ZAIDIE
AS MA VENTURED FURTHER INTO THE WORLD SHE HAD ONCE disowned and Agnes spent more time at the pool, I became the one who stayed home. There was still school and my part-time job at Hanley’s, but otherwise, I lived in the walls of the gray house on Sanderson Street. I lived in three suitcases that were lined up, small to large, in the corner of my room. I lived at the top of the treacherous flight of stairs that led to the attic. And most of all, I lived in the typewriter on the old desk Jimmy had given me.
Flufferbell had taken to following me around the way she had once trailed after Ma. She regarded me suspiciously whenever I added another item to my suitcases, meowed in protest if I went to the closet for my shoes, and howled every time I crossed the maledizione. Soon I would leave her for good and we both knew it. With no money for a plane ticket to come home on holidays, I might not be back for a year. Maybe longer.
Sometimes I felt as lost as I’d been the day I came.
Alone in the attic, I filled journals and typed out long letters to my brothers—some of which I mailed—others too filled with unanswerable questions to foist on anyone.
When those questions got too big to fit into a notebook or an envelope, I turned to fiction.
I called my first story Betrayal. Wasn’t that my inheritance—the weight I couldn’t set down or leave behind no matter how I tried? Just like Jimmy carried his parents’ alcoholism and Agnes her abandonment, my father’s repeated treacheries—and the secret fear I might be like him—trailed me wherever I went. Alone in the attic, I gave them to “Colleen,” a character named after a dark-haired model in Seventeen. But without my permission, Colleen’s life, my life, refused to be about any of that. Somehow, it kept turning into a Love Story.
The only question was when it began. Was it the day Ma opened the door to Jon and me, first hesitantly, and then wide? Or before that, when I, at five years old, had risen from bed at three in the morning to comfort my screaming baby brother, my mother instructing me on how to prepare formula from her sickbed? Writing about them, I was keenly aware of how much I missed them. But more than that, I was overwhelmed with gratitude that I’d had them while I did.
And then I was pulled back further, back to New Jersey when Sylvie and Michael Finn and I had lived together as a family. I must have typed a hundred pages before I realized that no one ever knows for sure where and when the spark ignited their Love Story. Or why. Or where it’s heading. We can only pick up the thread where we are and continue. Best we can. Day after day. I kept typing.
Between the clanging of the rickety fan I had dragged up to the attic after Flufferbell clawed a hole in the window screen and the transistor radio that kept me company and the tap of my typewriter keys, I didn’t hear the banging at the door, even though it was coming from a girl who knew how to use her fists.
Apparently, she was aware of where I spent my days because she pinged my window with a rock. Thrown one bit harder, she might have shattered it. When I switched off the radio, I heard her yelling, “What the hell, Z? You gonna come down and open the friggin’ door or what? I been banging for a half hour.”
Even if I hadn’t recognized the voice, I would have known who it was. Not only had she appropriated Jimmy’s nickname for me, Jane had even mastered his syntax.
She plowed in, dropping a large duffel bag in the foyer with a thump as soon as I opened the door.
“Holy hell, what’s in that thing?” I asked. We seemed to have dispensed with stuff like hello.
“What does it look like? Everything I own.”
Then, before I could ask what it—and more importantly she—was doing in our foyer with everything she owned, Jane Miller, toughest girl I knew, sank down onto her bag and began to cry. I looked wistfully in the direction of Ma’s headquarters, momentarily wishing I’d never encouraged her to go out. At least she would have known what to do.
“It’s like ninety degrees out there, Jane. Can I get you something to—”
She blew her nose angrily. “A beer would hit the spot. And what the hell are you looking at? You never seen a chick cry before?”
By the time I’d poured her a lemonade, she had moved into the parlor and was sitting in the hole on the couch. The duffel bag rested in the middle of the floor like a large, feral animal. I almost tripped on it.
After she downed her drink, she held out the glass for a refill. “I just hitchhiked from somewheres north of Boston. And I had to walk from Main Street, where the trucker let me out. A good mile and a half.” She cocked her head at the duffel bag. “That thing’s heavy as a mother.”
“You hitchhiked? From where? And why didn’t . . . your parents pick you up?”
“If I had to drag that thing across the Sahara I wouldn’t call them. Are you gonna get me some more lemonade or what?”
I started for the kitchen.
“And while you’re in there, think you can fix me something to eat?” she called after me. “I was so nerved up this morning I couldn’t even think of breakfast.”
“My mother should be back in a little while.” I scanned the street hopefully as I set a ham sandwich on the coffee table.
“Not unless the movie’s a bomb, she won’t.”
“The movie?”
“When I passed the Colonial, I saw your ma and that crazy kid that used to work with Jimmy buying tickets to the matinee.”
I’d forgotten. A week ago, Ma had gone to the movies with Joe Jr. on his day off like Jimmy sometimes did. Another new frontier for her, and she’d only had to breathe into the paper bag she carried once, she bragged.
