Note: I wrote this chapter long before the news of Kate Middleton's bout with acute morning sickness (medical term hyperemesis gravedarum) was reported, basing the malady suffered by the women in Della's family on actual women I've met. This chapter is quite serious and contains adult themes. ~ D

Chapter 15

"It was me," Della whispered in utter anguish, the fact that she had been responsible for her mother's descent into a lifetime of mental illness tearing at her own sanity.

Perry tried to gather Della into his arms but she jumped to her feet and he should have known better as she fought violently against him. Her tears had stopped, to be replaced by a wild-eyed panic. "Don't touch me," she commanded, on the edge of hysteria. "I have to get out of here. Let go of me, Perry."

He released his hold on her so she could do what she did best: run away to deal with her pain. His heart was so heavy he could barely breathe as she turned her back on him and headed unsteadily for the door.

There was mumbling and murmuring as the odd gathering of people from Della's life past and present dispersed, following Della out of the dining room, and wandering into different rooms in the house. In moments only Jameson Street remained in the dining room with Perry.

"I need to talk to you," Della's father told him soberly, his steely eyes clouded, his shoulders slumped. "Come into my study."

Jameson Street closed the door and indicated one of the stately wing chairs that flanked his enormous mahogany desk but Perry Mason shook his head, choosing to stand instead as he sipped his bourbon.

"Things have become very awkward, have they not?" The older man walked stiffly to the window behind the desk.

"I would say that is the understatement of the century," Perry proclaimed. He could barely control the trembling of his own body.

"Evie doesn't know how to be a mother."

"Any more than you know how to be a father." Any more than I know how to be a husband, or even a supportive lover, he thought with searing agony.

"Touché', Mr. Mason." Jameson Street tossed back his own drink and set the glass down on a credenza equally as ornate as the behemoth of a desk. "Would you like to hear a sad story?"

"Sadder than the one I just heard? Go ahead. Make me cry."

Jameson Street frowned. "Are you always so confrontational?"

"Only when I'm trying to cover up something stupid I've done," he admitted. Why had he insisted that they come here? He shouldn't have been so stubborn in response to Della's stubbornness – and even though she should have told him more about her family, he should have recognized that telling him caused her undeniable pain and allowed her to tell him whenever she felt she could.

"Ah, something we have in common. I, too, did something stupid."

"And what would that be?"

"I married a child, Mr. Mason," Jameson Street replied soberly. "And I allowed that child to nearly destroy me." Jameson Street stared out the window, his back ramrod straight. "I was old enough to know better, but I had been alone for six years and my mother had taken over making personal decisions for me while I struggled to keep the mill viable. The Sherwood family wasn't completely ruined in the crash and Bruce Sherwood was willing to invest his family's future." He turned and smiled ruefully over his shoulder at Perry Mason. "We desperately needed capital for new machinery and expansion if we wanted to recover and compete as the economy gained strength. The caveat was that our families merge. Literally and figuratively."

Jameson paused to let the attorney absorb his words. Perry leaned against the heavy mahogany desk, simultaneously crossing his arms and his ankles and taking a sip of his drink. It helped to quell the tremors of worry over Della and the sad fact that she had again refused to turn to him for comfort.

"Mae was the elder daughter," Jameson continued. He had turned back to the window so he missed Perry's surprised expression. "Everything was arranged by Bruce Sherwood and my mother. Mae and I were forced together on several occasions in a farcical courtship chaperoned either by Lawrence and Sarah or by Evie tagging along on our 'dates'. The only problem was that although I liked Mae and she had no serious objections to me, I couldn't marry her." He made a noise between a snort and a laugh. "The arrangement had been made with the wrong daughter."

Perry cleared his throat. "You had fallen for Eve?"

"God help me, yes. I was nearly twice her age, but I couldn't help myself. My first wife was a lovely woman, calm and quiet of spirit…Mae was too much like her. I wanted more in my life after mourning for so long. I wanted Evie's youth and exuberance, and she was very convincing when she claimed to want me."

Perry nearly spit whiskey out his nose. Mae, 'quiet of spirit'? He coughed to cover his reaction and nodded at Della's father to go on. He would need to call Mae again and apologize for what he had said.

