by S. Rose
“I’m so ashamed.” my aunt’s muffled words came from behind her hands. “You must hate me.”
“Hate you?” “But . . . Tante Gudy, I could never hate you.” I heard the tremor in my voice.
She took her hands from her face. “You’re not angry with me?” Before I could ask why I should be angry, she went on, “You don’t blame me for giving you up?”
“Giving me up?” I parroted, trying to put meaning to the words.
“Of course, it was nothing like turning you over to strangers. That’s what my father ordered me to do: put you up for adoption or leave his house. I wanted to keep you here with me—openly, even though it was unheard of at the time, at least in our circle. But Papa said no, ‘under no circumstances.’”
“You mean, you gave birth to me? You are my real mother,” I said, understanding at last. “Mom . . .” I trailed off, suddenly unsure if I should call the other one Mom, “. . . your sister only had one baby—George Parsons’ son.”
“But I thought you understood all that . . . you said you saw the documents . . . you just told me you knew all about the baby,” she blustered in confusion.
“I learned I had a baby brother who died—or I thought I did. Now I know he was my cousin. But then, who was my father?”
“That’s a long story. Suffice it to say that he was gone when you were born.”
“Did you give me away to your sister because her baby died, and you felt sorry for her?” I asked hopefully. Somehow that would make it bearable.
“No, that wasn’t it,” she answered truthfully. “Naturally, I felt dreadfully sorry when I heard about the death of baby Eddie. He was such a fine, plump, healthy baby, always full of laughter. He was going on two years old . . . walking . . . beginning to speak. Oh, how I loved my little nephew. He called me Tata,” she said. “His death was very sudden . . . Meningitis is like that. I wasn’t home at the time, so I couldn’t even comfort my sister.”
“Where were you?”
“For the last two and a half months of my pregnancy I was sent away to a home in the country, to stay with a woman from a Lutheran church organization who helped girls . . . bad girls like me who got into trouble. I’d managed to keep it a secret into the sixth month because I’m so big and tall. I didn’t even inform my father until I was about four months along, although I confided in Kristina right away. When my condition became obvious, Papa insisted that I hide my shame. He drove me out to the home himself and with his last words warned me to stay put, not to come home with the baby. Then he lied to everyone we knew and said that he’d taken me to the airport—I was supposedly in Norway visiting Uncle Lars for the summer, but I was really out in the middle of a soybean farm. It was desolate. I had to share a big bedroom with three pregnant young ladies, all aged eighteen or nineteen—I was old enough to be their mother. It was humiliating! I was under orders from Papa to make adoption arrangements while I was there, but I didn’t go through with it. Your birth was only eight weeks away when I finally got up the courage to phone Papa, to ask if I could write to Uncle Lars for help. I was sure my uncle and his wife would open their door to me. They were a bit more relaxed about such things over in Norway. Well, Papa forbade that,too. He insisted that neither the family nor any of our old neighbors would ever ‘learn of ourdisgrace.’”
“You obeyed your father and gave me away . . . because you were ashamed?” I asked angrily.
“This is why I didn’t want you to know yet. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“I understand plenty. My friend was born out of wedlock, and her mother kept her. Sparrow’s mother loved her,” I shouted, forgetting for the moment how hard her life had been.
“I’m so sorry, Cassandra.”
“But how could Morfar make you do it? You weren’t a child—you were thirty-five years old.”
“But I had no way to survive on my own. Oh, Cassandra, I hope you won’t think badly of poor Morfar. Except for that, he was a very good father to me, and you know how much he grew to love you.”
“Maybe so, but I can’t believe you agreed to give me away to your twenty-one-year-old sister and her drunk of a husband.”
