by Tiana Laveen
She sighed when he dragged his nails down her back. She held tight to his body, never letting go until he lay her down on the bed, gentle as a feather. She pulled her gown back down and watched as he went to the bathroom. Pulling the sheets up over her body, she enjoyed the tune of ‘Slippin’ into Darkness,’ by War. She crossed her arms and hugged herself, drifting to sleep with the music singing her a lullaby. Her eyes fluttered open when she felt the bed rock. She looked over and saw the big man with his back towards her, sitting on the edge of the bed, puffing on his cigarette.
Smoke ebbed around his form.
“I don’t know how to stop.”
She was quiet for a spell, mulling his words.
“You’ve been doing it since you were fourteen. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth having ever is.”
“I would be stopping for you. Because I love ya. I want your approval. I want… your love.”
“You have my love, Angelo.”
“I have most of it. Not all of it. You keep a little for yourself, just in case this all explodes. In case it all backfires. I want all of it… every drop you’ve got.”
Is he right? Am I holding back? I don’t think so, but, maybe…
“I need you to stop because you know that you need to, Angelo. Not because you want more love from me. You have to ask yourself, is it worth it? You’ve saved up a lot of money.”
“Yeah. I showed you most of the accounts. Since we’re getting married, I wanted you to see that you’ll always be taken care of. We’ll be fine. We can get a bigger crib, a nice one in a safer part of town. I’ll convince Nonna to move close to us… She’s gotta come. I can teach ya to drive, get you a car, buy ya just about anything you want. We can go on vacations. Just the two of us. You don’t even have to work if you don’t want to. You saw that. The numbers don’t lie.”
“I don’t care if we were broke, a penny to our names. If you wanted to stop right now, today, this very second, we’d make a way, Angelo. I don’t like it. It’s not right.”
“I already know that’s how you feel, Andrea,” he said, clearly aggravated by her words. “Why the hell do you think I’ve been thinkin’ about it, huh? Why do you think I even brought it up?”
“You brought it up because you’re realizing something has to give. You’re changing. Everything we did yesterday, we won’t feel like doing tomorrow. It’s evolution. It’s just that simple. I told you more than once, you have to stop on your own. I can’t make you. Like you said, it’s not the job that turns ya on. It’s the money. You never want to be poor. It scares you. Find somethin’ else to make some bread. You’re smart. Charismatic, with a huge network of people ya know. A man like you refuses to be told what to do anyway, even by me, the woman you love, but I stand strong in my convictions. Just as you stand strong in yours. You’re at a crossroads, and I can’t tell you which way to go. I’d like to, but I’ve learned to never do that, especially with anyone I love. There are consequences. I didn’t fall in love with you for your potential, though I definitely see plenty of it in you. I fell in love with you for you… and because I am the twinkling star looking at the velvet moon. You still have on your cape, but I’m here for you. Always.”
He took another toke of his cigarette then set it down in the astray before lying down, drawing closer to her in the warm bed. She needed him – his body, his mind, his soul. She rested her head on his chest, loving the strong, resilient sound of his heartbeat.
“Angelo…”
“Mmm hmm…” He stroked her hair.
“Did I tell you that sometimes, I think my parents didn’t have a car accident that snowy night they crashed and died?”
“No, you never told me that. What made you think of this just now?”
She shrugged.
“And why do you think it might not have been an accident?”
“I honestly think it’s paranoia on my part. Like someone is hiding the truth from me. I mean, my aunt has no reason to lie to me. I’ve asked her about it several times and I went to the library and looked it up recently, too. The car careened off the side of the road in New Jersey during one of the worst snow storms in tristate history. I don’t want to believe that snow and ice, an act of nature, took my parents away at such a young age for them, and for me. It feels so unjust. Abrupt. I feel robbed. I also feel like I’m grasping at straws. I mean hell, I don’t even remember them. I was too young to remember them. I feel guilty, too.”
“Why?”
“Because Aunt Bev was the best mother a girl could have. So why worry about it, ya know? They’re gone. Some children lost their parents and didn’t have nobody to take care of them. I just feel like I’m being ungrateful, but I can’t help it. I wonder.”
