A Hurt Too Deep
by Christine Morgan
https://christine-morgan.com/
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Copyright 2010 by Christine Morgan. All Rights Reserved.
A HURT TOO DEEP
Ask not for whom the luxury car tolls, Steffa thought. It tolls for me.
The closer she got to it, the more Steffa's muscles tensed. She was tempted to tilt her umbrella down to hide her face, becoming just one more anonymous figure in the hurrying after-work crowd.
No. Damned if she was going to let that car chase her away from her own home. Such as it was, this dingy brick apartment building a world away from the life she'd once known.
She recoiled when the front door was pulled open from within before her key could slide into the slot.
"Good evening, Ms. Langley."
His posture and grooming and uniform were perfect, his eyes clouded with just the right amount of deferent indifference. Indifference to the shabby surroundings of the dim foyer, indifference to the expression on her face.
"Wrong, Andrews," Steffa said, striving for a steady tone. "My name is Smith now."
The chauffeur inclined his head. "Of course."
She made to move past him. Andrews blocked her path without managing to seem rude.
"Mrs. Vandermere would like a word."
So it was the grande dame herself who deigned to visit? Chet's mother. Imagine that.
"Would she really?" Steffa met his gaze as best she could. "Here's two."
Andrews blanched as she uttered them. She seized the opportunity to slip past him for the stairwell.
Her heart was pounding from more than the exertion of three flights of stairs. Steffa tried to tell herself it was indignation that made her mouth go dry and her hands go clammy. Indignation.
"Stephanie."
Steffa's purse and keys fell to the threadbare hallway carpet. Her mouth, arid a moment ago, was flooded with acidic saliva.
Virginia Vandermere was in front of her door. Not a silvery hair was out of place, no stray raindrops on her cashmere coat. The rain simply didn't dare fall on a woman such as this.
Steffa bent and snatched up her belongings. She might swear at Andrews, but now her defiance wavered.
"Stephanie, I need to speak to you," Virginia said.
"Andrews can give you my message." A shame he wouldn't deliver it verbatim.
She spared a brief and thankful thought that the manager hadn't gone so far as to let Virginia into the apartment. The hall, threadbare carpet and vague odor of cat pee, was bad enough.
"You are needed at home."
"This is my home now."
A door halfway down the hall opened, and Mr. Harper, the grey-haired widower in 3-E, poked his head out.
"Steffa? Everything all right out here?"
"Fine, Mr. Harper. We're done. Sorry to disturb you."
He looked puzzled, but retreated into his apartment.
"I have come a long way, a very long way, to find you, Stephanie," Virginia said, showing no sign of moving aside. "Longer than you know."
"I don't see why I should care."
"Family –"
"Don't you tell me family," Steffa said through clenched teeth. She started forward, not expecting Virginia to give way, and was surprised when the older woman drew back.
The iciness around her was palpable, raising goose bumps on Steffa's already chilled skin.
She let herself in, opening the door only as much as she needed to slip through, and closing it quickly behind her. She poked her eye to the peephole's lens.
The hallway was empty. Virginia had gone.
Given up? Just like that?
Was the woman really going to let it go?
Steffa thought about the car. Not a rental. The car, the same jet-black showpiece that she remembered. Why would Virginia have Andrews drive her hundreds of miles, only to turn and leave when Steffa refused to hear her out? Why drive the distance, anyway? Why not fly? Or call?
Speaking of which ...
She went to the telephone and punched in a long-distance number. That she still had it by heart after ten years only disgusted her.
He answered on the third ring. "Hello?" His voice was hoarse, and thick, and she wondered if he'd been drinking.
"Call her off, Chet. You have no right to butt into my life, and neither does she."
"Stephanie?"
"I don’t know what this is about and I don't care. If it's the alimony, if she thinks I don't deserve it, then tell your lawyer to quit sending the checks. I can get by on my own. I never wanted your damn money anyway."
"Stephanie, what are you talking about?"
