by Anna Monardo
There is an ache in this dance now that was not there when Mudd performed it four years ago. To have watched her then, and to see her now in the same dance, is to witness, for a flickeringly elusive moment, exactly what it is that the person who is the dancer brings to the dance. Last night, the aptly retitled “So-Lo” was beautiful to watch, and yet it was heartbreaking to see that this dancer has, in the past years, moved into a deeper understanding of the ravages of loss.
FOR THE SECOND GROUP SESSION at Heather’s office, Ross didn’t show up. He had called Mary the night before to say he’d missed his plane and there was no way he’d be able to make it on time. He said they should just go on without him.
“Ross, this is family counseling,” Mary yelled into the phone. “Natassia needs us both there. Jesus, Ross, why’re you screwing this up?”
Ross yelled back, “Christopher’s the one who needs to be there to take the heat. I swear, Mary, if I’m in that room with him again, I’m afraid I’ll really kill him. How’s she been this week?”
“Miserable. Why haven’t you called her?”
“Miserable to be with, or miserable-she-doesn’t-feel-good?”
“Both. She’s got these exams she’s totally paranoid about. She’s doing great in her classes, all her teachers told her so, and she keeps going nuts that she’s going to flunk everything. She stays up late and gets up early and gives me orders right and left about how I’m making too much noise, how I’m bugging her while she needs to study.”
“But about that meeting we had with her shrink, she’s all right?”
“Jesus, Ross, no, she’s not all right. She’s paranoid and overreacting. And, plus, she’s driving me nuts. She needs you to be here, and—excuse me for being so blunt—I need you to help me with her. Fucking at least call us once in a while.”
“Hey, Mary, I buried my father less than two months ago. I just helped my mother unload, sell off, and relocate our whole life’s worth of stuff and move her into some shack-up studio my father and I never even knew she had. Then I had to sit in that woman’s office last week with her stinking mongrel dog and hear that my only daughter was molested, sexually molested, by a longtime friend who, I have to remind you, you brought into our lives with that selfish ice-goddess bitch Nora, and now you’re…”
SITTING IN HEATHER’S OFFICE for the second Saturday-morning meeting, Mary was feeling a mess of traffic inside herself, Mack trucks of emotion colliding within, especially as Heather talked about how regrettable it was that Natassia’s father got tied up with work and stranded by the airlines and wasn’t able to join them. “But perhaps we’ll use this session to focus on what Natassia would like to say to Christopher and to Nora.”
“I’ll just say this right off,” Natassia said, looking directly at Nora and Christopher, who sat across the room, “because I know you’re freaking out about it. I decided not to take any legal action. And I’m not doing that to save you guys. I’m doing it for myself.” Natassia’s thumb rested on her chin, babylike, but Mary thought, She’s taking care of herself. She’s not letting those two get away with anything.
Christopher spoke up. “No, Natassia, we’re not worried about that. We want—”
Nora cut in. “Thank you for telling us that. It is a relief to me to hear it.”
“I guess what I want to say to Christopher is that I heard, from overhearing Nora tell my mom, about exactly what you did to me. You put your mouth on my genitals. You put your tongue in me. Is that right?” Christopher nodded. “You put your tongue into my vagina?” He nodded again. “If that’s what you did, say it,” Natassia demanded.
Christopher whispered it.
Mary was rapt now. The kid had the room. The sick dog was the only one not paying close attention. Natassia continued: “I’m not sure Nora wasn’t lying—like, maybe there’s more I haven’t heard.”
“Yes,” Mary said. “That’s what I want to know, too.”
“There’s not.” Christopher leaned forward, far forward, until he was halted by the knot of his tie. “Nothing else,” he whispered.
Heather said, “Christopher, it seems as if you want to say something more in response to Natassia’s question.”
