Brad suggested we walk to the cafeteria where we could talk without disturbing his dad.
We sat across from one another for several minutes without saying a word. Brad’s blue eyes were streaked red from all the crying he had been doing. “So, how’s the baby?” He finally asked.
“She’s great. A little tired. It was harder on the plane this time. She just didn’t want to sleep, and now that she’s walking, that’s all she wants to do . . .”
I could see that Brad really wasn’t paying attention. I felt that I was really rambling on about nothing. We continued to sit, warming our hands around the Styrofoam coffee cups.
I didn’t go back into Steve’s room. Brad said he’d call if anything happened. It was after midnight, and I didn’t want to leave the baby any longer. I got into my car and sat for a while staring up at all the lights in the hospital. I tried to imagine how many women were giving birth to new life at that moment and how many lives would end tonight. I never saw my father-in-law alive again.
Brad came home around five a.m. and went straight to the kitchen. I got up when I heard him rummaging through the cupboards. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen with all the drawers and cupboards open. He had a box of cereal in one hand and a carton of eggs in the other. He looked as if he was in a standing eight count, and he would be face down in the ring any minute.
“Honey?”
He looked at me as if he didn’t recognize me. I could tell he had been drinking. “I can’t decide if I want cereal or eggs.” He held up both.
I walked over to him and took the box of cereal from one hand and the eggs from the other and set them down behind me. I put my arms around my husband who began to tremble. The two of us sank to the floor, and Brad began to sob. We held one another for what seemed like hours. My nightgown was soaked with both of our tears.
And then Brad spoke. “I never told my dad I love him.”
Brad broke away from our embrace. He went upstairs and into the bathroom. I heard the shower. Within the hour, he appeared, clean and shaven, a new man. He put on one of his finer suits and went to the office. It was the first and possibly the last time I would see him cry.
Our lives changed dramatically during the next few years. We bought another house, this time in the Brentwood area that was great for entertaining Brad’s colleagues and their wives. We were definitely movin’ up in the world. Phoebe was eight and going to a very good elementary school. I entertained Brad’s colleagues and their wives regularly. I published a second novel and had begun another. I had a substantial contract to write a third. I discovered to my delight, I was pregnant again.
Brad and I had been trying to have another baby for a long time, then gave up. We weren’t having a lot of sex in those days. I figured it must have been that quickie mutual shower, before he went to work one morning that did it. Brad was thrilled when I told him. Of course, he was planning for a son. We told Phoebe after my first trimester. My belly was already popping a bit, and I was feeling terrific. Phoebe would touch my stomach, close her eyes and pray for a girl!
Marjorie, my ever-present mother-in-law, had a date and a place picked out for the baby shower. Just as I went into my fifth month, I started to bleed. The ultrasound showed a baby without a heartbeat. My world crashed in on me. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t have any symptoms. I had done everything right.
“These things just happen sometimes. Usually there is a reason and it winds up being for the best,” my doctor tried to explain.
Nothing could take away the pain and the grief I felt. He offered me the choice of letting the baby miscarry on its own or his removing it. I chose the latter. I couldn’t bear the idea of having to wait as long as two weeks and holding on to my now deceased baby.
During the next few months, I couldn’t pull myself out of the depression. Brad seemed oddly relieved by what had happened. He behaved as though I had just suffered a bad cold. Now that it was over with, he expected me to just move on. I hated him for not crying with me. I hated that he wouldn’t allow me to talk truthfully to Phoebe. And I hated that he seemed to disappear even more into his work. I ended up turning to my writing and began to travel to do research. We hired a house keeper who also helped with Phoebe. Before long, we became a typical middle of the road, American family, God help us.
Chapter Six
What Lies Beneath
Sitting on the sofa bed in what had become my father’s office, I thought about Brad’s e-mail. His heads up about Phoebe’s life crisis was highly supportive. It was about time he was supportive. I closed the laptop and decided to try to sleep. Sleep was usually elusive for me. Most of the time I would lay staring at the ceiling, wanting to weep with exhaustion, but I dropped off without a problem.
