The Complete Series

by Angela Scipioni

  “Iris, I may not know a lot about a lot of things. I don’t know which wine goes with fish, or how to uncork a bottle of champagne. But there are a couple things I do know about. First of all, I know what bullshit is, and I’m hearing a lot of it from you. I also know about abusive relationships. And believe it or not, you are in one.”

  “How can you say that? You don’t even know Max!”

  “I don’t have to know Max. I know you. You keep saying there are ‘certain things’ that are going on, but you won’t tell me what they are. When we talked at my house, I could tell you were avoiding issues you didn’t want to discuss, because I used to do the exact same thing. And now you’re doing it again! All you talk about his life, his dreams, what you can do to support and encourage him. That’s typical textbook behavior - they call it ‘battered women’s syndrome,’ you know.”

  “Good God, Lily! Now you sound like Mom!”

  “Yeah, well, Mom knew a thing or two, as it turns out. Iris, in support group they used to tell us that we had an obligation to expose abuse when we see it in the world. You are displaying all the classic behaviors: you’re glossing over your problems, minimizing your own pain, making excuses for Max all over the place, taking responsibility for his lack of ability to cope with the world, running interference for him. Every other word that comes out of your mouth is about Max, and all I keep thinking is, ‘What about Iris?’”

  Iris felt like throwing up. “Listen, Lily. This connection is getting really bad. There’s all this static and feedback on the line. Maybe we should hang up and I’ll call you back in a little bit?”

  “That’s not necessary. I can hear you well enough. And I’m waiting for an answer. What about Iris?”

  “Yes, what about Iris?” A rush of hot saliva filled her mouth. “I haven’t been such a saint either, you know,” she said. “Max isn’t the only one to blame here.”

  “And I’m sure he is an expert on your flaws and failures, isn’t he?”

  Iris recoiled from the words as if they were a snake at her feet, not a question asked by her sister three thousand miles away. Max had never before spoken to her with such cruelty as he had last night, but she was the one who had started it. Sure, he had joked about her infidelities on a few occasions - even in front of his friends, which she didn’t appreciate. And sure, there had been times, especially back in the beginning, when Max had made all those digs at her for being content with her sheltered life as Gregorio’s wife, for being such a slave to rules and convention. But that had been for her own good, hadn’t it? Hadn’t the purpose been to expose her to new ways of thinking, to encourage her to get out and grab some happiness for herself before it was too late?

  “No one is perfect, Lily,” she said. “Not even me. You should know that by now.”

  “And I bet Max is all too happy to remind you of that. Throwing past mistakes up in your face is a classic tactic of abusers.”

  “He doesn’t need to remind me of anything! I made my mistakes on my own and I can remember each one perfectly well on my own, thank you very much! All I seem to do is make mistakes! Even calling you was a mistake!” Iris cried, bursting into tears.

  “Love forgives mistakes, Iris,” Lily said, her voice soft, but firm. “Abuse makes you live your mistakes over and over again. I’ve always looked up to you, you know? You were the closest thing to perfection I knew, flitting around in your tutu, always so graceful, always so ready to dispense help and smiles and love. I refuse to just sit here and listen to you demolish my role model. You are not weak, but you have been systematically duped into believing that you are. Strong men want their women to believe in their own strength, they want them to pursue their own dreams, to challenge them, and to demand respect. Controlling men need women who are insecure, who lack confidence and conviction, who think poorly of themselves and who will do almost anything to stay in their good graces - including betraying themselves. Just ask yourself one question, Iris: What kind of woman are you when you’re with Max?”

  “Lily, please. Stop it.” Iris sobbed.

  “I won’t stop. I can’t. You can hate me, you can scream at me, you can hang up on me if you want, but I am going to stay on this phone until you ask yourself that question.”

  Iris could never hate Lily, she could never hang up on her, and she didn’t have the strength to scream back at her. All she wanted was for her to leave her alone. All she wanted was to catch her breath and end the conversation. Then she heard that Lily was crying, too.

