by R. L. Fox
“About Daniel?” I had asked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” my mother replied.
Now, I’ve been performing cartwheels in the front yard, as we’ve been taking a fresh-air break after watching Finding Nemo. My Mom has been watering the flowers.
“What a wonderful evening,” I blurt to no one in particular. Snuggling with my mother as we walk back into the house, I plead, “Mom, don’t tell Daniel I did cartwheels, in public, in front of the whole neighborhood, Mom, please, oh please, oh please ...”
I suppose I’m just about the happiest girl on Coronado Island since spending yesterday afternoon with Daniel, and since getting my period.
I nestle my head in the space between my mother’s neck and shoulder. “Stop it, silly,” she says good-humoredly. “You’re going to have me on the floor.”
It’s been really warm, so we’re both dressed in sleeveless tops, shorts and sandals.
I told my mother I like Daniel. I’ve been afraid to tell her the truth, that I love him and that I’m not sure any longer about whether or not she should marry Frank. I think she’s a little troubled because Daniel is older than me, and when I grow up she wants to match me with some rich guy from Yale or Princeton who’s gone into banking. My mother probably thinks I’m just overdoing the romantic thing with Daniel, but I’m not—I really really do love him.
“Mom, did you ever see somebody you don’t know, like when you’re standing in line at the mall or something, and you don’t dare to say a word to them, but when you see them your heart lights up, and you remember them and think about them afterwards, always, forever?”
My mother gets this weird grin on her face. “Oh, I think you’ll be seeing Dan again, my dear, in fact I’m quite sure.”
I purse my lips. “How’d you know I was talking about Daniel?”
“Wild guess, I suppose.”
“What am I going to do, Mom? He’s like that blue sweater you got me for Christmas. You know, the one I want to wear all the time, even when it’s hot. So perfect.”
“I’m glad you approve of Dan, sweetie. He does seem polite.”
“He’s totally gorgeous, but don’t worry, Mom, he’s too old. Besides, he has a girlfriend, well, sort of. They broke up. You know, though, I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure I really want a new father. I mean, I had a real dad already, and maybe it wouldn’t be ... I guess what I mean is that it’s okay with me if you don’t want to marry Frank.”
“I think it’s time to say a prayer, dear. Why don’t you get into your pajamas?”
As my mother playfully reaches out to grab me, I jump up quickly and run to the stairs, giggling frantically. Mom springs from the sofa and chases me half-heartedly. I bound up the stairs. My mother goes into her bedroom to put on her white nightgown.
We meet in the kitchen. I pour myself a glass of lemonade. “Get a snack?” asks my mom. We’d eaten popcorn during the movie but only a small serving of spaghetti, with salad, for dinner, which we ate earlier than usual.
“Let’s get the talk over with first. Say, Mom, you know, I think Julie is sort of eerie. How was your lunch with her today?”
“Oh, she’s not all that creepy, really. What does Dan say?”
I sense my mother doesn’t want to talk about Julie. “How can you say that? I mean about Julie.” I widen my eyes absurdly, like a zombie, and stare at my mom. Then I answer, “Daniel hasn’t mentioned anything about her, that I remember. Shall I ask him?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary, dear. It’s not proper to talk behind Julie’s back. But I believe in this case we should be careful.”
“Gotcha, Mom. I’m huuungry as a bear.” I make the zombie face again. “Let’s talk.”
My mom smiles, puts an arm around me and leans into me, steering as we walk together into the living room.
Mom sits on the sofa and pats a spot next to her. “Sit down, dear. This may hurt a bit.”
I look at her. “Mom, don’t tell me that I won’t see Daniel again, or something crazy like that.”
She turns away when a tear escapes her eye and rolls down her cheek.
“Just please tell me the truth, Mom, no matter how much it hurts.” I sit on the carpet, in front of my mother, and shade my eyes with a hand. Then I lower my head and gaze nervously at the floor.
“A few years ago, before your ... dad passed, I met Frank and wanted to leave your father, that’s all.”
