CHAPTER ONE
The day started out as normal as any other Sunday in the Summers home.
William was yammering on to our mother about Cecily and the upcoming Valentine’s Day dance at the high school. He was finally going to ask his long-time obsession to go with him the next day at school and was telling mother about her “unfathomable” beauty over a cup of cocoa at the breakfast bar. I was trying not to laugh at the kitchen table while coloring with my younger brother and sister. William had a schoolboy crush on Cecily for as long as I can remember, well since middle school at least. He had never acted upon his feelings, however, because William just wasn’t that type of guy.
Although he was good-looking, with his shaggy, dirty blond hair, piercing blue eyes and high cheekbones, William was very shy and lacking in confidence when it came to women. I guess the best word to describe him would be bookish. He didn’t have a lot of friends and spent most of his days at school in the library reading or drawing. William coasted from class to class with his eyes down, trying to be as unassuming as possible in the school hallways. For years, he had been writing Cecily poetry and having fake conversations with her in the bathroom mirror without ever actually speaking to her. One time I even walked in on him jerking off in his bedroom looking at her picture from the school newspaper. It really was pathetic. As I said, I had to stop myself from laughing.
He finally gained the courage to even think about asking her to the dance, because this year, his junior year of high school, he had actually talked to her. William’s art teacher roped William into doing the stage design for the school play with the assurance that it would look good on his college applications, and Cecily had the starring role of Juliet. When Ms. Calendar asked him to stand in for a late Romeo, I thought he would faint right there. I was helping my friend Cordelia with costumes backstage when we heard William start running lines. Of course, we couldn’t resist any opportunity to tease my brother and had to watch the rehearsal from the side stage. Although I was a year younger than William, I ran with the popular clique of the high school, being a member of the cheerleading squad, so it was my God given duty to make fun of my nerdy brother. Cordelia and I shared endless giggles over that one, the way he kept rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants leg and the distinct stutter that he hadn’t had since he was ten popping up again.
William had seen his opening and started talking to her from that day forward. He would say hi to her in the hallway and make conversation with her in the lunch line about how the play was going. I don’t know if she ever caught on that he would time his whereabouts around the school based on her class schedule, which he knew by heart. She was nice, I suppose. Neither Cordelia nor I could understand what he saw in her. She was very snobby, thinking herself even above my station as a cheerleader because her daddy was a rich and successful political figure. She hung around with an elite group of other “aristocrats”, both jocks and nerds being beneath her, but she was never outright mean to anyone and she did have a sort of striking beauty, in a 19th century sort of way. But my brother was weirdly romantic, bordering on stalker. He built her up on this pedestal and no one could say anything bad about her. She had been a regular topic of conversation in the Summers household for quite some time.
I’m sure my mother was sick of hearing about her but she continued to nod and smile and ask him questions at all the right moments. She was a good mom like that.
However, I knew the twins were tired of hearing about the perfect Cecily. Connor couldn’t keep his laughter at bay when William used words like “effulgent” to describe her, and Dawn continuously rolled her eyes. William would flash a glare at Connor whenever he heard the chuckling. The twins were seven and they had been hearing about the notorious Cecily for most of their lives at this point. The only reason I had to behave myself was because if I didn’t, William would start in on my boyfriend, Parker. William hated him and called him a right perfect Nancy boy. Personally, I think Will hated him because he thought Parker was trying to upstage him in his sensitivity.
We were all in the kitchen waiting for my father to come home because my parents had some important news they wanted to tell us. Earlier that day, my father Hank got an emergency page from the hospital. He’s an obstetrician and one of his patients went into early labor. The doctor on duty feared complications so he called in my dad. My father told everyone the news would have to wait until he got back as he kissed my mother goodbye.
I didn’t know what the news was, but I was hoping my mother wasn’t pregnant again. My mother’s pregnancy with the twins had enough mood swings to last me my lifetime. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to have children after living through that.
It wouldn’t surprise me though if she were pregnant. My parents were still madly in love after seventeen years of marriage. They were one of those perverted old couples that held hands while walking and had no problem with public kissing despite their children’s protests. They had met in college. My father was pre-med and my mother was pre-law. They fell in love during a whirlwind romance, marrying at nineteen and keeping it secret from my mother’s parents.
My grandfather had wanted my mother to come work for him at his law firm since he did not have a son to follow in his footsteps. They both knew Grandpa Ethan would not be pleased with their marriage. He was not even happy that his little girl Joyce was dating someone who wasn’t a lawyer. I think my grandfather planned on marrying his daughter off to one of his partner’s sons, a business merger rather than a marriage.
