Family Inheritance (12 page)

As she stood inches away from his naked body and leering face, Suzanne took as much
control over the situation as she could, deciding that she would play this cool,
not get flustered, and stay in control. She knew she could think her way out of this
the way she had everything else in her life. Having a quick mind was what had gotten
her to where she was. It was her mind she relied on, never allowing herself to get
caught up in having feelings about things, but just thinking about them and working
them out. And once more she returned to the strategy that had always helped her step
above situations that had tried to destroy her over the years. She had learned many
years ago to stuff her feelings about her life or experiences deep inside of her
so they didn't come out, at least not until she was drunk, when they didn't hurt
so much.

“Okay, how much money do you want?”

“Oh, it's not just money.” The leer on his face was menacing.

“What do you mean?” Large, invisible hands of panic tightened around Suzanne's throat.

Jeff stepped toward her and ran a finger down her cheek. “Last night was pretty good.
I could go for a lot more of that.”

Suzanne stepped back as though she had been hit, and her stomach lurched toward her
throat. Her voice sounded like a vulnerable, little girl. “I'll give you money, but
leave me alone.”

Jeff ran his finger down her chest and inside her blouse, tickling the crevice between
her breasts as he quietly spit out the words, “Sorry, boss, I'm in charge here. I
make the rules of this game. First of all, I want you to get off my case at work.
No more threats or playing big mama boss. Then, you'll give me a
considerable raise.
Some you can take care of with a raise at work, the rest will come out of your bank
account.”

“I won't do it. Forget it.” Her strength was trying to surface.

“Then I guess I'll just have to send a few of these pictures to your boss, a few
to the CEO, etcetera, and down, down, down goes your career. Who do you think will
hire you after that? And the rumors will fly. You'll be known as a slut and a drunk.
You'll be dead in the water, Ms. Corporate Ladder Climber.”

Suzanne tried to fight her fear, stay cool, and think her way out of this, but she
was drowning. Her stomach seemed to be permanently stuck in her throat, and her mind
was clawing at a myriad of ideas and thoughts, desperately trying to come up with
a solution, a way out of this problem. At the same time, memories from the past were
swirling around her as she sunk into the cruel, raging waters of another man's control.
She was lost in such a maze of panic that her father's face flickered in and out
of her memory, merging with Jeff 's. For a moment, they were both there, looming
over her, with nasty smiles on their faces, and for several moments they felt like
one and the same.

Deep inside, she trembled with fear. She had nowhere to turn and the vulnerable,
little girl inside of her replaced the woman who was so desperately trying to stay
in charge. Once again, she had been a bad girl, and she couldn't tell. Nobody could
help her.

Chapter 12

Atlanta, Georgia

The shrill ringing of the telephone startled Helene awake. Turning in the bed, she
glanced at Bill buried in the covers. It was nice to see him there; she hadn't appreciated
that sight for quite some time, but in the predawn hours, it was nice that he was
home.

Grabbing the insistent phone before it could ring another time, Helene whispered
into the receiver, “Hello?”

“Hello?” The male voice on the other end seemed unsure. “May I speak with Helene
Miller please?”

Helene sat up in bed. “With whom?”

The voice hesitated. “I'm trying to reach the daughter of Anna Theresa Miller. Do
I have the right number?”

Helene's tongue ran across her dry lips. “Yes . . . yes, you have the right number.
This is Helene Miller Foster.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Your mother's note said Helene Miller.”

“I've been married for many years. My mother knows that.” She paused in frustration.
“But why are you calling about my mother? And how did you know how to reach me?”

Ignoring the first question, he went right to the second. “Your mother left a note
with your phone number.”

She has my phone number?
was the first thought that popped into Helene's
mind. Then
her hand started to shake and her voice quivered as she answered. “Left a note, what
do you mean, left a note? Where is she? Is she okay?”

Helene hadn't been in contact with her mother for over fifteen years. When Thomas
was a baby, Helene had called her mother a couple of times, thinking she would be
excited about being a grandmother, but her mother hadn't shown much interest at all.
The conversations had been stilted and uncomfortable, so Helene quit calling and
she hadn't heard from her mother since.

She hadn't really thought about her for years, until recently—until these problems
with Thomas and her own visits to the therapist. She used to think that her mother,
or her mother's life, would never affect her again. She believed that if her mother
died, she would feel no remorse or regret, but now fear was settling around her heart.
Her mother must be dead. Why else would a stranger call so early in the morning?

The voice on the other end was calm and deliberately spoke slowly. “Mrs. Foster,
your mother is in the hospital. She's in a coma. I haven't been able to reach your
sisters yet.”

“What hospital is she in?” Her hand flew to her chest as if to stop its rapid pounding.

“The Virginia Regional Medical Center,” the voice replied.

At first her mind couldn't grasp the name of the hospital until she remembered that
her mother still lived in Minnesota, and Virginia was the small town not far from
the farm where Helene had grown up. Still trying to get her bearings and take in
the information she had just received, she quietly answered, “I'll be there as soon
as I can,” and hung up the phone without giving the man on the other end of the line
a chance to say anything more. After hanging up she realized that she didn't even
know who he was.
Where was Alice? Why wasn't she with Mom?

Helene hadn't been back home since she left right after she graduated from high school,
and a few weeks ago, Helene wouldn't have given a second thought to going back home
because it was a part of her life that she had cast aside and ignored. But from the
sessions she had had with Raymond Welsh, she now knew how badly she was affected
by her childhood—by her father's drinking and her mother's helplessness and martyrdom.

