Bleeding Heart

Angela Collinson’s day ended like a stone, plummeting into the icy waters of the Atlantic. Images of Widow’s Hill comforted her as she thought of Bela’s kiss.

That morning was brisk, it was just before Christmas vacation and the girls were five and seven. And without word one, he was gone.

There was a sealed envelope Bela entrusted to her when they first got married, he told her not to open it but that she would know when the time was right to break the seal. She sat at her dressing table and carefully slid a letter opener under the seal. There were instructions for her to give to the university.

When the university contacted her, she took the girls with her in her light blue VW Beetle to the university campus and parked in the parking space marked Prof. Bela Collinson. She told them to wait in the car and that she would be right back. When she came back, they tried to read her face. But there was no smile, no frown; her eyes were empty, expressionless. Victoria wanted to ask, ‘where is daddy?’ but she didn’t. She told them that ‘your father had to leave us’; that ‘his work at the university brought the attention of the government.’ He was working for the government now and his job was very important and secretive. They were not to tell a soul about their father; not their friends, not their teachers, not anyone. She didn’t know when he was coming back. They were told to tell anyone when asked, that he had gone back to his homeland in Europe to take care of a sick family member.

They listened, wide eyed and chests pounding. It was scary, but they thought it was kind of cool at the same time. They deduced that their father was a secret agent, working on secret missions that took him all around the world. In the beginning, the sisters asked their mother frequently if their daddy was coming back or if she knew where he was. She would put on her dead pan face every time they asked these questions and she gave them her stock answer; “you know I can’t tell you that. Your daddy can’t even tell me.”

They figured it had to be true because they always had money and not just enough for food and to pay the bills but enough that mom didn’t have to work, enough that they could do plenty of fun things like join clubs, go on trips, get new furniture and clothes. Nothing really changed except they didn’t see their dad anymore. They stopped asking their mom those silly questions and just rolled with the flow. Eventually, their friends stopped asking, too. Life went on.

Victoria could see her mother was heartbroken. Lots of men from the university would come ‘sniffing around.’ It was plain to see that those men were more than just casually interested in seeing how she was ‘getting on.’ She was polite, engaged them in brief conversation and then she shooed them away. Good, thought Victoria. They were creepy, old men; all of them. Eventually, she put away any photos she had of her Bela, reminders of a man she knew she would see no more. She never married again, she instead poured herself into her girls. After a man like Bela, she knew there would be another iubitor de frumos, her own beautiful lover.

She was now a woman alone, in 1966, with two kids. She went through the paces of normalcy; getting the kids ready for school, preparing the meals, doing the shopping, seeing an occasional movie. Were it not for her girls, life would be an unbearable existence. Bela made ample provisions for her and the children. She knew the money could not have come from his salary as a professor at the university though she did wonder about the source of his income. Even so, Angela spent cautiously but made sure her girls had a good education and were allowed some luxuries such as tutors for their flourishing abilities with writing and painting. She found her thoughts increasingly drifting to her life before Bela, wondering what happened to Angela D’Costa.

Angela D’Costa Collinson started out in life depending on her own devices. She was a student of biology and was an exceptional one at that, working on her master’s degree when she met Professor Bela Collinson where she was attending classes at Husson University. There was an instant attraction and a mutual interest in genealogy. She tried to keep things on a professional level but the relationship soon progressed to an intensely personal one. She was proud to be fiercely independent but Bela was so seductive, so sexual, so self-assured and she fell completely, madly, in love with him.

He was a bit older than she and he was worldly; well-read and experienced. He would tell her stories of history and travel that were so vivid, he seemed to have firsthand knowledge of the events. He could entertain her for hours and she would never forget those times. And he wanted to know her, too, what was in her mind.

One morning, staring blankly out of a rain streaked kitchen window, Victoria watched her put a pat of butter into her coffee. She stirred it, Victoria’s eyes furrowed, and she grimaced as her mother took a sip. Now, both girls were watching as she swallowed.

“Oh!” Angela quickly set her cup on the table.

Daphne wanted to laugh but she saw that her sister was not laughing.

“Finish your breakfast, you don’t want to be late for school.”

Angela quickly left the kitchen. Victoria thought she might be crying.

“I wonder what she put in our lunch.”

“Just eat it, you don’t want to make her sad.”

They did their best to make her happy. And there were lots of men from the university, ‘sniffing around.’ It was plain for Victoria to see that those men were more than just casually interested in seeing how she was ‘getting on.’ She was polite, engaged them in brief conversation and then she shooed them away. Good, thought Victoria. They were creepy, old men; every, last one of them. Eventually, she put away any photos she had of her Bela, reminders of a dwindling past.

Their gifts with literature and art brought her joy, so they wrote and painted daily and became quite accomplished and renowned for their talents. They had become something of local celebrities.

But a storm was brewing with the sisters. Anger and resentment towards their father was festering; he had abandoned them, and he made their mother unhappy. The anger seemed to feed into their talents while Angela swam deeper and further into her private, briny deep of tears and remorse.

Angela could see her daughters’ growing hostility towards their father’s memory and she thought that in some way, if she could share his secret with them, they would understand and be more at ease in their minds. But she could not. His will was stronger than hers.

When her girls had become young women, and had gone off to make their own lives, she could no longer bear the burden of Bela’s secret.

After all those years, she still had the pale blue VW bug. That was one of the few things she couldn’t let go of; that and Bela’s blue suit. Alone in her house, she went to her room and pulled Bela’s suit out of the closet, the one with the tie still hanging under the collar. She held it close to her and inhaled the gratifying, sweet smell of Bela. She put the coat on and slipped the tie around her neck. She hadn’t fixed a tie in years but she still knew how. After a final glance in the dresser mirror, she walked out of her room towards the front door and picked up her keys from the bowl on the table in the foyer. She locked the door behind her out of habit. It was a beautiful day for a drive.