The Greeks of Beaubien Street

by Jenkins, Suzanne

  “Dana, get back into bed. Mom, Dad, don’t you go anywhere. Danny is their grandchild, too,” he said to Dana. He reached out to his mother, but it was too much for Anna. She held a gloved hand up to her face with a cotton handkerchief and started to weep. Her husband put his arm around her shoulder to turn her and lead her out of the room. He looked at his son and mouthed I love you. Andy had his arms out in a gathering posture to try to convince his parents to stay. Dana’s tirade had given him an idea the extent to which his wife had disrespected them and Dana’s own mother would soon fill in the blanks. She started crying, yelling at her daughter.

  “I don’t care if you did just have a baby. I have never been so embarrassed in my life! Andy, you should go to your parents right now and comfort them,” she insisted. Andy turned and ran from the room to catch up with his parents. They were standing off to the side by the nurses’ station while the charge nurse and Dana’s personal nurse comforted them, having heard the ruckus. Anna Zannos was weeping. When Andy got to her, she started apologizing right away, although she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Mother, I am so sorry. You should be furious! Please come back in, please. I want you to see the little guy.” But they weren’t going back in the room. Big Andy wouldn’t say anything to his son yet, but Dana was out of control. He was worried that her behavior in the hospital was the tip of the iceberg. If she can treat her gentle mother-in-law in such a manner, he wondered, what else is she capable of? He shuddered to think of it. What has my son’s life been like in the months leading up to this?

  “Go take care of your family, son,” Big Andy said. “I’m takin’ your momma home. Call us later, okay?” His son reached to kiss his father on the cheek and then bent down to do the same to his mother. He felt so awful, but there was no fighting Dana. If he said anything to her while she was in the hospital it would cause a bigger scene. He felt like his hands were tied. He watched his parents walk down the hallway to the elevators. They looked so small and worse, old. The last thing he wanted to do was to go back into Dana’s room. When he walked through the door she was sitting up in bed, nursing the baby with their little boy sitting next to her. It should have been a lovely picture.

  “Would you mind leaving now? I have to talk to Dana,” he said to his in-laws. “Could you take Greg with you?” They got up without answering, gathering up their belongings and helping Greg off the hospital bed. No one spoke again as they kissed their daughter and walked out of the room. Andy walked to the window and looked out, trying to see if he could find his parents’ car in the sea of the parking lot. He had allowed his wife to talk to his mother like she was a dog. He’d been weak, afraid of the repercussions if he stood up to her. And now it had gotten so bad that she was able to humiliate him in front of other people without hesitation.

  “That’s the last time you ever, ever talk to my parents like that. Do you hear what I am saying Dana? We can get a divorce right now. So don’t threaten me with any of your bullshit.” He picked up his jacket and left without giving her a chance to reply. He’d wait until she called him to pick her up from the hospital the next day, or her parents could bring her home, he really didn’t care.

  He later called his parents and apologized to them. He explained that he didn’t know how long he would be able to tolerate staying with Dana for the sake of their children. He knew that to get a divorce would be a travesty in their eyes. Having two kids now made it much more difficult. He was used to persevering. He was raised not to give up. But under the current circumstances, he thought his marriage was beyond saving

  Dana’s parents brought her home from the hospital the next day. Andy walked into the bedroom where his wife was sitting up in bed, nursing the baby. She smiled at him, but he could tell it was forced.

  “What is going on?” he asked her. “I can see that you’re not happy and it’s not just post-partum.” He didn’t add, And no matter what I do, I know it will never be enough. Dana didn’t want to launch into a full blown tirade about how miserable she was in their marriage, but she didn’t seem able to control her mouth.

  “I can’t stand it that your parents hover. I know that’s not rational! You are all they have. But I always feel like your mother is judging me. I’m not Greek, so shoot me,” she said.

