Florry was sitting in her bed, propped up by pillows and smiling when they entered and started hugging. She was wearing one of her many brightly colored robes, probably to mask the fact that she had lost so much weight. Her legs were under a blanket. For a few minutes she was a chatterbox, prattling on about Joel’s upcoming wedding and what she planned to wear. She seemed to have forgotten about his law school graduation in a couple of weeks.
A wave of fatigue hit hard, and she closed her eyes. Stella sat on the end of the bed and patted her feet. Joel eased into a chair close by the bed.
When she opened her eyes, she said, “There are some things you should know.”
“When Pete came back from the war, he was all banged up, casts on both legs, you remember. He spent three months at the hospital in Jackson, gaining strength. When he got to the farm he was walking with a cane, doing all sorts of exercises, and moving around more and more each day. It was early fall of 1945. The war was over and the country was trying to get things back to normal. He went through hell over there but never said a word about it. Evidently, your parents engaged in an active marital relationship, shall we say. Nineva once told Marietta, long before the war, that if she turned her back they were trying to sneak away to the bedroom.”
Joel said, “They had to get married, Florry. We know this. I’ve seen my birth certificate and I’ve seen their marriage license. We’re not stupid.”
“Didn’t imply that you are. I was suspicious but never knew for sure.”
“Dad pulled strings and got shipped to Germany before I was born. They were far away from home and the gossips never knew for sure.”
“Then that’s settled.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, as if fatigued. Joel and Stella exchanged nervous looks.
Florry opened her eyes, blinked and smiled, and asked, “Now where were we?”
“In Germany, a long time ago. Our parents had a rather lusty relationship.”
“You could say that. They enjoyed each other, and as soon as Pete was back home and able he was ready to go. But there was a problem. Liza had no interest. At first Pete thought it was because his body was scarred and ravaged by war, and not what it once was. But she wouldn’t respond. Finally, they had a big fight and she told a tale, the first of several. She concocted a story about having a miscarriage not long after he left home in 1941. She had three of them, you know.”
“Four,” Stella said.
“Okay, four, and by the time Pete left for war, they were convinced she could never have more children. Well, supposedly, she was pregnant when he left but they didn’t know it. When she realized it, she told no one because she was afraid of losing another baby and didn’t want to worry him. He was at Fort Riley, waiting to be shipped out. Then she miscarried, or so she said, and because of the miscarriage she had some lingering female problems. She had discharges that were unpleasant. She had seen doctors. She was taking medicines. Her body was doing things she couldn’t control, and she had lost the desire for sex. It embarrasses me to say that word in front of you two.”
“Come on, Aunt Florry. We know all about sex,” Joel said.
“Both of you?” she asked, looking at Stella.
“Yes, both of us.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Come on, Florry. We’re all adults here.”
“Okay. Sex, sex, sex. There, I’ve said it. So when she was never in the mood, he was upset. Think about it. Poor guy spent three years in the jungle half-dead dreaming of food and water, and also thinking a lot about his beautiful wife back home. Then Pete got suspicious. According to her story, they got pregnant right before he left for Fort Riley, early in October of 1941. But in late August of that year, Pete wrenched his back pulling a stump and was in terrible pain. Sex was out of the question.”
“I remember that,” Stella said. “When he left for Fort Riley he could hardly walk.”
“In fact, his back was so bad the doctors at Fort Riley almost discharged him for medical reasons. He was certain that there had been no sex in September because he thought about it a million times when he was a prisoner. Her story was that she got pregnant around early October, kept it quiet for a couple of months, and planned to tell Pete in a letter if she made it to three months. She didn’t. She miscarried in early December, two months in, and never told anyone. Pete knew that wasn’t true. If she indeed got pregnant, then it was in late August. His point was that she was more than three months along when she claimed to have miscarried. He studied the calendars and pieced together a timeline. Then he ambushed Nineva one day and asked her about the miscarriage. She knew nothing, which, as you know, was virtually impossible. She knew nothing about a miscarriage, nothing about a pregnancy. Pete knew that if Liza was three months along, then Nineva would know it. She delivered a hundred babies, including me and Pete. Once he was convinced Liza was lying about the miscarriage, thus the discharges, thus the total lack of interest in sex, he became really suspicious. She was fanatical about cleaning her own undergarments, and Nineva confirmed this. With time, he waited for the right chance and was able to confirm the discharges. There were small stains on her delicates. And she was taking a lot of pills that she was trying to hide. He wanted to talk to her doctors, but she flatly refused. Anyway, the clues were piling up, the lies were breaking down. Something was physically wrong with his wife and it wasn’t caused by a miscarriage. He’d been through three of them, remember?”
“Four,” Stella said.
“Right. Nineva had said some things about Dexter Bell and how much time he spent with Liza after the news that Pete was missing and presumed dead. We all remember how horrible that was, and Dexter was at the house a lot. Turns out that Pete had never really trusted Dexter, thought he had a roving eye. There was a rumor at church, one I never heard, about Dexter being too friendly with a young woman, I think she was twenty. Just a rumor, but Pete was suspicious.”
Florry exhaled and asked for a glass of water. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and breathed heavily for a moment or so. She closed her eyes and continued. “Anyway, Pete got very suspicious. He went to Memphis and hired a private detective, paid him a lot of money, gave him photos of Liza and Dexter Bell. At the time there were three doctors, if you call them doctors, I’m not sure really what they were, and they’re probably still in business, but, they, well, they, uh, did abortions.”
Stella nodded stoically. Joel took a deep breath. Florry kept her eyes closed and plowed on. “Sure enough, the private detective found a doctor who recognized them from the photos, but he wanted a big bribe. Pete had no choice. Paid the guy $2,000 in cash, and he confirmed that on September 29, 1943, he did the deed for Liza.”
Joel grunted, “Good God.”
Stella said, “Well, that explains Nineva’s story about the day Mom and Dexter spent in Memphis.”
“Yep.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know that one,” Florry said.
“There are so many,” Stella said. “Keep going and we might circle back to it.”
“Okay. So, needless to say, Pete was devastated. He had the proof of her betrayal, and not just a little fooling around, but a full-blown pregnancy that got aborted in the back room of some low-end clinic in Memphis. He was furious, devastated, and felt thoroughly betrayed by the woman he had always adored.”
She paused and wiped a tear. “This is so awful. I never wanted to tell this story, never.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Aunt Florry,” Stella said. “We can deal with the truth.”
“So he confronted her?” Joel asked.
“He did. He picked the right moment, and ambushed her with the proof. The result was a complete and total breakdown. Nervous breakdown, emotional breakdown, call it whatever the doctors want to call it. She admitted everything: the affair, the abortion, the infection that wouldn’t go away. She begged for forgiveness, again and again. In fact, she never stopped begging for forgiveness, and he never offered it. He never got over it. He’d come so close to death so many times, but he kept going because of her, and you. And to think that she was having fun with Dexter Bell was more than he could stand. He saw John Wilbanks. They went to the judge. She was committed to Whitfield, and she did not resist. She knew she needed help, and she had to get away from him. Once she was gone, he tried to go about his business, but he reached a point where that was not possible.”