CHAPTER 24: BRACING FOR IMPACT Part 2

DEB:

As we pull up to Alex Wilder’s residence, all I can think is WOW! This not a just a simple house like I was expecting; it’s a fucking estate! I’ve never been to one of these, much less invited to one, except for one time. It was the day of girls’ wedding. Such a beautiful day, which costs Brian a small fortune to get together in a hurry so that they could get married on time. When I think of the things he’s done for others, I can’t quite figure out why I’ve treated him the way I have. All I know is that I’ve never wanted him to leave me, and now he has. I don’t know how to accept that.

I spent most of Saturday and yesterday cooking, hoping against hope that he- that anybody- would come by. But by last night, I realized just what the repercussions of my own motives and culpability in Michael’s game had done. Hell, not even my own son called to check on me! So I decided to read exactly what was in that cursed packet to try to get a handle on what the real issues were. They couldn’t be as trivial as money, right? But it WAS about the money, however it was more than glaringly obvious that it was mostly about the lies Michael and I told to get it.

Heartbroken by my own deceit, I took a page out of Joan Kinney’s book and started drinking to forget. Then I remembered the joints I had stashed away; joints that Brian and I sat smoking and rolling the day after he was fired from Vanguard, and decided that if all I was going to have were my memories of our talks, it would have to be enough. Six joints and three full bottles of Skyy later, I woke up to find Vic, Rodney, and Alex, looking down on me from my position on the floor.

I must admit that in one breath, I was happy to see that my brother had not forgotten me. But then I remembered how he sat across from me at the table in the conference room, his own eyes full of anger and censure while listening to Brian, Justin, Hunter, Ben, Ted, Melanie, and Emmett berate us. I must admit that hurt worst of all, but then he spoke and I could no longer deny anything he said. And that angered me because he was right! He was speaking aloud all the doubts I had been having about Michael’s loyalty to me for a long time. Doubts that I thought were simply the product of my overactive imagination, but as I looked at all of the paperwork, each and every one of them were confirmed in more ways than one. All of my fears, the ones I was trying with all my might to prevent by standing with Michael, are coming true, and I… I just don’t know how to stop it.

“Well, here we are, Deb,” Alex tells me. “What do you think of the place?”

“Place? It’s a fucking palace!” I answer, still in awe.

“Nah. To me, it’s just home.” He gets out and comes around the car to let me out. Those gentlemanly manners are something Brian, Justin, and Ted had always done for me. Vic, Rodney, and Emmett, too. The only one that never thought of me as a lady was… My thoughts are interrupted again by Alex. “Come on, Miss Debra. Let’s get you comfortable and fix you something to eat. I don’t imagine you’ve done much of that in the last few days.”

The care and concern in his voice is almost overwhelming as I push back the tears threatening to spill. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because although none of us are pleased with your behavior, you still deserve kindness. Besides, you were always kind to me when I stopped in the Diner.”

“I don’t want your pity! I don’t deserve it!”

“I would never offer that to you, Deb, because I would never want it either. What makes you think that being kind is synonymous with offering pity?”

“It stems from our parents, Alex,” Vic answers him. “Especially in the later years, it was only a matter of doing what you were supposed to be doing for them, or trying to infantilize. There was no such thing as kindness. I’ve learned the difference in later years after I got sick, but Deb’s never had the opportunity.”

He nods but then looks at me straight in my eyes and asks, “Is that where the idea that everyone owes you came from?”

I have to think about that for a second. Every time my parents did something a little extra for me, they would tell me that. It could be something that meant a lot to me, like coming to the school concerts my class was putting on, or in later years, buying me an extra pair of shoes before the next quarterly budget when we usually went shopping because my own didn’t fit anymore. My life was full of checks and balances, and apparently, it stuck. So no, there was no such thing as a basic human kindness that didn’t have to be repaid in one form or another.

“Yeah, it is. Although our parents were well off, they constantly made it clear to Vic and I that we were poor; that as long as we had the food, shelter, and clothes they were supposed to give us for our well-being, all the extra little things they did for us were something that we would pay for later.”

“And you continued the cycle with everyone…”

I sigh and drop my eyes. “Except Michael.”

“Yes, except Michael. I have to wonder why that is.”

“Because he didn’t ask to be born.”

“True, but neither did you or Vic.”

“Well that’s true, but I’ve… well I’ve always tried to make sure Michael had a good life.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. As a matter of opinion, you did the best you could with the tools you were given at the time. I understand that you once wanted to be a nurse.” I nod, and smile at the dreams I had let go because of my mistake. “That’s an admirable profession. So why did you curtail your dreams just because you had a child? I’m sure there were plenty of grants and programs back then that would have helped your towards your goals.”

