Cheryl was so afraid of her spouse that she tensed whenever she heard his car entering the garage or his footsteps inside the house. It was impossible to predict Frank Leroy’s mood, because it changed from one moment to the next for no obvious reason. She prayed for him to be distracted or busy, or only to have dropped in to change clothes and go out again. She always counted the days to his next trip and had confessed to her psychiatrist that she longed to be a widow. He had listened without showing the least surprise, having heard the same from other patients with fewer motives than Cheryl Leroy to wish their spouse dead. He had come to the conclusion that it was a normal female sentiment. His waiting room was filled with repressed, furious women.
She felt incapable of taking care of her son on her own. She had not worked for many years, and her family counseling diploma was an ironic joke: it had not even helped her manage her relationship with her husband. Before they were married, Frank Leroy had told her he wanted a full-time wife. At first she rebelled, but the heaviness and sloth she felt during her pregnancy had made her give way. Once Frankie was born she abandoned all ideas of working, as the boy needed her constant attention. For a couple of years she looked after him on her own day and night, until a nervous crisis sent her to consult her psychiatrist. He recommended she hire help as she was in a position to pay for it. It was only then that, thanks to a succession of nannies, Cheryl gained some freedom for her limited activities. Frank Leroy was unaware of most of these, not because she tried to hide them, but because he was not interested. He had other things on his mind. He more than did his bit maintaining the family, paying the wages, the bills, and his son’s astronomical expenses.
It became clear soon after Frankie was born that there was something wrong, but several months went by before the seriousness of his condition was established. The specialists tactfully explained to his parents that Frankie would probably never walk, speak, or be able to control his muscles or sphincter. However, with proper medication, rehabilitation, and corrective surgery for his misshapen limbs, the boy could make progress. Refusing to accept this dire verdict, Cheryl not only tried everything that traditional medicine could offer but went searching for alternative therapies and quack doctors, including one who claimed to cure by telepathic waves over the phone from Portland. Cheryl learned to interpret her son’s gestures and noises; it was the only means she had of sharing any kind of communication with him, and the main way she found out how the nannies behaved when she was not there.
To Frank Leroy, his son was a personal insult. No one deserved a catastrophe like this. Why had they resuscitated him when he was born a blue baby? It would have been kinder to let him go rather than condemn him to a life of suffering and his parents to one of caring for him. He wanted nothing to do with the boy; let his mother look after him. No one could convince him that the cerebral palsy or the diabetes were accidents. His wife had given him a damaged child and could not have any more, because after the birth, which had almost cost her her life, she’d had a hysterectomy. He thought Cheryl was a disastrous wife, a bundle of nerves, obsessed with looking after Frankie. She was frigid and had an annoying habit of playing the victim. The woman who had attracted him fifteen years earlier was a Valkyrie, a strong and determined swimming champion. How could he have suspected that within that Amazon’s breast beat the heart of a coward? She was almost as tall and strong as he was, and was capable of standing up to him, as she had proved in the early days when they were passionate opponents. They began with blows and ended up making love violently in a dangerous, exciting game. After her operation, the fire went out of Cheryl. To Frank, his wife had become a neurotic rabbit capable of driving him into a frenzy. Her passivity seemed like a provocation. She did not react to anything, but put up with it tearfully, a further aggravation that only served to increase Frank’s anger. He would go too far and afterward be worried because the bruises could raise suspicion. The last thing he wanted was problems. He was tied to her because of Frankie, who could survive for years. Frank Leroy was trapped in the marriage not only because of his son but above all because he wanted to avoid a very costly divorce. His wife knew too much. Cheryl had managed to find out about his business affairs and could blackmail and even destroy him. When it was a matter of defending Frankie or her own rights, Cheryl did stand up to him, and was prepared to fight tooth and nail.