“There’s no reason to feel guilty. They were still your parents. I mean, I don’t know much about this sort of thing, but uh, seems natural to me, to be curious. To question it. What do you think might have happened instead?”
“Maybe they were arguing… Maybe my father was drunk and lost control of the car. My Uncle Ron was saying one time that my father drank too much. This was of course before he’d become a drug abuser himself. I heard him talking to my aunt about his sister and my father one night when they thought I was asleep. I don’t know what happened… but, I have a feeling the snowstorm is the truth. What bothers me though is that I still want to question it. To not accept reality. That’s strange. Why would I be like this?”
“You already figured that out. Because you still have questions, and it’s all right to have questions. However, sometimes we have to accept that we may never get an answer. That could be the answer though, and whatever we’re harpin’ on doesn’t matter. It’s just a distraction from us focusing on what’s really important. So instead, we concentrate on the small, insignificant details. Like being worried about one specific raindrop that fell on our shoe, instead of acknowledging the rainstorm that destroyed the town.”
She looked up at him, and smiled. Then, she kissed his chin, through his beard.
“Well damn, aren’t you a wise old owl? You’re smarter than you know,” she joked, causing him to smile down at her.
Together, they drifted in and out of sleep, and soon, she once again heard a baby crying. She woke up on her own this time, shuddering. Another damn dream! When she sat up quietly, she looked down at her lover. Angelo was fast asleep. She slowly slid out of the bed, made her way into her living room, and grabbed the deck of cards. After sitting at the little table where she did readings for her clients, she shuffled the cards, prayed, then laid three of them out, face down. Is this a real baby, or a symbol? What do these crazy dreams mean?
She turned the cards over, one by one. Queen of diamonds… Eight of clubs… Three of hearts…
These are all fertility cards, meaning pregnancy. She swallowed and ran her hand along her stomach. But I’m not pregnant. I haven’t missed a pill, and I’ve been getting my periods regularly. She looked closer at the cards. Someone was pregnant… This is their child. She removed another card from the deck. King of Hearts… Men can’t get pregnant. Whose child is this? Before she could finish the thought, a cold chill came over her. It frightened her to the point that she almost screamed. She jumped to her feet, and before she could retreat back to Angelo, he was approaching her. The lights were on in the living room, and she could see his naked physique clearly now. He rubbed his eyes.
“What are ya doin’ up? It’s late.” He yawned. “Come on back to bed, baby.”
“I was just, uh…” He drew closer to her and noticed the table with the playing cards laid out.
“What are you trying to find out?”
His eyes narrowed and darkened. She felt intimidated. Scared. Something in his eyes sent her screaming within. She hadn’t felt afraid of him in so long – and now that feeling was coming back, as if she didn’t even know the man. As if sensing her fright, he ran his hand up and down her arm.
“Relax. It’s okay. You’re lookin’ at me like you think I’m
gonna… gonna do something to ya. Don’t look at me that way.” She blinked, then took a deep breath. “You know I’d never hurt you. What’s going on?”
She was picking up emotions. Dark emotions. On an exhale, she realized they weren’t directed towards her after all. And yet, somehow, someway, she still believed Angelo was angry. But with whom?
“The dreams… the baby. Those cards tell me about a hurt baby, but it’s not a woman’s baby. It’s a man’s. I mean… Shit. I said that all wrong. I don’t know who the mother is, is what I’m trying to say.”
“But you know the man? The father?”
She nodded.
He stared at her for what felt like an eternity. And then, just like that, he walked away, leaving her there. She could hear him rustling around in the bedroom. Perhaps he was getting dressed, deciding to go home? When he returned, he had his jeans on, and his wallet in hand, but no shirt and shoes.
“Sit down, Andrea.” He pointed to her couch. Moments later, they were sitting side by side. It was fairly quiet, with only the rhythm of ‘Lovely Day,’ by Bill Withers, playing on the bedroom radio. She waited when he sat down in silence. And waited some more. When he was ready, his deep voice poured out like fracturing, rumbling mountains.
