by Anna Monardo
“Did he stop? Did he drop her?”
“Yes, he stopped. No. No, he never dropped her.”
“Was he dressed?” Mary’s hands were vised between her knees. “Did he have pants on?”
“Yes.”
“Was he putting anything into her?”
“No.”
Mary, rocking, stared at Nora. “Fucking tell me the truth.”
Nora said, “His tongue. Maybe he put his tongue into her. I don’t know. He says no, he didn’t. I just saw his tongue out, and her body, and then I screamed.”
“Christopher didn’t do that.” Mary’s voice was begging now. “Tell me he didn’t.”
“He did it. He did do it.”
“No. No, no, no, he didn’t.”
“I grabbed the baby from him—”
“That was Natassia.”
“—and I ran into the bathroom with her. She cried really loud when I grabbed her.”
“He didn’t do that, he didn’t….”
“It wasn’t like she was crying because of Christopher; I think I scared her. She hadn’t been crying when I first walked into the kitchen.”
“Are you fucking saying he didn’t hurt her?”
“Mary, I have to finish. Please, let me finish.”
“No-RA!”
“She cried,” Nora insisted. “And then I grabbed her, and then I held her. I held her, Mary, for two solid days until you and Ross got back. I made Christopher leave the loft. I made him leave. He wanted to explain. I said, ‘I never want you here again.’ After he left, I washed her. The bath was ready, and I soaked her a long, long time. I put a clean diaper on and dressed her, and she kept crying because I was crying. When she finally fell asleep, I took off her diaper to see if there was anything. Any rash or—”
“Was there?”
“Nothing. I didn’t sleep. I did nothing. I just watched her. When she was awake, I held her. Christopher came back. I had the door barred shut and I wouldn’t let him in.”
“You never fucking told me this, you never—”
“Mary, I need you to know we’ve been fighting about this for fifteen years. I made him go to counseling. I tried to leave him. I make sure he’s never alone with her. Ever.”
“But you never told me. Jesus, you’re a therapist. You know how this stuff messes a person up. You know better than I do. That’s why she tried to kill herself in September, isn’t it? You knew that, and you didn’t say anything. That whole night at the hospital, you never told anybody. None of the doctors.”
“We don’t know that, Mary. We don’t know why Natassia hurt herself in September. We don’t know, and may never know, if what Christopher did to her when she was a baby had any effect on her at all.”
“I did what I did with the Cuisinart blade,” Natassia said, “because I felt like it.” Mary had caught Natassia’s presence in the corner of her eye just the second before Natassia began to speak. “I hated myself that night. I couldn’t tell anybody.”
“How long have you been standing there?” Mary asked Natassia.
“I heard it all, Mom. You guys get louder than you think.”
“You heard—”
“About Christopher and the baby thing and his tongue and all of it.”
“Sweetie,” Mary said, climbing over the back of the couch to go to Natassia. Before Mary reached her, Natassia said, “HJJ and I have been trying to figure out who it was. I was afraid it was Daddy. Don’t look at me like that, Mom. I guess I just had the feeling that something like that had happened to me. And then talking with HJJ about the BF and stuff, stuff he did and I let him do to me and stuff.”
“What?”
“Nothing I’m telling you. I told HJJ.” Natassia, wrapped in a quilt, stepped away from her mother.
“Natassia,” Nora said, “when did you begin to think that maybe you’d been molested as a baby?”
“Don’t play shrink with me, Nora. You’re a total coward. Not only do you not tell me this thing that any decent shrink would know was an important thing to tell, but you treat me like shit.”
“Cut that out, Natassia,” Mary said. “This is serious.”
“Well, she does treat me like shit. At least Christopher was always nice to me. And, no, he never did anything to me again. I don’t remember him hurting me. I don’t remember anybody ever hurting me or molesting me or abusing me. Except Poppy used to tease me to death, and now he’s dead.” Natassia hugged the quilt tighter around herself. “All I had was these symptoms that added up to me being messed around with when I was a kid, before I could remember. I was so afraid it was Daddy.”
