“It’s not because of your mother.” He took a breath. “It’s because of Stephen.”
“What about him?”
Ford sighed. “Well, Samantha was in the bedroom.”
“And?”
“She saw him.”
“Saw him?”
“Yeah. She saw him.”
“Saw him what, Ford? Stop being so evasive. Just tell me.” Diana felt something dropping inside her. Something dropping and something rising. A sickness meeting in the middle and brewing in her abdomen. A tightness in her throat. She knew what was coming—the realization came like a blow across the head—and she didn’t want to hear it. She wasn’t sure she could. Ford was sitting there with the worst of all possible responses waiting on his lips, waiting for her to ask. And she didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to know. But she was Samantha’s mother. Her caretaker and guardian. She had to know. “What?” she said at last. “What did she see, Ford?”
Ford sighed again. Then he looked her in the eye, put his hand on her knee. “He was masturbating, Diana. He was in the room alone with her, he was watching her sleeping, and he was masturbating.”
The story that followed left her speechless. Ford explaining how Stephen was struggling to pull up his pants just before Ford started swinging. And that was when they stumbled out into the hall. He didn’t want to tell her right off, didn’t want to ruin Christmas, he said again, but it was eating at him, and he couldn’t hold it back anymore. Diana was silent. Her thoughts racing, and her head, her body, feeling empty all at once. It couldn’t be true. But why would Ford say it if it wasn’t true? She wasn’t sure whether to call the police, or just head over to her mother’s house herself. Put Stephen on the spot. Demand an explanation. An answer. And hopefully, she prayed, a denial. A sincere denial. But Ford just brushed that off. Of course he would deny it, he said. How could he not? You couldn’t go by that.
“And Diana,” he said, “I saw him.”
When the wave of nausea started to subside, Diana’s body began to shake, and then she had started to cry. Ford pulled his chair close to hers, and took her into his arms, rubbing her back. It happened a lot more than she knew, he said. It was happening everywhere. An epidemic. Schools, day cares. Boy Scout meetings. Churches. Homes, he added. But it could have been worse. They were lucky he got in there when he did. Who knows what would have happened, he said, if he hadn’t got into the bedroom when he did.
It was irrelevant, she told him. Samantha was her child, and she had failed to protect her. That was her main function in the little girl’s life, to protect her, and she had failed. Failed in the most horrible way.
She should have never invited him over, she said. She should have known. Stephen was sick. He only went out to get high, and then he was home. Sometimes flying. Sometimes withdrawing. Always crazy. And her mother didn’t see it. Her mother didn’t see anything that she didn’t want to. The neighbors had been complaining about Stephen since he was small, she told Ford. Awful things. They tried to confront Charlotte but got nowhere. There were the run of the mill complaints—broken windows, eggings on Halloween. Bikes stolen from the yard. But then it got worse. They told her he was torturing their pets. Cats and dogs. Doing things to them. Obscene things.
“I know.” Ford sighed. “You told me.”
But Diana kept rambling. She had to let it out. The only way to make the nightmare even a little better, to try and understand it, was to let it out. She had gone to her mother in the past, she told him, but she wouldn’t listen. It was always the same response. “Boys will be boys.” Diana wasn’t a boy, so she didn’t understand, Charlotte said. “They all get like that,” her mother said. “Hormones,” she said, shaking her head.
Hormones, Diana remembered thinking. Stephen then had been twelve years old back then. Drugs had yet to even enter the picture. She had gone to her father, who finally convinced Charlotte to take him to a counselor, a psychiatrist. And then after three supposed visits, Charlotte had brought him back to the house and said the psychiatrist declared him cured. What was more, she said, the psychiatrist didn’t think there was really anything wrong with him to begin with. He was just experimenting, Charlotte said.
And now apparently he was trying to take the experiment to Diana’s little girl. She needed to bring it to Charlotte, to hear it for herself, but not now, not as upset as she was. If Samantha saw her upset like this it would just make it worse for her. Just make her even more frightened. And ruin her Christmas.
