The Peggy Yacyniak Story

      The hospital’s call woke me so early, I thought it was Peggy when I answered. Such calls were usually bad news and this proved to be the case this time as well. The voice on the other end of the telephone told me they intended to release my uncle and the end of the week and I should come there to collect him. Although I had kept the apartment next door to mine for this purpose, his return added complexity to my life I didn’t need. I was his caretaker, the person who had to feed him, clean his clothes, take him to doctors and I resented every bit of it. No sooner had I hung up the phone, Maryann showed up at my door. She wanted to make love; I put her off. She didn’t seem to understand why. I wasn’t engaged the way she was, and it didn’t matter if I was going out with somebody else, she said. Eventually, I got her to leave. But her words and attitude lingered in my apartment even after she was gone. Too much of what she’d said echoed sentiments I had heard comi

    At that time, moving from her living room to her bedroom, the whole situation was still largely a mystery to me, and it wasn’t until that phone call three decades later did the final pieces of this human tragedy fall into place. How Robert, the love of her life, completely betrayed her, leaving her with an emptiness inside she could not fill, and how much hope she had held out to live a normal life, to become someone’s bride, and mother someone’s children. I didn’t know the truth about Robert until I talked to the Hackensack firefighter, who had hoped to replace Robert in her life. Although Peggy was a popular girl in high school – when she actually attended that is – Robert stood tall among all the other boys who craved her affections. He was the great love in Peggy’s life, and despite her worldliness, Robert remained an icon of love, a high school sweetheart she so adored she could not let him out of her sight, going everywhere he did, being with him always, one of thos