“Yeah, but, you know…” He turned in his seat so he could look at Nora, and that’s when Mary noticed the change in Nora. Yeah, she’d lost a little weight, but it was more than that. Nora was beautiful again, and she hadn’t been beautiful for months and months, and Mary understood that Nora and Christopher were together again; their big problem, whatever it had been, had ended. Linked to Christopher, Nora was healthy again, and they were clear to walk away from the shit they’d created in Natassia’s and Mary’s lives. “Nora,” Christopher was saying, “Nora tried hard, a lot of different times. She tried to make me tell your parents.” Nora finally looked at him, and Christopher said, “Nora, you were right about all this stuff, and I really screwed up.”
Natassia uncrossed her legs, stamped her leather sandal on the rug. When Mary looked over, Natassia was rolling her eyes. “Fuck you both. Here I am, trying to untangle my guts”—that’s a Ross word, Mary thought—“and all you’re interested in is your marriage.” Natassia turned to Heather. “Did you see that? I told you, Heather, I told you.”
“Ah, Natassia, no, wait,” Christopher was saying, but he was holding Nora’s hand on her armrest.
Heather said, “Natassia, I do see why Christopher’s response disappointed you, I do see.” Even that dog had his eyes open now. “Address Christopher and Nora, if you can. Can you say more clearly—”
“More clearly, my ass. How fucking clear do I have to be?” Now she sounds like me, just like me.
No longer adult, slumping down in her chair, Natassia rested the ankle of her right foot on her left knee—her bad-girl pose. “It’s hopeless, it’s useless.”
“I don’t see that it’s hopeless at all,” Heather said, petting her dog’s head, and she was about to say more, but from down a hallway somewhere came the sound of a baby crying. Mary said, “The baby.”
Heather said, “It’s fine. The children are being cared for today by their father.”
Natassia smiled. “I love when you ignore your baby to stay in here with me.”
“Natassia!” Mary said.
“But it’s the truth,” Natassia said. “Heather wants me to say the truth.”
“Christopher,” Heather interrupted, “just now your face, when the baby cried—what were you thinking?”
“Oh, shit, you’re going to make me?”
“I can’t make you, but—”
“All right.” He sat forward, on the edge of his seat, as if getting ready to leave. “I have to tell you something.” Mary saw the look on Nora’s face turn very strange. “Natassia, I don’t know if it has anything to do with what we’re doing, but, Heather, you keep asking what we’re thinking, and I have to be honest that I’m not thinking about what I’m supposed to be thinking about.”
“Which is?”
“I’m not thinking about Little Baby Natassia. I mean, I see you, Natassia, and you’re this pretty grown-up girl, and you’re in all this pain. And I did it. I know I didn’t do all of it, but I did a bunch. And, Natassia, I’d do anything if I could take back what I did.”
Natassia’s face was all suspicion. Last week, Ross had taken the spotlight; this week—you could feel it in the room—Christopher was about to grab top bill.
“I’d do anything,” he said. “And I promise you, all the rest of the time I’m alive, no matter what, if there’s anything I ever can do for you—anything…And I have to tell you this. I have a baby son. Not with Nora. I have a son. I want to be the one to tell you, so you don’t hear it from someone and think you can’t trust me. I want you to trust me.”
Nora had covered her face with her hands.
“What do you mean, Nora’s not the mother?” Natassia had forgotten her thumb. Heather had moved up in her seat.
“This woman,” Christopher started to say.
>
But Natassia asked, “Does she know about what you did to me? I want you to tell the mother what you did.” You go, Natassia, you stick up for yourself.
“I did tell the mother. She knows. I told her way in the beginning, before, when she was deciding to let me be the baby’s father. She—her name’s Denise—she’s the only person I ever told about when you were a baby. Really. Besides a couple of therapists Nora and I went to through the years.”
“So you have worked on this event, this event that occurred in Natassia’s infancy?” Heather asked.
“We’ve tried. Nora tried. I never worked hard enough.”
“Are you in love with this woman?” Natassia said.
“Natassia!” Mary said.