Her mother, her mom, her mommy . . . she hadn't thought about her for a very long
time. As she thought about her now, anger welled up inside of her—anger for the mother
she never had, anger for what her childhood had not been. Her mother had deprived
her of the loving feelings a little girl should get. Her mother had deprived her
of the caretaking every child deserved. She couldn't remember being told she was
loved or being tucked in at night and read bedtime stories the way Helene had done
with Thomas. When Thomas was born, Helene had read every book she could get her hands
on so she could understand what being a mother was all about because her memories
of her mother were that she cooked and cleaned, told them to do their chores, and
spent any spare time she had in front of the television set.

With her therapist's help, Helene was beginning to deal with her past and the fact
that she might need to talk with her mother about all her pain. She was probably
a couple of years away from the real confrontation, and now her mother was going
to deprive her of that too because her mother was going to die.

Anger surged into the pit of Helene's stomach where it lodged and churned. Her body
tensed and fury scorched through her as her mind traveled through conversations she
would like to have had with her mother. Scenes where Helene was telling her mother
about the pain, telling her how disgusted she was by her weakness, her inability
to stand up to Helene's father and take care of her children the way they deserved.
As Helene's mind delved farther into the possibilities of a confrontation, she relished
the thought of finally forcing her mother to tell her she was special, she was pretty,
and she deserved all the best. It was as though forcing her mother to say it would
enable Helene to finally experience those feelings.

Now she knew that her mother was going to deprive her of even that.
My mother is
going to die. How dare she die?

“I've got to go. I've just got to go,” she mumbled as she kicked the covers back
on the bed, reaching for the phone and the phone book at the same time. It was too
early in the morning to get in touch with their travel agent, so she called the airline
directly and found out that she could catch a plane in four hours. She would first
fly to Minneapolis, have an hour layover, then fly to
Duluth where she would rent
a car and drive to Virginia. She called a car rental agency and reserved a car as
her mind mechanically took care of the details.

As she was making her arrangements, Bill stirred. He rolled toward her and watched
and listened. As she hung up the phone, he put his hand on her arm. “Helene? What's
up? Where are you going?”

“Home.” The word came so easy, but she hadn't thought of Minnesota as home for over
twenty years.

“Home? Where? Why?” He sat up straighter in the bed, shaking his head to dislodge
the sleep that still encompassed him and trying to understand what she was saying.

“Bill, I'm in a hurry. My mother's dying. I'm going home to Minnesota. I don't know
the details. I don't know when I'll be back. I just know I have to go.” She was walking
back and forth tossing clothes from her closet and her dresser drawers onto the bed,
stopping occasionally with her finger on her chin as she tried to figure out what
she needed to take.

“What about us?” Bill was now sitting on the side of the bed watching her intently.
“What about Thomas and the counseling?” His hands splayed out in front of him. “Who
will make sure he goes and that he stays on track with his recovery?”

Helene stopped what she was doing, put her hand on her hip, and slowly emphasized
the words, “You'll just have to handle whatever comes up here. And Thomas will just
have to be a little more responsible because I can't take care of you two right now.
I have to go home. I can't explain it. I just have to go.”

Within a short amount of time, Helene was showered and dressed with her bags waiting
in the hallway downstairs. She had called a limo to take her to the airport and she
waited by the window, waiting for her transportation to arrive. Bill had gone into
Thomas's room to awaken him. Now the two men stood at the bottom of the stairs, their
shoulders slumped and bewilderment covering their faces.

A sad smile pulled at Helene's mouth. They looked like small boys who were being
abandoned, and in an instant of clarity, Helene realized that in the past she would
have felt guilty. She would have felt she had to stay home. But not this time. The
tug of her past was so strong that nothing could keep her from going back to Minnesota.
She had to go. Somehow she knew that she
hadn't dealt with her feelings over her
father's death more than ten years ago. Alice had called her with the news, but she
had refused to go to his funeral, hadn't sent flowers, and had tried to ignore the
fact that he even existed, let alone that he had died. Now that she was in counseling,
she was aware that pain from the past couldn't be ignored. Somewhere, somehow, it
always reared its head.

Now, she was going to have her mother's death and all of her unresolved feelings
about her mother piled on top of everything else she was currently dealing with.
She had stuffed her feelings for so many years that she felt like a burlap sack straining
and ripping at the seams. The reality was that she had to go back and deal with whatever
was waiting for her. She just had to.

“You two be good.” She feebly grinned at them.

“Where will you be staying?” Bill asked. “Will we be able to reach you if we need
you?”

“I just don't know details right now.” Helene felt irritation at the little-boy tone
in his voice. “I'll call you as soon as I get settled in a hotel. It's been so long
since I've been back there, I have no idea what's available.”

“What if an emergency comes up? How can I get ahold of you?”

“I said I'd call you, and I will.” Her voice was firm.

Helene wanted to laugh as she recognized how suddenly the tables had been turned.
For many years, it had been Bill rushing out on a last-minute business trip and she
was left standing by the door not really knowing where he was going or why. In the
back of her mind, she always wondered if he was meeting another woman.

Could Bill be worried that I may never come back
? She'd never given him any reason
to think that. For a moment, a small smile crossed her lips.
Now he'll know what
it feels like.
The thought amused her.

A horn sounded in the driveway, and Helene turned to her bags. “We'll get them, Mom.”
Thomas was quick to grab her suitcases.

Helene felt genuine surprise at the way they were hovering over her. They didn't
do that. They always took her for granted, knowing she would always be there for
them—knowing she would always be home when they got there, if they decided to get
there.

Thomas placed a hand on her shoulder. “Mom, I hope your mother will
be okay.” He
didn't say “grandmother” because Thomas didn't know her as “grandmother.” In fact,
he didn't know Anna Miller at all. Helene had never allowed him the chance.