A Delicate Truth

by McKnight, Zoe

  Now I just need to figure out how to tell my husband that our daughter is not his.

  There’s a light rapping on the door. I sit up. “Yes?”

  Rosa cracks the door open and asks if she can come inside. She rarely comes upstairs due to what she calls “her old lady knees.” But when I see her, I don’t see old. I think she’s pretty spry for a woman of sixty-four. She’s up on the latest pop culture and can recite the names of all of the ‘Real Housewives.’ Sometimes I’ll even catch her in the kitchen singing along with the latest Rihanna song. Although she doesn’t look like she’s eligible for any senior citizen discounts, she’s stocked with old soul wisdom and motherly advice, advice she rarely doles out.

  “You know, I never get in your business,” she says, sitting down beside me. “I cook and that’s it, but I don’t want to see you and Vaughn have these troubles. So, I lied and say the bracelet was my Jenny’s.”

  “I’m so sorry that you had to get involved,” I say, “but thank you…”

  She pats my knee then hugs me. Man, there’s no substitute for human contact; the warmth and comfort of Rosa’s arms takes me back to my childhood when a hug from my mom could make all of the pain go away. I always figured that Rosa knew much more than she let on, but never had even the slightest inkling that she knew my secret.

  “You made some mistakes, we all have. But now you have a beautiful little girl, and that’s all that matters. But if Vaughn ever finds out, he’s going to leave you. So you don’t ever say anything, you hear? You take it to the grave.”

  I tell her the whole story, everything including the conversation I just had with Dylan. There’s no judgment on her face, she doesn’t appear the least bit shocked. Rather she listens, nods and rubs my back. I ask her what I should do.

  “A father is a man who loves and provides, that’s all. And that’s who Vaughn is. He’d give his life for that little girl. You can’t take that away from him. And you can’t take him away from her. They love each other. And that’s all that matters.” She toys with the locket around her neck. “I’m going to tell you something, okay?”

  Is it something about Vaughn? Some secret she knows of, something that will shatter what’s left of my sanity?

  She takes a deep breath. “Jenny. She’s not mine.”

  “What?” Jenny, who’s in her forties and living in Arizona, is Rosa’s youngest child, her only daughter. The one she still carries a picture of in that locket.

  She tells me how her late husband got her younger cousin pregnant, back when they all lived in Honduras. Her cousin, who was eighteen at the time and ashamed of what she had done, agreed to have the baby in seclusion so that Rosa could claim it was hers. She then raised Jenny from birth as if she were her own.

  “So, you see, it doesn’t matter who has the baby, it matters who loves them, you understand?”

  “But how did you get over that,” I ask, “knowing what your husband had done, how he betrayed you?”

  “The same way you got over it when Vaughn cheated on you. Only difference is, I had my babies to focus on.” She tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “This life is short. You can’t waste your days being mad.”

  I am floored. Not only about her daughter, but that Rosa is telling me exactly what I want to hear—that I shouldn’t confess. The same woman who attends evening mass and carries rosary beads in her pocket. She’s telling me not to confess.

  “You know how much I love mi hija, I couldn’t love her anymore if I’d given birth to her. Bad things will happen, but you make the best of what you have, you see?”

  I nod.

  “Okay.” She pats my knee and stands. “I take the baby for a walk, you get some rest, and I make you lunch later, okay?”

  After she’s gone, I digest her words, “a father is a man who loves and provides.” Vaughn would lay his life down for Morgan, there’s no question in my mind. Learning of my affair will be nothing compared to the devastation of learning she’s not his. No. I can’t ever let him know. Rosa is right. I have to fix this. I cannot lose my family.

  FOURTEEN

  I wake up refreshed, confident in my course of action after my talk with Rosa. Last night was the first time, in the longest, that I’ve slept peacefully. Then I get the phone call from Ashley.

  Norah’s been arrested.

  I’m outside the seventeenth precinct on E 51st Street. My mother is pacing back and forth, a Marlboro Light tucked between her trembling fingers. Vaughn insisted I take her outside while he and Frank, our attorney, handle the paperwork. Moments later Vaughn exits with Norah in tow. I can barely see the hem of her mini-skirt beneath Vaughn’s oversized sweatshirt. Smears of black mascara streak down her cheeks, and her stilettos click loudly in the early morning silence. She looks more like a woman doing the walk of shame after a one-night stand than a thirty-eight year old mother who’s just been arrested for driving under the influence. She doesn’t speak a word to my mother or me. Instead, she pulls the hood over her head, walks straight past us and climbs into the passenger seat of my mother’s car.

  The three of us remain on the curb where Vaughn fills us in.

  “The problem is,” Vaughn says with hesitation, “this is her second DWI. So, now it’s considered a felony…”

  My mother gasps.

  “ …but Frank has a relationship with the district attorney, so we can probably get it reduced to reckless driving. They may suspend her license, and she’ll have to pay a fine, but no jail time. And no record.”

  I turn to my mom. “We have to get her some help.”