  “She isn’t Greek either, so you better find another reason to hate them so much,” he said. He understood that she simply didn’t like his family. She didn’t fit in with them, so it was easier to look at them for blame than place it where it belonged: right on back on herself. He wasn’t going to let her off easily this time. He would force her to figure out why she was so unhappy. It was more acceptable in her convoluted thinking to place her hatred on her in-laws rather than face that she hated her husband. But the realization had to come from her. He wasn’t going to say it, because she would interpret it as an accusation, until he looked at her and saw that she was aware of it. Her face had relaxed and she was focusing on him, a semi-smirk on her face. She knew the truth, but she wasn’t going to say it out loud. She didn’t love him. He was a small minded, simple man who’d sold out to security rather than risk venturing out. When she thought of him in that filthy grocery store, the fish scales on the ground in the alley and the smell of garbage in the air, it made her sick.

  Once, on a rare visit into town, she saw him right after he’d butchered a lamb. Her mother wanted to go into the city to shop for fabric and thinking it might be a novelty, they went to Greektown for lunch. Dana walked in first, embarrassed that this shabby building housed the family business. Gus went to get Andy. He was excited and proud that she was seeing him at work in spite of his butcher’s apron covered in lamb’s blood. That was the last straw for Dana. She managed to keep her mouth shut while they were there, but it would be the final time she would visit. It just was too upsetting to see him there.

  Her husband was a college graduate. Although Dana had never considered herself a snob, she must have been because if anyone asked what he did for a living she said he was an accountant. He wasn’t allowed to discuss business in front of her or invite any of his Greektown friends to their house. She refused to attend family gatherings or nights out with his friends and their wives. Their social life had deteriorated to nonexistence because she was ashamed of him. That they had even slept together the one time that resulted in Danny’s birth filled Andy with regret. Dana stopped having any desire for him, yet would still wear provocative nightgowns and roll her big hips around in bed next to him, tempting him because he still loved her. He lost control one night and, jumping on her, conceived Danny.

  Now she was dead. Andy felt a huge amount of guilt because outside of the sadness her absence would cause their children, he was relieved. How could it be possible? He had once loved Dana more than life.

  Chapter 25

  The night before the funeral, the Zannos family assembled for dinner in the big dining room above the store. The same furnishings and dust collectors decorated the room from when Old Nick and Eleni were alive. The walls were covered with framed sepia photos of long dead relatives. There were men in traditional Greek costume who Uncle Peter said were “wearing panty hose under those skirts,” and women with haunted faces masking boredom. Jill saw her features among these faces. She was her father’s daughter. The next day the family would go to Dana’s funeral in Novi because that was the appropriate thing to do. But tonight, there would be eating, drinking, and reminiscing. It was how the family dealt with tragedy as well as celebration; the only difference was that the decibel level would be kept down for the sake of the little boys.

  Jill and Alex arrived in time for dinner and spent the next hour catching up with her aunts and uncles. She made a point of sitting near Nick and Paula so she could listen to her uncle talk about his days as a state trooper and give him a chance to ask her questions about her current cases. He might have some advice she could use. It was how they communicated the best; keeping the conversation about work.

  “It doesn’t s
eem like investigative work has changed that much since I was doing it,” he told her. “Outside of the assistance the computer offers, it’s still police work. Tell me, do you use your intuition much?” He laughed out loud, aware that his niece had the same gift his mother did. Jill felt safe enough with him to be honest.

  “I do use it, yes. The hardest part is to ignore my own emotions when they are in opposition to my intuition. My heart will be telling me one thing while my gut is telling me another,” she said. Uncle John had the deck of cards out and the women knew that was the signal for them to move out; any rational conversation after the cards appeared was impossible. As Jill stood up to leave for the kitchen with the rest of the female exodus, Paula grabbed her arm. It was a grip and not a soft one. Jill, startled, looked at her aunt with a big smile, expecting her to tease her about being a police officer as she had since Jill’s graduation from the academy. But tonight she had something else in mind.