“Mom, I’m not proud of it, but in your bedroom, recently, I came across a hidden photograph of you and Frank, from 1998. It was taken the day before you married Dad.” I pause and look up at my mother. “Please tell me the truth, Mom. Please.”
She faces me, the tears streaming down her face. “Sarah, my darling, there is no justification in life for doing something like having an affair. A person does not think, ‘I’m doing it for such and such a reason,’ it just happens because of human frailty, passion, the heat of the moment, or whatever, it just happens.”
“You had an affair then, with Frank, before you married my dad?”
“Yes, there was one moment of weakness with Frank on the beach near the Hotel Del, the night before I married William. I’ve prayed, for years, asking the Lord for His forgiveness, and now I’m asking you to forgive me. You see, dear, love with William was nothing like what I’d imagined as a girl. It wasn’t full of excitement and passion, as I had been led to believe when I was younger. With your father, Frank, it was different.
My mouth falls open; my eyes grow wide. “Mom, what ... what are you saying? Mom? Oh, no ... Tell me the truth right now, Mom!” My voice rises wildly. My eyes plead with my mother, terrified of what she might say.
“You and Dan are sister and brother,” she wails. “It cannot be helped, it has to be. Forgive me, please, darling.”
I stand and take hold of my mother’s shoulders, shaking her angrily. I am fighting to hold my tongue, swallow my shame, my latent grief over the loss of the man I have called “Dad” all my life.
“You had me believe my whole life that Dad ... that William ...” Suddenly I shriek, “I swear to God I’m getting away from you as soon as I can!” I release my grip on my mom and crumple to the floor. I lay there in a fetal hunch, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Don’t, Sarah, please,” my mother says. Then she gets up and goes into the kitchen and I hear the back door opening.
***
Still lying on the living room floor, I’ve stopped crying. I want to pack my clothes and important stuff and take Manny and leave this house forever. I hate my mother. But part of me, the part that loves my mother, not the “Alice in Wonderland” part but the normal part, is telling me to stay.
What if my mother is wrong? How could she know for sure that Frank is my father? Hadn’t she made love with ... William, too, on their honeymoon, which had begun the following day? My mother has to be wrong.
Even if I try to embrace my mother’s belief, I know, somewhere, that it is not true. There’s no way I’m Daniel’s sister. I just know I’m not, I can feel it in my bones, my heart. My intuition, my sixth sense, tells me it isn’t so.
I get to my feet. Where did my mother go? Oh, yes, duh, to the backyard, probably out to her flower garden.
I walk through the kitchen and into the yard. It’s kind of dark but I can see my mother in the half-light, shattered, weeping, on her knees in the soft, moist dirt, scratching like a cat sharpening its claws at a loose stone in the wall that borders her pitiful patch of seedlings and blossoming plants. Her manicured fingernails on both hands are broken and her fingers bloodied. She’s never ever gone outside before in her nightgown.
I shuffle nearer to her and drop to my knees. “Mom, c’mon, stop it. Let’s go back inside. I love you, Mom.” Somehow, talking to my mother this way makes me feel more relaxed and sure of myself.
My mother doesn’t answer. She just continues to shed helpless, glistening tears, and she doesn’t stop clawing. I put an arm around her and try to bring her close
, pulling with all my strength until my mother comes away from the wall with the stone in her hands.
Inside the oval-shaped opening left by the missing stone is a silver key. My mother tosses the stone aside and grabs the key. “Come with me,” she says. She’s stopped crying, but she looks bewildered and lost.
I follow her into the house. We track all kinds of dirt into the kitchen and my mother doesn’t even care. We walk into the master bedroom and my mother pulls an old suitcase from the closet and lays it on the bed. She unlocks it with the key and opens it.
The suitcase contains only a cute brown teddy bear. My mother picks up the anthropomorphic creature (I learned the word in my college prep English class and have been dying to apply it) and with tears in her eyes again, she hands me the adorable bear, with its funny-looking human-like eyes and smile and its red nose and ears. “Here, take this,” she says solemnly. The time has come for you to have it.” She pauses. “Frank, your father, won it for me at Belmont Park that night.”
