“MY BABY!”
Sophia Santino bounced through the screen door and flung her substantial arms around her son. Tony staggered backward as she grabbed him in a powerful bear hug.
“My baby’s home!”
As she buried Tony in a flurry of kisses, she glanced over his shoulder, shooting me a cold, appraising glance. Sophia struck me as someone who would have no trouble at all surviving a three-to-five stretch in Sybil Brand.
She finally let go, smoothing back her thinning brown hair, which was pulled into a scraggly ponytail. She cupped his face in her hands. All of the hardness seemed to melt away. Her eyes brimmed over with tears. “My baby’s home,” she whispered. Then she hollered into the house, “Girls! Get over here! Your brother’s home!”
She led us inside and we entered a small, shabbily decorated living room. A television set was blaring in one corner. Bounding over from the blue-corduroy sectional sofa came two teenage girls. In the lead was Dina Santino, Tony’s fourteen-year-old sister. Dina was wearing a tiny halter top and hot pants that barely covered her lean, young body. Her shoulder-length brown hair had been elaborately curled and she was wearing a thick layer of makeup. She planted a kiss on her brother’s cheek. Tony held her at arm’s length and took a good, long look at her.
“Go wash that goop off your face,” he scowled. “And put some clothes on, for crissakes.”
“Mo-om!” Dina looked at her mother with pleading eyes.
“Do what your brother says. No arguments!”
While Dina stomped out of the room, Tony introduced me to seventeen-year-old Leanne. She was chewing a great wad of bright-pink bubble gum. “Nice to meet you, Leanne,” I said. By way of response she flashed me a smile, popped a large bubble, and flopped back on the couch. She turned her attention back to All My Children.
Tony and I followed his mother into the kitchen. Sophia pulled three cans of Budweiser out of the fridge and clanked them down on the counter. She ripped the tab back on one and passed it to Tony. Then she offered one to me. “You want a beer, hon? It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
I declined as cheerfully as possible. I was about to explain that I didn’t drink, but Sophia had already shifted her attention back to her son.
“Here’s to my baby!” Sophia raised her beer to him before taking a long pull from the can. She stubbed out her cigarette, produced another, and lit it. Dina re-appeared, wearing a black T-shirt with the words “Bon Jovi—LET IT ROCK” written in bold yellow letters. Her face was freshly scrubbed.
“There’s my little sis!” Tony grinned, giving her a playful hug. Dina rolled her eyes, and went off to join her sister in the living room.
Sophia took a drag of her cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “So, did you come all the way up here just to introduce me to your pretty … girlfriend?” she asked, with a barely concealed edge of condescension.
“No, Ma. I’ve got news.” Tony grinned. “Big news.”
Tony’s mom looked at me sourly. “You going to have a baby or something?”
“No, Ma! I’ve retired from bookmaking. I’m going straight. We’re back home … for good.”
Sophia’s face dropped slightly. She struggled to regain her composure. As she held her cigarette to her lips I noticed her hand quivering.
“Oh,” she said weakly. “Well, how about that … ”
I was puzzled by her reaction. I had assumed that she would be ecstatic at the news. Her son was giving up his life of crime and moving close to his family.
The subject turned to money, and the reason for Sophia’s reaction became clearer. She began nervously rattling off a laundry list of unexpected expenses that she had recently incurred.
I felt awkward. My parents had never discussed their finances around me. Yet here I was, sitting with Tony’s mother for the first time, listening to a detailed catalogue of financial hardship. I excused myself and stepped outside to give them some privacy.
I sat down on the stoop, gazing at the unkempt lawn. Large brown patches had been scorched by the sun. Parked in the driveway was a silver Cadillac. I assumed it was the one that Tony had surprised his mother with two years earlier on Mother’s Day. It sat there now, baking in the mid-afternoon sun. The windows were dusty, a hubcap was missing and an ugly dent marred one side. I looked around this barren vista and wondered—not for the first time that day—what I was doing here.
When Tony joined me, his mood was black.
“Let’s get outta here,” he growled, storming across the lawn. He wrenched open the door of the Renault. “She lost my fucking money!” he spat. “I moved her here specifically to keep her away from Bay Meadows, and she … ” Tony shook his head in futile anger.