"Our parents weren't terribly pleased, but when I pointed out the object was to combine what remained of the family fortunes, they reluctantly consented. Evie and I were married on her eighteenth birthday. She became pregnant quickly. Too quickly. We should have been more careful."

Perry set his drink down on the desk blotter as Jameson Street wandered from the window on the wall behind the desk to the window on the wall alongside the desk. He pulled back the summer drapery and stared morosely out at the driveway. "She was very sick," he said quietly. "She literally wasted away before our eyes. Her doctor suggested the pregnancy be terminated, but Evie screamed and carried on and we couldn't console or calm her. The doctor said she could die as her mother had, but she was still determined to have her baby. I'm ashamed to say I sided with the doctor because all I wanted was for Evie to be well."

Perry stared at Jameson Street, the man who would have ended Della's life before it began, and bile rose in his throat.

"She did get a bit better," Jameson continued, oblivious to Perry's stony stare. "And miraculously she managed to carry Della to term."

"You mean Maeve," Perry interjected. He thought he could strangle this man with his bare hands and not regret it for a moment. Justifiable, he would argue. And he would win.

Jameson Street nodded almost absently. "The Street family has a long tradition of naming children very specifically. Evie balked at naming a daughter after my grandmother, whom she didn't get along with, and began referring to our child as 'Maeve' from the moment her condition was confirmed. She was convinced the baby was a girl." Della's father smiled faintly. "I don't think she wanted a boy to be named Sherwood even more than she didn't want to name a girl Della."

Perry uncrossed and re-crossed his ankles. "How did she manage to win the name game?"

Jameson laughed mirthlessly. "She almost died, that's how. She was weak from being sick for months and the doctors didn't think she would survive the birth. But she did. Then she lapsed into a deep sleep. I signed the birth certificate naming our daughter Maeve Marie over my grandmother's and mother's protests and sat by Evie's bed praying for her to wake up." He heaved an enormous sigh. "She woke up eight days later. I learned to be careful what I wished for."

"What happened?"

"Evie wasn't the same person. Her behavior became erratic and she took reckless, foolish chances – and claimed not to remember what she did or why she did it. Truth and reality became foreign concepts to her. Once she stole a horse from the Allensworth's stable and rode it bareback two counties away. I had to drive over with a horse trailer and pick her up after the sheriff called. She said the horse told her it was okay."

"What about Della?"

Jameson Street took several seconds to reply. "Evie couldn't concentrate. She lost track of time. She sometimes forgot to change the baby's diapers or to feed her while she simply stared out the window combing her hair obsessively. Once she drove downtown and left Della in the market. I was frantic when she came home with a load of groceries but without the baby and broke every speed law getting back to the market. There she was, chewing on a toy, sitting exactly where Evie had put her down and told her to stay. She was nine months old. At least a dozen people had to have walked right by her, but she was so quiet no one noticed."

Perry passed a hand over his face. He had hoped at first that Della could have a relationship with her mother, but the more he learned about Eve Sherwood Street Akers Wyman, the more he just wanted her to go away. And the more Jameson Street talked, the more Perry disliked and distrusted the man. Too many secrets had been kept for too long, secrets that had the potential to ruin several lives, including his own.

"By the time Della was a year old, Evie's behavior was so unpredictable and dangerous my mother and grandmother forcibly took over caring for her. Evie threw another screaming fit and disappeared for several days. When she turned up and wouldn't tell us where she had been, I had no choice but to commit her."

Perry shifted glittering eyes from his shoe tops to Jameson Street's back. "You had no choice," he echoed, knowing it to be so.

"My ex-wife, Mr. Mason, could not tell the truth if was written down for her and had proven she couldn't be trusted not to harm herself or her baby. That is why she has the not-so-honorable distinction of being the last woman to deliver a baby in the Horace Chapman Memorial Hospital and of being the first female patient in the Horace Chapman Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed."

Jameson Street abruptly turned from the window and faced Perry Mason.

"I'm not proud of my life's decisions, Mr. Mason. I married unwisely and when my wife broke down I allowed my mother and grandmother to take over. I signed commitment papers. The doctors said Evie should never become pregnant again. I signed more papers."

Perry narrowed his eyes at the older man in sickened contempt. "You had her sterilized." This stunning revelation had not been in Paul's report.

"It was to save her life – but still allow her to be a woman."