“At the time, I had no idea your father had a drinking problem. Your mother married him at age nineteen, and she certainly never saw that in him—he managed to hide it for years. Kristina was practically a child, much too young to understand men, but I could see that George Parsons was a charmer. I was very much against the marriage and warned Kristina that she was too young, and George was too old for her. They eloped anyway. Sometimes I think she ran off with him just to defy me. Well, Kristina got pregnant with Eddie right away, and George was over the moon. He’d just started in the insurance business and was working very hard—made a tidy sum of money and showered your mother with jewelry and pretty clothes. I thought they were saving up for a house, but just before Eddie was born, George bought the new Ford car—it was expensive, back in the day. Later, he took his little family on a grand trip out west.”
“I saw the pictures that were taken in Arizona,” I said glumly.
“Ya, and they went all the way to California, up and down the coast. Kristina was so happy. I was very glad I hadn’t managed to break it up and faulted myself for misjudging George. But their happiness unraveled very quickly. It was August twenty-ninth; I’d begun my ninth month of pregnancy when I got that dreadful phone call from George.”
“That the baby was sick?”
“No . . . he had to tell me that Eddie was already gone. I didn’t even have a warning that he was sick because they didn’t think it was serious until it was too late. The fever shot up in the night, and they took him to the hospital. He died before morning. We were all in a state of shock. Then, I couldn’t even come home for the funeral. Papa forbade it because of my condition.”
“How could Morfar be so cruel?”
“Well, people would’ve seen me—by then I was big as a house. It certainly would’ve have blown the story he’d concocted about my vacation in Norway . . . and that led Papa to another lie: I couldn’t fly home in time for the funeral because I’d come down with a case of influenza. How absurd. I was furious; I made up my mind then to defy him and ask Uncle Lars for help, even though my father would’ve disowned me. I confided in George—I hated to burden him, but if I were leaving for good, I’d have to break the news to my sister. And do you know what? It wasyour fatherwho came up with the idea of secretly adopting my baby. Kristina agreed to it on the spot. At the time, it seemed like the perfect solution to a tragic family situation. It wasn’t uncommon for a couple to adopt after they’d lost a baby, so no one would suspect. I really believed it would be best for you to grow up as a legitimate child, with both a mother and a father. The family honor would be salvaged, but best of all, I’d get to be your Tante and see you every day.” She smiled beseechingly, hopeful that the explanation had softened the blow.
“And Morfar allowed it?”
“Morfar was so heartbroken over the loss of his grandson that he agreed to it, so long as we kept the whole thing a secret from everyone. Baby Eddie had just been buried when you arrived; we all rushed to arrange the private adoption. Your parents had you for only two months when George suddenly became very sick. That’s when your mother and I learned the truth; he’d been taken ill during the war.”
“With the ulcers?”
“His ulcers are only part of an overall nervous condition. George was so despondent over the loss of his son that he had to be hospitalized—and it wasn’t the first time. It seems that the trouble began on his tour of duty. What I’m trying to say is, they sent him home from the army for an illness in his mind, not his stomach. Don’t misunderstand; I had a great deal of sympathy for his suffering, but he’d kept his past a secret. Your mother had no warning of what could happen if George got . . . uh . . . very upset. And he certainly should not have kept it from me. I had a right to be informed before I agreed to the adoption,” she said with emphasis.
/> “My whole life I thought you were my aunt . . . but you’re my mother,” I said, still trying to digest it all. “No wonder you took over my hair,” I said in sudden realization. “Mom . . . I mean, my real aunt . . .”
“She’s your legal mother through adoption.”
“But you didn’t let her be my real mother.” I recalled the conversation I’d overheard through the bathroom wall; hearing your father threatening to lop off your curls is not so easy to forget.
“Your mother said a similar thing.”
“So, it was okay to give me away as long as you got to take charge of my hair—like a mother,” I summarized.
“It sounds just awful when you put it that way,” she said despondently.
“How else should I put it? I loved you . . . I trusted you. I don’t know who you are anymore,” I cried. “Please go.” I waved her off. “Please, leave me alone,” I said without looking at her face.