“I don’t talk about this.” His chest rose and fell as he stared straight ahead. “I never talk about this situation. It’s a discussion that’s been off limits for years. The few people in my life who know about it, are aware to never bring it up with me.” She placed her hand on his thigh. “I want to make it clear that I didn’t even connect the two, my situation, with your dreams, until I heard what ya just said.” He took a deep breath and clasped his hands.
“I was twenty-three years old. Young. Workin’ the life, but not nearly as entrenched as I am now. I was good back then too, but as with all things, with practice comes perfection. Anyway, during that time, I had been dating, goin’ steady with a young lady for a year or so. In fact, we’d moved in together. We were…” he swallowed, lowered his gaze and shook his head, “…close. Very close. I can say that I loved her. Her name was Christina. She was from the Lower East Side, just like me, and I’d see her around from time to time, and we eventually got together. Anyway, in the process of that courtship, she got pregnant. I was surprised, not sure why, but I was happy, too, when she told me she was carrying my child. She was scared when she realized she was pregnant. It wasn’t like we planned it or anything, but we made it work. So, she had the baby… a girl.” He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. She reached out to him, rubbing his back with her other hand.
“What’s the baby’s name, Angelo?”
She wanted him to say it. To allow himself to feel it. So he could heal…
“My daughter’s name was Nicole. I was a new dad, but on cloud nine. I would’ve rearranged the galaxy with my bare hands for this little girl if she’d asked me to.” Andrea smiled. “One day, while I was away, Christina put Nicole in the bathtub at our apartment. She was bathin’ her, and things were going fine. According to her, she, uh, turned away. Left to get something, I think some baby shampoo from a hall closet. And when… when she came back, Nicole was face down in the tub. Not moving.”
“Oh, God…”
“I happened to be out lookin’ for a bigger place for us that day. Told ’er to stay home with the baby, and I’d find something that had plenty of room. The place we were in was kinda tight.” He opened his eyes, and played with his cuticles. “I got back home with the new lease, happy, ya know? Ready to tell ’er to start packing, but the police were around my building. I knew with the way some of the neighbors were lookin’ at me, it was bad… and I was somehow involved.
“Once they told me what happened, and that my baby girl was dead, things faded to black. Then, this rage came outta me. Towards Christina.” He extended his arms, his palms up, as if he were clawing at something intangible. Something too precious to hold, something he’d never get back.
“Why?”
“Because it wasn’t adding up. See, Nicole used to cry a lot. Like all the time. Colic, I guess they call it.” Andrea nodded. “Christina would get angry about all the cryin’, and I’d get up to help, all hours of the night. I’d make a bottle, change her diaper, rock her, everything I could think to do until she calmed down. Things my father never did – said was women’s work, but to me, that was my flesh and blood and I never thought twice about raisin’ my own daughter. Besides, Christina had had a difficult birth and was tired. So, this went on for a while. The doctors gave us medicine for her, but in that time, Nicole and I really bonded. It didn’t go unnoticed.
“Christina started to complain. Said I was either always out workin’, with my family, or with the baby. She accused me of not even noticing her anymore. She said that I showed more attention toward the baby than to her. She was getting jealous. Maybe she was right, I don’t know. She and I weren’t gettin’ along too well, and that was happening even before Nicole was born. So, because of all of that, and her self-centered behavior, I felt like I had gotten involved with someone just like my fuckin’ mother. Someone completely devoid of feeling, getting’ drunk night after night and only thinkin’ about themselves.”
His eyes narrowed with rage. “I made excuses for her at first. Figured it was just new mom jitters. Christina was also a couple years younger than me. As the months passed, I could see that she resented not bein’ able to do the stuff we used to do, and it never got better. She never took to motherhood. It seemed she just felt like it was somethin’ that happened to her. She later admitted, when Nicole was about a month or two old, that she’d wanted to have my baby because she was afraid she was going to lose me. After Nicole got here though, she regretted it all.
