R.E.M. Part 8

It was obviously something Blair didn’t usually talk about. She twisted her hands and stared at a thread in the bedspread.

“I only heard bits and pieces of the background later,” she said at last. “But it’s an important part of the story. When this started, Aunt Dorian was still married to Uncle Herb. He’s Cassie’s father, but not her biological father. Her biological father was a man named David Renaldi, and when he came to town it didn’t do good things to Aunt Dorian’s marriage.”

“She cheated?” asked Todd, not at all surprised. He had a hard time imagining Dorian loving a man enough to be faithful to him.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“That about covers it.”

“Even if she didn’t actually cheat, David Renaldi knew things about her family and her past that she’d never told Herb. She’d never told anyone. She didn’t think it was their business and she just wanted to forget.” Blair sighed and leaned her head against Todd. “I know the feeling. So the more Dorian seemed drawn to David, the less Herb liked it.

“He’s a very good man. He’s the kind of man who takes in fatherless girls and treats them like his own. He believes in justice and fairness and all those things that seem like a luxury you can’t afford when your life isn’t going so well.”

Todd snorted with approval, and Blair allowed him a half-smile.

“Herb is such a nice guy that people used to wonder what he was doing with Dorian,” Blair concluded. “But it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to fight. It wasn’t that the underhanded stuff wouldn’t occur to him. You just had to push him really far before he’d do something. And this thing with Cassie’s biological father did it. He knew that Dorian sent money to her parents’ house in Ohio—”

“Don’t mention Ohio.”

“Canton, then. A woman who’d helped raise Mama and her sisters still lived in the family’s old house. Herb went there to try to find out what was so secret about Cassie being born and David’s family being the one to take her when she was a baby. Since he couldn’t get it from Aunt Dorian, he was going to get it another way.”

“And he found what he was looking for?”

“Nope. He found something else. He found out that they’d faked Mama’s death. It was something a lot of families did back then with children who weren’t… completely there.” Blair twirled her finger around her ear in the universal symbol for insane. “Mama was dangerous, she couldn’t help herself, so they sent her away. The sent her all the way to Florida.” Blair’s hands clenched into angry fists. “They put her there under a fake name. When the money ran out, the hospital couldn’t find her family and they sent her into a state institution. A state mental institution back then… God. They treated the patients worse than animals.  Nobody wanted them so nobody cared. They’d leave people in restraints for days. Patients got violent with patients. Staff got violent with patients. And somehow Mama turned up pregnant.”

Todd took one of Blair’s hands and rubbed it until her fingers loosened and threaded through his.

“Anyway,” said Blair, “Once Herb found out about this, Dorian had something new to obsess over that wasn’t David Renaldi. They went down to Florida to get Addie transferred to St. Ann’s, in Llanview. The nuns at St. Ann’s are wonderful. They’re kind and they’re patient and they made sure to get Mama’s medication just right so she could have some kind of life, even if she’ll never be able to be out of the hospital for more than a day or two.

“Then they started tracking down her baby. It had been eleven years, so it wasn’t easy to do, but they made it happen. The first time I saw them, I didn’t imagine that they were there for me. I’d been taken out of my foster home and brought to the orphanage, but I didn’t know why. It happened all the time and I usually didn’t know why, just that that home was one more place that didn’t want me.

“I was hiding in a closet. I did that a lot. It was the only way I could get any privacy, or any quiet to daydream. But the yelling, and the threats, they went on and on and I couldn’t do anything but listen. There was no way to get out of the closet and I was afraid of what would happen if the social workers found out I’d overheard people saying those things to them. I thought about it and thought about it and by the time they came looking for me my head hurt so bad I couldn’t even talk.

“They pulled me out of the closet and the social worker said ‘that’s her.’ I swear, I almost passed out and wet myself and about ten other things thinking I was the one they were angry with. Dorian looked me in the face—I was almost as tall as she was already—and said hello and I couldn’t even answer. I looked into her eyes and I saw so much disappointment and so much anger and so much fear. But she wasn’t as afraid as those social workers were, because they sent me away with Dorian and Herb right on the spot.