  “I know,” my mom says before taking one last drag and flicking her cigarette into the street. For the first time I see genuine fear on her face. There’s no room for denial.

  Just as the sun rises behind us, it becomes clear what we have to do.

  We pull up to Forest Grove. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was on the grounds of an ivy-league campus rather than a rehabilitation center. I guess this is what one gets for thirty-thousand dollars a month.

  I hear sniffling in the back seat. Good job holding it together, Mom. Norah hasn’t so much as glanced in my direction since we left the city limits. She sits erect, staring straight ahead with her purse clutched in an angry grip. She won’t respond to any comments or questions. It’s all the same to me. I don’t have any words for her either. My mom, on the other hand, is not taking the silent treatment as well, hence the stifled crying.

  This is for Norah’s own good. She should be grateful that she has people who care enough about her to send her to a top-notch treatment facility. I suppose she really should be thanking Ashley for pressing me to do so. But she’s not speaking to her either. My mom’s tears are one thing, but witnessing Ashley’s was another. It nearly broke her heart when her mother called her a traitor and threatened to evict her for “selling her out.” We both knew Norah’s words were fueled by embarrassment and misplaced anger, but they cut through my niece nonetheless.

  Our intervention attempt had been downright ugly. My mother, in her obstinate denial, believed it drastic and unnecessary. That’s until Norah shattered her glass coffee table with a marble coaster. Reaction to having been “ambushed” by a room full of grim faces and a handshake from Leslie, the addiction specialist. I believe Norah’s exact words were, “All you bitches drink from time to time, so how is it that I’m the alcoholic.” Leslie had told us that Norah needed to be one-hundred-percent sober for the intervention, but I’m not sure she was. Ashley and my mom cried throughout most of the meeting. Only I maintained my resolve. Norah denied she had a problem before we took turns giving her examples of how her alcoholism affected us. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, my mom shared a story of how Norah showed up to church hungover then passed out in the back pew during communion. Sadly, Norah didn’t even remember it. Ashley had a laundry list of examples, more than I wished to hear. I cringed as I envisioned my sister lying in her own vomit. I gave only one example, that of my birthday party. No
rah’s emotions swung from anger to embarrassment and back to anger. Despite all of Leslie’s encouraging words, Norah refused to even consider treatment. Before we could present her with the consequences, she stormed out.

  A week later, I did the only thing left I could think to do.

  “Here we go again,” Norah had said, when I showed up on her doorstep seven days later. She peered over my shoulder. “Where are the rest of them? You setting up another one of those, what do you call them? Interventions?”

  I walked past her and into the living room.

  “Well, just come on in, why don’t you?”

  “Look, I’m here for one reason only. I have no intention of arguing with you.”

  She folded her arms. “So, what do you want?”

  “We’ve all tried our best to help you,” I said. “And don’t start rolling your eyes. I’m serious.”

  “What, Blair? What? Just spit it out.” She tightened the belt on her kimono robe. “I’m expecting company.”

  “You’re going to rehab. We’ve made the arrangements, and you’re going.”

  Norah plopped down on her couch, grabbed the remote control and started flicking through channels.

  “I’m serious.”

  “So, what’re you going to do? Send in the rehab police to come abduct me in the middle of the night?”

  “You could’ve killed somebody! Don’t you realize that? You would be sitting in a jail cell right now if—”

  “If your husband didn’t come save the day … yeah, yeah, yeah. But I didn’t kill anybody and I’m not in jail. So save the theatrics, would you?”

  It was the response I expected, so I don’t know why I became so furious. I stepped in front of the TV and turned it off. Then I reached inside my clutch, pulled out an envelope and rested it on her coffee table. “All of the information is in there. You’re checking in on the eighteenth.”

  She pushed the envelope to the floor. “Get out.”

  “I’m leaving, but just know this, if I come here on the eighteenth and you aren’t packed and ready to go, I’m calling your boss…”

  She sat up.

  “… and I’m going to tell him everything. Not just about this DWI, but the last one, too. How do you think Dr. Wallach is going to feel about having a substance abuser on his staff?”

  “It’s not a DWI, they pled it down to a misdemeanor.”

  “No one’s done anything yet. Those papers are still sitting on our attorney’s desk. All I have to do is call him and you’re on your own, back into the penal system. With some court-appointed attorney.”

  Her fists clenched.

  “I didn’t want it to come to this, Norah, but you’ve given us no choice.”

  She stared at me, her pupils dark with hate.

  “I’ll see you on the eighteenth,” I said before closing the door behind me.

  On the way home I second-guessed what I’d done. I never would have made good on my threat. I don’t even know that I could have. As far as I knew Frank had taken care of her case. But I needed to scare her, to jolt her and if I knew anything it was that my sister was terrified of going back to jail.

