Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Toledo 1982
Belinda
It broke Belinda’s heart that Joetta was so far away. And that their parents didn’t seem to care. Worse. They’d cut Joetta’s existence out of their lives, their family, the minute she’d run.
It was so easy to eliminate her entire life from their home, the club, the stories they told.
Belinda knew people gossiped; they always did. Around the punch bowl, around the card tables placed far from their mother’s, people whispered about Joetta’s disappearance. Mommy said she was “abroad.” And that was it.
As the years passed, the whispering about Joetta stopped. It was replaced by someone else’s gossip.
Especially since there was no new fodder about where she was and what she was doing. No new grist for the mill. Fresh scandals were so much more fun than old rumors. Their parents were disciplined and stark. They had shut the door to Joetta.
That starkness was the threat that kept Belinda in line. She, too, could be cut from the picture just as easily.
Belinda did exactly as her parents expected. She lived up to their ideas of how a young lady should act, date, be, and talk. It was easy not to rebel or even have fun with the heavy heart that now sat in her chest. The Gulfside Girls were no longer, just a dull day-to-day life. Joetta was her joy, and it was painful to see that wasn’t true for their parents.
Belinda finished high school, and she went to college, though she didn’t really have a passion for any career or job. Her mission, expressed by Mommy, was to find a husband.
But just like not really caring what her job might be, she also didn’t have any passion for any particular future husband. She went on dates, but Joetta had literally given up everything for a man. Belinda wasn’t planning to do the same.
This was the source of the quarrel now between Belinda and her parents. They wanted her “married off” to someone they approved. Belinda avoided the questions even if she couldn’t avoid the pressure her parents put on her.
Though, she had to put the brakes on, when her mother floated Banks Armstrong as a good match. Banks seemed to be the only one who remembered that Joetta existed.
“I know you’re not supposed to talk about her,” he said one day, “but can I ask you if she’s okay? I think about that a lot. She is so trusting and open, and that can be dangerous.”
She reassured Banksy. She stuck to the party line that she was traveling “abroad.” Banks was a good guy. A good friend to Belinda. She hated lying to him, but he was the only one asking these days.
“She’s happy, just done with us here in Florida. Don’t worry.”
But Belinda was not about to match up with Banksy, knowing that in his heart, he’d always love Joetta the most. Banks was now the second in charge at his family country club, and though she wouldn’t “match” with Banks, Belinda was happy to work for him. She took her useless college degree and applied it to the country club. She was the social director. It was a career her parents approved of; she liked it, and Banks said she was good at it. She had no husband yet, but at least she’d be able to meet the “right kind of men,” and so her parents approved her career path until she settled down.
In 1982, Belinda decided to take a big risk. Her parents were going on holiday in Europe for over a month. They’d be an ocean away. This was her chance to check up on her baby sister without getting permission or getting into a battle.
Belinda took the money she’d squirreled away from working as the social director of Armstrong Hills Country Club and flew to Ohio.
They’d talked only a dozen or so times on the phone. But they wrote to one another at least once a week. The letters were way easier. She had a post office box her parents didn’t know about, and the sisters’ letters came back and forth with regularity.
Belinda had learned all about the house in Toledo, her two nieces, and even had a few pretty pictures of the girls. In turn, Belinda sent money, clothes, and letters to keep their connection strong, despite what their parents intended.
When the opportunity of a month of unscrutinized time presented itself, Belinda took advantage of it.
It was a quick flight from Tampa to Toledo Express Airport on Air Florida. When she exited the small airport, her sister was there!
“Joetta!”
The two ran to each other. Two little girls trailed Joetta.
“Oh! Ali looks just like you! Hello, Ali! I’m your aunt!!”
“Hello.”
Ali looked Belinda in the eye and nodded. She was so polite, it was hard to imagine the child was only eight. She was little but seemed to regard Belinda with a bit of skepticism. Smart, seeing as she was technically a stranger. Ali was the big sister; she was used to protecting her little sister. This one is my kindred spirit , Belinda thought.
“And you must be Faye.”