  “Iris, abusers don’t wear a sign around their neck, you know?” Lily said. “They don’t all live in Gates, wear grimy muscle shirts and throw things and scream. They don’t walk around kicking puppies. And abused women aren’t all somewhere else, standing in some welfare line with runny-nosed children. They don’t all turn up in the emergency ward in the middle of the night with broken bones and lame excuses. Abuse happens in Italy, too. And it happens to wealthy women, to educated women, to sophisticated women. In fact, when I was in counseling at the shelter, they used to tell us that women like you have a much harder time recognizing and accepting that they are in abusive relationships because their partners are wealthy, slick, popular, successful - whatever. It's much easier for someone like me who has suffered in a more obvious and worldly way - like not having any money or any personal freedom to see friends. Can you see that, Iris? Can you answer my question: Who are you when you are with Max?”

  Iris sat down on the sofa, holding the phone in one hand and her face in the other. She was so utterly confused, she didn’t even know how to answer. But by now she did have a pretty clear idea of who Max wanted her to be: the clever organizer, the indulgent mamma, the reckless teenager, the innocent sex toy in high heels.

  “When I’m with Max,” Iris struggled to gain control of her voice. “When I’m with Max, I always feel insecure, like I’m never beautiful enough, or smart enough, or interesting enough.”

  “Iris,” Lily said through tears, “The whole time we were growing up, I just adored you. I dreamed that one day I would be as graceful and beautiful and sweet and intelligent as you were. As you are. You have always been my idol, the one person I wished I could be like. It breaks my heart to know that you believe those lies about yourself. And it makes me raging mad!”

  “Lily, I’m not who you think I am. I’m not worthy of being anyone’s idol. The only thing I ever knew how to do was smile. That was how I defended myself. That was how I got attention. That was the only reason anyone wanted to be around me. For my idiotic, stupid smile. Look where it got me.”

  “Oh, Iris. I saw that smile fade from your face when I asked you about Max that day, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Don’t let him steal that smile any longer. I know how it happens. They take a little bit here, a little bit there, and before you know it, there is only empty space where you used to be. I am not going to sit here and watch you do that to yourself."

  Iris knew there was something to what Lily said. She thought of all the bits and pieces of her that had been chipped away over the years, how willing she had been to let them all have a go at it. Not only Max, but Claudio, and Gregorio, and her high school boyfriends, even her very own father. They had all served themselves with what they needed from her, and lopped away what they didn’t like. But not one of them had ever loved her enough to give her the one thing she needed: the freedom to be herself.

  “But how do you stop it from happening?” Iris asked. “What am I supposed to do?” How strange it was for her to be asking Lily for advice. Lily, the little sister she hadn’t been able to protect. Lily, who somewhere along the way had lost everything, but found her true voice. Iris gripped the phone, waiting in silence for Lily’s answer, hoping to feel a surge of the strength she so desperately needed flow from her sister through the receiver and into her.

  “You do it one breath at a time, Iris. One word, one thought. You begin by honoring yourself in all that you say and do.”

  “But
how do I do that today? How do I do it right now?

  “You do it by being Iris,” said Lily. “She will show you the way.”

  Iris picked up the dust cloth from the end table, and swiped it across her swollen eyes and runny nose, wondering whether she even knew who Iris was anymore. The sound of a key turning in the lock made her jump to her feet.

  “Lily!” she said. “He’s at the door!”

  “Who is? Max?”

  “Yes!”

  “Can he get in?”

  “He has the keys. But I locked the safety latch.” The knocking on the door turned to pounding, accompanied by the insistent buzzing of the bell.

  “What are you going to do?” Lily asked.

  “What should I do?” Iris wished he had given her a little more time to think. She was a wreck, not nearly calm enough to confront him.