Loathing for Della's father made it difficult for Perry to speak as he once again battled the shakes. "Don't give me that. It was to allow you to be a man."

Jameson Street shook his head emphatically. "No, I wouldn't have…I just wanted Evie," he finished helplessly. "She wasn't well, had probably never been well, but I still loved her."

Perry craved a cigarette badly. Della's father's candid confession grew more sickening with every word, but he couldn't cut it short no matter how bad a taste it left in his mouth. He had to know every awful truth so he could help Della deal with her childhood or they might very well not have a future together, especially considering what they knew about her mother and what both her parents had just revealed. He picked up his abandoned drink, drained it, and set the glass down on the desk blotter again very deliberately. "But you didn't get Evie," he said with assured finality.

"No, I didn't. She was in the hospital for nearly a year. When the doctors released her, I went to pick her up but she had walked out sometime in the night and vanished. It was the day after Della's second birthday. Several weeks later I received Nevada divorce papers in the mail. My mother advised me to sign them and be rid of her. So I did. Then I signed papers changing my daughter's name. It seemed all I did for months was sign papers my mother put in front of me. I allowed my mother full reign over Della while I tried to convince Bruce Sherwood not to pull his investment from the mill. He was devastated when Evie disappeared and blamed me for everything that had happened. He died a year later, just two weeks after my grandmother passed away. It was a very difficult time for both of our families."

"And you never heard from Eve again?"

Jameson Street shook his head. "Not until she walked through that doorway two nights ago. I thought she would want to know about Della…she was so young and so ill and I didn't know what to do for her." He looked down at his shoes, then back up at the big man leaning against his desk. He sensed hostility in Perry Mason's posture, a hostility he knew to be rooted in concern for Della, and he couldn't hold it against him. "I made terrible mistakes," he admitted. "I have nothing but a cordial business relationship with my son, and no relationship whatsoever with my daughter. My third marriage was unhappy and ended bitterly. I couldn't tell you what day it was my youngest son died. I'm not much of a man, Mr. Mason, and no one will be deeply mournful when I die."

"No tears yet, Mr. Street," Perry announced. "Unless you meant them to be shed for Della."

Jameson Street waved away his words. "If nothing else, I'm a realist. When Della left for California my mother was grievously wounded, but I was angry that my daughter would turn her back on her obligations and hurt her grandmother so deeply. I didn't understand her. I still don't understand her."

"You don't know her," Perry said.

"She's reminded me of that often since she moved away. I can guess what kind of a relationship you have with my daughter, Mr. Mason. Her grandmother did not raise her to behave in that manner."

Perry was silent for a moment, his eyes hard and glittering. "Don't you dare judge her or lecture me about what you think our relationship might be after the story you just told."

Jameson Street's steely eyes were equally hard and glittering. "Tell me, Mr. Mason, are you toying with my daughter because she's young and pretty and had the potential to be very wealthy? Or is she just easy?"

Perry Mason's hands balled into fists, his rage barely contained. "Della doesn't have to answer to you, and I sure as hell don't, Mr. Street. I forced her to come out here hoping that she would confront the anger she had for her grandmother, and to possibly repair her relationship with you and her brother, but all I've done is hurt the best person I know." He pushed himself away from Jameson Street's ornate desk and headed for the door of the study. "We'll stay for a few days after the funeral," he tossed back over his shoulder, "because there are matters I need to attend to in regard to Della's inheritance before we leave the state. But mark my words, Mr. Street, for as long as I live, I will not bring her back here."

"Mr. Mason," Jameson Street called after his retreating back. "You say for the rest of your life, but how long will you actually stay with Della now that you know the truth about her and about her mother? You do realize my daughter can't give you a family. The doctors recommended to us that she be…"

Perry Mason spun and made two long strides before reaching out and grasping the man by his tie, choking him until his lips turned slightly blue. "If you say one word to her along those lines," he bit out, "there will be another funeral in town this week." He roughly released his hold on the older man's neck and turned once again to leave.

Jameson Street watched the man who loved his daughter ferociously stalk from the room and slam the heavy door to the study behind him. He sank into one of the shiny leather wing chairs, head bowed, hands dangling between his legs. Then he raised his head and looked heavenward. His mother's greatest wish had been granted. Della would be all right.