In the late evening, I wake up with my stomach gnawing and in knots. I smell tomato sauce, rich and aromatic from simmering for hours. When I was a kid, this smell was the cue for my cousins and me to line up, single file, by the stove, for “juice sandwiches.” My grandmother dipped pieces of Wonder Bread into the sauce and sprinkled them with parmesan cheese. Later, we would practice twirling spaghetti on our forks and slurping the noodles, purposefully jerking our heads back to smack ourselves in the foreheads with a long string of sauce-coated pasta. This is the life I had imagined for my own child. Not now.
As I head for the kitchen, I see a shadow by the hall. “Grandma?” I ask.
“Poor Lemon,” croaks Aunt Livinia. She shuffles toward me. I turn on the light. She is tiny and wrinkled, a hunchbacked old gnome, lost in her baggy black clothes.
“What are you doing up here?” I ask.
She reaches up and lays her soft hand against my cheek. Her eyes fill with tears. “Poor baby,” she whispers through a little sob. “Poor, poor baby, Lemon. It’s so sad.”
“I’m okay,” I tell her, but her tears make me choke up, too.
“They loved you so much,” she says. “They didn’t mean to go away like that.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Norma and Giovanni,” she says.
I gently take her wrist and lower her hand away from my face. “They died a long time ago, Aunt Livinia.”
“Norma loves that piano,” she says and points a gnarled finger to the old upright in the corner.
“Yes,” I say. “She played beautifully.”
Aunt Livinia stands and stares at me. Then she looks around the room, clearly uncertain where she is.
“You want me to help you back to your apartment?”
“Poppy’s making a pie,” she tells me.
“Uh-huh,” I say as I lead her slowly to the steps.
My grandmother comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
“Poppy’s making a pie,” Livinia repeats to my grandmother.
“Oh, really?” Grandma says. “What kind?”
“Black raspberry,” Livinia says with an eager smile. “She picked the berries behind my house.”
“That’s right,” says my grandmother.
I think it’s cruel of her to lead Livinia on like this. “Poppy’s dead,” I say. “Remember?”
“Oh,” Livinia sounds disappointed. “Are we still having pie?”
“I’ll bake you a nice peach pie,” says Grandma as she helps Livinia downstairs.
In the kitchen, a huge wicker basket covered in cellophane and topped with a giant yellow bow sits in the center of the table. Inside are pears and apples, cheese logs and sausage, cookies, chocolates, and tins of crackers. I can’t imagine who would send such a thing. My family would certainly turn to food to assuage grief, but in the form of giant homemade lasagnas and casseroles. No one else but Franny knows I’m here, and fruit baskets aren’t her style. I open the card and see, “You’re in our prayers. Much Love, ’Scilla & Bucky.” Of course.
“Wasn’t that nice?” my grandmother asks when she comes into the kitchen. She lifts the lid off the saucepot and releases the intoxicating fragrance of the tomato sauce into the muggy air.
“I guess so,” I say. I swipe a piece of bread from a plate on the counter and dip it in the pot.
She smacks my hand away. “Don’t you appreciate it? It must’ve cost a fortune.”
“You don’t know ’Scilla,” I say and blow on the dripping bread. “She’s probably down in Georgia right now bemoaning to all her socialite friends how this little Italian slut from Brooklyn lost her baby boy’s only heir.”
“Ellie Manelli,” my grandmother says sharply. She raps the wooden spoon against the side of the pot and turns to scowl at me.
“Sorry,” I say sheepishly. Even now she reduces me to a child when she uses my real name.
“Eddie’s mother is trying to reach out to you.”
“The fruit basket is very nice,” I say. “I’ll send her a thank-you note.”
My grandmother shakes her head at me. She knows when I’m full of shit. “I know you’re hurting inside, but you can’t take it out on everyone around you, or you’ll end up alone and bitter.”
I think of Livinia downstairs in her apartment, surrounded by the dead baby pictures, yelling at the TV. For the first time, her life doesn’t seem so bad to me. I could imagine holing up, running away, retreating into myself, where no one could expect anything or blame me for what goes wrong. But I don’t tell my grandmother this.