The next morning started off cloudy. My room was still fairly dark when I awoke. I could smell wonderful aromas wafting up from the kitchen. I could make out bacon and coffee, but the other smells were a mystery. Wrapping a robe around myself, I ventured down to investigate. My mother was in one of her jogging suits with her hair in a chignon. She was wearing a sheer lipstick stain that matched the color of her high cheekbones. She looked beautiful.
“Hello, my darling.” She beamed. “I have made a lovely breakfast.”
“It smells wonderful, Mother,” I said as I took a seat in the little nook. I searched my memory for the last time I could remember her doing any sort of cooking, and I couldn’t recall. This morning, there were scrambled eggs with bacon, home fries and pumpkin pancakes! She poured me a cup of fresh coffee and sat down with her second cup. I felt as though I hadn’t eaten for years. I began wolfing down the food like a convict. “Where did you learn to make these pancakes Mother? They are amazing!” I said with a mouth full.
“The Food Network!” she answered. “I’m going to go for a run soon, and then I have a doctor’s appointment.”
I asked her which doctor and she told me it was Dr. Dreayer, who had been the family doctor for years. I suggested that I join her, and she nodded
“That would be fine, dear. If you really want to.” Then she took off.
I watched, through the window, as she bolted down the driveway in a full trot. I don’t think I had ever known my mother to exercise in her life. I scraped the last bit of food from my plate, washed it, and put it in the drainer by the sink. I walked out the back door toward my mother’s garden. The air reminded me of being in London about the time when Phoebe was six.
I was writing a book called The Cock and Bull about a young exchange student living with an English family over a summer. It had occurred to me that if I wrote about a certain location I would have to travel there for research! Light bulb moment! I had a series of wonderful adventures in exotic locations. Paris, Cannes, Hawaii. Madrid. I would spend up to three weeks away at times. London was one of my favorite cities. It was the first time I had left Brad or Phoebe for any length of time. With the help in place, I was confident that I would return to find everything as it was before I left. The London air always seemed crisp and thick. After each rain, which was a common occurrence, a smell rose up from the concrete. A mildewy, acrid, muddy smell. I loved it. My skin never looked better. I stayed in a charming, small hotel near Hyde Park in Kensington and became instantly addicted to Indian food and Smarties.
I walked down the High Street around five p.m. each evening and headed for the Taj Mahal restaurant, where I would order a Vindaloo or a Masala curry, a large piece of naan with everything smothered in lime pickle and raita. Since I wasn’t having sex with anyone, only writing about people fucking, I didn’t care if I had the breath of an elephant. I loved being able to pick out the English people from the tourists. I became quite good at it. It wasn’t difficult. The people with huge cameras swinging from their necks were tourists and the men who wore shorts with brown ankle socks and black shoes were English.
My heroine in The Cock and Bull was eighteen and a college student. She had recently discovered that her parents were actually her
grandparents. Her real mother had become pregnant at fifteen and left the country after having her baby. Hillary ventures to find her in England. In the meantime, she meets and falls for a bartender at the local pub, yes, The Cock and Bull, and they have a passionate affair. Simon not only had the cock, but he ended up being full of bull.
“It was all consuming,” Hillary wrote in her diary. “I couldn’t believe that my body was capable of doing the things that Simon was introducing me to. Shortly after closing the pub tonight, Simon picked me up, setting me on top of the bar. He grabbed my legs, and pushed them open with such force I gasped loudly. He took a large bottle of Bailey’s liqueur and began rubbing the mouth of it up and down my black laced panties. He unbuttoned my shirt, pushing it aside to reveal my breasts. He poured the sweet liquid all over my tits. His tongue was hot as he licked the creamy alcohol, from my chest. Our eyes met. He licked his full lips and then parted mine with his tongue. I wasn’t used to the taste of alcohol, but this tasted like chocolate candy. Then his probing fingers moved to my panties again and he slipped them off. Sliding his fingers inside me, I moaned and rocked back and forth to an intensifying beat. Pouring the last drops of the bottle onto my already wet pussy, he pressed his face between my legs. Between the slight sting of the alcohol and the friction of his stubble, I felt both pain and pleasure. I grabbed his hair causing him to thrust his tongue further into my pleasure dome and I exploded into his mouth. This was definitely a summer to remember.