“It’s okay, Mary. She can ask me anything she wants. No, Natassia. I’m not in love with Denise. I’m in love with Nora. It never was a relationship like that with Denise. I care about her because, well, because she’s a good person, but mostly she’s my son’s mother. Love, no. Nora is the person I love. I’m in love with Nora. That’s it. It’s Nora.”
“And how did it happen,” Heather asked, “your fathering this baby?”
“Long story, but, basically, Denise lost her husband. He died. Good guy. Artist. She was grieving bad and she wanted a kid and was looking for a donor and really wanted a painter, since her husband was a painter. Good painter. Anyway, she was interviewing various guys. And this friend of mine told me, and Nora and I, well, I really wanted a baby. So we just fit, me and Denise. It was all lab work. No sex. Never any sex.”
“Nor, did you know about this baby business?” Mary asked.
Christopher had to answer for her. “Not till after he was born. The baby’s four and a half months old now. His name’s Donby. I lied to Nora a long time. He was born in December. I knew since last June, but I never told. I was afraid to. Plus—”
“You were angry at me,” Nora whispered. “We were angry at each other.”
“Yep, we were.”
“We should stay with Natassia’s concerns,” Heather said. “Time’s running out.”
“Yeah, well, Natassia, this is about you. When I hurt you, I was greedy and untrustworthy. And I hurt Nora, and I was greedy again. Two people I love very much.”
“Yeah,” Mary said, “but listen. This baby news is wild and all, but the kid I care about is Natassia. Nora, why did you lie to me for so long? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid I’d lose you.”
“We were so close, you were my…” All Mary could do was shake her head. “I mean, always, but after the fire especially.”
“You had dance, you had Ross. Even my mother admired you.”
“You had boyfriends all over the place, then you got Christopher.”
“Mary, I’ve always needed you so much more than you ever needed anybody. You’ve always been so self-contained, so complete, confident—”
“If that’s true, Nora, that you need like that, then I don’t know who you are. Really, I never, ever saw you like that.”
DRIVING CLAUDIA’S CAR back to the school, Mary said, “That was something.”
“Christopher has a non-Nora baby. It’s too weird, way too weird.”
“Very, very weird,” Mary agreed.
“Wait till Daddy hears. He’ll flip.”
CHAPTER 42 :
MAY
1990
Natassia never did get to tell her father about Christopher’s baby son. More than six months would pass before she spoke to her father again, more than a year before she saw him. By then Natassia would be headed for the University of Pennsylvania (after being accepted at Columbia and wait-listed at Harvard), because Penn offered her significant financial aid, and Natassia’s father, a year into recovery and unemployed, couldn’t be depended on, as in the past, for financial support—or for much else.
But in May 1990, all anyone knew was that Ross wasn’t showing up for the group sessions with Natassia’s therapist.
After he missed the second and third sessions, Mary called him and left a message giving him the date and time for the fourth. She added: “You must be there. There’s no choice, there’s nothing more important than this, Ross.”
When Mary got a call from Harriet, she was surprised. She had assumed, after the arguments she overheard during the days of David’s funeral, that Ross and Harriet had broken up, that Harriet had moved out. But maybe Ross had moved out, so Mary asked, “Where’d he move to?”
“Mary, he’s gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“He hasn’t been home for three days. I figured he was on a binge, but today the hospital called me: he faxed in a resignation letter. He quit his job.”
“Three days? You’re telling me now? Jesus, Harriet.”
“Mary, let me finish. Just a few hours ago he called me. He’s checked himself into a rehab program in a different state. He’s been traveling by train for three days. I can’t even think about it. The condition he’s in…”
Mary had pencil and paper in hand. “Give me the phone number.”
“I can’t do that. He doesn’t want anyone to know where he is.”
Mary sighed. “Okay, Harriet, be that way. But he’s got a daughter here who needs him. Lotte will tell me where he is if you won’t.”
“He specifically does not want his mother to know where he is. I refuse to talk to that woman. The level of abuse she allowed Ross to receive from his father—”
“But, like, what, Harriet? What did David do? Yeah, David was a prick—”
“How can you minimize it? You’ve seen—Well, all I know is that the destructive dynamic between David and Ross has left Ross with demons that are fierce, just terribly fierce.”
