Her true motive, as suspected. What a surprise. “I did get my sense of humor from you, didn’t I?”
I sat down at the square kitchen table. My knees shook. So far so good but how would we get through the visit without one of us offending the other? She spooned four varenyky onto a plate and added sugar and sour cream. Poured two cups of tea and took the seat beside me.
“I left you a voice mail,” I said. “You didn’t return my phone call.”
“Why should I? You didn’t talk to me at your godfather’s funeral, or at the reception.”
“I walked up to you but you turned your back on me.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Oh, please, Mama.” I wasn’t making it up. She was always trying to pull my chain to make me feel miserable. In her world, guilt inspired remorse. Contrition was measured in dollars.
She stared ahead. “All those people watching and you didn’t even sit with your mother. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“We should all be ashamed of ourselves.”
“So what’s changed to make you call and show up at my house unannounced? Are you making so much money the bottom of your mattress is stuffed full? I have room under mine, you know.”
Love had been conditional in our house. Growing up it was based on scholastic achievement. Ever since I got a job, it was based on money.
“Really?” I said. “I would have guessed it would be stuffed by now with gifts from your many suitors.”
My mother was the black widow in the Uke community. Every widower and lifelong bachelor wanted to taste her cooking. I knew she’d made the varenyky for one of them. Easter Sunday was in two days. No self-respecting Ukrainian woman made varenyky during Lent, which meant the man in question had to be rich.
“There’s money and there’s New York money,” she said. “You’d think if my daughter had left me for a fancy job she would have bought me a Lexus by now. Especially given she’s driving a Porsche.”
It was a twelve-year-old car I’d bought six years ago with my first bonus. Other than my rapidly depleting savings and my paltry retirement account, it was the only hard asset I owned. A salary and bonus of a hundred thousand dollars doesn’t amount to much in New York City, where the marginal tax rate is north of fifty percent and rents are stratospheric. But there was no telling my mother any of that. The fact I’d given her the down payment on her condo didn’t matter, either. Her philosophy revolved around a single question: What have you done for me lately?
“As soon as I can afford to buy you a car, Mama, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I won’t hold my breath.”
I dug into the varenyky and momentarily forgot my agenda. Black cherries spilled open in my mouth. The juice blended with sugar while the tender dough melted with sour cream. The flavors exploded on my tongue. A moan escaped my lips. I brought my hand up quickly to cover it, but I was too late. When I glanced at my mother, I noted a curl of satisfaction on her lips. Whether she was happy I was consuming calories or deriving a cook’s pleasure, I wasn’t sure.
“Tell me why you’re here,” my mother said. “Something’s happened. You need something from me. I only hear from my children when something terrible has happened. What is it?”
I explained my suspicions about my godfather’s death and my visit to his house with Roxy. I had no choice. The minute I asked her for help with the initials, she would ask why. I decided I was better off being up-front and honest. I didn’t mention my incident with Donnie Angel at all. If I had, she would have spent the next ten minutes screaming at me for being a fool and blamed my kidnapping on my carelessness.
Her expression changed from one of surprise to disgust as I told her my story.
“Did you just make all this garbage up to irritate me,” she said, “or are you serious?”
I felt the heat rise to my face. “I’m serious. Of course I’m serious. When have you known me not to be serious?”
“Who do you think you are? Angie Dickinson?”
“Who?”
“Angie Dickinson. The actress. She was Police Woman. Did you go to police school or did you go to business school?”
“Neither, actually—”
“Don’t get wise with me, child. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. My daughter, a financial executive in New York City, wasting her vacation time solving a crime that doesn’t even exist.”
“You think he fell down the stairs?”
“You are doing this on your vacation, right?”
“Of course. Answer my question.”
“The police said he fell down the stairs. What could you possibly know that they don’t know?”
“The same thing you do. That my godfather had a fear of stairs and never, ever would have gone down to the basement on a rainy night.”
“Let me tell you something about men, child. You give a man enough wine and he’ll climb the roof of his house and dance naked under the antennas during a thunderstorm. Especially that homemade wine your godfather used to make. Why are you doing this? Do you still feel guilty about your husband’s death? Are you trying to punish yourself for some reason?”
In fact, she should have felt guilty about his death. She was the one who’d called me in Manhattan the day of his death sounding frantic. One of her suitors had gotten drunk and was about to rape her. Help me, she pleaded. Don’t call the police, I don’t want to be fodder for community gossip. And I don’t want to get this man in real trouble, she said. My former husband had just finished giving a lecture at Trinity College in Hartford. By then we were practically living separate lives, but he still had a sliver of decency about him so he took off to Rocky Hill right away at my request. He probably never saw the SUV that hit him head-on because its headlights weren’t working. Nor did he live long enough to find out my mother’s alleged assailant had left by then. The truth was that I was never convinced she was even in trouble that night. In my heart, I was certain she simply wanted to cause a commotion. As always, she just wanted attention.
“Why would I feel guilty about my husband’s death? I’m not the one who cried for help.”
My mother appeared incredulous. “I wouldn’t have had to call him if you were living near me, like a caring daughter should, would I? Obviously you must blame yourself. Obviously he’s dead today because of you.”
I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to go to her garage, get a shovel, come back in the house, and tell her I was ready to bury her if she would just please die. I couldn’t have imagined revealing the depth of my rage to anyone, and the mere thought of it inspired a new level of self-loathing. But that was the truth.
Instead of confronting her and pursuing what would undoubtedly turn out to be an illogical argument, however, I impressed myself. I stayed on point.
“Do you know anyone in the community with the initials DP?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
I explained the entry in my godfather’s calendar. At first her frown deepened with disapproval. I got the sense she thought there was something wrong with me if I was looking up entries in my deceased godfather’s address book. But she’d always liked crossword puzzles, and her expression gradually morphed into one of deep concentration.
Her eyes came alive. She looked at me and shrugged. “It’s obvious, but it’s not what you think.”
I moved forward in my seat. “It’s not?”
“No. It’s not the Ukrainian DP. It’s the English DP.”
“You know someone with those initials? Someone he was close to?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Dolly Parton.”