Nothing much about my writing had changed. Phoebe had set up a Facebook page for me, and I knew just from that that my books had an audience, a diverse one in fact. A lot of really young women or really old. And surprisingly, truck drivers and gay men. Occasionally, I was asked to ghostwrite erotica for other novelists. And that paid well. It isn’t easy writing erotica. How many times can you explain a wet pussy? Although I wasn’t a recognizable celebrity I had made a decent enough name for myself that could get me into a fine restaurant in a pinch. The girls were embarrassed by my choice of career when they were young, but they think it very “cool” now. Still, it’s not as if I was having these experiences in my real life. Whatever I have written, people seemed to love it. And I liked doing it!
I felt a deep sense of sadness as I stepped into my mother’s garden this dewy morning. This was really the only thing my mother paid attention to after Rachel died. She loved English gardens, overgrown and beautiful. There was an area for herbs and all things roses. She knew the names of every one of them. This time of year mostly wildflowers grew here but a few roses still bloomed.
I remember hating the roses especially. I was jealous of them. One day when mother was out, Henry and I cut off all the tops of whatever flowers were blooming. It looked like a pollen apocalypse. The two of us laughed and threw petals at one another in some weird catharsis. Looking at the exquisite beauty of mother’s garden I feel queasy for having been so destructive, even though I was only nine at the time.
When Olivia O’Malley got home, the day of our garden purge, I received “the belt” for the first but not last time. I was in my room when she got home. Without speaking, she came, grabbed me just underneath my armpit, and led me into her room. Closing the door with her free hand, she pushed me onto the bed. I was terrified. The look in her eyes was fierce. Opening her closet, which always smelled of baby powder, she grabbed a wide leather belt.
“Please Mommy. I am sorry,” I begged. “I didn’t mean it really, I didn’t . . .”
Unmoved, she picked me up and forced me across her knees as she sat. As she took down my panties, she finally spoke, “You get ten of these. Anytime you behave like that again, I will increase the amount.”
She began thrashing my exposed buttocks with the belt, counting out loud from one to ten. The tears that flowed from my eyes resulted from a mixture of guilt, confusion, and the sheer piercing pain of the lashing. I saw stars and I thought that I would faint.
When she finished, she pushed me away from her and told me to go clean my face. She walked into her bathroom, closed the door, and never made it to the dinner table that night.
My bottom was sore for days. I hated the fact that Henry had been exempt from the punishment, even though my mother knew he was also responsible for the devastation of the garden. To make matters worse, my father did nothing about it. I know he knew because I had overheard my parents discussing the incident.
My mother had taken him into the garden and showed him what Henry and I had done. My father asked if she had punished the two of us and she said that she had. He never asked how we were punished and she never mentioned that Henry had been excluded. I felt horribly betrayed by both my parents. I decided to write my mother a letter which I slipped under their door one night, apologizing again for what I had done. I walked around for days, feeling horrible about it. On the third day after leaving my “sorry” letter, my mother casually said, “I got your note. And I accept your apology.”
I wasn’t sure I felt any better, but I was glad I had made an effort.
One day when my father and I were alone in the house, I asked him why he had let Mother beat me. He genuinely looked shocked. I could read from his expression that he had no idea that it had gone that far, but he defended Mother by saying that what I did had been a horrible violation and that the punishment could’ve been worse. Later that evening, I heard my father yelling at mother about her hitting me. He warned her never to let that happen again. No matter what! She ignored his request, however. The next couple of times I received the belt, she told me that if I told my father she would send me to boarding school. I could never figure out how he didn’t know what was happening. Looking back, I figured he must have known. He just couldn’t bear it. My parents were in a constant state of denial. I was convinced that I would never trust another living soul again.