  “You are just like your mother,” she said loudly. Paula looked around the room to see if she had gotten anyone’s attention, stopping at Nick to ensure she got his. “Just exactly like her. Does anyone disagree with it?” Jill smiled at her, happy to be compared with Christina. No one had told her that in many years. She looked at her father, expecting him to smile in agreement, but the expression on his face was hard to read. It wasn’t pleasure.

  “You always manage to draw all the attention to yourself, just like Christy did, doesn’t she Nick?” Paula looked at her husband with glassy eyes, and he moved over to her in a quick move, taking her forearm in his hand and pulling her hand off Jill’s. The rest of the family had stopped in their tracks, watching the exchange between aunt and niece but not sure where it was going. Only Nick and Gus knew and they were frightened. It could not end well unless Nick acted quickly. When she had released her grip off Jill’s arm, Nick tried pulling her up out of her chair. Paula was almost as tall as Nick and heavy for a woman. It was not a gracious movement.

  “Come on, Paula, let’s go. Sorry everyone, my wife seems to have suddenly forgotten her manners,” Nick said. Paula was not going to be silenced that easily.

  “Why is it my manners? It’s your manners! Let’s tell your family. I think Jill should know what kind of a woman her mother was,” Paula shouted, on the verge of crying but not willing to admit hurt, only wanting her anger exposed. Gus moved over to his daughter and put his arm around her, trying to get her to move away from Paula and her wrath, but she was intrigued. She wanted to know what the secret was. She looked at her father with love, but refused to move, holding her position.

  “I want to know what she means, dad,” she said. “It’s okay. I want to hear.” Her heart was pounding; no, that wasn’t the right word; it was flagellating itself within her chest so violently she felt dizzy. She wouldn’t be walking away from this scene. Gus looked her in the eyes and knew it would be futile for him to try to cover the story up, but he didn’t want Paula to be the one to tell it. He turned to Paula and spoke the first cross words anyone had ever heard him speak.

  “Paula, this is my house, and I want you to shut your mouth. I’ll tell my daughter what she needs to know.” He looked up at his brother. “Nick, please leave and get your wife out of here.” Nick did as his brother asked, finally succeeding in pulling his wife up out of her chair and not gently, the action being the catalyst she needed to decompensate. The tears started to fall and she let them go unheeded. She began to wail. Anna was worried it would wake up her grandsons, the noise was so loud. Paula went limp purposely so that her husband would have to struggle under her weight. It was a pathetic, embarrassing moment. Nick got her out of the dining room and Gus waited until he heard the door to the apartment close before he started to talk. The rest of the family stayed still, shocked looks on their faces. It didn’t take much to imagine what Paula was alluding to.

  “I wish I didn’t have to say this in front of you,” he said to the group. “This is personal, between my daughter and me. But since you have heard this much, I’ll tell you, too. I don’t want a bunch of gossip about my family.” He took a deep breath. This was the last thing he thought he would have to do today. Alex moved around to be next to Jill. “Everyone, sit down,” Gus said. The sound of chairs scraping on the wooden floor, coughing, cutlery banging on china to get it out of the way continued for few minutes and finally, silence. Suddenly, Jill thought she knew what her father was about to say and she didn’t want to know. It didn’t make any difference to her what the secret was; she would always love Gus. She grabbed her dad by the shoulders.

  “I love you, dad!” she exclaimed loudly. “I changed my mind, I don’t need to know.”

  “I love you, too, but now that it’s out, we need to keep going, we need to have everything out in the open. It’s not what you think. Just hear me out.” He looked at his family and knew that what he would reveal would change everything. Nick and Paula would no longer be welcome at the store. Christmas in the city would be minus two people, maybe more if sides were taken. John and his wife Liz socialized with Nick and Paula. So did Pete and Joan. They would probably be the first to leave. But Gus was daydreaming, seconds ticking by as he delayed the inevitable.

