by Brenda Grate
"Why?" Anna whispered into the quiet room. "Am I not good enough to be a mother? Is it because I wasn’t a good enough daughter?"
She sank into a chair and let the grief spill out where no one could see a silly woman crying over an empty house.
Chapter 12
At eight o’clock, Rob still hadn’t come home from work. He hadn’t bothered to call, either. Anna sat in the living room, a glass of scotch in her hand. She contemplated the last ten years and how many such nights she’d spent alone, nursing her thoughts and waiting for her husband to come home. Hope didn’t have a thriving real estate market, so no matter how he pretended to be run off his feet, Anna knew the truth. It had suited her to keep her thoughts private, cherishing peace more than gratification. But now that she’d decided to end things with him, every hour he tarried was torture.
Three suitcases filled the trunk of her car. She’d stacked the back seat with a couple of boxes of her favorite things. The savings and checking accounts had gone down by half—she’d gone to the bank that afternoon after waking up, taken out the cash in a draft and walked across the street to the rival bank and opened new accounts. Everything she planned on taking from this life sat in her car, a pathetic offering to her new life. She knew the divorce would take some time. Rob wouldn’t grant one easily and would likely fight her on every point, especially the money. Until then, she had what she needed to start over.
Anna got up to pour herself another drink, her third, despite knowing it wasn’t a good idea to use liquid courage to ask for a divorce. She had gone beyond caring. Her careful plan went out the window two hours after the dinner she’d prepared for him had gone cold.
Headlights moved in an arc across the living room wall. Rob’s car pulled into the driveway. She picked up her now refreshed class of scotch and sat on the love seat facing the doorway to the living room. Her hand trembled as she brought it to her mouth. The glass rattled against her teeth when she sipped. She clenched her hand and rested the drink on her leg, her eyes fixed on the doorway.
Rob entered the house, and she could hear him putting away his coat and shoes. He stepped into the living room, saw her, and looked guilty for a second before he schooled his expression into indifference. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Sorry I’m late,” he said without sounding the least bit apologetic.
“Where were you?”
Rob looked at her with surprise then irritation. “You’ve never asked me that before.”
“No, you’re right. I should have asked you that at least seven years ago.”
“What are you talking about? Are you drunk?”
Anna smirked and took a sip of her drink, her hand now steady. “No. Wish I was, though.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Rob actually looked concerned now. He walked farther into the room and stood in front of her.
“Have a seat.” Anna waved her glass at the chair opposite. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t feel like talking.”
Anna decided in that minute to rip a page from Jilly’s book. “Sit the fuck down, Rob.”
He sat, too shocked to do anything else.
Before he could recover his senses, Anna said, “I’m leaving you. You no longer have to sneak around with your girlfriends.”
Rob looked even more surprised, if that were possible.
“What?” Anna asked. “You thought I didn’t know?”
Rob actually looked ashamed. But he couldn’t exist in that place for long. His face took on the familiar angry cast. “If I was getting it at home—”
“Oh shut up, you asshole.” Anna slammed her glass down on the table beside her chair and leaned forward. “You could have tried harder to make me want you, but you didn’t. I could have tried harder to be interested in you, but I didn’t. I’m not blaming this relationship failing on you and your indiscretions only, but whatever the reasons, I have no desire to hash them out. I’m leaving and I want a divorce. That’s all.”
Anna sat back and waited for his response. All kinds of emotions flitted around his face as he considered her words. He ended up at sadness, to her surprise.
“I’m sorry to hear this, Anna.”
“What? Aren’t you happy? Wouldn’t you rather be free to sleep around in public?”
“No. I would prefer to have a happy marriage with you.”
She hadn’t expected that. She’d believed he would be angry and throw her out. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. I didn’t want our marriage to fail, but I didn’t know how to reach you. You’re so closed off all the time. I do love you, Anna, but I’ve wondered for a long time if you love me. You’re right, I’ve had a few relationships, but only when I felt I couldn’t stand the loneliness anymore.”
Anna didn’t know what to say. Her husband loved her? She stood, grabbed her glass and went to the bar to pour another drink. “Want one?” she asked without turning.
“Yes.”
She handed him his drink and sat with hers. The room began to feel a bit hazy. She hadn’t had three scotches in a long time. She’d consumed them over several hours, the only thing that kept her from being completely drunk.
Anna studied Rob, thinking about what he’d said. Was there any hope? Did knowing his feelings change anything? She thought not. They still weren’t a good match. They had nothing in common. He didn’t want children, she did, even if she had to adopt. He was more interested in money and gloss than the things that were important to Anna: family, friends, and truth.
“Why did you marry me?” Anna asked at last.
“Because I loved, love you. What other reason would there be?”