I hold the bear snugly over my heart that is tumbling out of control. I close my eyes as my eyes moisten. “Oh, Mom, it’s so cuddly.” I hug my mother with the bear between us. “It’ll be all right, Mom, I promise. I forgive you. I want what’s best for you.”
“I know you do, darling, I know. Listen, please, I have something else to tell you, but don’t tell Dan just yet. I think his father, your father, has the right to let him know first.”
The instant my mother mentions Daniel, my heart skips a beat. Again, I feel the anger, but then I remember it probably isn’t even true, and I experience a sense of relief. My brother? No way, I reason. “First, I want to know, Mom, did you tell Dad, uh, William, about all this?”
“Oh Yes, dear, when I became sure that I was pregnant, with you of course, I told William everything, and he was such a kind and gentle and loving man that he said it made no difference whatever. He told me that he loved me just the same and that he would love the baby as if it were his own.”
I hold back my tears. “Okay, what else do you have to tell me, Mom?”
“Yesterday, while you and Dan were hiking on the mountain, Frank proposed to me and I accepted.”
I have been thinking that things couldn’t get much worse, but now they have. I move the muscles that make me smile. “I’m happy for you, Mom,” I say, “and don’t worry, I won’t mention anything to Daniel.” Then I quickly add, “I guess I’m going upstairs for a while. I’ll be down later for another movie if you want, after I write in my diary.”
“I’d like that, sweetheart,” she says.
I walk up the stairs with my teddy bear, still holding back, for once I start to cry I’ll never stop, and I’m afraid I might drown in the flood of tears.
What if my mother is still hiding something, isn’t telling the truth, or what she believes is the truth? Obviously, my mother’s greatest fear is that I should have a crush on someone like Daniel.
Or, what if my mother is wrong about who’s actually my father? I love Daniel, and I really can’t believe, won’t believe, that Frank is my father. But when will my mother learn the truth? And how is that going to happen? Now things seem more confusing than ever.
In my room I cover Manny’s cage because I feel like being alone. I walk over to my dressing table and pick up my hand mirror. My eyes are clouded with murky unhappiness. I’ll put the mirror under my pillow. Grandma Hartford told me once that if you love someone you should put a hand mirror under your pillow, and if you see that person reflected in your dreams, it means you’ll be married.
I kneel beside my bed and press my palms together. “Dear God, please help my mother learn the truth about Daniel, that he’s not really my brother. And God, I want my mother to be happy, but I don’t think I want her to marry Frank. I know it’s being selfish, but I can’t help it. And God, I don’t want to hurt my mother, but please give me the strength to decide if I should leave this house, for a while anyway, to be with Daniel. And God (this is the last thing), now that I got my period, please make my breasts grow. Amen.”
Then I quietly begin to express my feelings by allowing myself to cry.
14
Daniel
Wednesday afternoon, August 6
El Cajon Valley
I had searched the back bedroom at The Gables for my mother’s diary and found nothing of interest except Julie’s array of panties, bras and negligees in matching colors.
Now it is afternoon, I’m alone in the house, and I decide to make a few phone calls from the living room: Grandma, Mr. Christie, Sarah.
“Yes? ... What? ... Oh, my, hello Danny. What a nice surprise. I was worried. I haven’t heard from you.”
“Sorry, Grandma. How are you?”
“I’m fine, Danny, just fine. How is Mr. Bingham?”
“Grandma, I’m not in the apartment yet. I came home first for a short time.”
“You’re home again? Well, Danny, I feel, now that your mother is in Heaven, that, I ... didn’t tell you before, but I want you to hear it ... I never did think much of that wretched father of yours. I warned Mary years ago about those Irishmen—I know your father is only half Irish—but they’re devils—”
I’m already aware of my grandmother’s dislike of my father. “Grandma,” I say, gently interrupting.
“Oh, yes, my dear?”
“Do you remember seeing my mom’s diary, when you were here for the funeral?”