Bay Meadows was a famous San Francisco racetrack. Sophia was a gambler. Having Tony’s cash at her disposal had proved to be too much of a temptation for her. I resisted asking how much of his money she had lost. From the incandescent look on Tony’s face I knew it had to be substantial. Tony sped through the small town of Red Bluff, whizzing past the church, the school, and a couple of sunbaked stores. In a blink Red Bluff was shrinking in our rear view. We crossed over the interstate and drove through a couple of miles of open land.
Tony turned onto a gravel road and pulled up to a large fenced-off lot. At the rear were piles of rocks, ranging in size from tiny pebbles to large boulders. Tiles, paving stones and bags of various kinds of soil were stored neatly on the property. He parked in front of a one-story wooden building with a sign that read, “Accardo Landscaping.” I recognized it as his brother-in-law’s company, in which Tony told me he had invested.
Slamming the car door behind him, Tony stormed toward the front entrance. I followed him inside. The office was small, minimally decorated, and blissfully cool. The surprised-looking man behind the desk jumped to his feet as Tony burst through the door and barked, “Where’s Angela?”
“Tony! I wasn’t expecting … uh, Angela’s out back.”
He led us out the back door. We walked across a dusty lot toward a brand-new mobile home. Trying to break the awkward silence, I introduced myself to the man whom I assumed was Tony’s brother-in-law. “Dominic Accardo,” he confirmed, shaking my hand.
Dominic led the way onto a deck that had been added to make the residence look more like a house and less like a trailer. A pretty brunette with the same coloring and eyes as Tony answered the door. His oldest sister, Angela.
“Tony,” she said with a wry smile. “Long time no see.”
Tony cut straight to the chase. “Ma’s gambling again!”
Angela’s eyes widened in surprise, but she said nothing.
“How could you not have known, Angie? You’re, like, five minutes away!”
Angela looked past her brother and gave me a faint smile. “You’d better come in.”
As we filed into the trailer, I saw two children running around. Tony, completely oblivious, was still accusing Angela of keeping him in the dark about Sophia’s gambling.
Finally Angela snapped, “What am I? Her goddamned baby-sitter? I’ve got two kids and a business to run, Tony. Give me a break!”
Tony and Angela continued their heated discussion while they followed Dominic back to the office. I stayed behind in the trailer with Angela’s kids: Cynthia, four, and Jason, three. I had a terrible feeling that Tony’s plans had gone up in smoke. I tried to distract myself from this disconcerting thought by introducing myself to the children.
“So,” I asked cheerfully, “What do you two do for fun?”
Jason smiled, exposing gaps where several baby teeth were missing. “Fishing.”
“Really? That’s great. Have you caught anything recently?”
“Uh-huh.” Jason spread his arms wide, and nearly toppled over with the effort. “I caught a striped bass with Daddy. Down on the river. It was this big!”
I laughed. They were a cute pair. “That’s wonderful! And what else do you like to do?”
Jason plopped down on the carpet and sighed dramatically. “There ain’t nuthin’ else to do.”
Next door, Angela was giving Tony a detailed breakdown of how they had spent his seed money for the landscaping company. I had no doubt that Sophia was still sitting in her kitchen, nursing a beer and brooding on life’s cruel twists. I’m sure it never occurred to her that Tony might quit his lucrative career in bookmaking. There would be no more trips to Bay Meadows now that Tony was in Red Bluff. Now she would never get the chance to win back the money she had frittered away.
Tony walked out of Accardo Landscaping with a company T-shirt, a matching hat, and a full-time job. I left with the name and address of a company in Redding—a town half an hour north—where I had an interview lined up for the following morning. As luck would have it, the company that made signs for Accardo was looking for a new office manager. Tony drove back to his mother’s house in silence. I realized now that we were completely broke.
“I guess we really are just regular people now,” I said, in a vain attempt to lighten the mood.
THE MOMENT I STEPPED into the showroom of Autographics in Redding, I knew I wanted the job. Gary Stamper, the owner, had long hair and was wearing a paint-splattered Grateful Dead T-shirt and jeans.
