"She's good," Kris said. Ellen found herself nodding. Not really agreeing so much as acknowledging his words.
Then came the words she didn't know she had been dreading, until they were spoken, "I bet you'd love to play on this piano. It's gorgeous!"
And it all came apart inside.
Guilt. Anger. Fear. All the various emotions she kept in various little boxes got out at once. They got out of their boxes, and she could not handle their combined intensity. She felt overwhelmed.
"Let's go," she whispered, though she wanted to shout.
"What?" Kris asked, clearly confused.
"Let's go!" she insisted, tugging on his hand.
"But, why?" he asked, though he came along with her tug.
"I … I just can't stay here anymore."
* * *
They sat near a structure that looked like a Greek temple. Tall, fluted columns of marble held up a round roof. A bright yellow rope ran from column to column, indicating that access to the structure's interior was not permitted. Within the structure was more marble, shaped roughly like a rectangle and covered with decorations. It was a mausoleum. The bodies of the owners of the grand house she had fled were lying only feet away. She had no plan when she fled, only to get away. That they would end up here was at least ironic. Perhaps something more.
They were alone. Far away along a winding path, she could see people walk by, going their way as they wandered the gardens. None of them turned toward the mausoleum. She supposed it was not the most popular of destinations.
The feeling of being overwhelmed had not led to screams nor being overtaken by sobs. Only a few tears had accumulated at the corners of her eyes. She was a bit surprised. It had felt for a moment as if it would all come bursting out.
Kris sat holding her hand. For some moments, she felt his eyes staring into hers, searching for clues. After some moments, he squeezed her hand and turned his gaze away, sliding in to sit close beside her.
"It was the piano." Kris turned to look at her and nodded. It was the piano, and yet it was not the piano. "Actually, it was …," she stopped again. "The piano was my whole life for a time. It was that thing that I did best. Not in comparison with other people, though perhaps that as well, but compared to all of the other things I had tried to do. I learned to play early. And I loved it. Oh, I hated practicing at times. And there were a few times when I would have pitched ours off of a cliff, had one been nearby. But I loved it.
"I entered competitions and won some of those. We attended church sporadically for a couple years when I was about 9, and I played there. I did piano solos a few times. I even played for the choir once when they were really stuck."
She paused again, before asking, "You want to know a secret?"
"You secretly hated it?"
Ellen found herself laughing. That was the last thing she expected to be able to do with the chaos running around in her heart. She was glad she had found someone who could do the unexpected from time to time.
"No. Not … exactly." The laughter died. Tears flooded in to replace the chuckles. "Actually at some point, I did come to dread it. However, that is not the secret."
This time Kris said nothing, only squeezed her hand.
"My folks had grown … cold. When I was in fifth grade or so, they had fought a lot for awhile. Over everything. I don't really remember what. I remember that I thought some of it was really stupid. Then at some point they stopped. They replaced the arguments with … ice. They talked to each other. The family ran on schedule. Things got done. However, they didn't touch each others lives. They didn't touch each other at all.
"I was thirteen. I think it was a few weeks after my birthday. I had a short day at school. Mom had said that Dad would be at home when I got there. I walked home like normal. Only when I got there, before I could go in, I heard a giggle. It sounded like a woman's voice. A bit like my Mother's voice, actually. A bit like when my Mom and Dad had gotten along. In my innocence, I thought maybe my Mom had come home early. And that …"
Ellen paused, overcome by the innocence of that young girl. She remembered the flare of hope that had filled her heart. And was crushed a moment later.
"And that, maybe they were getting along together again." Tears trickled down her cheeks. "I wanted them to be happy together again. I wanted us to be happy together again.
"So, I snuck around the side of the house and looked in the living room window. I saw two people, sure enough. A man and a woman. I couldn't see either face. My father's back was to me, but I could see that he was naked. My mother was wearing only a bra. They were making love. I blushed and started to move away from the window, when they changed their positions. The woman was not my mother."
"Apparently, I screamed. That's what my Dad said had happened when he came outside to investigate."
"That must have been awful."
Ellen made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sob.
"Awful doesn't describe it. I had caught my parents having sex once a few years before. I suppose every kid does. It left me feeling weird. Awkward. Embarrassed. This was all of that, doubled and then tripled. I think I threw up. It's all a bit of a muddle, but that's what I remember."
Ellen glanced over at the mausoleum. A woman lay there. Like her mother lay somewhere in a similar, but less grand plot not all that far away.
"My Father came out to investigate the scream. He was angry. He wanted to know why I was home? Why I was screaming? Was I sick? Why had I thrown up? Why hadn't I called? He went on and on, yelling at me. Telling me how bad a girl I was. How I should not have skipped out on school. He never listened to hear what I might have to say. Finally, he asked what I had seen, sneaking it into the midst of his tirade.
"When he finally let me talk, instead of telling him about the short school day, I said I had left school because I wasn't feeling well. That I had barely gotten home, when I got sick. I have no idea why I didn't tell him the truth.