“Are you sure?” she asked Ford, trying to compose herself. “I mean, I know you said you saw him, but are you sure that’s what he was doing? Because if I’m going to confront my mother about this, you need to be sure because it’s going to start World War Three.”
“Do you think I would have upset you like this if I wasn’t sure?” he said. “I love you too much, Diana. I love Samantha too much, and believe me, I know about these things. You can even ask Samantha, see what she says? Just ask her what she saw. How’s that expression go—From the mouths of babes?”
Diana didn’t want to confront Charlotte. She knew Charlotte too well, and confronting her wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t make it any more real, not for Charlotte. But she had to confront Charlotte even with full knowledge that it would just tatter the little that remained of their relationship, the little that remained since she got pregnant with Sam. She stopped at Saint Rocco’s to say a prayer for guidance the day after Christmas. She was on her way over to talk with her parents. The church where she was baptized, made her First Communion, was confirmed. The church where she met with the old priest to confess to fornicating, to confess to her pregnancy.
Her pregnancy. The memory of it all probably scorched her more than any of the others, up until now. Diana had been saving for college for three years—she had been accepted into the nursing program at St. Elizabeth’s, been assigned a dorm—and then a month out of high school she was pregnant. She hadn’t wanted to tell her mother, but she hadn’t much choice. She had missed her period, and gone to see the family’s pediatrician, family insurance card in hand, and it wasn’t until after her parents received the insurance bill that she had to come clean. It was late August then. Diana had just finished vomiting one morning and had begun packing her things for school, when her mother walked in, and held up the statement. Eyes empty. Empty wasn’t good. Empty meant crazy and crazy meant rage. Her mother asked what it was about, and Diana didn’t bother trying to lie.
Her mother sighed.
“Well,” she said at last, “I guess we’ll just have to work through this.”
Diana’s thoughts, feelings, all came to a sudden halt; she couldn’t believe what was happening. Her mother was still looking at the insurance statement, calm and composed. “We’ll just have to work through this,” she said again, and this time she looked up herself, the emptiness gone, and Diana felt herself beginning to cry.
“Do you mean that?” she asked.
Charlotte looked perplexed. “Of course I do. I’m not happy about it, but you’re our daughter, and I love you. And it’s at times like this that families need to stick together.”
Diana had gone to her then, sobbing, and her mother had held her. She hadn’t held her in years, and for the first time in years, Diana felt safe.
And it wasn’t until later the next day that her mother called the family meeting.
Diana, her parents, her grandmother, Phillip and his roommate Barry, and her other five siblings, were all at the table. The table was made from sawhorses her brother Eddie had stolen from a construction site. A long piece of plywood, and a red checkered cloth. Diana’s father had nailed the plywood into the sawhorses and sometimes if you pressed your hands too hard against the cloth you would end up with a splinter. Diana had been given a seat at the head of the table, directly across from her father, and her mother right beside her, holding her hand.
Charlotte stood and banged her spoon against her water glass as if about to give a toast. “Ca
n I have your attention? Attention please.”
Everyone was talking at once. Everybody was always talking at once, loud and never listening. Diana figured they were all expecting food. Anytime they all got together there always was food.
“Attention,” Charlotte said again. “This family meeting is being called to order.” There were mumblings, last words, and a bunched-up napkin thrown across the table. Diana’s younger sister Bibi, eleven, had something red and sticky smeared across her face. Diana’s grandmother was leaning forward on her cane.
“I know we usually conduct the family meeting on the first Friday of every month, after attending the adoration of the Sacrament,” Charlotte said. Diana looked up at her, antennae rising; her mother was in her element—lying. Diana couldn’t remember the last time they had a family meeting, nor when all of them had attended the adoration. “And you’re all probably wondering why we’re having this special one on Sunday, and the reason is because we have some special news. And I want to make the announcement official.” Diana watched her carefully. She was both smiling, and struggling not to smile—no one else could hold their mouth so tight in the line between the two. Things were suddenly going very wrong; she could feel it. Her mother had acted as if she had taken it well, but Diana should have known better—there was no way she was going to take it well. Her mother took nothing well. Diana’s heart began to race, and she wrenched her hands together under the table. Why had she told her?