“They took me to their hotel and they let me order whatever food I wanted off of room service. I’d never been in a hotel or gotten to choose what I ate before, so that was nice.” Blair almost smiled. “They called Cassie and told her that there were some legal odds and ends to work out, but she could fly down and meet me. While they were talking to Cassie I pretended to fall asleep so I wouldn’t have to think of things to say to them. And when they thought I was asleep…”

Blair trailed off. Todd didn’t push her to say anything more. He’d wanted to know Blair’s whole story almost since he’d met her, but he wasn’t going to browbeat her into finishing if she didn’t want to.

“Well, it was what you would expect,” she managed eventually. “Dorian thought I might be dangerous like Addie. She didn’t think she and Herb should sleep at the same time that night because maybe I’d get up and stab them with scissors. She said that I was her responsibility and of course she’d find the right therapeutic boarding school for me but Herb couldn’t delude himself into thinking I was just scared.

“We went to the mall the next morning. If I pointed at it and it fit, they bought it for me. I’d never had that many clothes in my whole life. Then they let me stay with Cassie while they went to finish the legal end of things, getting custody of me so they could take me back to Llanview. Cassie took me to the toy store first, but I didn’t even know what to want. I still wasn’t talking very much. So Cassie decided that if we had time to kill, we would go get makeovers. We went right up to the counter in the department store, and, oh! I’d never seen anything like it.” Blair grinned at the memory. “All these beautiful women, all the different colors. I started asking questions and I didn’t stop. They thought I was older than I was because I was so tall, so they gave me a lot more than a little bit of lipgloss and blush like you’d usually give a kid that age. Cassie let them go because I was having so much fun. I think I thought of the idea for Melador right there.

“By the time we got back to the hotel, Cassie and I had gone from talking about makeup to everything else. It was easier with her because I think I saw her as a kid.” Blair shrugged. “She was about our age then, or a little younger. Cassie started telling Dorian about all the things she was going to do with me in Llanview, and Dorian said that I was only staying until they’d found a safe place for me because I had special needs and all that. Cassie got into a fight with her right there. You think Cassie’s all sweet and nice and a minister’s wife, right? That’s only because you’ve never seen her go at it with Aunt Dorian.

“So Cassie and Herb both want Aunt Dorian to have an open mind about me and she’s feeling more and more backed into a corner. She decided that she wasn’t going home; she was going to Canton to confront Miss Stonecliff about Mama and me. She wasn’t going to wait and Herb wasn’t going to let her go alone, and Cassie was all fascinated, thinking this tied into why Dorian had given her to her biological father’s family and not stayed in touch.

“And you all ended up going to Canton?” Todd surmised easily.

“Oh yes. The single creepiest place on earth, and believe you me I know creepy places. And that woman, Miss Stonecliff.” Blair shuddered. “No wonder Mama and Aunt Melinda went crazy, between her and their mother. She was obsessed with her… I guess she was my grandmother. Sonya. She was a pianist and having three little girls running around the house didn’t mix with her art. Mama was the oldest, so they blamed Mama for stealing Sonya’s youth. Dorian looked like Sonya, so they blamed her for stealing Sonya’s beauty. And Melinda played the piano like Sonya, so they blamed her for stealing Sonya’s talent. It got to the point where to stop Melinda from playing, they staged a horseback riding accident to ruin Melinda’s hand.”

“They just told you all this?”

Blair shrugged again. “Miss Stonecliff was accusing Dorian and Dorian was accusing Miss Stonecliff. They sent Cassie and me upstairs to Dorian’s old bedroom. I didn’t really care; I sat there and played with her plastic horses. That was when I thought I might like her, after all, because she had toy horses. I guess Cassie was bored or wanted to look around or whatever, because she went up to the attic.”

“Where they were hiding a crazy woman,” concluded Todd, who had always liked horror movies.