After she’d gone, I sat numb for a moment. Then my feelings began to rise like dust devils, whirling round and colliding to create mini cyclones. I was caught up in one storm after another, a maelstrom of hot rage followed by a cold rain of sorrow; pangs of love for my newfound mother danced arm in arm with the sharp sting of betrayal. One minute, I blamed Tante Gudy and the next I blamed Morfar. I was furious with them all for lying to me. I was sure Kristina never loved me as much as her own baby—the only one she would ever have. And to think that George Parsons wanted a wagonload of kids, but only got me. No wonder my mother stood on her head to please him; she must have felt like a terrible disappointment. And I was the biggest disappointment of all—not a real daughter, but a living reminder of the son they lost and later, of the children they would never have.
I didn’t know who or what I was anymore. I looked in the mirror, surprised and frightened at the sight of my own face, my tearstained face, framed by a waterfall of curls. As my world spun out of control, I was seized by a desperate need to take charge of my life.
“CASSANDRA?” TANTE GUDY knocked gently on the bathroom door. I’d gone in there to hide, because the bedroom door had no lock. “Are you all right?”
“Please go away.”
“You’ve been in there over an hour. The upstairs neighbors will be here any minute. We need to finish talking now or else hold our peace until our guests go home.”
I’d forgotten all about Thanksgiving. I didn’t feel like celebrating—didn’t even want to eat. I rose from my seat on the toilet lid and took another look in the bathroom mirror, as if it might have been just a bad dream. My short, thick hair stuck straight out at the sides like Bozo the clown; the back of my bare neck felt cool to the touch.
Suddenly, there was a little screech from beyond the door, followed by silence. What a shock it must have been for her to see the haystack of curly locks littering the bedroom floor. In an instant I fell from my high horse of triumphant defiance and hit the ground hard. I’d been a self-centered brat. Poor Aunt Gudrun had been threatened with eviction from her own home, by her own father. Her sister’s baby died, and they all scrambled to do the best they could.
I heard her footsteps as she rushed back into the hallway and I opened the door to face her. She stopped short, speechless. “I’m sorry,” I said, then began to cry all over again. I wanted her to hold me, to comfort me, but she just stood there with one hand over her mouth and the other shielding her heart. “Please say you forgive me, please say you still love me,” I cried.
“Of course I love you, darling,” she said, collecting herself. She embraced me, stroking the back of my shorn head.
“It’s a mess,” I sobbed.
“Ya sure, it’s a mess,” she agreed. She stepped back to take a better look, then turned me around and ran her fingers through the back. “Well, you’ve done quite a job on yourself. You look like a lamb at the spring shearing.”
“Can’t you do something with it . . . layer it or something?”
“I don’t have the skill to fix it; I’d be afraid of making it worse. You need a hairdresser who knows how to shape a short cut . . . but the beauty salon probably won’t open again until Monday. Everyone usually gets their hair done before Thanksgiving weekend. I’ll call tomorrow and see, but . . .”
“I’m supposed to go back to Blackstone on Sunday to be at school Monday morning . . . but I can’t go looking like this. I’m an idiot. I hate myself.”
“Don’t say that. You were very upset. It’s really all my fault; I’m afraid I didn’t handle it very well.”
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t chop off my hair.”
“Oh Cassandra, you’ve always had such a passionate nature . . . sometimes a little too passionate, artistic people are often that way.”
I recalled a few of my earlier outbursts, the times I’d locked horns with my father.
“Soon you’ll understand how you came by your temperament,” she added mysteriously. “But you’re going to have to learn to channel those turbulent feelings into something creative; that’s why I sent the oil paints. Now, as for the hair crisis . . . perhaps you could stay through Monday so we can visit the beauty parlor. I’ll have to ask your parents’ permission.”
“I hope they allow it. Maybe I could wear a hat to dinner?” I whimpered.
“I think I can pin it back with bobby pins, maybe use a fat hair ribbon around your head to hold it down.”
“What will I tell . . . Mom and Dad?” My voice rose in pitch as I referenced my parents, layering the question of what to tell them over the uncertainty of what to call them.