"He looked at me for a moment, perhaps trying to figure out if I was lying or not, but I looked awful, I am sure, and I didn't say anything else. He gave me a half-hearted hug and took me inside. The woman was gone. He led me in to my room. Maybe I was sick or maybe I was just in shock. I threw up again."
Kris squeezed her hand tight, and said, "I … I don't know what to say."
Ellen leaned over and rested her tear covered cheek agains his shoulder. Kris put his arm around her and hugged her to him.
"I felt so awful! I had caught him. I had seen him … doing that … with another woman! I felt so dirty inside. I felt so ashamed. Like something filthy had been dumped on me. Into me."
"It had been."
Ellen lifted her head from Kris's shoulder and looked at him. "What?"
Ellen tried to take in the implications of those three words, "It had been." She couldn't quite wrap her head around them, but she felt something shifting deep within. Something from outside of her had been dumped into her. It had not come from within...
Kris went on, "Something filthy had been dumped into you. It wasn't your filth, and yet there it was. You hadn't done anything wrong."
"What do you mean, 'You hadn't done anything wrong?'" Ellen wondered at those words, even as she questioned them. They sounded good, but they were just a siren call, were they not? To believe in them would dash her into the rocks. Her father had yelled at her. He had told her it was her fault. He had said so!
"I mean, you hadn't done anything wrong. Name me one thing you had done wrong," he challenged.
"I … My father said …," Ellen put the words out there. "He said I was a bad girl. He swore at me!" Ellen had forgotten just how mad her father had been. He rarely used words like that around her. The sense of shame so long buried flowed over her. It was a very familiar feeling, but just as unpleasant.
"But, what exactly had you done tha
t was wrong?"
"Well, I looked in the window …"
"Nonsense. It was your house, your window and your living room. Name one thing you had actually done wrong."
She considered the question he had asked. It wasn't her fault school had let out early and her father hadn't known, or at least hadn't remembered. It was not her fault that her father had been having sex in the living room. It wasn't her fault that the woman had laughed and caught her attention. It wasn't her fault that she had seen her father having sex with another woman.
None of it was her fault? She felt another shift, deep down inside.
"No. It can't be. Daddy told me!" she said, speaking more to herself than Kris. "He couldn't have lied. He wouldn't have lied. Tell me he didn't lie!" she pleaded. For him to have lied about that, it was just too awful to bear. So much of her life was built on those words. At the same time, she heard the voice of a thirteen year old girl begging, "Tell me he lied! Please, please tell me it was all a lie."
Kris did not answer for a long, long moment. He turned, taking both of her hands in his, and looked her right in the eyes and said, "He lied."
Her whole world shuddered. The continents of her world were moving. She could almost feel the plates that formed the continents of her life shifting and reshaping. What would her world look like when it was done? Truth became lies. Lies became truth.
Her father had yelled at her, but she hadn't done anything wrong.
* * *
Ellen sat, leaning against Kris, waiting for her world to stop spinning. The odd tear traced its way down her cheeks, though she didn't know if joy or sorrow or something else entirely drew them from her.
She had no idea how much time had actually passed, but there had been a shift in the light making its way down to the grassy spot where they sat. She glanced up at the sky. The sun was not directly visible, but there was still a lot of afternoon left.
She sat up, pulling away from the warmth Kris's body had been giving her. She rubbed her arms as she felt suddenly a bit cool. She stood, still rubbing herself. Kris sat where he had been. He was looking up at her, perhaps wondering if she was leaving the privacy of the mausoleum.
She turned and looked at the carefully crafted Greek architecture of the small building. The marble construction had hardly weathered in the mere dozens of years since the mansion's former owner and his wife had been laid within.
"My mother has been dead ten years."
The words were harsh and lacked context.
"About six months after I caught my father with … that woman," Ellen was amazed. Almost twelve years had passed, and she had told no one of what she had seen. It seemed incredibly odd to just say those words aloud. She started again, her voice emotionless, like she was narrating someone else's life, "The image would not go away. The guilt did not go away. And there was this burning sense of disloyalty to my mother. I felt guilty about whatever it was that had made my father angry. At the same time, something inside of me said that I had to tell Mom. That to not tell her was somehow making me complicit with my father's ... adultery.
"Mom had probably been sick for several months at that point, though I didn't know that. There were signs of ill health, but no one was talking about them, and the ones I could see didn't seem that bad.
"In any case, I chose one day to see her when Daddy was not around," she realized she had not called her father, "Daddy," in forever. Now she called him, "Father." "Mom was sitting in a chair in the living room reading. She set the book down when I came in. I can still see her face. She looked tired. And I remember thinking her face seemed to be a bit thinner.
"She patted the arm of the chair she was in and I sat. She put her arm around my waist and squeezed. 'Mom,' I said, 'I have to tell you something.' I wonder what she might have thought I was going to tell her. In any case, she didn't actually say anything, only nodded.
"I am sure I stuttered, trying to get my words together. 'I think … I think Daddy is seeing another woman.' I remember finally blurting out. I don't know what she might have said. Before she could respond, though, she clutched at her side and moaned.