“Honey, Daddy would never hurt you.”
“But, Mom, you don’t know half the stuff. After you left him and started touring, he used to get so messed up sometimes. Not a lot. But sometimes Poppy wouldn’t let Daddy into the house. Once Dad was drunk and he tried to take me with him from the apartment. The doorman had to stop him. Grammy took me with her to work for, like, a whole week after that.”
“How old were you?”
“First grade.”
“You never told me, Natassia.”
“Grammy said it’d worry you.”
“Je-sus Christ.”
The three of them—Natassia, Mary, and Nora—from their different standing positions, all stared at the coffee table, where a cigarette steamed in the ashtray.
So much time passed without anyone’s saying anything; then, out of nowhere, Nora said, “It’s beautiful up here, Mary. Kevin told me, and it really is. You two have found a good place.”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “Great.”
Another long stretch of silence.
“You can sleep on the couch tonight,” Mary told Nora, “but tomorrow you get out. Early.”
“Thank you.”
And then Natassia, still wrapped in her quilt, said, “My poppy is dead. My grandmother’s a widow. Daddy doesn’t have a father anymore.”
I CAN’T TRUST Nora anymore. That wasn’t the worst piece of news, but it was the one that kept knocking Mary over every time she tried to take a breath and straighten out her head. Jesus, now they were taking the curve of the exit off the West Side Highway. In a couple blocks they’d be at Lotte’s. I’m not ready. I can’t do this. That orange-blossom scent was with Mary again, floating through her panic, returning her to the moment when Nora had turned bad on her. “Do you smell anything?” she asked Natassia. “Like flowers or something?”
Natassia shook her head no.
Before leaving Hiliard, they had gone to Heather’s office for an emergency appointment. Mary had sat in the waiting room while Natassia went in alone for forty minutes. Then Heather had wanted to see Natassia and Mary together for fifteen minutes. “How do you feel, Mary, now, about this terrible news you received last night, this information Nora brought you?”
Like shit. What do you think?
“Natassia told me,” Heather said, “this morning she told me, that she doesn’t know yet how she wants to handle this information about Christopher. She’s asked me to ask you not to tell her grandmother or her father right now.”
“Great,” Mary said. “So, once again, I get to know all the bad news, and Ross doesn’t have to know anything that’ll make him feel bad.”
Heather gave Mary that sympathetic-shrink look. “You are right, Mary. Absolutely. You are being burdened now, alone, the only parent to know this ugly truth from your child’s early life. And it would help you to have support from Ross. But Natassia feels, and I believe she is perceptive in this, that Ross and his mother will be too upset about David’s death right now to handle this, at least to handle it in any way that would be productive for Natassia, helpful. I’m impressed with her growing ability to take care of herself.”
“Heather,” Mary said, “just tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“Well, let Natassia tell you at every point what she needs, how she wants to handle this with Christopher and Nora. I’m afraid there’s little we can do, j
ust wait and watch and give Natassia the chance to figure out what she needs in terms of restitution, how we can best create for her a sense of safety.”
“Like, I don’t want Nora and Christopher coming to the funeral or anything.”
“Is that acceptable to you, Mary?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“But Kevin can come,” Natassia said. “I’ll feel better if he’s there.”
Mary told Natassia, “I really screwed up for you, Natassia.”
“Mom. Please don’t make it so I have to make you feel better, too.”
“Well, Natassia, please don’t make it so I can’t say how bad I feel and how sorry I am. I’ll do anything that’ll help you, Natassia.”
A tired “Okay” from Natassia.
“I believe,” Heather said, “that is helpful, Mary, for Natassia to hear.”
CHAPTER 38 :
MARCH–APRIL
1990
In the days after she ran into Christopher at Grand Central, there was so much going on that Nora had to stay in touch with him whether she was afraid of him or not, hated him or not. The day after returning from Hiliard, Nora received on her office phone machine a message from Mary. Nora called Christopher at his studio (because of his baby, he’d had a phone installed) and told him, “You have to hear this message. It’s important.”