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Maybe she runs you, and my sister, and everybody else in Hartford Cove, but she doesn't run me. Not any more. Got it?"
"What? Wait. I don't understand. Things here ... everything's such a mess ..." He paused, and with the clarity of memory's eye, Steffa could see him running his fingers through the thick golden hair that had so captivated her when they were teenagers.
Steffa said, "I just want you to call her off."
"Who?"
"Your mother, Chet! Who did you think, the Tooth Fairy? Get her off my back. Stand up to her for once."
"My ... Stephanie, my mother –"
She hung up on his bewilderment, and yanked the plug on the phone in case he tried to call her back.
Her next act was to ring the manager's apartment. He protested that he hadn't let anyone in, told her haughtily that he knew how to run an apartment building, thank you, and hung up on her.
She lay wakeful until long past midnight, staring at the changing patterns of city light that filtered around the edges of the shade.
Unwanted memories of a different place and a different time, and a much different Steffa, bombarded her thoughts. Riding lessons and piano recitals, finishing school, debutante ball.
That girl was long gone, and Steffa was glad. Glad to have escaped Hartford Cove. Glad to do real work, grocery shopping, cooking, house cleaning.
She woke feeling like she'd spent the night on an Inquisitor's rack. A hot shower improved her physical state, if not her mental one.
Mrs. Graeme from across the hall was headed out with her laundry basket as Steffa emerged dressed for work. They exchanged greetings.
Steffa hesitated, then said, "Did you happen to notice if there was a car parked out front? A fancy one, black, tinted windows?"
"No, dear," Mrs. Graeme said, using her foot to hold back a fat and curious calico cat. "Only that eyesore of Harper's. Someone should take a torch to that thing, they should."
Steffa was chagrined at how relieved she felt. She went downstairs, crossed the foyer, saw the car in the same spot it had been yesterday, and halted.
A fuming anger bubbled up inside her. So much for Mrs. Graeme's powers of observance.
Andrews was waiting patiently beside the car, posture straight as ever. People passed him without a second look. He tipped his head toward her as she emerged from the building.
"Ms. Smith."
"What do you think you're doing?" Steffa asked.
"Providing you with a ride to work." The faintest hint of a smirk hid beneath his carefully neutral expression. A Langley with a job? "Mrs. Vandermere thought you and she might converse on the way."
Without waiting for her reply, Andrews opened the rear door. Steffa glimpsed Virginia Vandermere waiting in the car's shadowy interior.
"Stephanie. Please."
She had never heard Virginia use that word in that tone, and it startled her into compliance. Thankful that none of her neighbors were gawking at the sidewalk drama, she let herself be ushered by Andrews into
the dusky gloom of tinted glass.
The car sank briefly to the left as Andrews got behind the wheel. The front and rear seats were divided by a privacy screen. Steffa held herself stiff, not daring to relax into the remembered comfort of real leather.
"All right," she said. "What?"
"There has been an accident," Virginia said. She paused, taking a slow breath, while Steffa's mind suddenly raced with thoughts of her parents, her sister. "A car wreck. Chelsea has been hurt. She is in the hospital. Her kidneys were badly damaged. She needs a transplant, Stephanie, and none of the rest of the family match as potential donors."
Steffa's jaw dropped.
"I want you to be tested," Virginia said. "You are her only other living relative. Otherwise, Chelsea will go on a waiting list, and I do not have to tell you what those prospects are like."
"You want me to give Chelsea a kidney," Steffa said slowly. "One of mine."
"Yes."
"Why? What have any of you ever done for me that I should disrupt my life, and put my health at risk in surgery?"
"I do hope you are not about to dredge up that prior unpleasantness."
"Unpleasantness!" Steffa heard herself voice a shrill laugh. "Is that what you call it?"
"You are the one who chose to leave," Virginia said. She gestured at the streets, storefronts with graffiti, bus stops with metal dividers in the benches to prevent them