Start Without Me

by Joshua Max Feldman

  “No traces,” he answered.

  “You feed them and care for them and give them all the love in the world until one day they decide they’re too good for you and run off. Who does that remind you of?”

  “I thought you were allergic to cats,” Marissa said.

  Mona ignored this. “Well, out with it,” she demanded. “Someone used you for a punching bag. Was it this husband of yours I heard so much about?”

  “I fell down the stairs, Ma.”

  “A cop a day out of the academy wouldn’t be stupid enough to believe that one. You better try harder. I know you’re not here for the pleasure of my company.”

  “It’s Thanksgiving,” Marissa parried.

  “And it was Thanksgiving last year, and it was Thanksgiving the year before that. If you want to bullshit me, Marissa, you need to start using that famous brain of yours. Keep your eye on this one, Ken. My other daughter got the face and the double Ds, she never had to rub two thoughts together in her life. This one, the day I put her in the crib, you could see the wheels turning.”

  Special K grinned. “Like mother, like daughter.”

  “Don’t get cute, this isn’t the Lifetime channel,” Mona said over her cup. But Marissa knew the compliment flattered her; it flattered Marissa, too, more than she would’ve admitted. Her mother had many (many) faults—but from the time Marissa was old enough to notice, she had admired her mother’s guile, her savvy. Perhaps the kindest thing you could’ve said about their relationship over the years was that they regarded each other as worthy opponents.

  “So why are you living in Athol?” Marissa asked. “I thought you swore you’d never live more than ten miles—”

  “More than ten miles from where Grandma Sofia’s buried, I remember what I said. Not all of us are as youthful as you are, Marissa, it’s not so easy for me to get around a city anymore.” She scowled. “I tried to explain to you girls what it was like for your grandmother, an Italian woman on her own, making a life for herself in Boston. The Irish don’t exactly do one of their jigs when an Italian shows up. But she made something for herself there. I didn’t want to turn my back on it. But you girls never cared. Your sister didn’t understand and all you wanted—God knows what you ever wanted.” She took a long sip of her drink. “Now everything’s changed. All the old parishes are dying dead. I could fall down in the street, all anybody’d do is step over my corpse.” She finished whatever was left in her cup, shook it at Special K. He got up and took it, giving Marissa a shamefaced grin before dropping his eyes as he went to the kitchen. But she’d done that, too, in her time: She’d poured Mona plenty of drinks, until she vowed never to do it again. “All right, then, detective, if you’re done with your questions, let’s get back to mine. Did you get kicked out on your ass today or what?”

  “Not exactly,” Marissa answered, failing to come up with a better evasion.

  Mona snorted triumphantly. “In other words, exactly. What have I been telling you your entire life?”

  “Never open a bank account?”

  “And I was right about that, wasn’t I? When half the country lost their mortgages, you can bet they wished they kept their money like I did. So did he find a twenty-year-old who makes more sparkling conversation? Then when you got lippy about it, like you do, he figured out a way to change the subject.”

  Mona had it all wrong, but somehow it didn’t matter; Marissa felt herself reddening, getting defensive. “You don’t know shit about it, Ma.”

  “I know everything about it!” she cackled. “Because I know you. And you can play cuckoo bird with some family of cops in Needham, you can earn your keep at some holier-than-thou college chasing a ball around a field, you can marry into some rich black family with a Back Bay mansion I’m not welcome at. But it’ll never change what you are.”

  In five years, Marissa had grown unaccustomed to her mother’s escalations, her hairpin counterattacks, her instinct for blood: She felt like Mona was trying to slice her up and serve her to herself. “Okay, Ma, you tell me, what am I?” She stared at Mona’s dark eyes, set in the folds of her face. This was why she’d come, she thought, and no other reason: to ask this question.

  Mona leaned forward in her recliner, raised her fake brows. “You’re poor white trash by way of Boston. Your mother’s a drunk and your father got shivved in Walpole while he was doing ten years for bank fraud. That’s all you’ll ever be, so you better learn to live with it, Marissa Sofia.”

  It was as if some vacuum had opened around her, drawing away everything that was not utter stillness. She believed she could feel the words working their way, inch by inch, into her mind. “Who?” she finally managed.