Nora held the receiver close to the answering machine and hit PLAY. Mary began with a sharp exhale of smoke, then said, “Nor, it’s Mary. Me and Natassia talked to her therapist, and we don’t want you guys coming to the funeral or to Lotte’s or anything. And another thing, Natassia doesn’t want anybody else finding out right now about this shit Christopher did. We’re not telling Ross, and we’re not telling Lotte. Not Kevin, either. Nobody, you hear? But you can be sure we’re going to talk about this later. That’s all I’m saying to you right now, Nora. I’m really pissed.”
Nora clicked off the machine, raised the receiver to her ear, and heard Christopher sigh. “Okay,” he said, “so we don’t go to the funeral.”
About an hour later, Christopher called Nora to ask if he could come to the loft the next day to use the kitchen. He wanted to make food to send uptown to Lotte’s apartment.
“You’re being Italian,” Nora told him. “You’re acting like your grandmother.”
“I am Italian. When somebody dies, you make food for them.”
“Think again. David’s not going to be eating much of whatever you cook for him.”
Nora herself didn’t like the tone of her voice, but if she and Christopher were going to have to be together for an indefinite period of time—and it seemed they were—Nora needed to keep her distance.
Christopher made a lasagna with homemade noodles and a huge casserole of eggplant parmigiana. He filled his largest wooden salad bowl with an asparagus-and-feta-cheese salad. He made three different kinds of coffee cake. He didn’t break Natassia’s request, didn’t go near Lotte’s apartment. He paid someone to drive uptown to deliver the food.
Watching him work in the kitchen, Nora wondered, Does it ever cross his mind that Mary might call the police? If the police called me at work, Nora wondered, what would I say? And then, as she did a million, billion times daily, she told herself, He has a son, he has a baby who isn’t mine.
“Hey,” Christopher called from the kitchen, “will you come taste this sauce?”
“It’s fine,” she told him, not getting up off the couch. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Thanks so much,” he said, “for your help.”
Nora sent flowers to Lotte’s apartment. She and Christopher made a large memorial contribution in David’s name to the Authors Guild Fund, to help writers in need. It was their first joint act since working on their tax returns that cursed Sunday in February. “By the way,” Christopher reminded her, “you need to sign the taxes so we can mail them.”
“I know.”
There was no word yet from Mary about what was going to happen next. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday evening when Nora got home from work, Christopher was in the loft. Cooking, or rewiring an old lamp, or scrubbing the kitchen cabinets. Nora didn’t want him there, but she didn’t want to begin the conversation that would get him to leave.
Really, she wanted him there.
There was nothing to do but wait for the repercussions to begin. Mary on the phone? Natassia in the hospital? The police at the door? Nora and Christopher tiptoed through their days. Not really talking to each other, yet not letting go of each other. She ate what he cooked, but she didn’t sit with him at the table. She brought her plate to the couch and turned on PBS. By bedtime, he’d wrap up his busywork and be gone. At the end of the fourth day, as he was leaving, Nora was closing the door behind him when she stopped and he said, “I’ll finish fixing those curtain rods tomorrow night,” and before she could catch herself, Nora asked, “Don’t you need to be going to Nyack?”
“Nah. They’re managing. This week.” Christopher immediately reached to his back pants pocket for his wallet. “Can I show you a new picture?”
“Not really. No.”
“Sorry,” Christopher said.
“No. I’m sorry. I just can’t look right now.”
“I understand. Hey, we’re calling him Donby, short for Don Boy.” He pushed the button to call the elevator. “Okay. Good night.”
“Christopher, I’m sure he’s a beautiful baby.”
“He’s a handsome dude, except, poor kid, he’s got my ears.”
“Your real ears?”
“Yeah! Whoa, here’s the elevator. See you.”
Christopher’s Dumbo ears. All kinds of truth were spilling out with the secrets.
