Second Nature: A Love Story

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  Soon, I thought, I might need a real job with real benefits. I didn’t have a mortgage, thanks to my beloved mom-auntie. But after next year I wouldn’t be covered under Marie’s policy. One more thing to gnaw on. After we ate coffee ice cream with marshmallow whip, Kit and I watched The Bells of St. Mary’s, as we did every Christmas. Unlike every Christmas, Kit smoked a joint, which I picked up and took a hit from. “Jesus!” Kit shrieked, as though I’d pulled out a big jug of Apple Valley and taken a long swig while tamping down a pack of Marlboros.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “One puff of dope isn’t going to make any difference here in the valley of the pills.”

  “Am I the godmother?” Kit said.

  “Sure,” I told her. It was the first time I’d thought about the not-abortion as a someday-child with ceremonies and clothing. She brought out a last present, one she’d been hiding in her bag—a CD of old-fashioned lullabies sung by young jazz artists. I couldn’t say anything except “My God.”

  “It’s three months now,” Kit said. “I’m guessing we’re going to have a birthday this summer, huh?”

  It might have been the dope, Bing Crosby, or how much better a nun Ingrid Bergman made than my aunt, but pretty soon I felt all oozy and sentimental. I said, “Kit, I don’t say stuff like this. But tell me it’s going to be okay.”

  Kit put her arms around me, patting my back in the make-it-all-better way good people do. I was on my own in the world with this, though. I had a good family. But there are no two ways of thinking about being a single mother: No one will ever love the kid the way you do, and if my kid turned out to have problems, no one would love the kid at all after I died. The idea of five years shaved off my life by a face transplant abruptly seemed like a very huge deal indeed. What would I do with my for-certain handicapped child? I was stoned and paranoid. I would … raise him with … with understanding and love and valor and respect for his abilities, as Marie had raised me. But what if he were really disabled and I got really, really unlucky?

  “Would you raise him if I died?” I asked Kit.

  She hesitated, just long enough. She had recently become involved with Anthony—and Anthony-Since-Halloween had been the most durable of all Kit’s ridiculous romances. Anthony wasn’t even married. He had his own house. Although he played an instrument, it was a church organ. He was studying to be a Presbyterian minister. After a whole season of lovey-dovey, Kit was starting to wonder if pearl gray was too old-lady for bridesmaids’ dresses or if the old standard of a black-and-white wedding was still the classiest route.

  “Of course I would,” Kit said.

  And, also of course, I knew the moment she said it that I didn’t want Kit to raise my child if I died. She was a doll but a ditz in the best of circumstances and was just one of those people you could tell would always have it going on more about her husband than her kid—who would have kids because her husband wanted them. She would not take a bullet for my kid.

  My dad had.

  Who would be my child’s guardian?

  Who would be my child’s guardian angel?

  The only person I could think of whom I would trust even remotely was Eliza Cappadora. And I didn’t even know her. I barely knew any of these people who suddenly loomed so large in my now double life. Perhaps I should talk to Vincent. Would I name Vincent as the father? Would I expect child support? What if I said the father was unknown? On the line for mother’s name I could just write slut. “Kit, you couldn’t take care of a cat,” I said.

  She told me, “Anthony has four cats.”

  It figured.

  The one puff of dope (I didn’t indulge and had tried this exactly twice since I’d had my face) was making me ravenous, dizzy, and cross-eyed. I grabbed a handful of chips and then jumped up to find something to slather on them. The only thing I could find in my fridge was Thousand Island dressing. It would do. My forehead itched and my joints were achy. “What the hell is in that joint?” I asked Kit. “Pet tranquilizers?”

  “I don’t know. I got it from Anthony.”

  “Presbyterian seminarian marijuana?” We both laughed until I thought I would pee the couch. Kit got up carefully and made omelets for both of us, heavy on the cheese and peppers, swimming in butter, which we carefully ate with about a whole loaf of toast. It had been only three hours since we’d had dinner. My stomach was bulbous by then, but not from the obvious. Kit said she was too stoned to drive, so we went into my bedroom and I tossed her a nightshirt as I slipped into mine.

  “You can sure tell,” she said.

  “How?”

  “Your boobs are the size of water balloons.”