Faye pushed her arm straight out to Belinda. In her little fingers were a cluster of yellow flowers. A moist paper towel was wrapped around the stems. “Here, I grew these all by myself. Black-Eyed Susans.”
“I love these, Faye! You have a green thumb!”
“Come on, Mommy,” Ali piped up. “The sign said ten-minute loading and unloading.”
“Ali keeps us on track, all of us.”
The comment worried Belinda. Why would a child have to keep the mom on track? It was a window into the life that Joetta was living.
Joetta’s husband, Bruce Kelly, was the same stoic figure Belinda remembered. They greeted one another politely enough, though Belinda still didn’t see the appeal. He was still every inch muscle and aloof detachment but now, he also had a few wrinkles around the eyes. There was a look of skepticism toward her that Ali had mimicked, clearly.
“Don’t forget Wednesday is garbage day, and the cans have to be out before 7 am. That means the night before if you’re unable to get up,” Bruce instructed his wife.
Unable to get up? Belinda looked at Joetta.
“I get migraines,” Joetta offered by way of explanation.
Ali stepped in and addressed her father. “Don’t worry, Daddy. I’ll be sure the cans get brung out.”
“Brought out,” he corrected her.
And Belinda thought again that her little niece was taking a role too old for her years. Taking the garbage out because Joetta might not be able to? That was just odd.
“She is everyone’s helper,” Joetta said and ran her hand over Ali’s shiny spun gold hair.
“Auntie, come see my garden!” Faye grabbed her hand, and Belinda was led from the kitchen of the bungalow to the backyard. This was a relief; there was tension between her sister and her brother-in-law, and Belinda didn’t want to be in the middle of it. All this time, Belinda had consoled herself that though she’d lost Joetta in their family, her sister was in a loving marriage and had created a happily ever after. But this didn’t feel like a happily ever after.
She was grateful this visit coordinated with Bruce’s yearly fishing trip with “the boys.”
Belinda didn’t know who “the boys” were and didn’t care. What she cared about was time with Joetta and her babies. The tension she’d sensed would be gone as soon as he was.
And sure enough, as soon as Bruce left, the mood was better. Joetta was lighter, too. They had four whole days to just be together! They were going to shop and go to the pool and maybe see The Secret of NIMH at the movie theater.
One day, as the sisters “garage saled” in Joetta’s neighborhood, several neighbors commented on how Joetta had a “good eye.” Belinda was proud of her. Of course she had style! Even on Bruce’s tight leash, Joetta had cute clothes and had decorated their little home with charming touches.
Yet Belinda observed that the formerly bold Joetta demurred at the compliments and deflected them.
“I just know how to sift through the junk,” Joetta explained as the sisters walked arm in arm along Cheltenham, a street a few blocks from where Joetta lived. The neighborhood was called Old Orchard. The trees were tall and leafy green, so different than their Florida home.
Joetta described the lay of the land.
“This is the fancy part of the neighborhood we’re in now, not as fancy as Ottawa Hills, but they do estate sales, not garage sales, so it’s harder to get the good stuff there.”
Ali and Faye rode ahead of them on a tricycle and a bike with training wheels. Belinda noticed that the girls looked like miniatures of Joetta and Belinda. Ali, a replica of Joetta, and Faye, with her wavy brown hair, a mini of herself.
“Remember riding bikes on Gulf before it got so busy?”
“I do, I miss that.”
The visit was lovely, for the most part. And Belinda would have had nothing but fond memories to take back to Florida, except the last night spoiled the happily ever after idea, completely.
They’d baked cookies with the girls, stayed in, and just enjoyed each other’s company. And, of course, had a few glasses of wine. Joetta poured too much, in Belinda’s opinion. Her sister was tiny and seemed not to know how much was too much. Belinda remembered how poorly Joetta had handled beer all those years ago. But now it was wine, and it made her sister weepy.
“I just feel useless most of the time, you know. We never have enough money, and I’m always begging for pennies, but Bruce doesn’t want me to work. Ha, though, what would I do for a job? I have zero skills, right? Getting a tan? That’s not a hot commodity on the job market.”
