Eye of the Storm (Hudson 3)

"The least I can do is take care of her daughter," she said and flicked off the light leaving me once again in complete and utter darkness.

13

A Love Discovered

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Forbidding her to move in with me was one

thing, but enforcing that prohibition was another. If I believed my life before Aunt Victoria moved into the house was difficult, it now seemed those days had been nothing less than a picnic compared to what life would now be like.

At first I thought she can't really be serious about living here with me. It was just another idle threat, something else to get me to cooperate with her as far as Grandmother Hudson's will and our business interests were concerned, especially after I had threatened not to be cooperative.

However. I should have realized that the maddening light I had seen in her eyes the night of the storm was not similar to the lightning, a temporary flash of anger. Something evil and dark had been festering like an open sore in her ever since she had learned my mother was being released from the mental clinic and Grant was not only taking her back, but still trying to make their marriage a success. despite Brody's tragic death and my mother's secret past.

Of course. I had no concept of just what Aunt Victoria had been doing behind the scenes, how much time and effort she had invested in undermining my mother's marriage. I imagined she was like Iago in Othello, whispering tempestuous thoughts in Grant's ear, reminding him of my existence and the dark night of Brody's unnecessary death. Just as she had been talking negatively about my mother to me, she must have been filling Grant's mind with images of Megan as a spoiled girl who always had someone cover up her blunders and keep her from feeling any regrets.

"She never had to let go of her security blanket. not Megan," Aunt Victoria bitterly remarked to me and surely now to Grant.

Grant surely loved my mother very much. I thought, to forgive her for her past, to not blame her for the death of their son, to want her to recuperate and go on with their marriage. In the face of that determination. Aunt Victoria's insidious remarks and poisonous whispers must have been ineffective and discarded. Perhaps Grant had finally seen who and what she was and turned her away unceremoniously. If she mentioned him at all now, it was always bitterly, always with reference to the stupidity and selfishness all men shared, always depicting him as a willing victim of my mother's little deceits. For her descriptions of him to have undergone such a radical change-- from the man of her dreams, the man she claimed she deserved and who deserved her, to the blithering idiot led by the nose that he had become-- Grant surely had to have rejected her sharply and firmly.

Rebuffed, spun around and sent away, she now turned her venomous eyes on me, seeing me as the cause of it all. In her twisted logic, she went so far as to conclude that because I had returned and because Brody had been killed, my mother was able to win back Grant's love through his pity, a love Aunt Victoria otherwise might have won for herself.

"I know my sister well," she said bitterly. She knew that if she pretended to be weak and sick and full of remorse. Grant would be blind to her basic weaknesses. She's happy you're here, happy you're crippled and even happier you've created all these problems. It gives her more opportunity to moan and groan and cry. I wonder how many times Grant's been made to kiss away her crocodile tears and urge her not to be sad, promising her a new day."

Aunt Victoria would rattle on and on like this the first few days after she had moved back into the house. I had sat in utter disbelief, watching from my wheelchair as two men she had hired carried in her things, which not only included trunks of clothing and personal items, but cartons of files that they brought to Grandfather Hudson's old office. She took it over completely and had business machines, faxes, copiers and her computer hooked up. Upstairs, she moved into what had once been her room.

I wanted to call my attorney and complain. but I was afraid of how angry that would make her and how she might take it out on poor Austin and his uncle.

The same day she moved in, she hired a new maid, but not a live-in. The new woman's name was Mrs. Churchwell and she was well into her fifties, a widow who was left after her husband's death with barely enough insurance to survive.; she therefore hired herself out for part-time work. She was dour with brown and gray hair cropped short, the strands thin and hard like wire. Her beady dray eyes were always watery and the lines etched in her thin, pale face resembled scars more than wrinkles because they were deep and scattered over her chin and cheeks randomly, suggesting scratches and tears in her thin, sickly and almost translucent skin. She was as tall as Aunt Victoria, and when they stood beside each other in the dimly lit hallway, their nearly indistinguishable figures made Mrs. Churchwell resemble a shadow Aunt Victoria had cast.

It was clear from the start that Mrs. Churchwell was terrified of my aunt and wanted to please her and keep the job and what were apparently generous wages, generous especially coming from my aunt. However. Aunt Victoria had ulterior motives for providing such an ample salary. She wanted Mrs. Churchwell's complete loyalty and obedience, especially as it regarded anything to do with me. Unlike Mrs. Bogart who became a willing tattletale. Mrs. Churchwell was deliberately planted like some living bug device to report any contact I had with the outside world, especially any contact with Austin. Whenever my Aunt Victoria wasn't there. Mrs. Churchwell was there to watch where I would go the moment I wanted to leave the house. When I looked back. I saw her face at the window.

After the storm, the phones were repaired, but for some reason, mine remained out of order. I was told the wiring had to be completely redone and that had to wait for other repairs the company had to make in the area. So, if the phone rang in the house. Mrs. Churchwell usually got to it first, claiming it was someone soliciting. I couldn't imagine Austin not trying to call me and yet I didn't want to risk calling him and causing any more trouble. I didn't learn until nearly a week after she had moved in that my aunt had the number changed and unlisted. Neither Mrs. Churchwell nor my aunt volunteered the information.

Mrs. Churchwell. unlike Mrs. Bogart, had no experience with someone in my condition. She was truly only a maid and a cook. Once I learned her relationship with my aunt. I wanted her around me less and less anyway. The feeling was mutual. The sight of me displeased her, and not only because I was handicapped. It was pretty clear to me after only a day or so that she was qu

ite prejudiced and was put off by my having a black father. If and whenever she spoke to me, she always looked away as if she could convince herself she wasn't really talking to me and definitely not working for me.

She was a mediocre cook. I told my aunt so immediately, but that didn't seem to matter. I started to cook for myself, which displeased Mrs.

Churchwell.

"I was hired to do the cookin'," she told me the first time I went into the kitchen and started to prepare something.

I paused, looked at her and said. "That's not what you were hired for. And you weren't hired only to clean and maintain the house either."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean,' she said, but before I could elaborate, she left the kitchen. Somehow, despite my being in a wheelchair and relatively helpless most of the time, she seemed intimidated by me and couldn't face me down. I borrowed from the memory of my stepsister Beneatha's angry eyes for inspiration.

It turns out Austin had called that first week before the telephone number had been changed. My aunt told me later that she had answered so he didn't speak. She knew the silence on the other end was Austin's silence and later came to tell me so.

"It looks like that young man is not listening to his uncle," she said. "I know he's trying to reach you despite the warnings. As soon as he heard my voice, he didn't speak. but I knew it was your fortune hunter."

"Stop calling him that and anyway, you have no right to stop him from calling or seeing me," I told her.

"If I ever see him near this house or you. I'll reinstate the legal proceedings against his uncle and have his license revoked and you know I can do that," she threatened.

"Why are you doing this?" I cried.