“Oh, there can be many reasons, you know that. I guess your parents didn’t teach you what real love is, just as my mother didn’t teach me.”
“Don’t bring my parents into this,” Rob snapped.
“They’re in this as if they’re sitting right there.” Anna pointed at the sofa beside her. “And my mamma is there, and her parents and your grandparents. They’re all sitting there, having given their little piece to our fucked-up relationship.” Anna gave the imaginary relatives a mock toast with her drink and took a quick swallow.
Anna wondered what had come over her tonight. She never spoke to Rob like this, which obviously contributed to him gaping like a goldfish. She understood for the first time why Jilly spoke like this. Honesty satisfied like nothing else. She’d never be cruel by choice, but to finally be honest, to say what had been rolling around in her brain for years, felt like dropping a hundred pounds in five minutes. She could almost feel herself floating toward the ceiling.
“Anna, you’re drunk. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” Rob made as though to get up, but Anna snapped at him, her words freezing him where he sat.
“There won’t be a tomorrow. I’m leaving tonight. I stayed here only to give you the courtesy of telling you why. I should have been gone hours ago, but you were fucking some woman, so I sat alone with only my scotch for company.”
“Anna, give it some time. Wait a while. Let’s see someone.”
She laughed, a harsh, humorless sound. “It’s too late, Rob. If you really loved me and wanted to save our relationship, you would have suggested it a long time ago, despite what I did or didn’t do.”
“Fine,” he sat back and glared at her. “Fine. But you’ll have a fight on your hands.”
“I expected nothing less. But, at least it’s only money and the house, no kids.”
Rob got a funny look on his face.
“What?”
“I’m just glad now we never had kids,” he said.
“I am too.”
“I was right to do it.”
Anna narrowed her eyes at him. “Do what?”
“Have a vasectomy. I did it after our first year when you wouldn’t stop talking about babies. I didn’t want them, so I made sure we wouldn’t have any.” Rob sat back and stared Anna down, a malicious smile on his face.
H
e jerked his head back, Anna’s scotch glass missing his face by inches and smashing into the wall a few feet behind his head.
“Get out!” Anna stood and screamed at him, her whole body shaking with rage.
“No problem. But I’ll be back. You can’t keep me out of my own house.”
“Get out!” Anna screamed so loud it felt like the tissue in her throat tore.
She stood in the middle of the living room, her face hot like a fever. Anger, betrayal, grief for all the unborn possibilities while she’d kept on hoping. Rob had caused it all. She stood while he left the house, and then she crumpled to the floor.
Glass littered the carpet behind the chair. Anna picked it up while cursing Rob. Her eyes stung. She still couldn’t believe Rob could do such a thing like get a vasectomy without talking to her about it. She wondered what kind of a man she’d married. How had she not realized how completely selfish he was?
Anna dropped the final piece of glass into the garbage can and went to get the vacuum. While sucking up the minute pieces of glass, she saw a wet spot and a few pieces of glass on the shelf where Mamma’s Russian dolls had been earlier that day. If they’d still been there, I probably would have broken them with the glass. The thought of damaging the precious dolls made her more determined to give them back to Mamma. If Mamma didn’t want to see her, she’d mail them. She no longer wanted the responsibility for their care. If she’d damaged them in a fit of anger, she would never forgive herself.
Anna put away the vacuum and went to her car to get the dolls. After the scare, she had to be sure they were safe and undamaged. She brought them inside and sat on the couch to examine them. They were the only memento of her childhood, the only thing, other than some clothing that had long ago been donated to charity, that she’d brought with her across the country.
The dolls were probably a collector’s item now. They’d been hand painted and given to Mamma by her Papà, who’d brought them back from a trip to Russia. Anna had stolen them before she left home. At the time she just wanted to hurt Mamma. She couldn’t live without the one symbol of her grandfather. Her Nonno, as she always called him in her secret thoughts. Mamma had once told her it was how to say grandpa in Italian.
Anna had never met him, but what she did know of him from the little snatches her Mamma would tell her as a little girl, she knew him to be a wonderful man. Mamma said he was an artist, like her, and as Jilly became after. Anna didn’t inherit his ability to paint, but she did receive his ability with words. The only time Mamma ever told her that was at Anna’s university graduation when she received her journalism degree. Mamma got all soft, one of the few times Anna had seen it.
“You’re like my Papà, you know. Have I ever told you that?”
It took Anna a few seconds to reply. The gentle tone didn’t sound like Mamma at all. “No, you never told me. How am I like him?”
“He was so good with words, like a descendant of Shakespeare or Milton. He would open his mouth and the words dripped like honey from his lips.” Mamma had a faraway look in her eyes. Mamma no longer stood with her, outside on the university steps, but in the golden land of Italy, beside her beloved father. “He even told me poems, ones he would make up on the spot. My mother would get so angry when he would make up poems for me.” The shutters came down and Mamma’s profile sharpened as her lips thinned. Her spine snapped straight and she marched down the steps like a soldier suddenly realizing he’d been slacking in his duty.
