Chapter 23: All The Ladies

By a/k/a Simon

Everyone slept late the next day, Monday. It wasn’t until almost noon before Megan got out of bed. Eddie was still out cold and she decided not to wake him. She’d noticed him climbing back into bed in the middle of the night and assumed he’d had more nightmares. What she didn’t notice was the muddy shoe sitting by the bottom of the stairs as she turned to enter the living room.

Greta looked weary, dark bags under her eyes. They added five years to her age. She was holding a glass of orange juice and staring at the weather report.

“No rain today,” she said. “Good. I hate rainy funerals. They seem so cliched.”

“Coffee?” Megan asked and offered.

“We’re out. I have to go to Canton’s to pick up the deli platters. Figured I’d get some while I was there.”

“How were you planning on getting over there?” Megan asked mockingly. “Bicycle?”
“I was planning on guilting you into giving me a ride,” Greta said with a straight face that quickly turned into a grin.

“Alright,” Megan smiled back. “Let me just grab a shower and we’ll go.”
When she came back downstairs from her shower, Greta was no longer alone. Shane and Hazel were sitting in the living room with her. They were watching SportsCenter, obviously Shane’s choice. Hazel stood up to look through the magazines on the coffee table. “Get your fat ass out of the way of the TV,” Shane barked at her.

Greta noticed Megan standing by the stairs and saw her chance to escape. She grabbed her pocket book from the side of the couch and headed for the door.

“Hey, while you’re out, pick up some doughnuts at Dunkin’ Donuts,” Shane ordered. “Hazel, go with them. You know the kind I like.”

Hazel didn’t argue, and suddenly, Greta and Megan had a new companion.

“Why do you let him treat you like that?” Megan asked as they drove through the center of Putnam.

“Like what?” Hazel asked, clueless.
“Always ordering you around, putting you down. You’re like his dog.”
Hazel got defensive. “Don’t blame me if you don’t know how to keep a man,” she shot back.

“I remember when I was a little girl,” Greta interjected, doing her best to change the subject. “We lived over on Melbourne Street. Peter and Murphy shared a bedroom. And we had this giant English Sheepdog named Blitzkrieg, but everybody in the neighborhood called him Blizzard, because that’s what it felt like when he jumped on you, a blizzard of white, shaggy hair. That dog was uncontrollable. He was constantly breaking his chains and busting out of the backyard. You always knew when he was loose because you’d hear all the neighborhood kids screaming in terror. So one day, Murphy goes out to the backyard to feed him, and Blitz is gone. The chain was broken, the fence knocked open, all the usual signs. Except there was no screaming. It was a Saturday afternoon and the kids were all over the place. But no screaming. Murph went around to all the houses, asking everybody if they’d seen Blitz, but nobody had. The dog had just disappeared. That night, the doorbell rings. This little girl, maybe ten years old, is standing there, holding Blitz by his collar. We were all amazed at how she had the damn beast under control. He didn’t obey anyone and yet, here’s this little wisp of a thing got him completely tamed. I know it left an impression on Murphy because, ten years later, he married that girl. That’s how your father met your mother.”

“I’d heard a version of that story before,” Megan said. “Toned down a lot. I think all they said was that they met when my mom brought the dog back. They never told me what the dog was like.”

“That dog was a terror,” Greta said. “It took something special to do what your mother did. And it helped, because she was the only one I ever saw tame Murphy as well.”

“So how come she couldn’t do the same with her sons?” Megan asked.

Greta laughed. “You’ve met your father. Do you think she had any energy left after getting him housebroken?”

“I remember the first time I met Helen,” Hazel interrupted. No one asked to hear her story, but no one objected either. “I was working at this nice restaurant in Nashua…”

“It was a TGIFriday’s, wasn’t it?” Megan clarified.

Hazel was perturbed. “Yes it was. Anyway, I was working at this restaurant and Helen came in with Shane, Ryan, and Murphy. They’d just spent a week at the camp on Winnipesaukee and stopped off for a bite on the way home. Shane and Ryan thought it would be funny to order their mom a Planter’s Punch, not telling her there was alcohol in it. She noticed after the first sip, but I don’t think she knew just how much alcohol it had. Over the course of the meal she ordered three more. By the end, she was completely blitzed. I would come over and she’d be cracking jokes, or dancing in her seat. She was a crazy woman. When they left, Shane asked me for my number. That’s how we started dating. I never saw Helen have another drop of alcohol after that. They all had a pretty good laugh, though.”

“Yeah, the laughs just kept going once she got home and spent the rest of the night puking her lungs out in the bathroom,” Megan added to the story. “She’d come into the living room, sit down looking green from head to toe. Ryan and Shane would get a nice big chuckle out of it. Five minutes later, she was back on her knees in front of the toilet. Yeah, that was a funny joke.”

Hazel didn’t respond. She crossed her arms and scowled for the rest of the ride.


Adam Canton had the platters ready when they arrived at the market. He’d erred on the heavy side for all the meats and thrown in several free bags of rolls and chips. He also invited the ladies to help themselves to as much soda as they wanted.