  “Are you afraid of him, Iris? Don’t let him inside if you are afraid of him. Go outside to talk.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.” Lily probably thought Max was violent, that he might try to hurt her, like the husbands of those women at the shelter. He wasn’t like that at all, but she was nervous just the same. “But I am nervous about facing him. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Think of what we just talked about. Be strong.”

  “OK, Lily. But will you wait here? Will you stay on the line while I open the door?”

  “I’ll be right here.”

  Iris set the phone down on the table, walked to the door and unlatched it. When she saw Max standing on the landing, she did not see the monstrous manipulator Lily had described. She saw an unshaven man with bags under his bloodshot eyes, who looked at her and heaved a deep sigh. His appearance told her he must have suffered just as much as she. Iris wondered where he had spent the night. The only thing that stopped her from throwing her arms around him was the thought of Lily on the phone.

  “I’m glad you came, Max,” Iris said.

  Max brandished that grin of his. That grin. That condescending grin of a man so magnanimous as to put up with her quirky foreign viewpoints and provincial morals. That self-serving grin of a man who despised the constraints of conventional relationships, and kept her vacillating between a constant state of worry and want. That ridiculous grin of a man on a mission to liberate her from the slavery of family values and religious beliefs and secure paychecks. That vile, disgusting grin of a man who pissed on her lilac like an animal while pointing his finger at her, accusing her of thinking herself so much better than him. Who the hell was he anyway? A wannabe filmmaker? A freeloading fraudster? A pig who had betrayed her and coerced her into betraying herself?

  “I’m glad I came, too,” Max said. “I knew you’d come around.”

  “And I can finally see that you never will,” Iris said through clenched teeth, her gut roiling, her muscles quivering. “Lily was just talking to me about that.”

  “What the fuck would Lily know about anything?”

  The grin was still there. That goddamn shit-eating son-of-a-bitch grin was still there.

  Her heart pounding, her face burning, Iris stared wide-eyed as her arm flew through the air and whacked her open palm against Max’s cheek with such force it knocked him off balance. If it weren’t for the stinging in her hand and the stunned look on his face, she never would have believed such a gesture could have come from Iris Capotosti.

  12. Lily

  Click-click, click-click. Lily tilted her face into the sunshine’s embrace as she pedaled her way across the Stutson Street bridge toward home. She relished this Indian summer afternoon, knowing that it was one of the few remaining. Soon, it would be too cold and dark to bike back and forth to work, a routine she had grown to love. It had become a precious form of meditation, giving Lily space at the beginning of each day to pray for guidance and strength and at the end of each to offer thanks.

  So much had changed about Lily’s life over the past few months. The boys remained with Joe, but every interaction Lily had with them was a new chance to help them navigate the confusion she knew they must be feeling about their new life and about the twisted family dynamic firmly planted at the center of it all. They could never understand the complexities of emotional manipulation, of alienation of affection, of psychological blackmail. Even after months of counseling, it was hard enough for Lily to understand. But one day, the boys would see. One day, they would come home to her again. On her best of days, Lily held onto that hope; it sat with her during dinners for one, walked beside her during her lone evening strolls on the beach, and acted as a salve to soothe the sting of the indignation she could see in the eyes of people who couldn’t fathom how any mother in her right mind could give up her children.

  On her worst of days, Lily planted herself on the grass at the base of the massive oak tree in her yard, looked out over the waters of Lake Ontario and wept until the tidal wave of sadness passed. Sometimes, that took hours. Sometimes, it took days. It amazed Lily how many tears she could hold, how many her body could manufacture. Where did the sadness come from? Where did it go when she released it? She wondered if there would come a time when a week would pass without sorrow again dismantling her fledgling sense of optimism.

  Regardless of her struggle to keep a positive perspective, there were two things to which Lily remained doggedly dedicated: Her attendance and performance at work - whether she wanted to be there or not - and her twice weekly visits with the boys, whether they wanted to be there or not.