“Heeey,” he said with an easy grin. “You must be Marisa. Right on—come in, take a look around … ”
Gary was a talented artist who had found his niche customizing trucks and cars, and designing and manufacturing signs. The showroom was partly an artist’s studio, and exhibited a wide range of Gary’s work in various media. I inhaled the smell of turpentine and fresh paint. Tony’s world had been a culture shock to me. But the familiar sights and smells of oil paint, pre-stretched canvases, spray cans, and the general disarray of an artist at work were incredibly comforting.
“Come on, let’s go through to the office,” Gary said. “The wife’s dying to meet you.”
Gary’s wife, Sheila, was eight months pregnant and looked every bit as much the hippie poster child as her husband. She conducted the interview with a squirming one-year-old on her lap. She explained that they were looking for someone who could answer the phone, give estimates, make appointments, organize Gary’s schedule, order supplies, keep the building clean, and take money to the bank every day. I nodded enthusiastically.
“You’re not afraid of dogs, are you?”
“Dogs?” I wondered what that had to do with anything. “No, not at all.”
Sheila gave a loud whistle and two enormous Doberman pinschers, Shadow and Shady, came bounding into the room via a large dog-door in the office wall.
“Good!” Sheila said. “I guess you’re hired.”
Tony and I rented a small house in Red Bluff, and settled into our new lives working full-time on minimum-wage salaries. I got my California driver’s license and we got health insurance, car insurance, and a phone jointly registered in our names. We became just like any other young couple struggling to make a life for themselves—except that we were still waiting for the police to formally press criminal charges against us.
We returned to L.A. in August for our next court appearance, only to be informed that, yet again, no charges had been filed. We returned again in September and were told the same thing.
Being in Los Angeles, surrounded by my former friends and colleagues, was a bittersweet experience. The city held so many cherished memories for me. I’d hoped that it would also remind Tony of everything we had left behind, but sadly, it didn’t. He completely slammed the door on his old life. As we waited around in the courthouse, he never once enquired about Ron, or the Staten Island offices. Instead he enthusiastically told the guys about the hunting trip that he and Dominic were planning in the fall.
My God, I thought, he’s really happy living in Red Bluff. In a way I envied his happiness. I resented it too. I found small-town life claustrophobic. Those brief, frustrating trips back to L.A. were a powerful reminder of everything we had left behind. I missed the freedom of living in the city, and began to dread that long, depressing drive back to Red Bluff.
Life took an abrupt turn for the worse when we learned that Tony’s father had passed away in Mexico. Anthony Vittorio Santino died of liver failure, a result of decades of abusing his body with heroin and other drugs. Tony and Angela had to make the long drive down to Chihuahua to identify a shriveled, yellow corpse as the man who had once been their father.
The memorial service was held in St. Bruno’s Catholic Church in San Francisco. Sophia’s loud cries echoed around the church—she wept throughout the long, solemn service. As the ceremony dragged on, I began to feel queasy. Then a powerful wave of nausea hit me. I clamped my hand over my mouth and bolted down the aisle in my high heels. Throwing open the heavy wooden doors, I made it to a nearby row of neat shrubbery and vomited.
A HORRIFIED LAUGH BURST out of me when Sophia suggested that I might be pregnant. I had been taking the pill faithfully, and having a baby was not part of our game plan. His father’s untimely death had cost Tony dearly: he’d had to pay for his father’s substantial medical bills before the hospital would agree to release the body. Then there were the cremation and funeral expenses. There was no way we could afford a child.
Tony insisted on buying a pregnancy test on the way back to Red Bluff. As I sat on the edge of the bathtub at home, I stared in mute disbelief at the red plus sign that slowly appeared. I burst into tears. Tony knocked on the bathroom door.
“Well?”
I handed him the little plastic stick and proceeded to sob bitterly. He stared intently at the test. Then a huge grin appeared on his face.
“We’re having a baby!” he laughed. “Marisa—we’re having a baby!” He flung his arms around me. As shocked as I was about the pregnancy, I couldn’t helped but be pleased by Tony’s reaction. He looked me in the eye and wiped away my tears with his thumbs.
“I guess we’d better get married,” he said.
