Don't You Forget About Me by Suzanne Jenkins Read Free Book Online

is going to happen . But she did slow down. Why didn’t I just stay home today?
    “Bill has no reason to apologize to me, but that doesn’t mean I approve of what he did. He left Jack to die on the train and then tried to kill Pam’s mother. He shouldtell you and Pam he’s sorry, not me.” Sandra could feel her voice getting shrill, but it was too late. They would have it out now, something she had wanted to avoid at all costs.
    “But Jack didn’t die on the train. Pam told me. He died at the hospital.” Bernice was acting confused, like she was hearing something she hadn’t heard before. Then, “Why does everyone say he dropped dead on the train? I loathe that visual!” Bernice sat down on the closest chair and, with face covered, started to weep.
    It was at this inopportune time that Bill decided to bust through the front door like a linebacker. “Mother!” he yelled for her. “I’m home!” The cheerfulness stopped as soon as he saw Bernice slumped over in a chair up against the entryway wall. “Mother! What in God’s name! What the hell is wrong with her?” he yelled, seeing Sandra for the first time. “What’d you say to her?”
    “Calm down, Bill,” Bernice said, trying to pull herself together. “We were just having a moment, Sandra and I.” She sat up straight and started to dig through her pockets for a tissue.
    It was then that Bill noticed his mother had changed in the past sixty days. The toll his incarceration had taken on her surpassed what the death of both her husband and son did. “Mother, for God’s sake, what happened to you?” he said without restraint.
    Sandra bowed her head and turned away, embarrassed for both of them. She wished she could disappear, but something told her that her presence might be useful to the family now, that she owed something to Jack to stay here and finish what she had started.
    “Why haven’t you been getting your hair done?” He was making reference to the yellowed gray of her shaggy hair, recently cut in a youthful pixie style as soon as Jack’s funeral was over, after having been worn in a gleaming silver French twist for thirty years. Then he leaned forward and gently, with his hand under her chin, lifted her head slightly to look into her eyes. “Why haven’t you changed your clothes? Mom, what is going on here?” Bill was suddenly frightened. He wasn’t ready for Bernice to die and leave him alone. He didn’t want to be grown up, the head of a family. He went to her side and helped her stand up.
    “I’m very well able to stand on my own, if you don’t mind. Insulting me in my own home and then insinuating that I am unable to function.” Her old pride had returned.
    Bill stifled a sigh of relief. He looked at Sandra and tried to smile. She could almost read his mind. She was being given an opening here to take and bond as part of the family or to remain an outsider.
    “Bernice, I don’t think that is what Bill means at all, do you, Bill?” She came to Bernice’s other side and took her hand. “Let’s go back into the den, okay? I’m sorry I raised my voice, Bernice,” Sandra said to her.
    Bernice looked confused for a moment. “What were we fighting about, anyway?” She laughed then. “Oh, right! You, Bill, we were fighting about you.”
    It was his turn to look confused. “What did I do? I haven’t even been around for two months.”
    They took their seats in the den around the game table.
    Bernice rang for Mildred. “Let’s eat, okay? I’m about ready to faint.”
    Mildred brought the lunch tray in and decided there on the spot that she was going to speak to Mr. Bill about the money situation. Newly home from jail or not, now was the time. No one was prepared to work forever without pay.
    “Sir, may I speak to you privately?” Mildred said to Bill under her breath.
    Thinking she wanted to talk about the condition of his mother, he stood up, making the excuse to go to the bathroom to wash his hands, and whispered,