  “Nick and Christina had an affair and Christopher is Nick’s son. I have loved him like he was my own child. It was sad and unfortunate, but Chris and I loved each other and wanted to be together. She didn’t love Nick. It was a silly flirtation that got out of hand. My brother is a formidable man. I’m sure Christina was swept off her feet by his attention. I don’t know how Paula found out, but it’s clear she must be lashing out at Jill because she is hurting.” He looked down at his daughter, sitting with Alex’s arm around her shoulders.

  “When you were born two years later, it healed us. You were all that we needed to justify our marriage. Thank you for that. I am so sorry that you had to find out about Christopher in this way. Please forgive me.” Jill pushed her chair back and reached out to hug her father. She wasn’t an emotional woman, and no one in the room had ever seen her cry, even when she was a small child. But her eyes filled with tears as she held her father, imagining the strength it took to remain in a relationship with both his brother and her mother. The betrayal must have been horrible. She never, ever had received even an inkling of suggestion that there was any trouble between her father and mother or Gus and Nick. She couldn’t speak, not trusting her voice.

  The rest of the family sat silently, wheels turning wildly in their brains, trying to think back in history and see if there was a sign they’d missed. Maria finally stood up, pulling the waist band of her dress down from under her ample bosom, and said what they needed to hear. “Good riddance. Paula Mac was getting on my last nerve.” The elders started laughing, but Jill wasn’t there yet. She was thinking about Paula and some of the things she said to her over the years that may have meant she was on to her husband, or just jealous of Christina. The milling around began once again after its rude interruption. Maria came around the table and tackled her niece with a hug.

  “It doesn’t make any difference. I hope you will come to realize it. No father ever loved a child more than my brother loved his kids,” she said. Jill nodded her head in acknowledgment as her aunt and father embraced. The others looked on, moved at the exchanged, but determined that the momentary loss of sanity by Nick and the late Christina wouldn’t be the topic of conversation. There were card games to play.

  Liz motioned to John to follow her; she wasn’t finished with the intrigue and wanted to interrogate her husband. They went down into the darkened store together, John reluctantly following his wife.

  “Did you know? You talk to Nick every goddamned day. You had to know he was screwing your sister-in-law!” She was angry and irrationally jealous.

  “I wasn’t the one doing it so don’t get pissed at me!” John whispered. “No! I didn’t know. I suspected, but Nick wouldn’t tell me. Nick was despondent after the baby was born. Do you remember?” He thought about his brother and
sister-in-law and tried to remember. “I saw them together. It was innocent enough, they were in her car. Do you remember that big tank of a Buick my dad bought her so she could drive to Plymouth every day? They were sitting in it, just talking. It wasn’t like they were hiding; it was parked right there on Antoine. It must have been on a Sunday because we were here; you were with Paula and I was driving in from visiting someone uptown. I waved at them - they saw me and waved back. They must have gotten out and walked back to the store right away because after I parked, we all walked in together. I never thought anything about it until later.”

  John looked at his wife, who shook her head no. It figured her husband was so naïve as to think those two would be in a parked car together and not think it was suspicious. She didn’t remember anything about Nick after the baby being born because she was so traumatized by not being able to have her own child. What she remembered feeling was raging jealousy against Christina while she was pregnant. She’d even had a glimmer of pleasure when the baby was born in such bad shape. For years afterward she would feel horrible about it, chalking it up to immaturity and heartbreak. Out of nowhere, it occurred to her that Gus, Peter, and Big Andy were the only boys who had children, and that only Andy and Gus had boys. But it wasn’t Gus, was it? It was Nick after all. Andy would be the only one to carry on the family name with Greg and Danny.

  “How was Gus able to hide it all these years? It is mind boggling,” Liz admitted. Never a big fan of her husband’s extended family, she felt a little compassion for her quiet brother-in-law. “No disrespect to Gus, but he certainly is no match for Nick.” The moment the words were out of her mouth she regretted it. John looked her questioningly.