cleanup. Tom had cleared their entire outdoor space to within an inch of its life, which he paid for with achy muscles and a sore knee for his entire Sunday.
Now, on Monday, the air was warming, the sun was out in full force and a robin was actually working its way through some of the leftover snow on the grass outside of the Jamrich Hall as Etta made her way across campus and up the broad steps of the building where she had been asked to meet with her advisor, Charles Ernst. She was admittedly a little nervous about her meeting with him, since as the chair of her department, he held a lot of sway with many of her instructors. She had a lot to discuss with him and she hoped he would be helpful, under the circumstances. She wasn’t sure what this meeting her advisor had called her to was originally intended to be, but she now had something she needed from him and she’d been brooding about this meeting, a little, even before her meltdown with Tom.
Brooding. That’s what she’d been doing ever since running from Tom. And yes, that’s what she’d done, literally. She had run from him. She’d been running from her problems for most of her life. It seemed to her she’d always been running. And she was getting nowhere. And now she was brooding, about her meeting with Dr. Ernst, about Tommy, about her dad, her life. She was brooding about everything.
Brooding: 1) To sit on or incubate eggs, 2) To cover with the wings or 3) To think anxiously about or, the intransitive, to sit quietly and thoughtfully. She’d actually looked up the definition because she’d been thinking that it was never ever going to produce a chickey, so why was she doing it? She may have been quiet and thoughtful on the outside, but on the inside, she was churning. There was a direct correlation between the things happening in her life and the way she was feeling about things and her reaction to them. It was interesting how language was so often such a two-sided sword. Even words were astute, carrying double-meanings and innuendos that conveyed more than what they were originally intended to suggest. Maybe that’s all that there was to it with Tom. Maybe he’d said things in a way that meant something he’d never intended and she was taking it to be too much, put too much meaning into his words and was blowing this out of proportion as she was apt to do.
She climbed the long staircase up to the second floor faculty offices slowly. At least she wasn’t running this time.
Right now she was brooding. Maybe she’d run later, but for right now, all she could do was brood. Which of the two was better was anybody’s guess. This really was a beautiful building, with a large glass wall overlooking the campus and trees beyond. Trees that in the fall held the beauty of nature, a colorful kaleidoscope of a season gone by. But now, the view wasn’t spectacular, holding instead the promise of the fulfillment of a new season of growth and renewal captured in the buds on the trees and the longing faces of coeds awaiting the end of a term and freedom, if only for a few weeks.
She was trying too hard to see the bright side. She was trying to find any piece of bliss in even the most blasé of color palettes. She desperately needed that bright side because she certainly had been having a couple of strange, transitional-type of days. Things were changing and faster than she could keep up. She had to stay on the bright side or she’d collapse into a cauldron of self-pity and disillusion. She sat down in the comfortable waiting chairs outside of her advisor’s office door, which was uncharacteristically closed, her backpack at her feet and hands crossed lightly on her lap. He was obviously talking with someone and wanted privacy. So perhaps he was meeting with all of his advisees and this type of meeting in the spring wasn’t unusual.
She leaned her head back against the wall and thought of the phone conversation she’d had with her father on Sunday afternoon. She had waited for her housemates to all be out before she picked up the living room phone to call him. It was good to hear her dad’s voice, but she could tell right away something was really bothering him.
“What’s wrong, dad? I can hear it in your voice.”
“Plenty. Well, I suppose I should’ve come out with this right away, Etta. Your grandmother has had a stroke.” “What? Talk about burying the lead, dad.” She sounded frantic.
“I didn’t want to worry you. She’s okay, although her speech has been somewhat impaired. She’s in the Beaumont Hospital for now. She was a little confused at first. The emergency people said she kept asking for your mother and Otto, so she was clearly a little foggy. She was very upset when they told her they had both passed, but she’s apparently clear thinking now, according to the doctor I spoke with this morning.” He waited for a moment to let the information sink in with Etta. “I’m going to go down there when she’s released and help for her for a time, Etta. I owe her that.”
“Oh, God, Dad. Yes. I understand. Are you sure she’s okay? What is going to happen?”
“She’s going to be fine. Her doctor is very hopeful for her long-term prognosis, as she seems to progressing through this fairly quickly. Within an hour or two she went from confused to clear thinking. But she’s going to need help. There’s a waiting list a mile long for the Beaumont Nursing Home, so the best I could do for a place to care for her would be Farmersville, and I hate the thought of her alone in a small-town care center. She’d be happier at home, I know. Would you be willing to come help me with her, Etta? I think she’d really like that. And it would be better to have a woman help her with those personal things, than her son-in-law, don’t you think? I mean, we’ve been close since your mother but then there’s that. I could hire a home health aide, but I’m sure she’d prefer your help. What do you think, Etta?”
“Oh, God, dad, of course. So when would she be getting out? When would I need to be there?”
“They don’t keep folks in the hospital very long these days. They were talking about the end of this week. Is that something you could handle? Are you able to swing leaving a week early?”
“I have a meeting with my advisor tomorrow morning, dad. I’ll make it okay. Are you okay? I know how much grandma means to you.”
“Yes, I’m fine. We just need to help her out. And I’m concerned about you. I have more one piece of disturbing news that I wish I didn’t have to tell you. I really wish I could be there for you. Are you sitting down?” Her father’s voice had suddenly taken a grim tone. God, what could be worse than grandma having a stroke?
“Yeah, I’m sitting down. Jesus, dad you’re scaring me.”
“Good. Scared is a healthy reaction to this.” Her father took what she heard as a deep breath. “Etta, he’s moving to Marquette. He’s taken on a mid-management position at the main branch of the bank there.”