In later years I asked him why he and Mother had stayed together. “For you kids, of course,” he replied.
“Good morning, Miss Sarah.” I turned to see Manuel, who had on a large brimmed sombrero and a wide grin.
“Hi, Manuel.”
“I was to pick some flowers for the table this morning. I think your mother will see the doctor today, no?”
I nodded my head and explained that she was out jogging and that I would be going with her to her appointment.
“That is a good thing,” Manuel said as he ducked under the arbor. He began gently pruning and cutting the various plants. I watched his careful, tender hands almost caress each flower that he touched. “You see this, Miss Sarah?” He pointed to one of the roses. “It is a sterling rose. It reminds me of Miss Olivia. Striking, no?”
I looked at the delicate purple/silvery color, and I had to agree. It was a regal flower. I told Manuel that I was going to get ready to take my mother for her appointment.
As I left him still tending to garden, my heart felt like it would break. I felt alone. Even at this stage of my mother’s life she was adored by this man. It hit me that I missed my father, too. He had been such a force to reckon with. Even though he became a curmudgeon as the years went by, he actually seemed to soften with Henry and me. Mother never forgave him his affairs and punished him with all her suicide attempts till he died.
When I walked into my room, the small box that Manuel had given to me the night before caught my eye. I sat down in the Lazy- boy and scanned the room. I don’t think I ever really considered the room as being my father’s haven. He loved to read. Not just because he had to. Maybe that was one of the reasons I turned to writing, I don’t believe he ever read any of my books, but nearly all of them were in a neat line up on a top shelf. If he had ever read my work he never mentioned it.
One very late night, when I was around twelve, I remember hearing something that made me get out of bed. I walked from my room into this room and peeked inside. My father was in a fetal position, on the floor, sobbing. He had a photograph of all three of us kids next to him. I didn’t know what I should do. Should I go to him and comfort him? Wou
ld he be embarrassed if he knew I had seen him like that? I watched for a few minutes and decided to go back to bed. I remember staring at the ceiling and feeling as though I had just seen someone else in that room not my own father lying there. I was numb. Over the years, I became aware that that wasn’t a random incident. I heard my father crying in his study on many other occasions. I just never got out of bed again.
I began to run a bath, then sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the box. It was made of hand carved cherry wood, with an intricate inlay of Mother of Pearl on each of its sides. I hesitated before opening it, not sure what to expect. When I lifted the lid, I discovered that the entire box was filled with letters. All the envelopes were worn, and the color had bled from them. The same handwriting that I recognized as my mother’s was on each. I carefully lifted out the fragile envelope on top of the pile and opened it.
December
Darling
Time seems to have slipped by once again. It will be Christmas next week, and I have been doing all the decorations in the house. I am sure that your church will look beautiful again this year.
We have had a little bit of snow, which makes everything look as though it was sprinkled in sugar.
I hope that this letter finds you in good health and that we will reunite soon.
Yours, Livvy
My hands were covered with sweat by the time I finished reading the letter. Realizing that my bath was near to overflowing I jumped to turn off the water. I slipped the letter back into its envelope and sat for a while just trying to figure it all out. I studied the address on the front. It read: Father Manuel Garcia, Church of The Angels, Mexico City, Mexico.
Father? What did that mean? Maybe my mother was writing to Manuel’s father? But why would this Manuel have the box and why would my mother be calling his father, Darling?
“Sarah, I’m home,” my mother called as she headed up the stairs. I quickly stashed the box under the bed. Mother stepped into the room and asked, “Shall we go down to the park and have a picnic? I was just thinking we haven’t done that in so long.”
When Angels Cry Page 8