Again, I have to stop and think about that. It was the year of 1970. “Not many. The women’s rights movement was in full swing, but there just didn’t seem to be many opportunities here in Pittsburgh at the time. Sure, I could go to school, but I also had a baby to look after. I was exhausted most of the time, and any extra money I had I would use to stock up on the things Michael needed and wanted.”

“I can understand that, but why not later on?”

“I don’t know, except by then my life just became about being Michael’s mother, and whatever it entailed.”

He nods before saying, “Deb, I’ll be honest with you. We brought you here to rediscover yourself. You’ve been so lost in being Michael’s Ma, that being Debra Jane Grassi has died a miserable death over time. So now you have a decision to make. Do you want to resurrect her, or continue just being Michael’s Ma, which is just a tool he uses to make people bow down to his wishes? I don’t want you to answer just yet, but think about it. I also want you to talk to my partner, Stephen. He was in a similar situation at one time with his twin brother. After you hear what he has to say, I’m going to give you a bit more time to process things in your own way and time. Fair?”

“Yes, that’s fair. And thank you for letting me know in advance what’s going to happen. The element of surprise has now become a minefield for me. I used to love surprises but now…”

“I understand better than you think, Deb. But understand this: just as you were surprised, so were Brian and Justin, and none of you were surprised in good ways. So about the best we can do right now is to move on and help you learn to live again; to become the independent woman you’ve allowed to be suffocated all these years through misplaced guilt. The first thing you have to know and remember is loyalty to your true self. You can’t sit there and tell me that everything you’ve done in support of Michael’s goals has been something you’ve always felt good about, can you?”

“No, I can’t. But what mother doesn’t want to help her child achieve their dreams?”

“True, but only those parents who have lost themselves in their children would allow those dreams to be met at the expense of others. It’s something to think about. But in the meantime, let’s go have some lunch. I have a new panini press I’ve been dying to try out.”

We all sat in the kitchen around the island as Alex worked his magic in the kitchen. His partner, Stephen Abrams came in, and between the two of them, we all had custom paninis, a side of perfect crispy steak fries and virgin Strawberry Daiquiris. After my shower back at the house, I felt a little better, but now I feel a whole lot more relaxed. I suppose that the atmosphere, and the fact that for the first time in my life I’m not expected to do anything but sit back and enjoy myself has a lot to do with it.

“Walk with me, Deb,” Stephen says as he extends his arm to me. We walk away from the others coming to stop at the pool overlooking the vast estate. At first, I’m a little apprehensive, but he immediately puts me at ease “What I am about to tell you is for your ears alone. Of course, Alex knows my story. He’s been with me a long time; it is only fair that he should. As for Vic and Rodney, I’m not sure how much Alex has told them, but I wanted you to hear it all directly from me.”

“Well, I appreciate that. You don’t even know me, and you believe that I will keep your confidence?”

“I do. This story is very personal to me, and one that I rarely share. But Alex told me you needed to hear it.”

“If it’s too hard…”

He smiles gently at me, then looks back over the water. “It used to be, but now I don’t look at myself as a victim of it all, but as a survivor.” He leans back in his chair, making himself more comfortable, so I do the same. He then takes a deep cleansing breath, and I can already tell he’s back in a time I suspect hasn’t been so long ago. “My brother- my twin brother- is now serving time in jail for killing our parents and our two younger brothers. The thing that makes this so tragic is not that he almost got away with it, but that he was willing to blame me for it all entirely. Because we’re identical, the only thing that would have exonerated me is that even identical twins have some major differences. For example, we have different hand and footprints, even if they are partially similar to the untrained eye.

“Well, the day that Sean decided to kill our family, I was driving to my grandfather’s estate in Brookville, New York. My father and I had a huge argument over my inheritance and what I had planned to do with it. As the elder brother, I was expected to follow in my father’s footsteps and run the corporation so he could retire. You’ve heard of Abrams Autos, right?” At my affirmative nod, he continues. “Well, there are exactly 86 other companies beneath that umbrella. At the time, my father had just opened the first of the franchise stores where anyone who owned one of our cars could get it serviced or buy parts if necessary. He had my life all mapped out for me, and I was set to follow it and be miserable, until my grandfather passed. I had no notion that my grandfather had put codicil in his will that I was to take my inheritance and pursue my dream of becoming a restaurateur. He was the only one I’d ever told that I wanted to do that, but he also knew I would honor my father’s plan.