  “They feel like they’re going to explode too,” I told her. “I think my days of tank tops without shelf bras are over.”

  Then we slept together in my bed, huddled like little girls at Scout camp. Through the thick and damp veil of my sleep, I heard my phone go off several times. Who would call me at this time of night? This time of night? What time of night was it?

  I opened my eyes, feeling surprisingly refreshed, although my chin and forehead still itched as though the active ingredient in my face cream was poison ivy. The sun was full bright, high over the hem of the lake. It was ten in the morning.

  The messages were all from Beth, inviting me to their house for Christmas Eve.

  The first message said, “Sicily, I know this is very, uh, strange. And I’m not trying to make it not be strange. We have a small open house every year. That’s a contradiction, huh? An open house that’s mostly closed? But we’d like you and Marie to come. It’s just family. Close friends. It seems like you’re one or the other, huh?” When she called back a second time, Beth repeated the message and apologized for being so last minute and said she would understand if I declined. Then she called back to say she hadn’t meant that she wanted me to decline.

  I decided that I would go. But would Vincent?

  I made coffee and brought Kit a cup—otherwise she would have slept through until Tuesday—and told her about Beth’s invitation.

  “Just go there and tough it out, Sissy,” Kit said. “You don’t have to be ashamed of anything. And they’re rich and your baby is an heir.”

  “They’re not rich like that, Kit.”

  “Rich is rich.”

  “All I want to do is sleep.”

  “Well, it’s not Christmas Eve today, Sicily.” I heard the shush as Angel wedged my big weekend newspaper against the door. Carrying my coffee, I picked it up.

  There I was.

  Under the fold on the front page, there was a little-bit-bigger-than-usual story about where-are-they-now, my unveiling picture after the surgery (I looked like a giant pink sponge with button eyes), and a recent picture of me, smiling up at Beth from what looked like a pool of green-and-pink play foam. It was in fact a pile of old ballet costumes I was sorting to donate to my dance teacher’s studio. The reporter hadn’t interviewed me but, instead, Mrs. Viola, who remained close to Mrs. Cassidy. “Julia knows that Sicily has to start a new life,” said Mrs. Viola. “She knows they’ll get together soon.” There was some more fiddle-faddle about me and the face transplant and then a quick update on the families of other survivors and a teeny bit about the planned art exhibit.

  It was the anniversary of the fire, and no one, not I and not even my adoring auntie, had remembered that, more than a week ago, I had turned twenty-six years old.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Are those people alive?” I asked my aunt.

  “Of course they’re alive. They’re carolers,” she whispered, barely moving her lips. “They’re … caroling. But I don’t think they come from the neighborhood.”

  The men wore stocking caps or rusty stovepipe hats, the women ankle-length dresses and short jackets buttoned to the neck. A young teenage boy held a carriage lantern aloft. We stepped around them and proceeded up the flagstone walk to Beth and Pat Cappadora’s front door. Beth opened it before we could knock. Although she was dressed in a long velve
t dress and boots, the look on Beth’s face was like that of a kid trying to hide a bad report card.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m not an idiot. I had my tree decorated by a decorator because I have so much to think about this year that I would probably have blown out the electricity in the neighborhood. But the ornaments are my ornaments. Well, they are except for those … dumb Styrofoam balls covered with tablecloth material and gold pins. I am not responsible for that. Or for those people out on the front walk.”

  “Merry Christmas, Beth,” I said.

  “Oh, God, Sicily, Marie, I’m sorry. Merry Christmas. I’m just so embarrassed. Those people are actors. They were hired to do this by a friend of my husband’s, as a gift, so we couldn’t turn it down—and now we can’t turn them down. They get louder with every song.…” The carolers in their artfully draped rags piped up, reminding everyone to let nothing us dismay. “Anyhow, you’re the last ones to arrive except Vincent, and so at least I don’t have to explain this again. The carolers should leave in twenty-five minutes, unless someone tips them again, which …” Beth beckoned us in, closed the door behind her, and spoke to the room in general. “Nobody better give them another tip!”

  “I think they sound nice, Ma,” Ben said, getting up to take our coats. “I was just about to go out there and give them a fifty or something.”