“By now some of you know,” Charlotte said, “—although some of you little ones might be too young to understand—that your sister, my daughter, and your granddaughter,” she said, looking at her mother, “is a slut.”
Diana went to speak. Couldn’t. But the shock lasted less than a few seconds, and then she felt the cords of her neck beginning to tighten, and she was afraid she might start to scream. She stood to leave the room, but her mother stood with her, hand tight on her shoulder, and pushed her back down. Her mother was much bigger, stronger. Two of the boys started to snicker and Diana’s grandmother’s hand shot out and belted one across the back of the head.
“Now, sluts happen to a lot of families,” Charlotte continued, “and not just ours. As long as there is repentance, then there is forgiveness, but when you lead a life of lust, when you stray from the Lord and behave like a whore, there are consequences. There has to be consequences, and that is what your sister is about to learn.”
Diana heard the click of a lighter, smelled a whiff of smoke. Her grandmother was staring her down. Paper-thin skin, and watery blue eyes with bloodred lids. She was only in her mid-sixties, but hadn’t moved far from her own dining room table, two blocks over, in fifteen years. Most days she sat and smoked, did crossword puzzles, and said the rosary. She was much too unwell to travel far, she said, and it wouldn’t be long before she would be seeing her savior.
“What got into you?” The old woman dragged on her cigarette. Despite not lending much credence to her grandmother’s ailments, Diana had always gotten on well with her. She would clean her house, and wash her dishes. Massage her back and sometimes her feet, listening to the old woman moan with delight as she did. “I’m talking to you,” she said now.
Diana just looked down. She didn’t want to answer to her. To any of them.
“The good Lord gives you looks and brains and a cute little figure, and what do you do with them? You throw them back in his face. And in the face of your poor mother. And for what? A quick little slap and tickle. And where has it gotten you? A baby. And you not even yet married. You ought to be ashamed.”
“We’re going to have a baby?!” spouted Bibi. Big dark eyes and hair in a ponytail. “What kind of baby? A boy or girl?! I have to tell Melissa!”
“We’re not telling anybody,” Charlotte said. “Not yet. And this is nothing to be proud of, Bibi, nothing to celebrate. What your sister has done is a very bad thing. She’s thumbed her nose at our Lord and Savior.”
“Thumbed her nose and pulled down her pants,” said Diana’s grandmother. “It’s really very sad, if you ask me. Very, very sad. You had the whole world ahead of you—full of noble ideas about college—and now what do you have? Nothing. Ashamed. I’m telling you—you should be ashamed.”
Diana had looked up then. “I’m still going to college,” she said.
All eyes, all around the table were on her. And all except the children, seemed to know something. Something she did not.
Charlotte had just looked at her. “No, dear. I’m afraid you’re not.”
And she hadn’t, not at St. Elizabeth’s. But she had done it on her own, despite her mother. It took a little longer, but she had gone part-time, pushed herself through, commuting to the community college in Quincy. And earned her RN. Despite her mother.
Now, Diana looked toward the altar, the lights down except for a few dim electric candles up near the altar. The wreaths illuminated, along with the poinsettias. Christ nailed to cross, bleeding, his eyes turned to the heavens. The Blessed Mother, head bowed in prayer in an illuminated alcove off to the right. Saint Rocco himself, the patron saint of the sick, down on one knee and off to the right, a small white dog beside him. And high above it all, the Angel Gabriel, sounding the trumpet, heralding the Annunciation. And later the judgement.