The movie was okay, but that popcorn, my goodness, Louie, it was out of this world, she said at supper. Everything’s a damn wonder to you these days, ain’t it, Dahlia? he grumbled.
“He’s not crazy,” I said to Jane. “He’s just . . . he’s Joe Jr. is who he is.”
“Now you sound like that asshole Jimmy. Anyways, I only came here cause I wanted to talk to you and I knew your ma and Agnes would be out.”
I looked at her nervously. “Me?”
“If anyone can understand my predicament, it’s you, Z.”
Though I still wasn’t sure what she was driving at, my mind flashed uncomfortably on the talk we’d had in the alley outside Rusty’s Hideaway and that fateful little packet she’d handed me.
My eyes must have been round as soup plates. “Predicament?”
She stood up and open her arms. “Notice anything different?”
Poking out from her baggy clothes, her arms were as skinny as ever, but wiry with strength. Different? Her face was more angular, and in spite of her tears in the hallway, there was a new flintiness in her eyes.
“You cut your hair?” I asked weakly.
At that, she lifted up her shirt, revealing the hard round lump beneath it. “Most of the girls at the house are twice as big at five months. I carry small.”
Girls? The house? Five months? I didn’t know what to ask first. And why was she still holding her shirt up? Was she proud of that mortifying sight? Or did she just want to force me to look at it, the way she had pressed the Trojan on me in the alley?
“I made brownies yesterday,” I finally said. “You want one?”
“Two. And a big glass of milk. We’re supposed to drink—”
“So I’ve heard.” Though she’d finally dropped her shirt, it was like she was still forcing me to see. Still making me hear those words: five months.
Meanwhile, where was Ma? Sitting at the Colonial, a bucket of the most amazing popcorn ever in her hands, entranced by some dumb movie. I practically ran for the kitchen.
When I emerged with a plate of brownies (adding a few Lorna Doones since she was eating for two), I found Jane leaning back on the couch. Her eyes were closed as if, weary from her adventure, she’d drifted off to sleep, the traitorous Flufferbell curled up on her lap. Now that she’d dumped her horrible story on me, she was smiling as serenely as the Madonna.
I cleared my throat and thumped the plate on the table in front of her as loudly as I could, but what woke her was the sound of the front door flapping open.
“Ma!” Agnes sang out. “I made my best time in the butterfly!”
“Ma’s at the movies,” Jane answered, blinking awake.
So now she was calling my mother Ma. She seemed to think she’d taken control of the house, too.
“Get yourself a glass of milk,” she told Agnes. “I might as well tell yas both at the same time.”
Agnes took a quick look at the ominous, giant duffel, dropped her swim bag beside it, and obeyed.
Of course, Jane couldn’t resist pulling up her shirt and giving Agnes a taste of the shock I got. It seemed like the thing had grown since she sprang it on me.
Agnes turned about as pale as a brown-skinned person can. “Shit. Sorry. I mean—congratulations?” she stammered. “When did you find out?”
“I started to have my suspicions right around the time your asshole brother decided to go out and beat the crap out of that guy. Now you know why I was so pissed.” Her eyes flashed. “I couldn’t friggin’ believe it. I mean, we used a safe every time . . . Well, all but that night we were out late walking in the graveyard.”
“The graveyard?” By then, Agnes looked as if she was the one with morning sickness.
“When the spirit hits, it hits, honey. Anyway, the dead don’t mind; that’s what Jimmy said.” She almost smiled before she remembered how pissed she was. “My mother figured it out before I did. She came home with one of those tests.”
“Does Jimmy know?”
“Why would I tell that asshole?” Jane said, but again I saw a watery glimmer in her eyes. “After the shit he pulled, he wouldn’t see the kid till he was six—even if I was allowed to keep it.”
Suddenly, it all made sense. “You said you were staying at an, um, a house?”
“Same place I went last time.” Agnes moved in closer and I went for the paper towels, because by then, Jane was crying so hard Kleenex weren’t going to cut it.
“At first, I refused. I’m twenty-one now so it’s not like they could make me. And you know, I almost had my mom on my side, but between the first pregnancy and then my job at the Hideaway, and most of all Jimmy, my stepdad had already about had it with me.
“‘Once was a mistake,’ he yelled at my mom, making sure the whole house heard him. ‘But twice? That’s a pattern.’ Even I couldn’t deny he had a point.
“He started following me and my mom around the house, asking how I thought I would support a child on my waitress money. And where I planned to live. ‘Not at this house, with my daughters,’ he bellowed, making it clear I’d never been one—even in the beginning when he pretended. ‘I can’t have that here. I won’t, Iris.’” Jane unfurled a few more towels from the roll and mopped her eyes.
