Dicey

Chapter 1 It is hard to say which shocked her more, getting the call from David to come to his hospital room or the wad of money he pressed into her hand as soon as she got to his bedside. The slight smile that crossed his handsome face told her to be quiet about the transaction. She looked across the room where a group of strangers were quietly talking. He whispered the nick name he had given her years ago, “Dicey.” Are these his family? She wondered as he emphatically pointed his index finger at her and then, with his thumb, indicated the door. His only words: “The apartment” There was no doubt; he wanted her to leave immediately. She did. Delores Grant was the same age as the man in the hospital bed but her life had been easier and she looked younger. Her curly brown hair did not need the attention of a hair stylist to color it. It was naturally highlighted and softly outlined a pretty face that was easily given to smiles and gentle wrinkles around her green eyes. She dressed neatly and attracted attention as if she was the most important person entering your space. From across the room she was often mistaken for a much younger woman, but when approached, her laughing eyes removed age from her equation. Five minutes ago she, with great trepidation, had entered the Greater Laurel Beltsville Hospital. All that worry, and now she was heading out the fancy self-opening door with a knot of money in her raincoat, and without facing the things that had concerned her as she drove one hundred miles to get here. “It’s about geography; when I am in Maryland, I am a different person,” she said aloud as was her habit. Coming home to familiar roads, passing the former schools and homes made her revisit old feelings, especially after seeing David. Memories came forward and David presented old topography. In Delaware she could deny her feelings; seeing him again, especially so compromised, made her heart ache. Questions were swimming in her head and she hardly remembered finding and entering her car. Why is David in the hospital? Why all those tubes and machines? The weird occurrences at his bedside delayed her worry about this special man. Now, she faced her fears about his fate and wondered if he was dying. She dared not take the bulge from her pocket for fear that someone may see it. She patted her side to feel the bundle and started the car. “Oh, David. What do you want of me now? As much as you hate explaining yourself, this time you will.” She said to the rear view mirror. Dicey drove to I-95 and headed south to David’s apartment. The key was on her key ring and she wondered if it would open the door that she had not approached for almost six years. The key slid into the latch and turned with such ease Dicey felt a twinge of pleasure. She entered with the same ease with which she and David had brought their lives together intermittently through the years. The quiet, empty rooms shook her to the core. The apartment had her touch; she had helped him to furnish it when he came from the hospital after his open-heart surgery fifteen years ago. He had called her to come then, too Oh, David. Don’t you dare die. What if he did? What would she do with this huge unfinished part of her life? Even as the years passed, she never thought death would remove any chance for a life together. The phone rang as she closed the door. As she had been taught, she let it go to the answering machine, her hand poised to pick it up if it was David. It was not. “Dave, do you want to see me or not…it is up to you. Call.” That call was hardly finished, when another ringing startled her. A second gruff male voice made demands. “What’s the story? What the hell am I to do? Call me on my cell. Obviously you aren’t answering yours.” Dicey fell into the chair trying to think. She knew they were David’s customers but she was not sure what she was to do about them. She stood up and walked into the kitchen; the only thing she could decide was to make coffee. The aroma wafted through the apartment and gave her some comfort as she gathered a cup and went to the refrigerator to get some creamer. A note in David’s smooth, fluid handwriting stopped her at the counter. Her legs buckled and she slowly folded to the floor as she read quickly, then again, more slowly, tears tracking down her face and off her chin: Dice, No one knows about the apartment. I will get three calls. They are collections. Make an appointment with each to meet. You’ve seen me make collections before. It’s set up. Just tell them you are Dicey and it will go fine. What would I do without you? Love, D. Well, you manage to do very well without me. Years on end. She remembered his hand gesture in the hospital, abrupt and sharp, like an order—the forefinger pointed at her. She knew that gesture—go, it pointed… to the apartment. And then, the smile—love. For the second time today, her ears heard her lament, “Oh, David.” Dicey stayed on the floor drinking black coffee, forgetting the creamer. She pulled herself together finally rising to refill her cup adding cream and sugar to let the richness and sweetness infuse her. She gathered her thoughts and dismissed the panic feelings. “David is strong,” she assured herself as she picked her coat up from the floor, once again touching the pocket. The money caused the usual pukey feeling in her gut. David’s money always did that to her. Normally when Dicey came back to her hometown, she called a friend or checked into the Hampton Inn right off Route 198. Her family and David’s had lived in Laurel, Maryland for generations. They were neighborhood kids. The small town had mushroomed about the time they graduated from high school, as did the beefing up at the nearby military post, Ft George G. Meade.