  Mona looked around the floor uncomfortably. “Never mind, I’m an old lady, Marissa, I forgot I never . . .” Then her look was ferocious again. “You stay away from me for five years, after all I done, you expect me to keep track of what you know and what you don’t know? Ken, where is my goddamn vodka drink?” she bellowed toward the kitchen, then shook her head, reached over, and put her hand on Marissa’s knee. Marissa slapped it away. “Okay, okay, don’t be dramatic. What’d you think, your dad was Ted Kennedy?”

  “I thought he was . . .” She was surprised to hear herself talk. “I thought he was alive. And—somewhere.” The hollowed-out sensation had returned. She’d believed she never thought about him, but now wondered if she hadn’t thought about him every day.

  “He was a deadbeat who got sent up when you were two and he never got out. That’s the whole story right there. You thought whatever you thought and you never listened to me anyway. Besides, I didn’t want you to think you were . . . For Christ’s sake, Ken! Bring her some water.”

  Special K appeared, holding a Solo cup of water. Marissa took it, had to grip it with both hands to drink it without dropping it.

  “What are you looking so white for?” Mona demanded. “He was a stranger.”

  “But I thought he had . . .” She thought he had done with his life what she’d done with hers: escaped Mona, escaped Boston.

  Special K grabbed his guitar. “You ever hear the record ‘American Beauty’ by the Grateful Dead? I can play the whole thing from memory.”

  “Spare us, Mozart,” Mona told him.

  “At least lemme play her ‘Ripple,’” he insisted. Marissa was staring down into the empty cup, the dental white surface flecked with beads of water. This time the coughing started even before the first word. She missed Adam. It was an unexpected sensation, a kind of tug at the bottom of her chest; but they’d been together for all the other ass-kickings the day had handed out, and she would have liked it if he’d been here for this one. She doubted he could’ve helped, but she believed for whatever reason that he’d get it: what it felt like to be robbed of someone, just like that. Penance—was that why she’d come?

  A sound like a robot’s death scream filled the room. Special K put the guitar down. “You two keep the gloves on,” he said, and he went out to answer the door.

  Mona watched Marissa with a sour, unsettled expression. “He knock you around or not?”

  “Who, Ma?” Marissa answered dully.

  “Your precious husband. Because if he did, Marissa, I can help you with that. Half your cousins are still in Boston, and—”

  “What cousins?” Marissa shot back. “Vincent Palleta? Danny Annapolo? Those assholes aren’t my cousins.”

  “They looked out for you like they were your cousins, didn’t they?”

  “Danny Annapolo tried to feel me up when I was thirteen.”

  “Like you were so pure when you were thirteen. I know what you were up to,” Mona spat back. She took another sip. More mildly, she said, “Anyway, you should’ve let Danny Annapolo get in your pants. He owns two car dealerships up in Brockton.”

  “Yeah, I really missed the boat on that one.”

  “Roll your eyes all you want, but I bet his wife’s never gotten knocked around after Danny stepped out on her.”

  “I cheat
ed on him, Ma!” she at last erupted. “That’s what happened. I cheated on him. He’d never hurt me, he’s not . . . He’s nice.” How had she landed on “nice” again? It only added to the sense of utter uselessness that seemed to have sapped the last of her energy.

  Mona studied her for a while. “My first girl,” she said at last. She lifted her cup to her lips, then studied that. “You always were your own worst enemy.” All at once, it was like the terrifying, indomitable vitality slipped from her body; Mona looked like an old, obese alcoholic, drinking away her last days in a recliner. “What are you doing here, Marissa? Not even I understand it.” She brought the cup to her lips.

  Marissa’s phone was ringing in her purse. She doubted she’d have the strength to talk to whoever might be calling. “What was his name?” she asked Mona.

  “Who?” Mona said. “Oh. Him. It doesn’t matter one way or another. Make up whatever name makes you happy, Marissa.” And now she was sharp and defiant and indomitable again: Was it possible to hate someone, to fear someone, to admire her and love her, in the space of a single conversation? A single thought?