My heart soared. Even though I knew the timing was all wrong, this still felt right. Tony was the only man I had ever really loved. Thinking of the potential horrors of a wedding in Red Bluff with both our families present, I said hopefully, “Let’s elope—drive down to Vegas, make a holiday of it.”
“Vegas?” Tony said. “You forgotten what happened the last time we set foot in that place?”
Like it or not, I was soon swept up in plans for an elaborate white wedding. Tony’s family wouldn’t hear of anything else; for the eldest child and only son in a proud Italian family, nothing else would do. For me, however, that meant I had to do something I had been dreading from the moment I accepted Tony’s proposal.
“Hi, Mom.” I got straight to the point. As chirpily as possible I blurted, “I’m getting married! Isn’t that great? … Mom?”
A deathly silence lingered as my mom absorbed the shocking news. “So you’re pregnant,” she said flatly.
I struggled to regain my composure, having rehearsed this call a dozen times before making it.
“Why yes, Mom, I am.” Silence. “You’re going to be a grandmother!” Well, I thought, as the silence stretched out painfully, at least she doesn’t know I’m up on felony charges.
When we mailed out the invitations for our November 28th wedding, I didn’t invite a single friend. They were college graduates with fabulous jobs, boyfriends, and lives. I, on the other hand, was pregnant, facing criminal charges, and getting married to a man who mowed lawns for a living. I invited only my immediate family, and even then I dreaded to think how my mother would react when she met her future in-laws.
My own relationship with Tony’s family had soured since I announced that I would be keeping my maiden name. I was overwhelmed with all the sudden changes in my life, and the thought of losing my last name only added to my anxiety. Sophia’s outraged objection only served to strengthen my resolve. I clung to “Lankester” as if my very survival depended on it.
I knew I could count on my father to lighten up the tense atmosphere. He was practiced and smooth in any social occasion. He had taught me to be resourceful, to enjoy life, and to make the best of any situation. He too had suffered during World War II, but his reaction to that awful time was completely different from my mother’s. My mother couldn’t seem to let go of her past; my father had simply buried his.
I learned about the fate of my father’s family from his father when I spent part of the summer in England with him. I was 16 then, and had no idea that my father had suffered such unimaginable losses during the war. In 1940 his mother, brother, aunts, and cousins were killed when a German bomb struck the Lankester house in Leicester. My father was the only survivor.
My parents’ marriage was hanging by a thread when he bought land in the Catskill Mountains. This effectively excused the two of them from spending weekends together. My mother opted to drive into Manhattan to visit museums and galleries. I joined my father camping on his property in the woods. Staying there was a welcome escape from the strict rules and oppressive atmosphere at home. Away from my mother, my dad was relaxed and happy. One day he announced plans to build a road up the hill to a clearing where there was a view. Piles of shale rock arrived, which we later smashed into stones with sledgehammers.
Then an old factory was torn down in Phoenicia, close to the land we owned, prompting my father to reclaim the old wood. Suddenly he was building a house, with the help of his children. Heavy machinery was used to dig the foundation and pits for the septic tanks, but we did almost everything else. We mixed cement and concrete, laid cinder blocks, and used saws, hammers, and every other tool imaginable. We installed dry wall, insulation, tarpaper, and tongue-and-groove flooring. It took years, but finishing that house taught me that anything is possible, no matter how outrageous the goal. My father very much believed that women could do anything men could do, including using a chain saw, chopping wood, and digging ditches. At home I was constantly criticized and critiqued by my mother. In the Catskills I felt useful, empowered, and capable.
Heather and Peter arrived in town a few days before the wedding, in time to help me plan the critical seating arrangements. I welcomed their support. Since the divorce, my mother’s moods had fluctuated between bitterness and depression, and she was about to come face-to-face with the man she blamed for her misery. My father, on the other hand, was happily remarried to an attractive, successful woman, who also happened to be a decade younger than my mother. Just the thought of having my parents and stepmother in the same room caused me overwhelming anxiety. On top of that, I had to consider the effect of adding the Santino clan to that already toxic atmosphere.
“He looks Mexican,” my mother remarked when she met Tony at the rehearsal dinner. Working long hours under the scorching California sun had turned Tony’s skin deep brown. I bit my tongue. It was pointless to say anything. I knew that Tony could never measure up to her expectations.