“The truth. Don’t worry; I’ll call tomorrow and explain everything. And after this day is over, I’ll tell you everything, too. This family has kept enough secrets for one lifetime.”
33
I HELD THE old photograph as if it were a priceless work of art. Even in black and white, I could see that I was the spitting image of my father.
“Silvio Salvatore,” I pronounced the name slowly, as if gingerly tasting some exotic new food. It dripped from my tongue like thick honey. “Silvio Salvatore!” I sang out boldly, savoring the smorgasbord of vowels while gesturing grandly with my outstretched hand. Tante Gudy giggled like a schoolgirl. I gazed at the man with instinctual longing, took in each detail of the handsome face with the soulful eyes, and the mop of dark hair with one long curl carelessly tumbling to caress his cheekbone. “It’s no wonder you wanted to make love to him,” I remarked wistfully.
She smiled bashfully with one hand half hiding her face. “I suppose I did, although I didn’t know that’s what I wanted at the time. It kind of snuck up on me,” she elaborated.
“And he made that?” I pointed to the mantelpiece.
“He designed it and did much of the work himself. When he claimed it wasn’t right somehow and took it down to start over—twice—I really had no idea it was a ploy to stay by me longer.” She blushed again. “I’d never had a beau . . . a boyfriend, they call it now. It never occurred to me that such a handsome man could find me pretty. Kristina was the beauty. I thought I was a big homely cow.”
“Oh, Tante, don’t say that. Don’t you know you’re beautiful?”
“Do you really think so? Silvio was the first to ever tell me that.”
“Tell me about Silvio,” I gushed. “What was he like?”
“He was tall for an Italian but still only came up to here.” She held her hand to the bridge of her nose. “He had a way of expressing himself . . . it was different from anything I was used to. Norwegian men don’t carry on like Italians. Silvio made me laugh . . . he was very funny, very animated. I’ll never forget how he complained about the winter cold—it was January. He’d come into the house to work and make a show of shaking snow from his hair, jumping and flapping his arms to get warm, saying, ‘Mama mia! Your Wisconsin . . . she’s a biga ice-ah box!’ ”
“Hah!”
“So when he first told me I was beautiful, I thought he must be joking, perhaps even making fun of me. I laughed and sai
d no, I looked like a moose. ‘Como? Ah . . . what a moose?’ he asked. I held my hands to my head like antlers. ‘Big moose,’ I said, then laughed at myself. But Silvio didn’t laugh. ‘No! No biga moose,’ he insisted. ‘You a biga beauty, like a marble statue of a goddess.’ ” She gestured with her hands and affected his tone. “He was so intense. I didn’t know what to make of him. I never meant for anything to happen,” she went on. “We were saying goodbye. Mr. Salvatore was leaving the next morning to catch a train east, then a boat to Italy. I’d made a little going away supper. Your parents were at an office party, but Papa was supposed to be home. Then he called and said he had to work late, to go on and eat without him. Imagine if he’d come home on time?”
“I wouldn’t be here,” I mused.
“Silvio had brought a bottle of Italian wine. I’d never had a drink in my life, but I let him pour me a glass. The wine made me flush warm all over.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Silvio?” I joked.
She raised her eyebrow at my brazen remark, then continued. “Since it was just us two, I set the little table by the window. He didn’t chat or even touch the food, just sat smiling at me with stars in his eyes. I’d never known such attention from a man. I wanted to jump up and run from the table, but that would have been unseemly. Then he gestured to my face . . . ‘Bella,’ he said . . . it means beautiful in Italian. ‘This is the face of the Madonna in Michael Angelo’s Pietà. But like her, you looka so sad. Is ’cause you father no appreciate you . . . he keepa you like a servant.’ ” She affected his ardor along with his accent. “I was stunned, because it struck me as perfectly true—yet I’d never once considered it that way. Then Silvio leaned in close and gushed like a fountain, ‘Let me take you to Italy, mia bella Madonna. There we will have a wonderful life.’ ”