  “See? They’re getting along great!” Special K was walking in. Caitlyn followed, carrying on her hip her stepdaughter, Jade, a flushed two-year-old with a pacifier in her mouth.

  “Aren’t you full of surprises,” Caitlyn said when she looked at Marissa.

  “Hey,” Marissa said. The little girl wore a pink, puffy jacket, a wool hat and wool mittens that dangled from strings inside her sleeves. Caitlyn had just an unzipped windbreaker over her purple scrubs. She worked as an aide at a retirement home in Somerville and looked worn out from her day, but even after she’d pulled a double, no one was going to get confused about which of the Cavano sisters was the anointed pretty one: Caitlyn was three inches taller, had straight, dirty blond hair, a girl-next-door button nose, and yes, a double D bra size. “You look good,” Marissa said to her sister.

  Caitlyn rolled her eyes tiredly. “I bet. C’mon, Jade, stand on your feet.” She began lowering the child by the armpits.

  “I’ll take her,” Marissa said. She stood up and the girl fell into her arms, her head against Marissa’s shoulder.

  “Jade, you remember your aunt Marissa?” Caitlyn asked her. “And Grandma Mona?” Jade looked up, pushed the pacifier out toward Marissa as she considered, rubbed her eyes dramatically, and dropped her head. “They tired her out at Hanley’s sister’s,” Caitlyn said. “She says hello.”

  Caitlyn’s husband, Hanley, followed inside, carrying four large bags from KFC. He was an attractively broad-shouldered guy, olive-skinned, a Bruins beanie pulled down to his eyelids, a set of keys jangling on his belt.

  Special K sat back on the couch, picked up his joint. “Can you not?” Caitlyn said. “Around the baby?”

  “Oops, oops, oops,” he chuckled, snuffing the joint out in the ashtray. “That’s just Grandpa’s wacky-tabaccy,” he said to Jade, sticking out his tongue comically. The child stared back at him blank-faced from Marissa’s arms.

  “You are so not her grandpa,” Caitlyn muttered. She took two of the bags from Hanley. “Ma, can we get this show on the road? They’re making Hanley go in tonight.”

  “Yeah, hello to you, too,” Mona answered.

  Caitlyn disappeared into the kitchenette. “I told you to have the oven on!”

  But Mona was eyeing Marissa with Jade in her arms. “What’d you ever do with all that babysitting money?” she asked Marissa.

  This was one Mona would never, ever let go. “Went to college,” she answered.

  Mona went on eyeing her, as if seeing her holding her niece raised Mona’s suspicions about Marissa herself on the question of children; you had to remind yourself sometimes that Mona was not, in fact, clairvoyant.

  “For all the good it did you,” Mona muttered at length.

  Marissa pulled off Jade’s mittens, took her hat off her head and stuffed it in the girl’s coat pocket. “There ya go, sweetie,” she cooed.

  “Mah-issa,” Jade said.

  “Look at that, and even I barely remembered,” Mona declared. To Caitlyn, she called, “You better watch out for your stepdaughter around cuckoo bird, Lord knows what she’s capable of.”

  Caitlyn ignored this, asking from the kitchenette, “Why isn’t the oven working?”

  “It’s broken!” Special K called cheerfully, strumming “Jingle Bells.”

  “Okay, we’ll eat it cold,” Caitlyn huffed.

  Hanley picked up the TV remote from the carpet. “Second half started,” he said to no one in particular, changed the channel to a football game and turned the volume up.

  Caitlyn emerged from the kitchen with two tubs of chicken as Mona was waving her empty cup at Special K. “Can you take it slow while my kid is here?” Caitlyn half whispered.

  “It wasn’t my idea for you to come over here,” Mona answered. “Anyway, you and your big sister have some catching up to do.” Special K took her cup. “Guess what happened to her today.”

  Caitlyn looked at Marissa. “What?” she asked.

  “Barack Obama kicked her ass to the curb. Shoved her down the stairs, only she won’t admit it.”

  “That true?” Caitlyn asked.

  “He didn’t push me down the stairs,” Marissa told her.