Blair glared. “You got someone else to tell you this story?” she accused. “Who? I know it wasn’t Dorian or Cassie!”

“Wait, really?” Todd tried to focus around the fuzzy remnants of alcohol. The story itself was sobering, but he really had drunk quite a lot. “I was kidding.”

“Sadly, I’m not,” said Blair, but she seemed mollified enough to continue. “Turns out that when Dorian told her father what her mother had done to Melinda—I guess they were trying to frame Dorian so they could get rid of her like they did Mama—Sonya got angry and she ended up killing her own husband. So they decided that Miss Stonecliff would pretend that both Sonya and her husband had died in a plane crash, but really…”

“Meanwhile, Cassie opens the door up in the attic.”

Blair nodded. “And when Sonya sees Cassie, she sees Dorian and wants to get rid of her. She blames Dorian for everything that happened since Dorian was born, basically. But you know Cassie. She’s so sweet and so stubborn. She thinks that if she just tries hard enough, she’ll make this woman realize who she is and just embrace her as a long-lost granddaughter. Like, two days before Cassie had made me talk like a regular kid when they weren’t sure I could, right? So Cassie figures she’s on a roll. But she’s not. Sonya doesn’t want to be friends. She wants to kill Dorian, and she thinks Cassie is Dorian. Finally the screaming and the struggling get loud enough and Dorian and Herb and Miss Stonecliff all run upstairs. Sonya gets killed in the struggle, and Miss Stonecliff lights the whole damn place on fire. They can’t get to her. They barely got to me.”

“And after that, you all lived happily ever after?”

“Well, Dorian thought she’d give me a chance to prove I could be allowed out in public.” Blair sighed hard and leaned against Todd. He liked how she felt there—warm and soft and right. “I know she loves me. I get why she was worried when she first saw me. But deep down, I couldn’t ever forget that she kept it in mind to lock me away.”

“You’re an adult, you know,” said Todd, gently playing with Blair’s long blonde hair. “She can’t lock you up because you start a company or because you go out with me.”

“I know,” said Blair. “Your father can’t do anything if you don’t want to play football anymore.” She sat up and planted her arms on either side of Todd’s chest. Her face was inches from his. He liked that position a lot. “You be who you want to be,” she told him. “Not who your dad tells you to be. If you don’t want to go to Cincinatti, don’t go. If you want to play bad so they don’t keep you, do that. But be you. Okay?”

Todd leaned up to kiss her; on cue, the phone rang angrily.

Blair jumped away and answered it.

“Hello… Kevin? Yes, he’s here….Yeah, he mentioned that about Marty… Why?... Yeah, okay. He’s on his way.”

Todd glowered. “I’m not on my way anywhere. I hope you know that,” he told Blair as she hung up. For the past year, he’d more and more started to think that Kevin was an okay guy. He didn’t think that anymore. He was not going to jump because Kevin told him to.

“Marty’s in the hospital.” Blair rolled her eyes. “She’s not supposed to drink like that because it screws up her Lupus medication, did you know?”

Todd grunted. He didn’t care.

“You might have turned Marty down, but Powell didn’t. He was with her when it happened. He’s really freaked out. Wants his ‘brother.’” Blair made sarcastic air quotes. “He seems to think you can fix anything. You better go, or Kevin will be here to escort you. Worse, Kevin might send his mother here to escort you.”

Todd made a face. It really did seem like he should be there with Viki’s family.

“You coming?” he asked Blair as he tried to pull himself together.

Blair shook her head. “I’m not Marty’s favorite person.”

“Neither am I,” Todd objected, knowing that that wasn’t the point. “Look, if I don’t see you again—”

“See me again. Come visit. I’ll come visit you and sell Melador in Cincinnati.”

He wished he could believe her. “Well, if you don’t, have a nice life.” He ran his hand down her side to soften the words. “Your family secrets are safe with me,” he added.

“I know. That’s why I told you.” She kissed his cheek; he leaned into her lips, eyes closed. “Be who you want to be,” she repeated once more before he left, truly not expecting to see her again.

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