  How I wished Norah and I weren’t in such a bad place. I missed the closeness we once shared but I knew that it would be impossible to regain until she got some help. As long as she soothed her demons with alcohol, she’d never be a good sister, friend, daughter or mother. And bigger than her relationship with me or my mom is her relationship with Ashley. My niece deserves a sober mother, one who can be there for her wholly and above the influence. I know what it’s like to only have pieces of your mother. To watch other people and envy their relationships. I don’t want that for Ashley. I had to be strong for her and do my part to get Norah the help she needed. So, I stayed the course, donned my ruthless, cold-bitch hat and dragged her ass to Forest Grove.

  I park in the row beneath the sign that reads “Visitors Only.” It’s a humid day, and the air inside my car is equally thick. No one utters a word. Norah’s face remains turned away from me. In my rearview mirror I watch my mother nervously twist a scarf in her hands. Our eyes meet, and I tilt my head ever so slightly, my cue for her to man up and say something encouraging.

  She clears her throat and says, “What a pretty building. It looks just like the pictures.”

  I sigh. Was that the best she could come up with? Norah looks over her shoulder and shoots Mom a dirty look. I see, that again, it is up to me to make the first move.

  “Are you ready?” I say in my most gentle tone. I place an even gentler hand on her arm.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Norah, don’t be mean,” Mom pipes in. “We just want to help you.”

  “By sending me away to live with a bunch of dope fiends?”

  “They’re not dope fiends,” I say, although I’m sure there must be some in there. “They’re normal people like you, people who just need a little help.”

  “I don’t need any fucking help.”

  “Norah!” Mom exclaims.

  She turns in her seat. “You shut up. You let her set this whole thing up.”

  If Norah had slapped my mother in the face, she couldn’t have looked any more wounded.

  “Look,” I say. “You can curse us out all you want, but the bottom line is this—you have a problem. Accept it or not, but you need help. If you don’t get it, you’ll end up dead or in jail. Is that what you want? For God’s sake, think about Ashley. If nothing else, think about her.”

  “You’ve brainwashed her, too. Turned my own daughter against me.”

  My mother starts whimpering. I’ve had enough. I turn in my seat. “You, stop the crying.”

  “And you…” I point at my sister. “You’re going in there. End of discussion.”

  I hop out of the car, pop open the hatch and retrieve Norah’s small green suitcase. Just as I’m resting it on the ground, I see a short, chubby man waving at me from the top of the building’s steps. He approaches briskly.

  “Mrs. Hill?”

  I shake his small, soft hand.

  “I’m Reggie Steinem,” he says. “We spoke on the phone about your sister.”

  “Ah, yes. How are you, Reggie? Sorry we’re a bit late. There was an accident on the thruway.”

  “Not a problem. How is Norah?”

  I point towards the car and shake my head.

  He greets her through the window. She has yet to even remove her seatbelt. I step away. Hopefully Reggie will have a way to get her out of the car. I’m afraid if I say another word she’ll haul off and slap me, and Mom is of absolutely no help. She even had the nerve to text me from the back seat and ask me if I was still sure this is a good idea.

  Reggie must have said something Norah wanted to hear, because she eventually gets out of the car, with my mother in sorrowful tow. I lean against the back of the truck and wait another ten minutes for the three of them to talk. Whatever it takes to get her in there.

  Reggie then lifts Norah’s bag and asks her to follow him. While she and my mother embrace, saying their good-byes, he turns to me.

  “She’ll be just fine. It won’t be easy, but in time you will have your sister back. Now, you have all of my information. We’ll be in touch.” I shake his hand and thank him again.

  He starts off down the pathway. Before Norah follows, she turns to me. “I will never forgive you for this. You remember that.”

  “I know you’re mad, but I only brought you here because I love you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Before I can respond, I’m staring at the back of her head. I know she doesn’t mean it, I know she’s in pain and I’m an easy target, but I’d be lying if I said those words didn’t hurt.

  “C’mon, Mom.” I pull her in close and let her sob on my shoulder, all the while fighting desperately not to allow my own tears to join hers.

  “Let’s go.”

  FIFTEEN

  Dylan has been calling me frantically the past few days. I’ve put off calling
him back. Not only because of everything with Norah, but because I’ve lost some of that gumption I had after speaking with Rosa. My moxie is dwindling. I want to tell him to go to hell, especially after that bracelet situation, but then fear gets the best of me. What if he tells Vaughn?

  On the drive over to see my mother I return Dylan’s call. I’m hoping this double-shot Venti I just bought at the Starbucks drive-thru will give me the energy boost I need to stand my ground. My speech is on deck. I will follow Rosa’s advice and tell him this charade is over. He needs to leave my family alone.

  He answers on the first ring. “I’ve been calling you!”

  “I know,” I say, “I’ve been dealing with some issues. Sorry.”

  “Is Morgan okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine. It had nothing to do with Morgan.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “I guess not. You just had me worried.”

  “Well, Morgan is just fine.”

  Just as I’m taking a sip of my coffee, a motorcycle cuts in front of me. I slam on the brakes. Espresso splashes everywhere. I yelp and squirm in my seat to stop the searing liquid from burning my thighs. I pull over and search the glove compartment for napkins. They do little to soak up the coffee, which is now both staining my pants and oozing onto the leather beneath me.