  But all I heard was Vincent. Vincent. Vincent. All the voices, even the singing, seemed very far away.

  “They have families,” Beth said. “Actors live miserable lives, away from their families on holidays. Or else they have other neighborhoods to torment. It was very nice of Johnny to give us this little … show. Which I’ll be hearing about from the DeGroots and the Haverlins for two years. But it’s over now.”

  We walked into the center of a room that was rimmed by an endless sofa, a Nile-length sofa of wheat-colored suede, with deep-seated caramel leather chairs stuck in along its length and blue and red pillows as nervy as signal flags. All this furniture was new. Beth apologized again.

  “Lasciala andare, Beth!” said a small old man, who stood up from a corner of that immense sofa, his posture erect as a rifle. He held out his hand. “Hello, darling. I am Angelo Cappadora, and this is Rose, my wife. We are Patrick’s parents.”

  In her three-inch heels, Rose Cappadora was the same height as her husband and conferred the same sense of wry, affable knowing, along with a formidable power. She wore a green silk suit with a cameo on a satin ribbon around her neck—a neck I could tell was unlined by dint of genetic kismet rather than cosmetic intervention. Not once, Beth said, had she seen Rose lose her temper—although Rose did the standard amount of Italian-lady yelling around.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cappadora,” I said.

  “Rosie,” she said. “I wouldn’t know how to answer anyone who didn’t call me Rosie. I think you must be Sicily.” I nodded.

  Angelo smiled—he twinkled—at my aunt. “And you, Marie Caruso. Every night you are in my bedroom!” My aunt was now the sole anchor of the nightly news at ten.

  “Why, you’re the one!” Aunt Marie said, rolling her eyes.

  “Angelo, our guests need some food, don’t you think?” Vincent’s grandmother said. “Don’t pay any attention to him. If you do, he’ll think he’s smart and charming.”

  “Well, he is,” Aunt Marie answered, and everybody laughed. “He’s smart enough not to say it again.” Aunt Marie waved to everyone. Thank heavens, in Chicago, Auntie was a bona fide celebrity, so no one had to notice me. Much.

  People sat at little makeshift tables draped with long swaths of white fabric bowed in silver and green and set about with silver bar stools (I sensed the decorator at work again), or they clustered on the endless sofa with their plates and cups. A server in a long skirt and a tuxedo vest passed through the group, collecting dishes. At the back of the room, near the doors to the patio and pool, a bartender was uncorking bottles of wine, squeezing limes, and skewering stuffed mushrooms with the ease of a priest preparing the sacraments.

  Maybe Kit was right: Maybe the Cappadoras weren’t rich-rich, but rich enough.

  Beth returned and led us from group to group, repeating our names. After just one sofa section’s worth of introductions, I was worn out. I held a plate of tiny crackerish pizzas. I’d also accepted some crab puffs and cream horns, although I doubted I would be able to eat any of them. My stomach felt like a balloon filled with seltzer. Aunt Marie stayed by my side as I searched for a place to cordially hide out. The pregnancy had apparently been coming on strong, because lately I felt as though my daily goal for wellness was to rise to average. Perhaps I wasn’t up to Beth’s “small” open house, which apparently included about thirty-five people: I had shaken hands with sisters-in-law and brothers’ daughters and brothers-in-law’s fiancées and the wives of cousins and remembered not one of them. The room was hot and whirly and bewildering. Inserting myself into a leather chair nearly behind the tree, which must have been twenty feet tall, I felt as though a bit of my face was not just reflected but literally inside the circle of every silver tendril that twitched and wound on the branches. I searched for the ones Beth had referred to, the Styrofoam balls covered in layers of tablecloth, but instead I caught sight of a primitive ornament laboriously cut from tin in the shape of a star with some kind of punch holes worked through all the limbs. In the middle of the star was Vincent’s face, maybe six years old. I leaned over to set my plate down and everything slid off.

  “Hello,” someone said close to my ear, in a voice that sounded alarmingly familiar. I glanced to my right and there was this older guy nimbly hunkered down next to me, with Vincent’s thick lion-colored hair but painted at the crown and temples with dark gray. “I’m Pat, Beth’s husband. Vincent’s dad. I know everyone wants to see you. Eliza can’t wait to see you. And if I wasn’t such a moke, I’d probably just say hello and Merry Christmas. But I have to say this. I’m not sure about Vincent’s way of handling it so far. But if this works out, honey, this is our child too. Mio cuore. My heart. Just like Ben’s over there. No different. And that goes for whatever Vincent does. D’accordo?”