"'Mommy? Mommy, what's wrong?' She didn't answer. She waved her hand, perhaps saying she was OK. She was not OK. She was bent in half, clutching at her side. She may have tried to speak, but I couldn't figure out what she was trying to say. I got up, not knowing what to do. My father was away, so I couldn't ask him.
"She wouldn't answer. She couldn't answer. I was overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. I had made Mother sick by telling her about Father!
"I don't know how long I stood there completely frozen. I felt like a deer caught in the headlights. She never said anything, other than moaning several times. She started to fall to the floor. I caught her enough to keep her from landing with a thump, but I couldn't hold her up. She lay where she fell.
"Finally, I called 9-1-1. A fire truck with paramedics came. They took her away. My father was out of town, but one of my aunts lived nearby. I think she came and got me. I don't remember for sure."
Ellen fell silent. She had not looked at Kris since she had started talking. It felt like a band had tightened around her chest and back, like an impending heart attack. Her throat was tight. Her jaws were set. Tears had found their way to the corners of her eyes.
"A year later, she was dead. The moment I spoke the words about … about Father, she got sick. And she got sicker and sicker. I … I felt like I had killed her."
At those words, shame overwhelmed her. She pulled her arms tight about herself as if she might disappear, like a snake swallowing its own tail.
* * *
Kris rose. She could not see him. Her eyes were open, but they saw nothing. Even without the tears that flooded them, her mind's eye was far away in the hospital room where her mother lay, her body no longer moving, even to breathe. Ellen felt the pain so deep she had no idea if her body was ever going to be able to pull air into her lungs again.
Ellen knew Kris had risen because she felt his arms tight around her. She felt his body's warmth crossing between his body and hers. She felt his spirit calling to hers, though she had no idea if any words were spoken. For a moment she resisted. Only, … she trusted him.
She heard sobs. They sounded distant, and yet there was a familiarity to them. They sounded like her sobs. Tears. Her eyes were filled with tears. They overflowed and ran down her cheeks. The sobs were her sobs. The arms that held her were his. They were strong and firm. They offered support and demanded nothing in return. The lips upon her cheek were soft and warm and offered encouragement without demands.
There is always an end to tears. The human body can cry for so long, and then no longer, whether the pain has been cleansed or not. And Kris's arms wrapped her in warmth still when the tears came to an end.
Now he knew all. He knew she was the child of a faithless father. He knew that her words had led to her mother's death. The death certificate said, "cancer," however, in her heart she knew her words had killed. What a horrible power to have. She would rather not have lived than to be cursed with such potency as to kill those she loved.
Kris knew. And yet, he held her tight.
* * *
She had no idea how many times the words, "You killed her," had rattled in her head in the years since her mother's death. A thousand? Ten thousands? A thousand thousands?
"You didn't kill her."
She had said those words as well, though she had never really believed them. The hope that they were true had kept her going from time to time, but it was a vain hope. Only this time the words were not hers. They came from outside of her. Another voice. A male voice.
"What?" she asked. Her voice was relatively calm. The tears had run out and her body was no longer wracked by sobs.
"Your mother. You didn't kill her."
"No," she denied the calm voice.
"I did."
"No," the voice insisted, more firmly. "You said it yourself. 'Mom had probably been sick for several months at that point.' That's what you said."
She had said that. Why had she said that? Oh. Right. She remembered now. She had gone with her mother to one of the doctor visits near the end. He had said that she had been sick for two years. That would have been months before she talked to her mother.
Her mind was a muddle. The timing here was very important, she was sure of it. She couldn't unscramble why, though.
"So, what does that matter?"
"It means that your mother was already dying when you talked to her. In fact, she probably knew about your father."
"She already knew," Ellen said those words aloud as if she was hearing them for the first time. And in a way, she was. She had never heard them before.
Cancer had killed her mother.
"But I told her about father. And that woman. And she fell to the floor."
"Maybe she already knew. Maybe not. But that's not the point. The point is that she was sick. Already sick when you talked to her. The pain in her side was caused by the cancer. The cancer killed her."
Too many things were coming too fast. How much of what she knew was a lie? If she had not killed her mother … Then that sense of shame that came upon her in the midst of night and chewed holes in her heart was attacking the wrong person. She hadn't done it! She hadn't done it!
She pulled Kris close. She wished she knew another language beyond tears, but they were all she had. Relief spilled from her heart and onto Kris's shoulder in liquid form.
Moving On
"Dad, this is Ellen," Kris said.
If Ellen had been able to figure out how to remove those words from the English language, she would gladly have done so. "Dad." The word was so … complicated. Once in her life, it meant a man who loved and cared for her. Who loved her mother and together they had formed a family. A small place in a sometimes chaotic world where things might make sense, at least for awhile.
Then that very same man had knocked the foundations from under her world. Betrayer. Breaker of families. Liar. Cheat.
The man that Kris had called, "Dad," smiled at her. The face was ordinary. There was gray in the hair and at the temples. Lots of creases and a scar indicated the passing of years. The smile, though, was not ordinary. It started at his lips, moved out to his cheeks, then lit up his eyes. Creases at the corners of his eyes said that this face smiled a lot. She saw no deceit. She saw warmth and strength. Faithfulness. Integrity. The same things she saw in his son.