"Clarence Abrams was the type of man who used my inheritance like an anvil over my head to control me. If I didn’t do as he said, everything- and I mean EVERYTHING- would be taken from me. I would have no family, no money… basically no future. He even controlled the people I was allowed to be friends with. Consequently he ignored Sean, who was ready, willing and able to step in as the head of all things Abrams. Cars, and all that entailed, was Sean’s passion. So when I stormed out of the house after telling my father that he could go on and disown me if he wanted to, that I was going to live my life as I saw fit thanks to Grandfather, Sean went in to plead with him to let him have the company.”

“I take it your father said no?” I ask quietly, already dreading the answer.

“He did. And it angered Sean to the point where he began to formulate a plan. He waited until everyone was asleep that night, then entered the house through the garage. The funny thing is that my father was very thorough, and once Sean and I came of age, we each had our own passwords and codes to the alarm systems. Somehow, Sean found out mine and punched it in. That’s what the police and DA used as the basis to charge me with the murders.”

“Are you shitting me?!”

“I wish I was. Sean also knew that the argument my father and I had would have me fleeing to Brookville, so he used my alibi before the police even had a chance to question me. The crime scene was… gruesome, to say the least. Even though I kept screaming to the tops of my lungs that it wasn’t me who did it, Sean made sure that everything pointed to me. I had been in jail for almost three years before the whole truth came out.”

‘How?” I can’t help but be fascinated by this. It sounds almost like what Michael had planned to do to me according to that packet I read.

“There’s an old saying that if you want to get away with murder, don’t tell a soul. Sadly for Sean, he talks in his sleep. He assumed control of the company and married my father’s former mistress’ daughter. Linda was a such sweet woman, who really did love my brother. They were expecting their first child. One night, he replayed the entire scenario over and over as he slept, and she heard every part and parcel of it. He even spoke of where he hid the murder weapons. When he woke up the next morning, Linda made the mistake of questioning him about it.

"At first, he denied it, telling her she was crazy. So she played back his rambling confession from the night before. He began to beat her mercilessly. By the time he finished, she was unrecognizable… but she was alive. My brother thought she was dead, and had left the house to go get cleaning supplies so that he could dispose of the body and wipe away all evidence. But as sweet as Linda is, she was also a fighter. She managed to drag herself to the phone and call 9-1-1, then called her mother to come with her to the hospital. Thankfully, her mother, Shirley, lived just around the corner from where they settled.

"Before passing out, Linda told her mother where to find the tape of Sean’s confession. Shirley then handed it over to the police, just minutes before Sean arrived back to the house. He was taken into custody for Domestic Violence, but after they finally heard the tape, he was charged with the murders of my parents and brothers. He was also charged with the attempted murder of Linda James-Abrams, and the murder of their eight month old child, who was stillborn as a result of the abuse.” His voice finally trails off, and I see one shining tear trickle down his cheek.

“I want to ask you if you’re okay, but that is such a dumb fucking question.”

He laughs, and it does my heart good to be able to at least give him that. “I won’t lie. Everyday I make a conscious effort not to be angry; not to be bitter about not being able to make things right with my father. He may have been a bastard, but he was still ‘Dad’, you know?” I nod, because I feel the same way about my parents sometimes. Even though they kicked me and Vic out, and treated us like mere inconveniences on the best of days, they were still the first people we looked to for love and acceptance. “So now, knowing my story, you have your own decision to make, Deb.”

“I know,” I say quietly. “But how do I just let go of my son?”

“The same way I had to let go of Sean, Deb. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him. I always have, and still do. We shared much more than just a womb. We shared a life, but if it wasn’t for his greed and jealousy, we still would be. He tried to blame me, even after he got convicted. Nothing was ever his fault. It was my fault that I was born first; it was my fault that he’d always had to work five times as hard to succeed where it just came almost naturally to me; it was my fault that he was never noticed by our father enough to receive the brow beatings I got. It’s funny that while he was wishing Dad had taken a shine to him, I was just hoping that he would leave me alone. And now he has, but at the hands of my brother. Be careful what you wish for indeed, right?”

“Yeah. So how did you do it, Stephen? How did you just pick up and move on?”