“She blamed Nicole for all of our problems. She didn’t want the baby anymore; she just wanted me. I told ’er we had responsibilities, that we couldn’t just leave Nicole with people all the time when we wanted to party. I didn’t trust anyone. A lot of people were strung out, they weren’t raisin’ their own damn kids, so I sure as hell didn’t trust ’em with mine. It was challenging for me, too, ya know? It was hard work, but regardless, I took fatherhood seriously, Andrea. I was now responsible for another human being. I had to make sure the bills were paid, and that my girlfriend and my kid had everything they needed. After Nicole died, I tried hard, God knows I did, to believe her version of events. She pleaded with me, swore it was true, but I remembered how indifferent she was to Nicole. It just… it just didn’t sit right with me. So, a few weeks later, I broke up with Christina and moved out.”
They remained quiet for a few moments.
“She didn’t seem upset enough about our daughter’s passing. Something wasn’t right with this, Andrea. I mean, she carried this baby inside of her for nine months. How could she not feel anything?” He shrugged. “I hated her because like you with your parents, I questioned if it was really an accident, and I couldn’t live with that. I had to go. I had to get away from her. She was upset about the breakup, but I told her to just leave me alone. We both eventually moved on. Time passed, a few months or so, and then I found out she was dating this hood named Jason. Jason was a lowlife, a two-bit thief. The lowest of the low. Christina liked bad boys, as she called us, so,” he sighed, “like me, he fit the bill. Well, seems Christina picked the wrong fuckin’ bad boy, one that liked to put his fuckin’ hands on her, because Jason killed her one night when he thought she’d been runnin’ around on him. Can’t say if she was or not.” He shook his head. “He’s still in prison to this day last I heard. Losing my child put me in prison, too.”
Her heart was nearly beating out of her chest with sorrow. She kissed his cheek.
“Years passed, and I met other women. Life went on. I never told anyone I dated about Nicole.”
“Why is that, baby? Why’d you keep this terrible loss a secret?”
“It was the one thing that could be used against me… to hurt me.” Their gazes hooked. “Yo
u can’t let anyone know your weaknesses. They’ll exploit the situation. Havin’ a mother who didn’t love me no longer hurt me. Havin’ a father who showed me killing was as natural as breathing didn’t hurt me anymore, either. I accepted that this is just who I was supposed to be. But knowing that I created a child, loved that baby with all of my heart ’nd soul… changed me. I had never known I could love as much and as strongly as I did until Nicole was born, Andrea, and then… then to have it ripped away from me… That left me messed up. Any bit of mercy and compassion I had left at that time died the day my daughter took her last breath.”
“What happened to Nicole wasn’t your fault.”
“You’ve been dreamin’ about her though. She’s been crying in your dreams. She was only ten months old when she passed away. A father is supposed to protect. It is my fault.” He looked down at the floor, shoulders slumped.
“It’s not.” She took his hands. “Look at me, baby.” He did as she asked. “I understand the dreams now. She wanted you to know that she’s fine. She’s not crying anymore. She just used the crying to get my attention. Babies who pass away before they learn to talk, Angelo, still cry as a form of communication. Regardless, she loves you.”
“I should’ve trusted my gut instinct and got my daughter away from her when I saw how jealous and crazy she was acting. I miss her smile and high-pitched laughter the most.” He smiled sadly as tears formed in his eyes.
Her heart felt as if it would soon burst out of her chest. She cried silently, unable to control her tears. Unable to stop the empathetic exchange. She felt his pain deep down in her soul. It was a lonely, cold, dark place to be.
“Ya know what?” His smile widened and he had a faraway look on his face. “I had built her a dollhouse. The ceilings were pitched.” Another cold chill ran through Andrea, but she pushed it aside. My dream tonight… I was in a dollhouse! “I built it all by myself. I painted it pink and white, and got little furniture and dolls for it.” He chuckled, blinking back tears, refusing to let them fall. “I’d sit there with her, she was crawlin’ then, and we’d play. She was too young for it, honestly, but I knew she’d grow into it eventually. She never did… I was proud of that dollhouse, baby. It had windows and doors that opened, a chimney, the works. It even had a little light blue tea set on a tiny wooden table. I remember that tea set vividly. It was a gift from my mother.