No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

  “Well, it’s not like you’re twenty years old, you know? Twelve is still pretty young for making those kinds of decisions.”

  “You’re mean and you’re just trying to control me,” Vidamía said, jumping up and running out of the room, leaving Elsa calling, “Young lady, you get right back here,” until she heard the door to Vidamía’s room slam upstairs. The impasse lasted nearly a week, with hardly a word exchanged between mother and daughter.

  On Saturday morning when Vidamía returned from one of her girlfriends’, Elsa asked if they could speak. Attempting to explain herself, she pointed out why it would be detrimental for Vidamía to spend time with Billy. She tried to convince her that it would be confusing on a deep, psychological level for her to reject her paternal feelings for Barry. Vidamía listened quietly, then asked her mother if she was finished. When Elsa said she was, Vidamía turned and marched upstairs. Things became so bad that Vidamía, generally kind, well-mannered and open in expressing herself when dealing with adults, grew sullen and refused to answer the most insignificant question or carry out the simplest task for her mother. Rather than following her mother’s orders not to speak with the Farrells, she enlisted the help of her friends. Within the space of two weeks following the blowup with Elsa, she managed to speak to her grandmother six times and called her father’s three times, once talking with Lurleen, who was very pleasant and expressed the hope that she would come and visit during Christmas. In the background Vidamía could hear music and laughter, and she wondered who the laughter belonged to.

  Another time a young girl answered the phone. When Vidamía identified herself, the other girl simply said, “Hi, sis, how you doing? This is Cookie.” The simple statement made her laugh and she said she was doing okay. “Me too,” the girl said. “I just got my right ear pierced again and it hurts like hell. Above the lobe. My girlfriend Milagros Pagán’s mother did it. Your ears pierced? Yeah? I’m thinking of piercing each ear six or eight times. I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe that would be too much. You wanna talk to Daddy?”

  The conversation had made her feel ticklish inside and increased her determination to meet her new family. Which of the girls was Cookie? Hortense, Caitlin, or Fawn? She loved the connection to the Farrells. But now whenever Elsa spoke to her about them, she would ignore her mother or simply walk away. After a while, Elsa resorted to communicating with Vidamía through Mrs. Alvarez, or else leaving her notes. At the dinner table, instead of the chattering that usually went on, mainly between Vidamía and her mother, there was now silence.

  Without much thought Vidamía knew that she could wait out her mother, believing that an injustice was being perpetrated by Elsa and that the cruelty would eventually bring about her downfall, as with the dictators they’d learned about in social studies. She imagined her mother not being allowed to practice therapy. She heard the word “impeachment” on television, looked it up in the dictionary, and wondered if a psychologist could be impeached.

  One evening at the beginning of December, at supper, Barry got tired of the silences and asked how much longer the situation would continue.

  “The least the two of you could do is tell me what you want,” he said, removing the napkin from his lap to wipe his lips before placing it on his empty plate. “That’s all. Just give me a hint of your ideal scenario and maybe we can work something out.”

  “I want to see my father,” Vidamía said.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Elsa replied.

  “Why not?” Barry inquired.

  “We’ve gone over that,” said Elsa.

  “I know, but I’d like to hear it again,” Barry responded. “To get a fresh perspective.”

  “I feel that we’ve raised our daughter, my daughter, with you as her father, or stepfather, as a family unit, and having this man …”

  “He’s not a ‘this man,’” Vidamía said, furious. “He’s my father.”

  “Oh, so you’ve decided to break your silence,” Elsa said.

  “Elsa, for crying out loud,” Barry said. “You should hear yourself. Vidamía’s right. He’s her father. Why shouldn’t she be entitled to see him? Please explain that. You’re a professional about everything else. What would you advise a client in a situation like this?” Elsa was silent for a moment. When she spoke she explained that it sounded very much like he, Barry, was abrogating his responsibilities as a parent, and she was extremely surprised and hurt that he would be doing so at such a critical juncture in his stepdaughter’s development.

  “Elsa, Elsa, cut it out,” Barry said. “You sound like you’re at some damn conference. This is your family. Your daughter has a right to see her father.”

  “Did you hear what you said?” Elsa snapped, an edge of triumph in her voice. “‘Your daughter.’ A clear abdication of responsibility.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, Elsie, stop it,” he said, smiling and shaking his head, using the diminutive of her name, which should have indicated to Elsa that he didn’t wish to fight, that he was on her side, that after six years of marriage he was still crazy about her. “Come on, honey. It’s okay. What am I supposed to do? Get jealous? That’s not the way I am. Vidamía knows how I feel about her and how proud I am of her.”

  “Now you’re the one that sounds like you’re addressing a business luncheon.”

  “Whatever I sound like, I’m not trying to prevent a child from seeing her family.”

  “Fine,” Elsa said, giving in to the inevitability of the situation. “What you’re saying is that I should simply turn her over to barbarians.”

  “They’re not barbarians,” Vidamía said. “Grandma Farrell is not a barbarian and neither is my father or my brother and sisters.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying and you know it, Elsie,” Barry said.

  “Fine. What do you suggest?”