“I don’t believe it,” Charlotte said. “He has a girlfriend. He always has a girlfriend.” Diana was with her in the kitchen. Roger was in the living room watching a football game, and her sister Lucy was upstairs playing, but the other kids had gone out. Diana had avoided Christmas dinner, dessert. Called and told her mother that she needed to talk, but didn’t want to ruin the holiday. It was all she could do to keep her composure over the phone.
Phillip was with her now. Diana had gone upstairs at the apartment to see Phillip, asked him, pleaded with him to come.
Phillip was the golden child. Tall and handsome. Tall and broad-chested, small blue eyes and hair parted neatly to the side, looking as if he had just graduated from a prep academy. Could do no wrong in Charlotte’s eyes. And Diana thought, hoped, that if there was to be any chance her mother would listen to her, she needed Phillip on her side.
His jaw had dropped when she told him. He had volunteered to go first alone, but Diana had thought better of it. She loved Phillip, but deep down inside, she knew he didn’t have much of a spine, and if she wasn’t there he could just as easily slip onto Charlotte’s side, away from Diana. Despite the fact that he was her older brother, throughout their childhood Diana had spent her time sticking up for Phillip, taking on the neighborhood bullies, much as she had for Freddie. Clocking them with roundhouses, and then rolling down the hill of the sidewalk, or off somewhere in the dirt. Phillip would usually run for the house—sometimes bloody but at other times just sweaty and trembling, always crying—as soon as she started in, and Diana preferred it that way; someone had to stick up for him, but she figured it was demeaning for him to have to sit and watch when that someone was his little sister. There was always someone teasing him, calling him a blubber ball or a gaybo, and Phillip never forgot how she had looked out for him. Now he said he was more than happy to go to bat for her, for Samantha.
Diana stared at the lights strung along the perimeter of the picture window in the kitchen. White lights, starting to blink. The entire house was decorated—holly, and mistletoe, and Saint Nicholas’s likeness from nearly every culture on every table, available space—making what she had to say seem all the more obscene.
Phillip stood, nervous, drinking, and her father sat at the head of the table. Staring at her. He hadn’t said a word. It wasn’t unusual for her father to be quiet, but when he was loud, he was the loudest in the house. “We have the same tempers,” he used to tell Diana when she was small, rubbing her head. “Poor kid,” he’d say. But he wasn’t yelling now, nor did he look as if he were going to. He just looked confused. His relationship with Stephen had always been strained. He could never understand the drugs. The craziness. The lack of ambition. Diana’s mothe
r, of course, was different.
“I don’t think Stephen even recognizes her,” Charlotte said now, “I don’t think he even knows she exists.”
Diana’s father shot her a look, cleared his throat. “He was just playing with her in the living room a few weeks ago.”
“And I was right there with them!” Charlotte snapped. Diana’s father opened his mouth, looking only further confused, but no words came through.
“But the thing is, Ma,” Phillip said, “if he’s using, it’s not good for him to be around little kids.” He dropped his voice to his best baritone. “It’s just too dangerous.”
“He’s not using anymore,” Charlotte said. “He’s been clean for … six months. I take him every week to have his blood tested.”
Diana’s insides were turning again. She would have rather heard her mother say that she wasn’t with Samantha constantly for at least then she would have known she wasn’t up against the complete wall of a lie. And if her mother was sure he was completely innocent, there would be no need for the wall. No need to pretend Stephen was clean. Would there? But if somewhere inside, she herself wasn’t sure …
“You need to get him to see someone,” Diana said. “Or I’m going to kill him, Ma. I swear, I’ll kill him.”
“You,” Charlotte said, “will do no such thing.”
“Just an evaluation,” Phillip said. “That’s all we’re asking.”
“No,” Diana said. “He needs help. He needs to see someone.”
Charlotte’s face flushed. “Oh, he’s seen plenty of people. He’s been seeing specialists since he was small—every time someone complained about something—and you know what they all say? They all say he’s completely—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Diana started to cry then. “If he did this, you can’t protect him.”
“I have to protect him,” Charlotte said. “He is my child.”
In the Midst of the Sea Page 6