“How about some dinner?” she asks as a peace offering.
I nod my head. “Smells delicious,” I say and sit at the table in my old spot.
When Eddie comes, I’m dead asleep in front of the TV. He squats beside me and gently strokes the back of my hair. “Sweetheart,” he says. “Lem. Wake up.”
I open my eyes to see him staring at me, smiling, holding out his arms. In my near delirium, I forget that I’m furious with him. For being gone. For blaming me. For thinking that a simple bouquet of roses was enough to smooth over everything he missed. But before I can think about what I’m doing, I’m sitting up, reaching out, losing myself in his hug, happy to have him near me now.
I see my grandmother in the doorway. She stands with her robe wrapped tightly around her body. She nods her approval, and I think the worst is truly over. He’s home now, and he’s not mad at me. I’m so relieved to have his love that when he says, “Come on,” and pulls me to my feet, I go willingly.
Chapter
Twenty-One
E ddie and I don’t talk as the cab winds its way through the back streets of Brooklyn from Carroll Gardens to Park Slope. Everything we have to say is too intimate, too sacred, to blurt out in front of the stranger driving the car. Instead, I rest my head on Eddie’s shoulder. He wraps his arms around me. Maybe this is all I needed. To see him, touch him, breathe the same air as him in order to forgive him for being gone and for blaming me. Besides, being happy to be with him is so much easier than being furious.
When the cab pulls up in front of our apartment building, I see the trashcans out by the curb. I sit with my face against the car window. Eddie waits for me to get out, but I can’t because I know what’s packed away somewhere deep inside those plastic barrels. I’m afraid that if I get out of the car, I’ll claw through the trash. The banana peels and coffee grounds, the plastic bags of dog crap and old soda bottles, the newspapers, used Kleenex, and cartons of moldy take-out food. I’ll want to find her. To tell her one more time how sorry I am. How badly I feel for abandoning her like that.
Eddie reaches across me and opens the door. “Come on,” he says and gives me a little nudge. “Let’s go inside.”
As the cab pulls away, I stand on the curb, and I say, “I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t mean to what?” Eddie asks softly, gently, in the voice of someone coaxing a very slow child to form simple sentences.
“Get rid of it like that,” I tell him.
“Get rid of what?”
“The baby,” I nearly whisper. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
He’s quiet for a moment, then he says, “I don’t understand, Lem.”
I want to tell Eddie everything that happened so that he’ll understand and help me find some solace. “The trashcans,” is what I say.
“What about them?” He yawns. Bored by my grief already?
“Never mind,” I say and turn away. I won’t be able to explain it.
“Come on. Let’s go in.” He takes me by the elbow, and I dutifully follow.
In our bed neither of us sleeps. I want to talk to Eddie, find our way back to normal—but I don’t know what to say. Finally, out of the silence, he asks me quietly, “What was it like?”
I think back to myself on the floor, looking up at the moon. Feeling that baby drop from deep inside of me. Plummet. The memory makes me dizzy. Queasy. My breath is shallow and uns
teady. Maybe this is when I’ll tell Eddie everything. Put the burden on both our shoulders, let him take a bit from me so that I can stop feeling so encumbered.
“I got a book,” he tells me before I can put all of my thoughts into words. “In Milan. I found an English bookstore before I caught my plane. I read about it.” He hesitates. “About miscarriage. The book said it’s like a heavy menstrual cycle with lots of cramping.”
I almost laugh, hearing him talk about it in such sterile terms. Then I remember holding her in my hands. Wanting to understand who she was, who she would’ve been.
“Was it like that?” he asks.
“Yes,” I lie. “Like that.”
“Must’ve been hard.” He rolls to his back and puts his hands behind his head. Stares up at the patterns of light on the ceiling from passing cars outside. “You know, it’s weird,” he tells me.
And I think, weird? This is weird to you?