Her mind went blank. Staring into space for a moment while her world, this new world that she’d just barely gotten under her feet shattered into a million pieces. He was coming here. He was following her. He wanted her once and he’d found her. Her heart was pounding and her mind rushed with the meaning behind those simple words.
“Etta, I just found out about it yesterday, and I know what this is doing to you right now. But we’ll find an answer. You’ve got to snap out of it and stay positive. We’ll figure something out, I promise. But that’s all the more reason why I’d like you to get out of there as soon as possible, honey. Come with me to Iowa. We’ll take care of grandma and we’ll sort this all out. Etta? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m still here.” Etta’s mind was racing. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think.
“Etta, don’t read more into this than there is right now, okay? We don’t know the reasons why he’s doing this. It might be coincidence. But I’ll follow your lead and we’ll do whatever we need to, okay? Etta, say something.”
Although her world was rocking, in her heart, she knew her father’s world was teetering on the brink as well. She had to do what he asked and stay positive, be pithy. Say something pithy to make him feel better. “Damn dad, you really know how to make a girls’ day.” Etta was somewhat out of breath.
“Okay. That’s my girl. It’s going to be okay. You have your meeting with your advisor tomorrow. Until you get out of there, you lock your doors, keep up your self-defense. You’ll clear things up there so you can take off for the summer a week or so early, and get on a plane. Call me to tell me when to pick you up and I’ll come get you at the airport. Then we’ll drive down and spend the summer taking care of Gen, okay? I’ll make sure nothing happens to you, baby, I promise.” Her father had put on his ‘take-charge voice’ – well, as much of a take-charge voice as any accountant-made-executive could make. He was upset, it was clear. He seldom used endearing words with her and yet, here they were.
“Okay, dad. I’ll do that. I’ll clear things up here, make sure it’s okay and get on a flight as soon as I can. I want to make sure grandma’s okay. I guess, I need to make sure I’m okay too, huh?”
“Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Call me tomorrow, as soon as you can.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Love you.” Etta ended her call the way she always had, with the endearment that he seldom returned.
“Tomorrow, Etta. I love you too.”
Damn, her rapist was coming to Michigan. He’d gotten away with it and now he was coming here. She’d moved hundreds of miles away, picked up her life and started over and now he was coming here. Damn.
* * *
Joe Peabody was wishing he’d bought a better car before he drove this heap of junk to northern Michigan in what would have been spring in any other part of the country. Had he known that the temperatures got so low up here at this time of year, he would’ve made sure he had a car with a functional heater before he took on this damned job. As it was, the heavy, slushy snow from the weekend had been absolute hell to drive in with his tires damned-near bald. He needed this gig, if for no other reason than to get a new ride or fix the one he already had.
There was so little intel that anybody could give him on this chick, it was ridiculous. He’d been staking out the NMU campus for days trying to get a sighting. Now that he knew where she lived, it had meant hours and hours of waiting to find out more about the situation. He sat in his car, parked across and down a side street with a clear view of the house, nursing the fourth cup of coffee for the day. Joe was a small guy, five foot eight and a buck fifty. His build wasn’t designed for hours and hours of sitting in a car with no heat. If he didn’t find a clear time soon to get in and get out and grab some information, Marshall would come crawling up his ass to find out what was the problem. The last thing he needed was more trouble from Marshall. The guy was a damned ticking time-bomb.
Just last month Marshall had damned near paralyzed his right-hand man for skimming 200 off the top. And Joe knew what happened if you were late with his stake. He got what he wanted and when he wanted it or there would be hell to pay. How the hell could he break out in a cold sweat when he was so damned cold? It was the fear factor, that’s for sure. He’d been sitting there long enough over the past couple of days to know there were at least six women living in the house. He was keeping meticulous notes of their coming and goings so he wouldn’t get caught inside. And there’d been one guy there, but pretty much only that one guy. He looked very similar to some of the women, so he must’ve been a brother or something.
Finally, at last, all six of the girls and the guy had left the house. The place was finally empty. He got out of the car, stuffing his numb fingers into the pockets of his plaid overcoat as he made his way to the kitchen door. He picked the lock quietly and nimbly, as he scanned from side to side for any stray onlookers. He needed to make this a quick in-and-out. He pulled off his boots outside of the house and stepped inside. He stopped at the mail slots that hung on the wall near the kitchen door, pulled out a couple of letters: “Sophia Donato”. Pulling another letter from the slot labeled “Gabby”. This time the letter was addressed to Gabriella Donato. Okay. So the guy and his sisters were the Donato family.
He walked through the living room, looking for anything that may be of interest. Then he walked up the stairs, opening the door to Izzy’s room first. He fumbled through a few knickknacks, finding a picture of Izzy with all of her sisters: nine dark-haired smiling girls with dark eyes, all different ages, embracing each other with Lake Superior in the background. Nope. This wasn’t her room. This was one of the sisters. He made his way across the hall, noting the delicate touch of the silk scarf looped around the inside doorknob. He casually picked it up, feeling the soft, flowing material between his warming fingertips.
He noted a picture of the blond girl with an older man on top of the desk. Awww, a memory with daddy. Yes, this was hers. Also on the top of the dresser was a box and in it a note: “4 kisses = 1 silk scarf – Tommy”. There was a duffle bag on the floor with a man’s sneaker sticking out. The name on the duffle bag’s ID tag said “Tom Donato”. Okay. I’ve got it. This is all the intel Marshall wanted. The name of the guy she’s seeing. Perhaps, however, he’d like a memento as well. Peabody fingered the scarf he still held in his hand. Yes, this would do nicely.