They may have loved each other once, but the arrival of Frankie had killed off any hope they might have had in that regard. When Frank Leroy learned he was to have a son, he threw a party that cost as much as a wedding. He himself was the only boy among several girls, the only one who could pass on the family name to his descendants. His son would continue the lineage, as Grandfather Leroy said, proposing a toast at the party. To talk of a family lineage was a rich joke to describe three generations of good-for-nothings, as Cheryl told Evelyn during one of her bouts of drinking and tranquilizers. The first Leroy from this branch of the family had been a Frenchman who in 1903 escaped from a Calais jail, where he was serving a sentence for robbery. He reached the United States with nothing more than his shamelessness, and prospered thanks to his imagination and lack of scruples. He succeeded in living on his luck for years until he was sent back to prison, this time for a massive swindle that left thousands of retirees in poverty. His son, Frank Leroy’s father, had been hiding for five years in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, escaping from American justice for his crimes and for tax evasion. To Cheryl, the fact that her in-laws were far away and unable to return was a blessing.
As the grandson of this French scoundrel and the son of another similar crook, Frank Leroy had a simple philosophy: the end justifies the means if you can benefit from it. Any deal that is profitable for you must be a good one, however disastrous it is for others. Some win, others lose. That was the law of the jungle, and he never lost. He knew how to make money and how to hide it. Thanks to creative accounting, he managed to seem almost a pauper as far as the Internal Revenue Service was concerned, but when it suited him he could put on a show of opulence. This was how he won the trust of his clients, who were men as unscrupulous as him. He inspired envy and admiration. He was as much of a rogue as his father and grandfather, but unlike them he had class and a cool head. He did not waste his time on trifles and avoided risks. Safety first. His strategy was to act through others who fronted for him. They could end up in jail; he never would.
FROM THE OUTSET, Evelyn treated Frankie as a rational individual, on the basis that despite appearances he was intelligent. She learned how to move him without breaking her back, to bathe and dress him, to feed him without hurry in order to avoid his choking. Evelyn was so capable and affectionate with him that Cheryl was quickly convinced she could also hand over the control of her son’s diabetes to her. Evelyn measured his sugar intake before every meal and regulated his insulin injections, which she herself administered several times a day. She had learned a fair amount of English in Chicago, but there she had lived among Latinos and had few opportunities to practice it. At first at the Leroys’ she felt her lack of English when she tried to communicate with Cheryl, but they soon developed a friendly relationship that did not rely on too many words for them to understand one another. Cheryl came to depend on Evelyn for everything, and the young girl seemed to intuit her thoughts. “I don’t know how I lived without you, Evelyn. Promise me you’ll never leave,” her employer would often say when she felt overwhelmed by anxiety at her husband’s violence.
Evelyn told Frankie stories in Spanglish that he listened to closely. “You have to learn Spanish so we can tell each other secrets no one else will understand,” she said. At first the boy only grasped an idea here and there, but he liked the sound and rhythm of that melodious language and soon came to master it. Even though he could not form words, he answered Evelyn using the computer. When she first met Frankie, she had to cope with his frequent fits of anger, which she put down to his feeling isolated and bored. Then she remembered the computer her little b
rothers played with in Chicago and thought that if they could use it at such a young age, all the more reason why Frankie could: he was the smartest child she had ever met. She had little or no knowledge of computers, and the idea of having one of those fabulous machines at her disposal seemed fantastic, but as soon as she suggested it, Cheryl rushed out to buy her son one. They hired a young Indian immigrant to teach Evelyn the basics of computing, and she in turn showed Frankie.
His life and spirits improved remarkably thanks to this intellectual challenge. He and Evelyn became addicted to information and all sorts of computer games. Frankie typed with great difficulty as his hands barely obeyed him, but he spent hours glued to the screen. He quickly surpassed the basics the young instructor had taught them and soon was teaching Evelyn what he discovered for himself. He could communicate, read, entertain himself, and investigate whatever aroused his curiosity. Thanks to this machine and its infinite possibilities he proved that he did indeed have a superior intelligence, and his vast mind found the perfect foil for his challenges. The entire universe opened up before him, and one thing led to another. He would start with Star Wars and end up with a Madagascan dormouse lemur by way of Australopithecus afarensis, a forebear of Homo sapiens. Later on he set up an account on Facebook, where he led a virtual life with invisible friends.