“The whole time you were pregnant was sort of abstract for me. It was more like an idea. I was excited about it, but it didn’t seem all that real. But for you. Wow. It was so real.”
I want to punch him as hard as I can for such an insulting understatement.
“I’m glad you had your aunts and your grandmother with you.”
“I was alone,” I tell him. I grip the sheets in my fist and twist.
“That’s why I called them.”
“And you were mad at me for that.” I feel it all again. Lying here with the phone against my head, listening to Eddie yell at me. “You told me I should be at the hospital. With the doctor. Said that I was stubborn and didn’t listen to you.”
He rolls toward me and reaches out for my hand. I keep my fingers tight around the covers. “I was just upset and frustrated that I couldn’t help you,” Eddie says.
“Maybe you were right.”
“About what?”
“Maybe it was my fault.”
“The book said not to blame yourself.”
“You do,” I say quietly with hostility.
“I don’t blame you.”
“If you don’t blame me, who’s left to blame?” I ask. “The baby? Should we be mad at her for leaving me?”
“It wasn’t a baby, Lemon.”
“What was it then?” I ask, confused.
“A fetus,” he tells me in that same sterile tone he used for the words menstrual cycle.
I look at him with disgust. “Maybe to you,” I say. “But to me it was a baby.”
He shakes his head, pats my hand, and rolls to his back again with a sigh. “We’re going to have to get past this, Lemon,” he tells me. “We’re going to have to let it go.”
That’s enough. That’s all I need to rip the covers off my body and scream, “I lost a baby, and you want me to fucking forget about it! You have no idea what I went through. No idea what I saw. You weren’t here!”
“You’re the one who told me to go!” he yells back. I’m startled. Eddie’s never yelled at me before. “You’re the one who said we had to live our lives,” he says. “And see what happened?”
I explode. I’m shaking and spewing sounds that I don’t recognize. My body is in revolt. I want to vomit. To erupt. I can’t be near him anymore. I stumble away from the bedroom, down the hall, banging into walls. I have no idea where I’m going. Everything I thought we had, all the love and forgiveness, was a sham. He still thinks it was my fault, and I still believe him.
In the living room, I fall down, crouch on the floor, and claw at the rug because I have no place else to go. I hear my words echoing around the room. “I miss my baby so much, I want my baby back,” I chant like some creepy doo-wop song. Knowing what I’m saying breaks my heart all over again, because I remember just how much I had wanted that baby and how much I’ve lost.
Then I hear the bed squeak and Eddie rise with a small groan. Like a feral animal caught inside, I scurry across the floor in the dark. I want to hide from him. I don’t want to talk to him or listen to what he has to say. His footsteps advance, slow and plodding, down the hall. I consider closets. Consider fleeing out the front door. He’s nearly in the room, and I shuffle into a corner, as if I’ll become invisible in a smaller space.
He turns on a light, finds me huddled behind the chair, and comes to me with outstretched arms. “Lemon. Come on. I’m sorry. This is a horrible way to start. Come back to bed so we can talk.”
“No,” I say and shake my head frantically as I curl into a ball, trying my best to shrink. “I’m going to stay right here.”
He squats down beside me and touches my shoulder. “Please come back.” He finds my arms, pulls me by the wrist, holds me against his chest. I stay rigid, huffing into his shirt because I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry or carry on in front of him anymore. “At least get up off the floor.” He stands and pulls on my arm. “This is crazy.”
“Go away,” I say.
He stops trying. Sighs. Slumps down beside me, defeated. “I’m tired, Lem. Exhausted. I haven’t slept in a few days.”
“Poor baby,” I say.
He sets his jaw. He’s fuming now. This makes me happy. I want to anger him. I want him to hurt as badly as I do.
“Can we please just get some sleep and discuss this in the morning?”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” I snap.
“Fine,” he says. He pushes himself up off the floor. Stands above me and reaches out his hand one more time. “Come on,” he says. “Please.”
“No,” I say firmly.