“What could Mom say? She’s been giving in for nineteen years. At this point, it’s the only thing she knows how to do—and besides, deep down she knows everything in that house is his. Everything but me, that is. So one night she comes into my room. ‘We can’t be selfish, Janie,’ she says. ‘Think of what’s best for the baby. And once it’s all over, you’ll still have your whole future ahead of you.’ Same shit I heard the last time. The only difference was that this time my stepdad had agreed to pay my tuition if I wanted to go back to school. Once again, I saw my shiny ticket . . .”
She paused for another raucous blow of her nose. “That’s not why I agreed, though.”
Agnes and I stared at her.
“I did it because I wanted to get back at Jimmy for ruining everything when I needed him most. Someday I’d write him a letter and tell him I’d given his son away just like his mom and dad had done to him. The way I felt having to do this all over again? He’d feel it double.” Staring at the floor, she nodded her head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
My eyes pivoted, almost involuntarily, toward the duffel bag. “But then you changed your mind?”
“It was last night. I was in my room with the bitch of a roommate they give me. Anyways, I had just started to fall off to sleep when I feel this . . . this flutter. Course, I knew what it was, from . . . before. But I don’t know, all a sudden it was like Jimmy was with me. Like he hadn’t done what he done, hadn’t been sent where he was sent. Nope. He was right there with me.”
She paused, unconsciously putting a hand on her belly, as if she was back in that room. Just her and the flutter. “You know what he used to do sometimes?”
My sister and I shook our heads in unison, afraid she was going to tell us more about the graveyard. I was even more scared when she got up, closed her eyes, and took my face in her hands.
“This,” she said, with the kind of solemnity Nonna talked about her Communion.
After a minute, she released me and returned to the hole. “Yeah. He’d put his two hands on my face and hold it like it was the most precious thing in the world. Then he’d tell me how friggin’ beautiful I was. Me. Jane Miller. And you wanna know the crazy thing? He meant it. No one ever did that before, and let’s face it—with the mug on me? It ain’t gonna happen again.
“Anyways, I was so rattled up, I went and told my roommate about the flutter—and about Jimmy. Well, everything. ‘This baby might be all I have left of him,’ I told her. How could I give him away? But what else could I do? Where the hell would I go?”
“You mean the bitch? That’s who you told?” Agnes asked. “What did she say?”
“Nothin’. Not a single damn word.” Jane’s eyes drifted to the duffel and ours followed. “She just dragged that out of the closet and helped me pack, the both of us bawlin’ like idiots.”
For a full five minutes, we sat there in stunned silence, our eyes fixed on the giant bag that almost seemed to be breathing in the middle of our parlor. No matter what we thought, how could we argue with the flutter?
“You said he,” Agnes finally said. “What makes you so sure it’s a boy?”
Jane looked at her with the same weary expression she’d given me that day in the alley when she taught me about Trojans. “It’s what they call maternal instinct, honey. When you’re older—a lot older if you know what’s good for you—you’ll find out.”
“But there’s one more thing I still don’t understand,” I interrupted. “Why’d you come here? You know Jimmy’s not coming home in . . . a long time, and even if he was, you said you don’t want him to know.”
“It had nothing to do with that ass—” she began, but when Agnes and I winced, she spared us. “The only reason I came was . . .” She picked at her nails for a minute, as if considering the answer. Or as if she really didn’t know. “Well, where else?” She finally shrugged. “Isn’t this the place you go when you ain’t got nowhere’s else?”
Not knowing how to respond, we turned to the brownies and finished the whole plate, even though we were already full. Then Agnes and I got up and dragged the duffel bag up to Jimmy’s room.
We were coming down the stairs when Ma pushed the front door open, all riled up over this new actor—Dustin Hoffman—and the movie she’d seen. “The best movie of all time,” she said.
“Almost as good as the popcorn,” Agnes whispered to me, and then we both giggled. The theater was more crowded than usual, so Ma had to use her paper bag twice, but after a while, she’d gotten so lost in Mrs. Robinson that she forgot the people around her. “And Joe Jr. only shouted out once in the whole two hours,” she added proudly.
At that point, though, she must have caught something on our faces because she stopped where she was. “Everything all right around here?”
“You were only gone a couple hours, Ma. What could go wrong?” Agnes said. When Ma went to hang up her pocketbook on a hook, my sister caught my eye.
Agnes headed for the parlor first, and then I led Ma in.
“Look who stopped by,” I said, like I was as surprised as she was to see Jane nesting in the center of the couch.
I was scared of how she might react. After their visit with Jimmy, she and Dad had a few harsh words for the girl who had broken his heart.
“We knew you wouldn’t mind so we invited her to stay for supper,” Agnes said.
“Hmph.” Ma looked from my sister to me and back. Without so much as a greeting for the pregnant girl, she headed toward the kitchen.
Jane looked like she might need the paper towels again, so Agnes went and sat beside her. “Give her time,” she said, taking Jane’s long bony hand. “It took her a while before she knew I was supposed to be here, too.”
And sure enough, after she reminded me it was my turn to set the table, Ma called from the kitchen. “If that . . . girl’s staying, you better set her a plate.”