He smiles at me again. “One step at a time. For one thing, I forgave myself for whatever part of his downfall I might have played- intentionally or not. It wasn’t that I wasn’t sympathetic to his plight within the family, but I was also dealing with the weight of it from a different perspective. I keep thinking, ‘maybe if I’d paid attention to him more’, or ‘maybe if I had just accepted our father’s will and then let Sean have a piece of it without telling Dad’. But the truth of the matter is that Sean would never have been satisfied no matter what I did, so I stopped making excuses for him, and forgave myself because I did. The second thing is to find something else worthwhile to fill your time. For me, it was that I worked my ass off to become the restaurateur I wanted to be in spite of it all. Sure, I still run Abrams Auto, which is my career. But Brenda’s is my passion.”

I gasp. “You’re the owner of Brenda’s Fine Dining and Foods?”

“Indeed I am. The other request my grandfather made of me was to name my restaurants after my grandmother. Theirs was a love story for all time. He’d met her when he was visiting his grandparents in New Orleans at five years old. They became fast friends, and at ten, he proposed and presented her with a candied bracelet. She told him that he was a fool, but she would accept his proposal the day they graduated college. Years later, he went off to war, thinking that by the time he returned, she would have been married with a couple of kids. So it was to his surprise that she was there with his mom and dad the day he returned home, wearing her engagement bracelet. They were married for over fifty years when she passed. Grandfather followed her ten years later and was buried with that old candied bracelet beside her. I remember asking him once how it survived all the many years they were together, and he told me that love kept it together.”

I wipe the tears from my eyes. “I’ve never had that. It’s always been about me and my kid.”

“Well Deb, it’s not too late.”

“What are you talking about? I’m… well let’s just say time has flown by and I barely even noticed, but my hips and knees sure do.”

He chuckles. “Well, let’s start small, shall we? How about doing something that you have always wanted to do?”

“Being a nurse would take too much time.”

“That might be true, but what else have you got except time?” he asks, but then a light enters his eyes. “There is one more thing that I suspect you’re good at, and that’s managing people. I’m expanding Brenda’s to include the bed and breakfast side of the hospitality business. If you’re willing to go back to school- not full time, at first- but to take a few classes, I’m pretty sure you could excel at it. You might not be saving lives in the medical sense, but then again, you might be saving folks’ sanity, and trust me, that’s just as important. Sane people don’t go postal. If you look at it that way, it’s a very important service to the community.”

I laugh. “When you put it that way, it makes perfect sense. You should go into advertising. It’s something Brian would say.” My smile disappears at the thought of him and Justin, and I sigh. “What am I going to do about them, Stephen? I’m being forced to choose between them and my son.”

“It may seem that way, but let me ask. Have Brian and Justin ever put that demand on you?”

“No, they haven’t. Even in this, it’s like they just accepted that they would lose the connection to me.”

“Now has Michael asked that of you? Only I’m not talking about choosing between Brian and Justin or the others, but choosing him over yourself?”

I snicker. “Every day that he’s breathed.”

“Well there you have it. Do you see the way Vic is there for you, even though he’s angry at what you did?” I nod. “Then I’m going to say this: Be there for Michael if you must, but do it for the right reasons. And stop letting him rule your life, Deb! His choices are just that…. HIS. You have your own life to reclaim. Let him sleep in the bed he’s made for once! It’s time for you to become Debra Jane Grassi, and not continue to be a mere extension of a grown man. That’s the woman I’m offering a job to right now, and not Michael’s Ma. Can you do that?”

I mentally go over all of the information I’ve been given; all of the bullshit I have taken part in, and know that I want to change. I know that everyone may not forgive me for my part in the mess, but the least I can do for myself is become a better person. After that, I guess we’ll see.

I take his hand, and give him a lipsticky kiss on the cheek. “I accept your offer.”

“Great! I’m proud of you, Deb. You’re showing real courage, but then I never thought that you wouldn’t. Is there anything else we can do to make this transition a bit easier?”

I swallow hard, knowing that what I am about to ask is way out of the box and over the top. But I have to ask anyway. “Stephen… my house… I’m afraid that… If Michael...”

“Say no more. If I’m not mistaken, Vic has already prepared for you to either remain here or find you someplace to go should you have made this decision. Your brother and his partner are smart men, but they are also compassionate. I think we all know what the chances are of you succeeding if Michael was able to get ahold of you just now. So for this week, at least, you can stay here. And perhaps you have some more decisions to make going forward, but again, let’s start small. Let’s go look for some classes that will not only keep you busy, but will also get you started to becoming Debbie again. Okay?”

“Yeah, let’s go do that!” I get up and latch onto Stephen’s arm thinking And you know what, Deb? It really is and will be OKAY!