He turns away. I am buoyant. He’s going. My anchor. I simultaneously hate him for leaving me right now and feel satisfied as I watch his figure retreat into the hall. I want to spit at him. Tell him to never come back. I want to dissolve into my aching body so that I don’t have to feel any of this pain anymore. And then, just when he’s about to disappear into the bedroom, I panic. I can’t be left alone again. I open my mouth and yell, “I’m sorry, Eddie! Please don’t leave.”
He turns around. I see his shoulders slump. I see how tired he is of me. I scramble to my feet and stumble toward him.
“I’m just being stupid,” I say. “I shouldn’t have gotten so upset. I’ll be all right. I promise.” My words come out like machine-gun fire.
He allows me into a hug. Wraps his weary arms around my shoulders. “Calm down,” he says. “You’re hysterical.”
“You’re right,” I tell him. “This is stupid. I should be over it by now. It was just a baby. Not even a real baby. A fetus. People lose them all the time. It’s nothing. I can handle it. I’m sorry to be such a mess.”
I hear myself say it all, and I cringe with every word until my stomach squeezes and I think that I might throw up. Who’s this woman apologizing for my grief? Who’s this woman blaming me for something beyond my control? I would never do that. Women from the 1950s who were unfulfilled and hid behind the identity of their husbands would say such things. Mrs. Bud Simmons from 15 Nutmeg Lane in a shirtwaist dress and Betty Crocker apron would do that.
But at this moment apologizing and accepting every ounce of blame is the only solution I can see. Because if Eddie is angry with me for losing our child, then I have to make things right. I need him to go on loving me enough to take me back into his bed where I so desperately want to be because I’m tired and I can’t stand the thought of being alone for another minute. So I blather on, apologizing for everything, and hating myself more with every word I say.
Finally he hugs me so tightly that I lose my breath and whispers, “Shhhh.” I relax against his chest and cry quietly, wondering when I was reduced to this sniveling stereotype of a woman. The kind I promised never to be.
“Come to bed,” he says. “It’ll be okay in the morning.”
I follow him obediently, trying to believe in his words.
In the morning, the phone rings. I don’t answer for fear that it’s one of my aunts. I can’t face assuring them that I’m fine right now. But Eddie brings me the phone and whispers, “It’s Makiko.”
My first thought is that something is wrong at the restaurant. Franny has gone mad. Makiko can’t take it anymore, and she’s quitting. The whole place burned down while I was away. I’m not sure that I want to know, but I can’t not talk to Makiko. I push myself up and brush the hair out of my face. I try to find a normal voice. “Hey, Makiko. What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to call you at home, Lemon,” she says. “But Franny won’t tell me what’s going on, and I’m worried. Are you okay?”
“Oh.” I falter. I don’t know how to answer. On the one hand, I asked Franny not to tell anyone what happened, so I guess I should be grateful that Makiko doesn’t know. On the other hand, Makiko’s the only one thoughtful enough to call and check up on me anyway. Franny hasn’t called me once since I called her. “I’m not so good,” I admit to Makiko and realize how comforting it is to divulge that truth.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
I don’t what it is, the anonymity of the phone, the easy timbre of her voice, or just the fact that she’s the first person who’s asked me what she can do for me rather than telling me how to feel better. For whatever reason, I break down then, and I confide everything to her. I tell her about the spotting and how Dr. Shin dismissed me like some hysterical female whose uterus has gone running amok inside her body. I tell her about losing it while I was alone and how my aunts rescued me and took me to my grandmother’s house until Eddie came to get me. I leave out the gory details and the fight with Eddie last night. And I don’t admit how much I’m hurt by the fact that it’s Makiko calling me instead of Franny.
“I’m so sorry, Lemon.” I hear the tears in her voice. “I want to help you. Tell me what I can do.”
“I wish there was something,” I say sadly. “But I just need some time, I think.”
She’s quiet for a few seconds. “If you think of something. If you want to talk some more. Or just cry. Maybe take a walk or have some tea. I don’t know. Just anything. Whatever you need. Please call me.”
Luscious Lemon Page 19