After my mother got pregnant with Will at twenty, their junior year, they finally had to confess. Ethan had gone ballistic. He disowned her and dissolved her sizeable trust fund. Having to choose between her husband and her father, her husband won and she dropped out of college to become a full time mom. Ethan and Joyce hadn’t spoken since. We’ve never met him, though we did meet our grandmother Drusilla one time. She came around Christmas a few years ago to tell my mother that Ethan was sick. He had been diagnosed with cancer. She wanted them to reconcile before it was too late. My mother said she would not do it unless she heard from Ethan himself.
Will and I watched the conversation from the staircase with morbid curiosity. Drusilla was creepy yet undeniably attractive even at her advanced age. Her long brunette hair flowed down below her shoulders and her slim figure was emphasized by the long straight red dress she wore. The way she talked was hypnotic as she sometimes threw riddles into her speech. Before she left, Drusilla looked at William and I on the stairs and pointed a slender finger at us. Her dark hard eyes burned into our souls as she cackled through a tight smile, “You will rot in hell.” Our bodies tensed and I could hear William suck in his breath at her words. And as quickly as she came, she was gone.
***************************************
The phone ringing interrupted the peace of the evening. Mother answered it and I watched as her face fell. The coffee cup she was holding fell to the tile and shattered into a hundred pieces, much like our lives.
Her husband, our father, was dead. There was a shooting at the hospital. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. After delivering the baby of his patient, he went to fill out the paperwork in the emergency room. Two rival gang members had been shot and brought in. It seems the fighting wasn’t over yet. Another member, the brother of one of the victims, entered the ER with his pistol cocked. Before he was done, a paramedic and a nurse were wounded and the rival gang member and my father were dead. The young man responsible for my father’s death was apprehended, but we did not feel that justice was served. Nothing would bring him back. Nothing could put our lives back together.
Suddenly my brother’s arms were wrapped tightly around my wailing mother’s shaking body. The twins were screaming. Will and I exchanged a knowing look – it was not our time to grieve yet. We had other people to take care of right now. I gathered Dawn and Connor in my arms and rocked them, never losing sight of Will’s teary blue eyes. After what seemed like forever, we finally got our mother and the twins to sleep. My mother with sleeping pills, the twins exhausted from crying. It was then that William and I could fully let go. We cried in each other’s arms until late into the night. It was that night that we made a promise to each other. We would be strong for the others. We would take care of mother and the twins. For them, we would hold it together. We would find solace in each other only; we could cry and ache with one another but not in front them. Together, William and I would keep our family from completely falling apart.
Hank Summers was a respected man in the community due to his job and his devotion to his family. The funeral was a huge affair largely taken care of by the hospital board with more people than I knew how to handle. Almost all of the hospital staff and many of my father’s patients, both past and present, paid their respects as well as people from our church, the neighborhood, and the country club. Among the mourners was my grandmother.
And so for the second time in my life, I felt that ice-cold stare bearing down on my skin. Arriving in a black Rolls Royce, she glided to the back of the congregation in a mass of black lace. I squeezed William’s hand and subtly tilted my head. Turning his head slightly in the direction I indicated, he saw the creepy woman who damned us to Hell years ago.
His arm tightened around my mother’s waist, trying to protect her from this old evil.
But it was too late. As they lowered my father’s casket into the ground, my mother saw Drusilla as she returned from throwing dirt onto the coffin, which was to be the final resting place of the love of her life. Kissing William on the cheek, she let go of his hand to wander over to her estranged mother. By now, William had his arm clutched around my waist as we watched the conversation going on between the two women. We watched them intently, but we could not make out what they were saying. By the way my mother was shaking her head and watching the fresh tears run down her face, we could tell Drusilla was upsetting her further. With a final shake of her head, my mother turned away from grandmother and William finally loosened his grip on my hip.
Later that night, Will and I lay on his bed thinking about the day. Mother didn’t let us in on the conversation that she shared with Drusilla. In fact, she pointedly avoided us for the rest of the day. We both knew what the other was thinking, but as of yet neither of us broached the subject.
Finally, I settled deeper into Will’s arms, laying my head in the crook of his shoulder. As his fingers tangled into my hair, I asked, “What do you think they were talking about?”
“I don’t know. ‘Bout dad I suppose.”
“But she was upset. It had to be more than dad. What about grandfather?” I whispered his name as if it was the Devil’s.
In a far off voice, he replied, “Yeah, probably that. Maybe she was trying to get mom to visit him again. Get her while she’s vulnerable.”
I tightened my grip on Will’s arm. I didn’t get a good sense from my grandmother the two times I met her. I shuddered at the thought of my grandfather, “Do you think she will go?”
Will felt the shiver run through my body and held me tighter. He placed a light kiss on my head and shook his head, “It doesn’t matter. We’ll stay together. I’ll protect you. All of you. I promise you that.”