“Yes, well, no, I don’t believe so. Your father sent me jewelry and photographs and ... Oh, yes, just a minute ... yes, I do recall seeing a white diary and it was locked. That Julie and I looked for a key. Didn’t find one. The diary was included with a few other personal effects that were placed in the casket with your mother before the burial. Julie was in charge ... such memories fail me, I suppose it’s that I don’t want to think about all the dreadful ... She’s a strange woman, that Julie, and I told your mother when yourselves came back here in two thousand nine that I had a bad feeling about Julie, I knew something was in the wind ... Hello, Danny?”
“I’m listening, Grandma.”
“She’s a wicked one that Julie ... I told your mother. How’s that wonderful schoolteacher, Jonathan? Mary adored him. He’s a sensible, caring man, unlike your father, who ruined their friendship, you know.”
“Grandma, are you all right?”
“Your mother was a beautiful woman, wanted to study acting, you know, like you, Danny, in all those plays, but we couldn’t afford it ... She played the lead in Noblesse Oblige her senior year ... Danny I don’t know why I’m telling you all this ... I know you miss your mother, dear ... and by the way I’m sending a lot of money to you soon, care of Mr. Bingham ... I don’t trust your father ... a certified check ... my life’s savings ... you’ve always been my favorite ... I’m sending it now because I want to see you flourish ... before I go to my grave ... you can split it equally with Michael ... Call me again ... when you’re into the apartment ... I give you my love, Danny—”
She breaks the connection, and suddenly I’m overcome with nostalgia, for something lost, something I now realize I’ve missed severely since early childhood: my grandma’s presence, her daily nurturing of me, her warmth, her unwavering love. The feeling seems to bring me closer to an understanding of my mother’s experience when my father in 2001 uprooted her, moving our family from Boston to San Diego. Contrary to her wishes, my mother was taken out of her zone of comfort and dragged thousands of miles away from her mother and her lifelong friends.
Nonetheless, I’ve learned from my grandma that my mother’s diary may have been buried with her remains. Julie was in charge of that.
Lucid images of a nocturnal visit to El Cajon Cemetery flash through my mind: I’m standing by my mother’s casket, at midnight, my kerosene lantern aglow next to the open grave, a shovel in my hand ...
As I know already, anything I might learn about my mother and her death will come only from the diary or from those who knew her.
What
am I to think of my grandma’s comments about the money? Is it only her senility at play? I hope not, for I am living on broke street, without any other relief in sight.
I tap into the phone Mr. Christie’s number.
“Christie residence.”
“Mr. Christie, it’s Daniel.”
“Daniel, my boy, where’ve you been hiding? I’ve missed our discussions regarding the future of the human race.”
“I’m not very good at keeping in touch.”
“Think nothing of it. I’ve heard regularly from David, but I haven’t spoken with Devon, or Liz.”
“How is David?” I feel a genuine desire to know. I picture Mr. Christie, his dark brown eyes, his face illumined by a beneficent smile, drawing reflectively on his pipe before offering a reply.
“Well, David and Devon had a spat veiled in secrecy. I guess Devon left home. She’s staying with a friend at the beach, J-man. I’m a bit worried. She’s not yet sixteen.”
He goes on, “Liz isn’t well. Very unhappy that girl. It seems Peter, the professor, bounced her out on her you know what, and she’s taken a scandalous job, dancing nude, of all things—she’s only eighteen, as you know. She needs the money, I’m told. Staying with the guy who owns the club. ‘The Bodyshop’ it’s called.”
Regarding Devon, I’m thinking, it’s clearly my fault, and I hate myself for doing it, want to put myself down until nothing remains but a hole where time is blowing.
“My father wants me to study business administration at SDSU,” I say.
“Your father, yes, I see.”
“Mr. Christie, may I ask you something about my mother?”
“Of course.”
“Did she ever mention her diary?”
“Heavens, yes. I gave her the red diary when she could no longer teach. My thinking was that keeping a journal would help her. She needed an outlet for the confused days and nights she had begun to experience. She was afraid of losing your father.”