Anna followed wordlessly behind, not for the first time wondering what kind of a woman her nonna had been. Mamma almost never talked about her. If a mention of her slipped out, it was always the same reaction. Anna knew there would be no more mention about Anna’s accomplishments. It stung that Mamma hadn’t gotten to congratulations before shutting down. Anna’s shoulders slumped and her hand clutched her diploma tighter, something solid to hang on to, her proof of the tie to her talented Nonno. It was a slim thread, not enough to save her from falling off the edge, but enough to keep her from moving too close to it.
The paint had faded a little on the largest doll, its smile dim. Nonno had brought them back from a rare trip he’d taken to Russia. Mamma never told her about the trip or what had happened while he’d been away. But the blank space was filled with emotion that crackled like the air just before a massive thunderstorm.
She slid her fingertips across the smooth wood. It reminded her of all the times she’d stroked the doll, thinking of her nonno and faraway places. The dolls were exotic, a pull to other lands, a promise of a dream. Anna wondered if she’d ever fulfill that dream. She and Chris had planned to go to Italy together. For their honeymoon, he’d said. The thought of him no longer had the power to stop her breath. She’d learned to breathe without him in her orbit, although she’d never filled her lungs as deeply since or felt that she could get quite enough air. The place he used to fill was now a void. Half her body felt empty. The emptiness seemed to grow every year.
Anna twisted off the top half of the first doll. The second nestled inside, protected from the elements. The paint shone as bright as it must have the day her nonno brought it home. Anna wished she could have been protected like that. Her own paint was faded and worn, her smile not quite so bright as years ago when Chris’ love lit her from within. She had been protected then, within the cocoon of his adoration. Why did she force herself out of that safe place? She thought she’d needed to fly alone, find herself. Instead, she found herself on the outside, alone in a bleak landscape.
Anna opened the next doll and the next. The fourth doll had a dent in it. It had happened when she was only three. The memory leapt to her mind, still vivid. She’d been playing with the dolls at the kitchen table while her mother slept. Mamma slept a lot in those days, pregnant with Jilly. Anna had been opening all the dolls and laying them out on the table in a straight row. When she came to the third doll, it stuck as usual. Her tiny hands worked at it, but it wouldn’t open. She pulled harder until they flew apart, and the doll inside fell to the stone floor. She was lucky it only dented rather than broke. Mamma never saw it. She didn’t open the dolls like Anna did. That’s another reason she stole them when she left. Anna cared about them more than Mamma did.
Once she had them all laid out in front of her, Anna stepped back and looked at them. The words filled up her mind as she thought of all they represented in her life. They were Mamma’s story and inside of that, her Mamma’s story. Anna’s story sat on the outside. Faded, yes, but couldn’t faded paint be brought back to its former glory? Just like Michelangelo’s art. He painted it hundreds of years ago and yet the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was still bright. Anna was seized with a violent desire to be made bright again. She’d faded into her own life until she almost couldn’t be seen. She picked up the first doll. Next to the other dolls, with their painted smiles with deep red lips, it looked sad. The soft pink of its mouth told a sad story of neglect and time. Anna decided she would find someone who could fix the doll, bring it back to its original state. Would that someone could do the same for her.
Chapter 13
“Do you need anything, Jill?” Gregg popped his head around the corner.
He didn’t come all the way into the room. He’d been treating her like an invalid ever since she came home from the hospital, and she’d quickly gotten sick of it.
“I’m fine. Where’s Matthew?”
“I took him to Mom’s house. She said she’d watch him and give you some rest.”
Jilly mumbled profanities under her breath.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. I’m fine, you know. I don’t need rest. I hardly lost any blood and I’m not sick.”
A pained look came over Gregg’s face. “Well, maybe you need rest and you don’t know it.”
Jilly had a sudden urge to throw her pillow at him and scream. She resisted with great effort. “I’m fine, dammit.”
Gregg shrugged and disappeared from sight.
Jilly ground her t
eeth and stared around her room, trying to find something that would occupy her attention. Her gaze landed on the bookshelf. Jilly loved her books, but not one of them caught her eye. She needed more than ever to get away from reality. Then she saw the journal that Anna gave her for her last birthday. The journal she’d yet to write a single word in.
Jilly hopped off the bed and winced at the pain in her wrist. She’d forgotten how tender cutting left her, especially when she got a little too exuberant about it. Jilly pulled the leather-bound journal off the shelf and brushed her hand across the soft cover. It was beautiful, one of the reasons she hadn’t written in it yet. It seemed a crime to mar it.