“Shane likes Pepsi,” Hazel said. “I’m going to grab a couple bottles for him.”

Megan rolled her eyes. Greta asked, “What?”

She waited until she was sure Hazel was out of earshot, then said, “It’s just stupid the way she acts. He treats her like garbage, like some kind of personal slave, and she just keeps doting on him. It’s like feminism never happened.”

“We all live life our own way,” Greta observed. “Who’s to say what makes another person happy?”

“I can’t imagine she’s happy, constantly being told she has a fat ass. The woman has had half her ass sucked out through a tube, bags of saline stuffed into her chest, all for him, and she still puts up with his insults. You’re telling me she’s crazy about the way things are?”

“You don’t know what she’s been through,” Greta said. “I don’t know either. Maybe, compared to what her life used to be, this is paradise. Shane might be the best thing that’s ever happened to her.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Megan said. “There’s only so much leeway you can give someone. Eventually you have to draw the line.”

“Why is this getting to you so much?” Greta asked, sensing there was more to Megan’s tirade than just her problems with Hazel.

Megan sighed. “I think Eddie might get his powers back,” she revealed.

“Are you sure?” Greta said, after she picked her jaw off the floor.

“No, I’m not sure,” Megan admitted. “But that flier you found in the paper yesterday…I think it was a coded message from one of Eddie’s superhero sources. Do you remember what it said? All that stuff about feeling powerless and getting your energy back.”

“Oh honey, it was just an advertisement,” Greta told her, trying to ease her mind. “I think maybe you’re reading too much into it.”

Megan shook her head. “There’s more. Before you found that flier, I found a business card in Eddie’s pants pocket. It had the name Roland Balthasar and a phone number on it. That name was the same as the name on the flier.” Then Megan added, “And somehow, Uncle Peter is tied into this whole thing.”

“Peter?”

“When I called the number on the card, the man on the other end said my name. At the wake yesterday, as Uncle Peter was pulling away, he said my name. They were the same voice.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Greta said.

“Do you think Uncle Peter can get Eddie his powers back?”

Greta thought about it for a second. “To be honest, I wouldn’t put it past him. Peter was a genius, and no one knows what he’s been up to all these years. It’s entirely possible.”

“So where does that leave me?” Megan wondered aloud. “If Eddie gets his powers back, I’m back where I started. A friend of mine said I should be glad that all he’s doing is going off playing superhero and not cheating on me. But if I accept that, I’m no better than Hazel. He might not insult me, but I know from experience that neglect feels a lot like abuse.”

“Do you think it could be different this time?” Greta asked.

“I don’t have any evidence to suggest that. He’s been keeping this whole thing from me all weekend. What reason do I have to trust him?”

“What reason does he have to trust you?” Greta threw back at her. “You’ve known all this for days now and you haven’t talked to him about it.”

“I’ve tried…”

“You haven’t tried hard enough. If it was so important to you, if he meant so much, you wouldn’t let anything get in the way.” Greta added, “Maybe you should be asking yourself if he’s worth it. If Eddie is what you really want.”

Megan gave half a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be the one with all the faith,” she said, jokingly.

“I’m beginning to rethink a few things,” Greta admitted.


They met up with Hazel at the check out counter and attempted to pay for the deli platters. Greta had expected a discount, but she didn’t expect to get everything for free. Adam Canton was standing against a shelf of Fig Newtons, arms folded, smiling to conceal his nervousness. Whatever he’d done, Shane really had him in a tight spot.

The next stop was the Dunkin’ Donuts in the Town Square. Hazel went in as Greta and Megan stayed in the car.

“Have you given any thought to coming home?” Greta asked.

“Moving back here?” Megan questioned. She shook her head. “DC is my home. It’s where my life is. Even if the whole Eddie thing was resolved, if he got his powers back and left me in the dust, I still don’t think I could come back here.”

“With your mother gone, things are going to change,” Greta told her.

“Yeah, they’re going to get worse. Ryan and Eddie are going to start fighting over money. They’ll probably get it. Then who knows what damage they’ll do. It’ll be hard to stop them once they have that much cash to toss around. They can barely be contained as it is now. I can’t put myself in that kind of position.”

Greta thought about all she’d witnessed, Ryan and his violence. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t believe you before when you told me what Ryan was into, the things he’d done to you. It was all too horrific. My only way to deal with it was to tell myself it was exaggerated.”

“Believe me,” Megan said, “I wish it was exaggerated. I wish a tenth of the things that happened hadn’t. I wish I didn’t have to pack up my life and move it a thousand miles away just to feel safe again. But I’m beginning to understand why my mother acted the way she did, why everyone reacted the way they did. Doesn’t make it right. Doesn’t make it not hurt. But I guess it helps me get past it all.”

“Maybe you’ve got the right idea,” Greta agreed. “Maybe a change would be the best thing.”

Before she could explain herself, Hazel ducked back into the car, a dozen doughnuts under her arm and a large coffee in her hand. They backed out of the parking lot and headed home.