  “First of all we should talk about it calmly until we reach an agreement about the best course of action. There’s no rush. The Christmas vacation’s coming up. Why ruin the holidays for everybody? Why can’t Vidamía see her father? You know, by law he’s entitled to see her.”

  “He abandoned us,” Elsa said and suddenly got a strange look on her face.

  “Elsa!” Barry said, his tone one of reprimand, so that Elsa had to admit to herself that the explanation she had given Vidamía was a fiction. She had been honest with Barry and had explained that she hadn’t wanted to sacrifice herself like her mother and that she’d told Billy to leave.

  “All right, all right,” Elsa said. “She can see him. At her grandmother’s.”

  “No, they invited me to their house for dinner around Christmas,” Vidamía said. “We’re exchanging gifts and then a little party.”

  “When, exactly?”

  “The fifteenth of December. It’s a Saturday.”

  “Oh, so it’s all set,” Elsa said, taken by surprise. “Now you’ve gone behind my back again and made plans without my permission.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Vidamía said, desperately looking toward Barry.

  “Elsa, relax,” Barry said. “Hear her out.”

  “I’ve forbidden her to go there,” she said. “My God, Barry, he lives down there where I was raised. That neighborhood’s been declining steadily for years. When were you down there, young lady?”

  “I haven’t been.”

  “Then how do you know about the party?”

  “I talked to him.”

  “You were told that your telephone privileges were curtailed. Did you call from someone else’s house?”

  “Yes,” Vidamía said, both relieved that she didn’t have to continue lying and proud to show her cunning. “I never used the phone here. I called one time and he wasn’t there. I talked to his wife. She invited me.”

  “His wife?”

  “Elsie, Elsie.”

  “Oh, stop with this ‘Elsie’ stuff, okay, Barry? What do you people want from me? Both of you need a lot of help.”

  “Stop it, Elsa,” Barry finall
y said, banging on the table. He didn’t like growing angry like this, but once in a while he had to, mostly at work when a client wanted impossible things to be done with his books. “What’s come over you? All she wants to do is visit her father and her brother and sisters. That isn’t a criminal offense. She’s entitled to that.”

  After a few more minutes of bickering it was settled. Elsa suggested that Vidamía call and ask if she could stay at Janet Shapiro’s house during the weekend of the fourteenth.

  “Barry could drive you to Janet’s house Friday night and he can pick you up and take you downtown in a cab.”

  “He who?” Vidamía asked.

  “You know who.”

  “My father? Sure.”

  “After the party he can bring you back uptown.”

  “They invited me to stay over,” Vidamía said, disappointed.

  “And what did you say?” Elsa said.

  “I said I’d have to talk to you guys.”

  “Well, it’s out of the question.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re trying my patience, young lady. When the party is over you’ll go back to your friend’s house.”

  “Maybe I could stay at güela’s.”

  Elsa, her head down, thought for a moment. Vidamía looked at Barry, who winked at her.

  “That’s a much better idea,” Barry said. “He can pick her up there. I don’t think Doña Ursula’s too far from where they live.”

  “Whatever,” Elsa said and got up from the table. “But he has to agree to pick her up.”

  “Thanks, mami. Can I use the phone?” Vidamía asked, truly wishing to mend things between herself and her mother.

  “Yes, of course, but don’t stay on too long,” Elsa said.

  Vidamía ran up the stairs, overjoyed with the victory. During the next half hour she made twenty calls, proclaiming her triumph. She also reached Maud at O’Hanlon’s to explain what had taken place. Lastly, she called Billy, but he was out. Instead, she spoke to Lurleen and said she would be in the city on December fifteenth for the dinner and party.

  Upset that she’d had to capitulate, Elsa rose abruptly from the table, went upstairs to her increasingly inactive marital bed, took a Valium, and lay down. This rage, where did it come from? It was all her daughter’s doing, she thought. The girl elicited murderous feelings in her. And then feelings of guilt invaded her again, and she thought about why the issue of Billy Farrell frightened her. Why couldn’t she care for her daughter? But why was she asking herself that question? She cared for no one. Once she thought she cared for Barry, but lately she doubted even that.

  As she began to feel the effect of the Valium and relax, she thought that perhaps Vidamía’s innocence and concern with black people, acquired she didn’t know from where, other than from that Roots book she’d read a few years before, would eventually unmask her lie that she and her daughter were white people.

  And then it dawned on Elsa that Vidamía’s establishing contact with Billy Farrell, in spite of his obvious lower-class background, would only validate Vidamía’s whiteness and insulate her and her daughter from the stigma of blackness. Giving in to her daughter, she had to agree, was the lesser of two evils.

  She had yet to see Billy Farrell, but she imagined that he had found some menial job somewhere and spent his days working at it and his evenings in a stupor from drugs and alcohol, as he had begun to do when they were together. It didn’t matter. She would monitor the situation closely. If it got too dangerous, she’d find a way to pull Vidamía back and away from him.

  She got out of bed and went down the stairs confidently, fully under the influence of the tranquilizer, her life again in control. She found Vidamía watching television in the den and asked sweetly if she could speak with her.

  “Sure,” Vidamía said, aware of the change in her mother, hoping it would last.