To Evelyn, this reclusive world of gentle intimacy with Frankie was a balm that helped erase the violence she had endured. Her recurring nightmares ceased, and she was able to remember her brothers alive, as she had seen them in the last vision she had with the shaman in Peten. Frankie became as important to her as her distant grandmother. Every sign of progress he made was a personal triumph for her. His possessive affection and the trust Cheryl placed in her were enough to make her happy. She did not need anything more. She spoke to Miriam on the phone, and occasionally saw her on FaceTime, where she could observe how her little brothers were growing up, but not once in those years did she make arrangements to go and see her in Chicago. “I can’t leave Frankie, Mama, he needs me,” she would explain. Nor did Miriam feel any great need to visit this daughter who in fact was a stranger to her. They sent each other photos and Christmas and birthday presents, but neither of them made any effort to improve a relationship that had never really gotten off the ground. At first Miriam was afraid her daughter was going to suffer all alone in a cold city with people she did not know. She also thought she was being paid very little for the work she was doing, even though Evelyn never complained. In the end, Miriam convinced herself that Evelyn was better off with the Leroys than with her own family in Chicago. Her daughter had grown up, and she had lost her.
IT TOOK SOME TIME for Evelyn to understand the strange dynamic within the Leroy household.
The cook and her daughter warned her not to poke her nose into the Leroys’ affairs, because more than one employee had lost their job from being too curious. They had been in the house three years and still knew nothing of what their employer did. Maybe he did not have a job but simply was rich. They only knew that he brought in goods from Mexico and shifted them from state to state, but what kind of goods remained a mystery. No one could get a word out of Ivan Danescu, his right-hand man. He was as dry as week-old bread and it was obviously smart to stay away from him. Their employer always got up early, had a cup of coffee standing up in the kitchen, then went off to play tennis for an hour. After coming back, he took a shower and disappeared until evening or for several days at a stretch. If he remembered, he would go take a look at Frankie from the doorway before he left. Evelyn learned to avoid him and not to mention the boy in front of him.
For her part, Cheryl Leroy got up late because she slept badly. She spent the day at her different activities and had dinner on a tray in Frankie’s room. When her husband was away she used the opportunity to go out. She had only one male friend and almost no family; her activities outside the house were her many classes, her doctors, and her psychiatrist. She started drinking early in the afternoon, and by nightfall the alcohol had transformed her into a tearful child. It was then she turned to Evelyn for company. There was no one else she could rely on: this humble Guatemalan girl was her only support, her confidante. This was how Evelyn learned the details of her employers’ destructive relationship, including the beatings, and how from the start Frank Leroy had been against his wife’s friends, how he forbade her to receive anyone at home, not because he was jealous, as he told her, but to safeguard his privacy. His business affairs were very sensitive and confidential, and had to be protected at all costs. “After Frankie was born he became even stricter. He won’t allow anyone to come here, because he’s ashamed of his son,” Cheryl told Evelyn.
Whenever her husband was away on a trip, Cheryl’s nighttime outings were always to the same place, a modest Italian restaurant with checked tablecloths and paper napkins, where the staff knew her since she had been going there for years. Evelyn knew she did not eat on her own, because before leaving she would arrange on the phone to meet someone. “Apart from you, he’s my only friend, Evelyn,” she told her. He was a painter forty years older than she was; he was poor, an alcoholic, but very charming. Cheryl shared pasta made by the mamma in the kitchen, veal cutlets, and table wine. They had known each other for a long time. Before she was married she had inspired several of his paintings and was briefly his muse. “He saw me at a swimming competition and asked me to pose as Juno for an allegorical mural. Do you know who Juno was, Evelyn? She was the Roman goddess of vital energy, strength, and eternal youth. She was a warrior and a protective goddess. That’s how he still sees me. He has no idea how much I’ve changed.” It would have been pointless trying to explain to her husband how much her platonic affection for this elderly artist meant to her, or how those meetings in the restaurant were the only moments when she felt admired and loved.