  As a perk of her job at the Kendall Company, Lily received a bike for herself and for each immediate family member, along with a comprehensive guide to the local bike paths and trails. Taking a family ride had quickly become the routine when Joseph and Pierce visited. The boys had excitedly designed their own YouBikes– Pierce’s in red and blue like Superman - and Joseph’s in silver, “So it will match my Dad’s car.” Lily’s bike was purple and white.

  Bicycles were not the only gifts Lily received from the Kendall Company. Her work as a technical writer was so totally absorbing that it helped her to get through those early days when all she could think about was how much she missed the boys, and how angry she was at Joe. But as she spread out the parts and pieces of the latest YouBike model on a large table before her, her mind became consumed with the order of the steps, the tone of the language, and the illustrations that were best suited to support customers as they approached what had the potential to be a frustrating experience. It gave Lily great comfort to know that some things really did work out the way they were supposed to, and even though she might not be changing lives in her work, if she could help people experience that kind of certainty - even in a small way - maybe they would be comforted, too.

  Lily and Iris had promised to stay in better touch with each other since the previous summer. Lily had always been terrible at sitting down to write a response to a longhand letter, and was even less inclined to initiate one. She’d spent so much time trying to free herself from the prison of her thoughts, that the last thing she wanted to do in her spare time was record them on paper. Maybe Lily would have felt different about staying in touch with Iris if she ever had anything interesting or happy to share. So often, there was nothing to report but the latest run-in with Joe, or the most recent nightmare that the boys were drowning in the lake, with Lily unable to reach them in time. It was so much simpler to write about putting peg A into slot B.

  Email eventually rendered longhand letter writing and two-week delivery times obsolete. Still, it was easy enough to mark an email for response by placing a little red flag next to it – and just as easy to ignore the flag. They finally settled on using chat, which afforded them a way to stay in touch in real-time, at any hour of the day or night. Iris said it would be less like writing a letter, and more like having a conversation. Lily wasn’t convinced that was going to make it any less burdensome. It wasn’t the medium that was the problem. After all, when had they ever had easy conversation? Still, in the spirit of wanting to want to stay in touch, they ma
de fairly regular plans to meet online. Sometimes both of them even remembered to show up.

  So tell me about this promotion, Iris typed.

  They want to make me a communications associate.

  What does that involve?

  Instead of just writing tech manuals, I’ll get to write some ad copy, some company newsletters – that sort of thing.

  Sounds like fun! See? typed Iris. I’m not the only one who recognizes your talent!

  Working all the time is better than coming home to an empty house, typed Lily. I think my boss confused my desperation with dedication. Still, I’ll take the promotion – and the raise.

  Congratulations, Lily – you deserve it!

  What I deserve is to get my kids back.

  I know you do.

  Every day I pray for that. I figure by getting ahead at work, I will be able to give them a better life when that time comes.

  I know, Lily. I pray for it too.

  It was from the seat of her bicycle that Lily began to rebuild her relationships with her sons. Cycling was an activity that they could engage in together, but that also allowed each of them to experience their own challenges and victories. For Joseph, that entailed finally making it to the top of the hill on Lake Avenue without having to get off and walk, and for Pierce it was being able to keep pace so that Joseph and Lily did not have to stop and wait for him to catch up.

  Lily’s first real challenge was deciding whether she should ride in front of the boys or behind them. Riding at the back, she would be able to see them, know that they still had their helmets on, that their tires had not gone flat, and of course, that they were still there. But riding in front afforded her the opportunity to block their way should a car fail to notice their brightly colored bicycles or the flashing reflectors and neon streamers with which Lily had decorated them. Riding in front, she could also alert them of broken glass or other debris in the road while they still had time to avoid it. It gave her the chance protect them, providing a buffer between them, the traffic, and sometimes their own naïve enthusiasm. Each approach provided its own benefits and its own drawbacks. The only thing that was certain was that she couldn’t do both.