  “Sweetie, can you turn off the TV, please?”

  “Sorry, mami.”

  “I’m the one who should be apologizing,” Elsa said, sitting across from her daughter and tucking one leg under her as she settled into the stuffed chair.

  “I’ve been positively evil, haven’t I?” Elsa added.

  “Well …” Vidamía said, not sure how to reply, chuckling inwardly because her mother sounded like Joan Crawford in one of her movies. She’d have to read the daughter’s book, like Tracy Richardson said. Tracy’s mother was a total wacko and had locked Tracy in a closet for a whole day once when she was little. To Tracy, all mothers were the enemy.

  “You can speak honestly, baby.”

  “I’ve seen you have better days,” Vidamía said, smiling diplomatically.

  “Anyway, I’ve been under a lot of pressure and haven’t had time to really discuss anything rationally with you concerning the situation with your father. Can I ask you some things? I don’t mean to pry, but it would ease my mind to know.”

  “Sure, if I know the answers.”

  “You said your father’s married?”

  “Yes, and he has four other children. Three girls and one boy.”

  “Have you seen them?”

  “No, just pictures at Grandma Farrell’s house.”

  “Really? What do they look like?”

  “They’re all blond, mami,” Vidamía said excitedly. “Well, you know how blond Daddy is. Lurleen’s also blond, and all the kids are, too.”

  “My goodness,” Elsa said. “Isn’t that something? You have blond siblings.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of weird.”

  “No, it’s fine. Tell me what you have in mind for Christmas presents and we can go into Manhattan next weekend and shop. If you don’t want to do that, tell me approximately how much money you’ll need so I can give you the cash.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “And that’s all you wanted to know? About the kids and the presents?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re not mad—I mean angry?”

  “No, I’m not angry, baby.”

  “And you mean it, about letting me see Daddy?”

  “Sure. As long as you don’t neglect your schoolwork and your chores around the house, I have no problem with you seeing him from time to time.”

  Vidamía had gotten up from the couch and rushed to her mother, throwing her arms around her.

  “I love you, mami,” she said. “Please, please can I stay at their house after the party?”

  “Well, okay.”

  “Thank you, mami!”

  “You’re welcome, darling,” Elsa said, patting Vidamía’s back with light little motions of her hand, the close contact making her uncomfortable.

  On the agreed-upon day, Barry drove Vidamía, carrying a backpack and two bags of presents, down to her grandmother Ursula Santiago’s new apartment. The following day, Billy Farrell, accompanied by his son, Cliff, rang the bell, and they brought her to meet Lurleen and Vidamía’s sisters. On the way to their place she couldn’t keep her eyes off Cliff. He was so blond his hair was nearly white.

  They walked down a nearly deserted street to a building that looked like a warehouse. Her father produced keys, unlocked the door, and they went inside and into a huge, beat-up elevator. When they had gone up five floors her father stopped the elevator and opened the doors. On the door across from the elevator there was a big Christmas wreath with a lighted, electric candle within it. Until she was able to return to stay with Billy Farrell and his family for the summer, the memory of walking into their loft remained engraved in her heart as the ideal of what a home should look like during the Christmas holidays. The first thing that hit her were the smells of food, of cinnamon and spices, the warmth, comfort, and disorganized hominess of the place. There were so many details that she wrote them down in her diary. The furniture, the decorations, the musical instruments, the Christmas tree, the homemade ornaments made of tin cans, paper cups and dishes, milk cartons, tinfoil, crepe paper. When she fell asleep that night on her sister Hor
tense’s bed, while Hortense and Fawn shared Fawn’s, she was holding the homemade rag doll with a gingham dress and button eyes that Lurleen had given her. Vidamía thought she had never been happier. The following evening after supper, everyone bundled up against the cold and they went out and met friends from a community center and, holding lighted candles, they walked through the housing projects singing Christmas carols: “Good King Wenceslas,” “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” “Silent Night,” “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” and “Alegría, Alegría.” They all sang beautifully, but her sister Hortense was the best, her voice so pure that it made Vidamía’s skin tingle. She joined in as well as she could, but didn’t know too many of the words and was forced to hum. At one point Lurleen hugged her. Her father had remained in the loft, and she wondered why. She wanted to ask someone, but thought that her question might be interpreted as rude. When they got back, she wanted to tell her father what they’d done, but Lurleen held her back. Her father was sitting in the semi-darkness in his rocker, his back to them, seemingly lost in thought as he looked out into the night at the lights of the city.

  13. Families

  Elsa recalled being in graduate school and still living on the Lower East Side at her mother’s and getting invited to a party on Riverside Drive in one of those large eight- or ten-room apartments with high ceilings and wood paneling. Linda Mushnick’s husband, Howard—she and Linda were classmates in graduate school—had just been made a junior partner at the law firm where he worked and they were celebrating the event.

  “Just twelve of us,” Linda said. “We’re shipping the baby off to my mother’s in Jersey, so it’ll be great. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “Who is it?” Elsa said, laughing at Linda’s seriousness.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Is he rich or are you trying to stick me with another one of your cheap friends?”

  “Let’s say he’s very well off.”

  “I’m getting interested. What time?”