IVAN DANESCU WAS SOMEONE who looked sinister and behaved accordingly. He was as enigmatic as his boss and his status in the household remained ill defined. Evelyn suspected her employer was almost as afraid of Danescu as the rest of them. She had seen Ivan raise his voice defiantly and Frank Leroy accept it without a word. She thought they sounded like accomplices. Since no one took any notice of the insignificant, stammering Guatemalan girl, she was able to flit about like a phantom, passing through walls and learning all the best-kept secrets. The others thought she barely spoke English and did not understand what she heard or saw.
Evelyn had seldom been alone with Danescu. After she had worked there a year, once Cheryl was sure she was going to stay and saw that Frankie loved her so much she herself was jealous, she suggested Evelyn learn to drive so that she could use the van. In a surprisingly friendly gesture, Ivan offered to teach her. On her own with him in the privacy of the vehicle, she discovered that the ogre, as the other employees called him, was a patient instructor and could even smile when he adjusted the seat for her to reach the pedals, although the smile was more like a grimace, as if he had teeth missing. She turned out to be a good student, learning the traffic laws by heart, and within a week could drive the van. Ivan took a photo of her against the white kitchen wall, and a few days later handed her a driver’s license in the name of someone called Hazel Chigliak. “It’s a tribal license, now you belong to a Native American tribe,” he announced briefly.
At first Evelyn only used the van to take Frankie for a haircut, or to go to a heated pool or the rehabilitation center, but soon they started to go out for ice cream, on picnics, and to the movies. On TV, Frankie watched action films full of murders, torture, explosions, and shooting, but in the movie theater, sitting behind the back row in his wheelchair, he enjoyed the same sentimental stories of romance and heartbreak as his caregiver. They sometimes ended up holding each other’s hand as they cried their eyes out. Classical music calmed him, and Latin rhythms made him deliriously happy. She would give him a tambourine or maracas to hold, and while he shook them she would dance around like a disjointed puppet, sending him into gales of laugh
ter.
Over time they became inseparable. Evelyn regularly gave up her days off and it never occurred to her to ask for vacations, because she knew Frankie would miss her. For the first time since her child was born, Cheryl could relax. In the strange language of caresses, gestures, and sounds that they shared, as well as by means of the computer, Frankie asked Evelyn to marry him. “First you have to grow, little man, and then we’ll see,” she replied, deeply touched.
If the cook and her daughter were aware of what went on between Mr. Leroy and his wife, they never said a word. Evelyn did not mention it either, but she could not pretend she did not know about it, because she had become part of the family and very close to Cheryl. The beatings always took place behind closed doors, but the walls of that house were thin. Frankie’s name always came up in these rows. Leroy’s wish for him to die once and for all was so obvious that he used to fling it in his wife’s face. He wished they would both die, she and her monster, that bastard clearly without a single Leroy gene, because in his family there were no retards. Neither of them deserved to live, they were a waste of space. And Evelyn would hear the dreadful crack of his belt.
After these beatings, Cheryl would spend several days without going out, hiding away in the house and silently allowing Evelyn to look after her. The Guatemalan girl comforted her with a daughter’s loyal care. She treated the welts on her body with arnica, helped her to wash, brushed her hair, sat with her to watch soap operas on TV, and listened without commenting as Cheryl poured her heart out. Cheryl took advantage of these periods of seclusion to spend time with Frankie. She read to him, told him stories, held a brush between his fingers so that he could paint. His mother’s intense affection could become stifling for Frankie: he would grow nervous and write to Evelyn on the computer for Cheryl to leave him alone. So as not to hurt his mother, he always sent the message in Spanish. The week would end with the boy out of control and his mother doped on anxiety and antidepressant pills. This meant more work for Evelyn, who never complained, because her existence seemed easy compared to her employer’s.
In the Midst of Winter Page 23