  “Sure,” I said. “D’accordo. Grazie. Buon Natale. Solo cose buone. Lei e molto gentile.”

  “Parli Italiano?” said Pat.

  “Assolutamente.”

  He hugged me. “What a girl,” he said.

  I wanted to bawl. He could have been my daddy. He was probably about the age my dad would have been and had that same old-time everybody’s-pal manner my father had. I loved him instantly. I wanted to throw myself on Pat’s shoulder and cry until he led me upstairs and tucked me and my fatherless fetus into some big bed and took care of both of us. Behind him, slightly out of focus, I could see Eliza sitting in one of those big caramel leather chairs. Perched on the arm of the chair was Eliza’s tall, slender blond mother, Mrs. Bliss—Chief Bliss. She was brushing back little Stella’s waist-length hair and trying to secure it with an elastic band, while Stella, red-faced and sweating, undulated like an eel, clearly about to have the kind of meltdown every child had on Christmas Eve. Although Chief Bliss looked delicate in her black wide-legged pants and white blouse, it was obvious that Stella wasn’t going anywhere. The older woman put no pressure on the little girl’s wrist, but Stella clearly was a prisoner, and she finally quieted, rolling her eyes like the teenager she would become.

  “Anyhow,” Pat went on, “you’re very brave to come here with all of us. And I already knew, from Bethie, that you were brave. I knew your dad a little, and he was a brave man too.”

  I really thought I would burst like a dam then. Blinking hard, I looked up at the ceiling.

  Then Eliza came toward me, leaning in over Pat’s shoulder. “I missed you so much, Sicily. Marie, it’s so good to see you. Merry Christmas.” Pat stood up quickly, and Eliza hugged Aunt Marie and then me. “I want to bring Charley over, but I had to wait until I knew it would be okay. Do you want to meet him now? You’ll have plenty of time to get to know him.”

>   It was pretty delicate of Eliza to consider this. Many times before this night, I’d given serious thought to how I would react to Charley. I’d never seen the new baby. I’d barely seen Beth since Thanksgiving. I expected to have mixed and convoluted feelings. He was as closely related to my own unborn child as anyone alive. My mind repeated those words—unborn child—as Polly Guthrie had long ago explained how new brides inwardly exclaim I’m married every time they glance down at their gleaming wedding bands. Charley and Stella were among the closest blood relatives that Patient X would have. Eliza’s life and mine had intersected first outside, then inside the operating room. Then we had become friends and, for an instant, mothers-to-be, when I was about twenty minutes into my pregnancy and she in the stretch run. My gratitude for Eliza’s quiet beacon was immense. Eliza was an experienced mother. Her baby’s future was already assured (Of course, I know that no one’s future is ever assured). Charley and my child would grow up virtually as age mates, separated by less than a year. But despite what Pat said, could an unplanned and … perhaps even unwanted child be accorded a slice of the pie of family inclusion? What would happen at future Christmastimes, when Vincent brought his current starlet?

  Eliza placed sleeping Charley in my arms, a fat baby seal with huge hands, peachy drooping cheeks, and a pelt of black hair. Someday, would my own little son be running around, breathless and whiny, spilling orange soda on a fifty-dollar outfit and asking if there were presents under the tree when Santa hadn’t even come yet? They were Italians. They liked bad kids. I felt the gazes of people on me but didn’t care. I sort of fell into Charley as though he were a pool of chocolate. If you had asked me about the number of babies I’d held and played with in my life to that point, I’d have said that the number hovered around zero. Kit’s younger sister, Alison, wasn’t young enough to have been a novelty when we were children, only a pest. By the time I would have taken that sort of little-mommy interest in kids, I had a ravaged face and my parents were dead. Neighborhood babysitting didn’t exactly fit in to the routine of a mutant. Charley was extraordinarily beautiful, his lips working on an absent nipple, his fat hands folded prayerfully under his abundance of chins.