Episode Two: Kelly (1996)

Kelly was just tucking Aveline into bed when the telephone rang. Jim’s brother, Dan, was calling from the hospital. Again. He’d spent years of his life there, waiting, as their mother slowly died. This time it was finally over.

Kelly didn’t really know in what way her mother-in-law, Delores, was sick; only that it had punctuated her own relationship with Jim since they first started dating. Soon after they met, Jim took her to Topeka to meet his folks. Morrie was a retired long-haul trucker who now fiddled with lawn mowers. Delores raised Siamese cats. But they weren’t home when Jim’s old car pulled into the driveway. Jim’s mother had just been admitted to the medical center with internal bleeding. They drove back home. Jim did not like hospitals.

Delores was buried in a typical cemetery with lush green grass and minimal trees. Jim borrowed a tie from Kelly’s brother when they dropped four-year-old Aveline off to play with her cousins.

After the ceremony, there was small talk, the murmuring of condolences, the sighing and whispers of “better place.” Dark suits and somber dresses. Jim stood stiffly with Kelly at his side, her hand clutched in his. They were turning to leave when Dr. Sorensen approached. He had been Delores’s doctor for many years, as well as a friend of the family.

“We did all we could.” As an oncologist, this was a common line. “Maybe if we’d been able to do the bone marrow transfer...”

“Odds weren’t good, with such a small family,” Kelly consoled.

The doctor murmured his assent. “Even if you had been her son, Jim, the chances of a child being a match are not much better than for a stranger.”

Jim furrowed his brow, clearly not understanding.

“You know, being adopted.” The doctor stopped. “Jim, you didn’t know?”

Jim grabbed the doctor’s arm and led him away from the dwindling crowd, his other hand still wrapped around Kelly’s. “I don’t understand. I’m not her son?”

“Not biologically. Simple blood typing. You’re a type AB neg, and Delores was O positive. There’s no way that you could be her child. But surely you knew. Surely Morris knows.”

That’s when the nightmares started. Finally free of his sick, pathetic mother in his waking hours, he was terrorized by her in his sleep. He woke three, four times a night, sweating, heart pounding. Kelly would hold him while he described dreams of gnawing hunger and improbable alligators.

He would stay up until the small hours of the morning, swirling acrylic paint across canvas and sipping whiskey over ice. It less than a year before he quit his job by simply not going anymore.

His few attempts to learn more went nowhere. Morrie, his stepfather, claimed to be as surprised as anyone. Kelly suggested counseling, but it was met with anger and disdain. Jim painted. He drank. And Kelly quietly took over the reins of the family.


Look for Episode Three on Wednesday, July 8.