“Do you want to get a divorce? I can get a lawyer to you or?—”
“No, no, I love Bruce. He loves me. I’m just feeling nostalgia, I guess. When getting a tan was our only job. I am so sick of housework, you know? Or no, you don’t. Mommy and Daddy still have Erline and Barker, right? You don’t have to clean a thing.”
“Well, I’ve moved to the guest house, trial run for my own place, so I do clean that.”
“Ha, the horror.”
The edge on her sister was unmistakable. But it faded quickly as she started talking about the girls.
“Ali is so smart. Do you know she was reading these Golden Books before kindergarten? Bruce thought she was just memorizing what I’d read to her, but nope, he tested her. She was really reading before she ever stepped into Old Orchard Elementary School.”
“She seems older than her years.”
“Oh, she is, she’s the little boss, no doubt.” There was no edge on that, only pure love for her precocious daughter.
“And Faye and those flowers!” Joetta added. It seemed everywhere they went, Faye was either picking flowers or planting them. She loved being outdoors and collecting things from gardens and yards along the way.
“She’s my tomboy, always with a scrape on the knee and dirt under her fingernails. I love that, though. Mommy would have a fit, you remember, if we had the slightest bit of mud on our jumpers?”
“I do remember.”
The night finished with the wine, and Belinda was tired. She had a busy travel day ahead and was ready to turn in. Belinda had been sleeping on a pull-out couch on the porch, and after her three glasses of wine, she fell asleep hard.
She was grateful her flight wasn’t until afternoon; her head was going to hurt!
But it was worth it to spend time with her sister.
In the middle of the night, in the depth of sleep, a thud and then the sound of glass breaking woke her up.
She oriented herself and stood up, quickly moving like a rocket toward the sound. Is there a prowler? What if they’re upstairs with the girls! Belinda didn’t think about her own safety, just her sweet little nieces. She ran toward the sound. Belinda wound up in the hall, outside Joetta’s room.
There was no prowler. Belinda tried to process what she was seeing.
Joetta was on the floor of her bedroom. Blood was oozing out of her foot. A broken wine glass had shattered all over the wood floor of the bedroom.
“Be careful, Auntie, you don’t have shoes on.”
Belinda whipped around to see Ali, tennis shoes on, with a broom that had a dustpan on the handle in one hand and paper towels in the other. She walked around Belinda to Joetta.
“Mama, you need to be still. Here.” The little girl set the broom against the bed. Carefully, she folded a sheet from the paper towel roll and put it on Joetta’s cut foot. Joetta winced. “Mama sometimes has accidents when she has her headaches,” Ali informed Belinda.
“Sure, how about I help her, and you go back to bed. It’s so late.” Belinda's heart was breaking for Joetta and even more for little Ali.
“I have to clean this up. She’ll forget, and it’s dangerous.” Ali tilted her head to her mother.
“Okay, well, how about I hold the dustpan for you?”
“That would be nice. Thank you, Auntie.”
The two helped Joetta back into the bed. The cut was small, thankfully, and the paper towel seemed to staunch the blood quickly. Joetta closed her eyes, seemingly unaware of the mess and that her daughter was managing it.
Belinda watched the beautiful, sweet girl efficiently wield the broom. Belinda dutifully assisted with each sweep of the broken glass.
“There, I think that’s it,” Belinda said. “You did a great job.”
“Stand back, one more check.”
Belinda stepped back as her little niece asked. She watched as Ali took her hand and gently glided it across the planks of the floor in light sweeping motions. With a quick intake of air, Ali looked at her hand. There was a tiny spec of blood in her index finger.
“See, missed a piece, they’re hard to see. But they could cut Mama’s feet.”
Belinda nodded, acknowledging the pretty little girl’s attention to detail.
Ali did another pass over the floor with the broom that was taller than her. Her face was serious, her eyes focused on every inch of the floor.
Belinda tried not to cry.
She had to be at least as tough as her nieces.