THE WEEKEND WAS a day away. What if Christopher hung out in the loft all weekend? What if he didn’t come back? What if Mary called to yell some more? Or, worse, Ross. They might be lining up a lawyer. If she stayed in the loft, Nora would be the one to get the phone calls, not Christopher. Kevin had called Nora several times during the week to let her know how shocked he was that she hadn’t shown up at David’s funeral. Nora was afraid that if she stayed in town she’d end up telling Kevin something she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone yet. Friday, before she left for work, Nora pulled out the train schedule and packed a bag.
WHEN SHE WOKE UP in Greenport on Saturday morning, with beach wind jiggling the windows, she noticed immediately how much nicer being there alone was than being there with Abe. She had not returned to the beach house since Christmastime, when she’d left in a snit, giving Abe the place to himself, which is probably what she should have done all along. Last night, wiping away two months’ layer of dust, she’d spent some time inspecting Abe’s parting touches. A coffee mug washed and resting in the dish rack, a clean bag in the kitchen garbage can, two Rolling Rocks in the fridge along with an almost empty jar of Skippy crunchy peanut butter. In the bathroom, Abe had hung a new roll of toilet paper on the roller, and he’d lowered the toilet seat. Nice touch, Abe. Better than Christopher and Kevin usually did. She had tried to dismiss Abe as a jerk, but he really wasn’t. He just wanted to be left alone to do his work. He’d been up-front about that from their first meal together. Abe, maybe someday you’ll make somebody a good husband. If you manage to look up from your work long enough to notice someone’s there with you. He had finished his manuscript, though. Giulia had called Nora recently and mentioned Abe (which she’d never done before—what did Giulia know?), and said the two of them had actually taken a dinner break together, gone to a restaurant to celebrate, when the agent had agreed to take Abe on. From the wastebasket in the living room, Nora picked up a page Abe had crumpled and tossed. She tried to decipher a bit of his handwriting, then found she didn’t care enough, just crumpled the page up again, tossed.
Nora sat at the table at the window where Abe had worked. There was no fair reason to be annoyed with Abe, except that she was. Mommy, Daddy, Kevin, Nora Conolly. Why had Abe started all that when he didn’t intend to hang around to listen to Nora tell the wh
ole story? What is the whole story? Outside, the morning was all sun and gusts. The house was encased in a skin of wind. Nora considered going for a walk, but never did.
As it turned out, she never left the house once during the two days she was there. Curled on the couch, she slept a sleep free of dreams. Or she sat at the table and watched the day, watched the light get batted about by the wind. At night, through the window, she saw a pale-white line across the belly of the moon. Was it possible that Christopher had become a father without her noticing? Was he that hidden from her? Was she that unobservant? He had done it like those teenage girls who go through a whole secret pregnancy under the noses of their families, who afterward say, “We had no idea!” Nora tried to tell herself it was necessary now to make a real decision about Christopher, about their marriage, but apparently they had decided long ago that it was okay to live together with a vast distance between them. In truth, Nora couldn’t imagine their marriage without Baby Natassia in the midst of it, or, rather, without the gulf between them that had begun with Baby Natassia. Now added to their old bad secret was Christopher’s new secret. “Mommy, Christopher had a baby without me.”
“Honey. Nora. Are you that surprised?”
Saturday, then Sunday floated around Nora. She watched the trees’ bare limbs wave and shake. Shadows of branches fell into the house, landed on Nora’s lap. A red sunset roughed up the horizon. She sat still and let herself be held by the house, that light. At one point she opened a can of soup for dinner. She drank some old-tea-bag tea. Ate a yogurt. She desired nothing more than to sit. She could almost feel her body losing mass and weight.
THE NIGHT after Nora got back from Greenport, Kevin wanted to have dinner with her. Nora very much wanted to see her brother, but she didn’t trust herself not to begin talking about Mary and Natassia, so she asked him, “How about if we go to a movie instead? I’m dieting, I better not go out to eat.”
A few hours later, Nora and Kevin were standing on the subway platform at Astor Place to go uptown to see Crimes and Misdemeanors. A street musician was improvising “Mack the Knife” on a trumpet.