I guessed that meeting her future son-in-law was one of the lowest points in my mother’s life. As far as she was concerned, I was a monumental failure. All those hours of piano lessons, ballet, and gymnastics; all the trips to galleries and museums; my expensive education—all of it wasted on Tony and his “white trash” family. She had expected so much more from me when it came to men.
My mother’s eyes trailed Tony as he made a beeline across the room to introduce himself to my father and his wife Kristen, who had just arrived. They greeted Tony with warm smiles. My mother turned stiffly and mumbled “strumpet” under her breath.
Heather and Peter broke away to watch my mother so I could join Tony and greet my father and Kristen. To my relief the three of them were talking about golf. Tony had played from time to time, and soon my father was eagerly giving him tips on form and technique. Across the room I noticed a look of horror cross my mother’s face. I followed her shocked gaze to a slightly-worse-for-wear-looking Sophia. She had stumbled, and was trying to steady herself against a wall with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
A slight chill tinged the air the next morning, as the bridal party climbed the steps to the little church. Tony’s sisters fussed over each other for a last-minute hair and makeup check, while Dad and I peered through the heavy wooden doors at the guests gathered inside. Tony’s cousins, aunts, uncles, and fellow Accardo Landscaping employees occupied one side of the half-filled church. My mother sat on the other, wearing her pale-blue Chanel suit and Hermès scarf, resolutely facing forward. Next to her was my brother, and behind them my stepmother Kristen, who suddenly looked over her shoulder and gave a supportive smile when she made eye contact with Dad. His face melted into a smile. I couldn’t recall seeing him as happy as he looked then.
The music started, cueing the bridesmaids. One by one they slowly walked down the aisle. Heather, who was acting as my maid of honor, dramatically fluffed the full skirt of her ridiculous gown and winked at me before sashaying behind her future sisters-in-law toward the altar.
“Are you really certain you want to go through with this?” my father asked. His eyes were filled with paternal concern. I had always confided in him, and part of me wanted to share everything that was wrong in my life. In the past he had always made things better. But I was no longer his little girl. Telling him the truth would devastate him. I put on my best smile.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course I’m sure.”
I smiled at Peter, who snapped a picture as the organ struck up “The Wedding March.” My father, his arm intertwined with mine, pulled me slightly closer. As I walked down the aisle with my father, ready to say my vows to love and honor Tony, I was convinced that I was doing the right thing. The love we had for each other was undoubtedly strong enough to handle whatever life was going to throw at us.
I LOVED BEING MARRIED, but I was feeling worse with every passing day. Morning sickness followed me into the second trimester. It felt as if the child inside me was growing stronger while I became weaker and weaker. I detested being pregnant. Being in control had always been vitally important to me, and now I was at the mercy of a process that I had zero control over.
Tony was fast becoming frustrated with his inability to ease my fears about winding up in jail. I couldn’t stop worrying. Why hadn’t we heard anything? What was going on? As the weeks passed, I became more and more convinced that something terrible was about to happen.
I was eight and a half months pregnant, and at my most vulnerable, when two men wearing suits walked into Autographics. The sight of them instantly set off alarm bells. I took a sharp intake of breath and dropped my hands to my belly, as if I could somehow protect my unborn child from what I knew was coming next.
The men approached the glass divider and flashed their badges. “We’re looking for Marisa Lankester.”
“That’s me,” I managed to squeak.
The men came charging into the office, grabbed my arms, and pulled them behind my back. While one of them cuffed me, the other pushed my head onto my desk. This quick, vicious movement squeezed the last of the air out of my already squashed lungs.
Shadow and Shady heard the commotion and came charging into the office. Their deep growls caught the officers off-guard, and they released me.
“Call off your dogs,” one of them growled. “Call off those fucking dogs, now!”
I tried to speak but I couldn’t catch my breath. The officers drew their weapons, ready to shoot the dogs. I managed to scream, “No!”
Gary came flying out of his studio. With his palette knife in one hand and his wild hair flying all over the place, he looked more like a dangerous lunatic than the gentle artist he really was. I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen as the room started to recede.
It felt as though someone were pushing down very hard on the top of my head. And then blackness.