For this week’s edition of Whispering Woods, I include a chapter from the book. We have less than a month before the anniversary of 9.11, so the plan is to lead up to that event which is recounted in Whispering Woods. On that fateful day, Cathy and Phil Baxter lose their businesses and their condo, all too near the disaster zone.
Here is chapter one of Whispering Woods:
CHAPTER ONE
“The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” (Proverbs 4:18)
“Cathy?” Phil called from their elegant bedroom. “Remember, I’ll be late for dinner tonight.”
“Me too, prob’ly. Ol’ Sands scheduled a presentation for 3:00 with all hands on deck. By the time I get to share my proposal, it’ll be 4:30, my guess. He’s done it again!” Cathy, deep in the designer walk-in closet, selectively chooses her Armani suit-of-the-day, struggling to put together a fresh Monday look.
“Gotcha,” he breezes past her, robe hanging open, flapping in the breeze.
“Hey, You, with your bod’ hangin’ out. She draws him to her. We might be late gettin’ to work too!”
“Can’t happen today, Sweetie. Reaching for his new Bernini pinstripe, he pecks her cheek. Gotta get the sketches for the uptown reno to the contractor so he can study the specs. Big deal, this one. No wiggle room.”
“Mommy?” Kelsey whines. “I can’t find my other sock anywhere. . .Grandma Jean? Can you help me?”
“Be right there, darlin’,” her nanny promises.
A typical New York morning, of course. The penthouse just off Wall Street, a block from the World Trade Center, settles into a somewhat predictable routine about 9:00. But 7:15 is bedlam. Usually Jean relishes the excitement of getting the family up and ready, but this morning, hassles seem larger than life. She’d arrived as usual at 6:30, put the coffee on, opened the Times to the business section, set the breakfast table and counter, poured the cereal. Whew!
As she opens the floor-to-ceiling drapes, September sunrise bathes the gorgeous suite with gold, casting shimmering highlights, accenting the glossy chrome and stainless details of the designer-selected minimalist furniture.
This morning, Jean hosts a heavy heart as she fluffs the sofa pillows, carries a stray mug to the beautifully appointed kitchen, and puts fresh water in the cat’s bowl. She’s pondered her future several times since her husband’s sudden death three months ago in a raging tenement fire, but Saturday she was jolted yet again by a letter from the Super.
Her apartment building, four stops north on the Metro Line, where they’d lived for some thirty years, has been sold. Condos. On her income, even with her beloved Bernie’s provision for her and his fireman’s death benefit package, she’ll never be able to buy her own unit. She’ll have to move. But how? Where? How much more can I take? she broods.
Put it aside. Shape up! God will take care of me. He always does!
Next task! Never a dull moment with the Baxters. Seems like I’ve loved them forever, Jean thinks. Same church, love her dad, knew her mom, helped raise Cathy from day one. We go way back! she muses. CeCe was an infant. Thirty-two years ago, it was. Frankie was only two.
Jean hums an old hymn which has played in her head all weekend. “All you may need He will provide, God will take care of you; Nothing you ask will be denied, God will take care of you.”
And so it was and has been, loving Cathy. Their relationship gives her a sense of purpose, a reason to rise in the morning; a blessing to rejoice in at night. God has brought their lives together for His purposes. God will take care of you, Through every day, O’er all the way; He will take care of you, God will take care of you.” She hums the old hymn’s refrain as she thinks about her life’s history with this family.(“Be Not Dismayed, Whate’er Betide” Civilla D. Martin, 1905)
The Vander Zee-Goddards, were fixtures on the A-list social scene in Manhattan’s lower East Side. Catherine Elizabeth Goddard was raised as the sole daughter of a financial guru lawyer, Benjamin Joseph, known as BJ by his associates, Ben by his friends, long before computer whizzes created their empires, and Cathy had certainly inherited her father’s genius as a mover and shaker in the business world. Destined for success, she was. It was inevitable. Her DNA and father’s counsel predicted her quick climb to eminence in public relations and advertising. Already she is Vice President, with a corner glass office four blocks away.
Her mother, Therize, was a rising star in sleek apartment, later condo, design. Her fabric choices, color palettes, and pattern mixes were featured in the top-drawer publications, for all the rich and famous to envy. Few had her aplomb and eye, so the up-and-coming and some wannabees, who could barely afford her counsel, rushed to her studio to get it all just right.
Cathy’s doting Papa still wheels and deals on Wall Street, surveying his well-heeled associates’ affairs from his corner office at World Trade Center #7, just down the street.
Jean thinks, He’s one of the kindest guys I know. Always present at family gatherings, Ben and Jean, and of course, her beloved Bernie celebrated Christmas, birthdays, and special occasions together.
Jean is more than just the “hired help.” She’s been nanny for CeCe, her pet name, almost from day one. Certainly Therize was in no position to care for her “little surprise bundle” when she made her presence known. For a season, while her colleagues oohed and ahhed over Therize’s nursery designs which appeared during the nesting period of pregnancy, once little Catherine Eliza was delivered, Therize returned to her celebrity clientele and needed a nanny for her little darling Cathy. And Ben was busy building his empire, returning in the evening too tired to notice his darling daughter looked at him quizzically, wondering who this man was who delighted in tickling and reading one story, if indeed he was there at bedtime once in a while.
Jean, married to firefighter Bernie and a young stay-at-home mother of two, was the perfect choice to provide, love, nurture, comfort, and just be there, a perfect nanny. Jean loved raising little Cathy, whose mother was far too busy to cuddle. Later, when Therize died suddenly in a freak incident outside a Wall Street bank, Jean became chief consoler and substitute mom for fifteen-year-old Cathy. And Jean’s son Frank, called Frankie by all who knew and loved the fun-loving, rambunctious seventeen-year-old, became more than Cathy’s companion; he was her protector and big brother.
Jean is good at sympathy. She had learned grief first-hand. Jean and Bernie were devoted to their little daughter, Deirdre. She and CeCe had been playmates, almost like sisters. One of the bennies was that Jean was encouraged to bring her little ones to work with her. It was the best of all worlds, she thought at the time. Until. . .
One morning when Jean and little Deirdre and Frankie rode the subway to The VZ-Goddard’s apartment four stops away, their usual commute was anything but usual. At six o’clock in the morning, the car was filled with sleepy-eyed overnight shift-workers and yawning worker-bees getting a head-start on their days.
Little four-year-old Deirdre, dressed in her hand-me-down red coat covering her flannel jammies, was snacking on her Cheerios when the subway pulled into the station. In the usual jostling, Deirdre was sitting next to her mom on one side, Frank on the other, waiting for the fourth stop, when all of a sudden, she wasn’t there. She just plain wasn’t.
Grabbed by a passing strap-hanger and whisked out the door, Deirdre yelled, “Mommy, Mommy” as the door slid shut leaving Mom and Frankie on one side, Deirdre in the arms of her abductor on the other. Screams and shouts to no avail, the train hustled off to its next stop, leaving frantic cries from both sides, and outrage among the passengers who were becoming aware of the crisis which roused them from their sleepy apathy.
Oh, that day was so tragic. I just can’t think about it.
Jean rarely allows herself the luxury of wallowing in her grief. She has submerged her memories by sheer force of will, both when she is awake, and, with more difficulty, in her nightmares. The wound has scabs; she picks at the edges, ignoring the scars.
Jounced from her past, she once-again hears Kelsey’s, not Deirdre’s voice. “Grandma Jean, Grandma Jean, I need you to help me!”
Now, let’s see if I can find little Missy’s sock.
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