  Caitlyn watched Marissa’s face. They’d never had one of those sister-best-friend relationships, but they’d spent their childhoods in the same foxhole. They knew how to detect fragility, injury in each other. She gave Marissa a sympathetic nod. “I know, Marissa. I know he’d never.” Then, to everyone, “All right, let’s just eat.”

  “Ken, bring my bottle and the soda in here,” Mona shouted into the kitchen.

  “Christ, Ma,” said Caitlyn.

  “You gonna take the Lord’s name in front of the baby? What would her real mother say about that?”

  Caitlyn absorbed the blow the way she always did, tucking her lips into her mouth, hardening her eyes into an aggrieved glare that never translated into words, ending with a fluttering, twirling gesture with her hand: Okay, let’s just move on.

  Special K carried the vodka in from the kitchen, at least wrapped discreetly once again in its paper bag, whispering to the sisters as he passed, “Better to just let her have it. We don’t want her to get on a roll.”

  So Mona ate with the bottle between her feet; Special K hadn’t bothered with the soda. Marissa put Jade on the couch between her and Caitlyn, and Caitlyn gave the girl a bowl of macaroni and cheese to eat with a plastic spork. Hanley lay on the floor in front of them, legs extended, staring at the football game. Special K was up on one arm of the couch, knees pressed together to make a little table of his lap for his food. They passed around the buckets of chicken, ate off the logo-emblazoned napkins, didn’t speak as the football and commercials blared, squawked, sang. Occasionally, there’d be a fresh glugging into Mona’s Solo cup. Caitlyn pulled a few pieces of chicken off a wing, tried to tempt Jade with them, but Jade pulled her lips into her mouth much the same way Caitlyn did, patted the mac and cheese with her palm.

  Marissa didn’t have much of an appetite. She’d already eaten Thanksgiving dinner that afternoon—though, in her opinion, the KFC was even a little better than what the caterer had prepared. But it was all a question of familiarity: She ate KFC once or twice a week growing up. Marissa watched Jade as she diligently spooned the mac and cheese into her mouth. Was there any hope she’d remember this day? And if she did, what would those memories be? An apartment full of people she loved, who loved her, sharing a meal together? Or was she already attuned to the tensions in the room—the diseases, the toxic histories? Maybe at best she’d remember that they’d succeeded in putting all that aside for ten or twenty minutes. Maybe that was the most any family holiday could be: a little contrivance of peace.

  Whatever it was, it didn’t last long. By the time the television was showing the football game’s production crew smiling and waving to their families back home, Mona’d begun mutterin
g to herself. “Five years. Five years, and she comes waltzing back in, like she owns the whole building.”

  “Cut it out, Ma,” Caitlyn said.

  “Cut what out? Why? You wouldn’t understand. After I killed myself all those years, she turns her back for a bunch of cops and . . .”

  “Who cares?” Caitlyn insisted. “She’s here now, so let’s shut up and enjoy the day.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Mona snapped. She reached forward for the bottle; it slipped from her hand and landed on the carpet, but there was nothing left to spill out. She sat back heavily. “I deserved better. After all I did for her. Turn your back and there’s a knife in it. Ask her husband, he knows!”

  Caitlyn was giving Marissa a pleading look. And Marissa knew, after all these years, there was no point trying to match Mona grudge for grudge, spite for spite: She might as well try to drown the ocean. But she looked at Jade and she looked at the food and she said, “Ma, where’d you go when you left me and Caitlyn in McDonald’s that Thanksgiving?”

  “What Thanksgiving? You’re crazy.”

  “No, you left us in McDonald’s all day, and finally the cops came to—”

  “Come on, Marissa,” Caitlyn whispered behind her teeth.

  “You told them our aunt was watching us, but we don’t have an aunt.” She wasn’t shouting, but from the way Jade edged away from her on the couch, she knew she might as well be. But she wasn’t stopping now. “So where were you? Running numbers or something?”

  “Running numbers?” Mona sneered mockingly. “You watch too much TV.”

  “If you two are going to do this again—” Caitlyn began.

  “You think you deserved better?” Marissa seethed. “Guess what, we deserved better, too. So I want to know why the fuck you left us in a McDonald’s on Thanksgiving. Where did you go?”

  “This ain’t no good for no one,” Special K advised.