What the hell does “destructive dynamic” mean? “Maybe Lotte never knew—”
“She’s his mother. How could she not have known what was going on with her own child, with her husband, in her own apartment?”
Mary sighed a deep sigh. “Harriet, you don’t have any kids, do you?”
“Don’t you dare condescend to me.”
“No, no, that’s not how I meant it. No. What I meant is, there’s this thing, and nobody talks about it, so you don’t know it, you can’t, until you’re a mother, it’s—”
“And what is that thing that I don’t know because I’m not a mother?”
Mary had twice seen pictures of Harriet; she had big, out-of-style, shaggy hair and large breasts, and she smiled with her eyebrows raised up a little unnaturally, as if smiling didn’t come easily to her. “Well,” Mary said, “it’s, like, mothers make a lot of mistakes. You really do. And you can’t even help it. You don’t even know sometimes when you’re screwing up big-time. You’re just trying to—”
“—do your best,” Harriet said in a singsong voice. “Do the best you can.”
“Exactly. And how much you fuck up doesn’t have anything to do with how much you love your kid. Even when you love your kid like crazy, you fuck up and make mistakes. Lotte loves Ross a lot.”
Long silence. “I think there’s hope for Ross this time. I really do.”
“Why?” Mary asked. “Why this time?”
“He has finally,” Harriet said in a slow voice, “hit bottom.”
“I’m really sorry, Harriet.” Silence. “You really love him.”
“Yeah,” Harriet whispered, “I do. I had so much hoped…”
“What, Harriet?”
“…hoped I could have a baby with him.” A crack in Harriet’s voice was an echo of how Natassia had sounded during the worst days of the BF mess.
FOR LOTTE, the news of Ross’s inaccessibility was like news that he was gone forever, and it hit Natassia that way, too. It was May. Mary and Natassia were scheduled to go to the city for a memorial service for David, and they took the train down a day early. As expected, Lotte’s small studio was filled with friends of David’s, but all the talk was about Ross. His addiction, his disappearance. His brilliance. His
job. Ross had finally managed to upstage his father.
“But the insurance,” more than one person asked, “who’s paying for his treatment?”
“The money he got from the sale of West End Avenue.”
“Dear God, to make such a business decision, he’s really lost his head, poor man.”
Lotte and Natassia were inseparable, and they cried all the time. The Grieving Club, Mary thought as she sat in the mini-kitchen on a stool, looking out the tiny porthole window. In the main room of the studio, visitors were coming and going. Six people created a crowd, but there were dozens in attendance. First, David’s friends. Then, because of Ross, a whole new crowd began showing up—young doctors, nurses, regulars from a local bar, Twelve Step friends. Everyone felt bad for Lotte. “How do I know he’s not in a cult? I know nothing. Is he dead? Alive?” Lotte wept. And, really, on this count, Mary sympathized with Lotte. A kid who’s disappeared—pretty much a mother’s next-to-worst nightmare.
A window air-conditioning unit was going full-blast, and Mary, on the sidelines, was cocooned in a sheath of noise, apart. No one came in to talk to her. It was almost as if everyone assumed that Mary had moved her heart away from Ross long ago and wasn’t available anymore to be hurt by him. But, man, everybody was wrong about that.
Even Mary was surprised by how much she was hurting. Seventeen years earlier, she and Ross had met, and for fourteen of those years they had been leaving each other, separating in every way possible, but nothing in the past had felt as bad or as irreversible as this. He may as well be dead. She tried to picture his skin—gone.
When Mary first knew Ross, it had taken two months of him pressing her before she gave him the time of day, and that only happened after he said to her, “You’re coming home with me for Fall Break.” Even as a kid, Ross had that power to announce to you what his plans were for you. “My mother’s going to adore you. My father’ll be so jealous.”
“Wait,” Mary had said. “Is he the kind that’s going to hit on me when you’re not in the room? I don’t like that shit.”