The next occupant of that room was Victor. Victor’s father worked on a ship that often traveled to Miami, and everyone in the neighborhood knew that Victor would be going there, too, one day. His father brought back suitcases full of clothes a couple of times a year, and Victor would always come over with some T-shirts or dresses that his mother said she had no use for. Victor soon discovered the hole in the plywood and would slip his finger through and wave it at her. Then she would whistle to him, like the last kingbird of their neighborhood.
Carole knew from the moment she met Victor that he would take care of her. She never thought he’d conspire against her, or even threaten to put her away. But here he is now, plotting against her with a woman she does not know, a fleshy, pretty woman, just the way he once liked them, just the way she was, when he liked her most.
Her husband and this woman are speaking in whispers. What are they talking about? And why is she sitting next to this peppercorn-haired doll that her husband sometimes uses to trick her, pretending it’s a real baby. Her real babies are gone. They disappeared with her friend Jeanne, and all she has left is this doll her husband bought her.
She looks around the room to see if anyone else can see what’s going on, how this young woman is trying to steal her husband from her right under her nose, while she is stuck on this sofa between strangers and a propped-up baby doll. She grabs the doll by its armpits and raises it to her shoulder. The doll’s facial expressions are so real, so lifelike, that its lips curl and its cheeks crumple as though it were actually about to cry. To calm it down, she whistles the pipit’s spirited squeak.
Carole is trying to explain all this to the men on either side of her, but they can’t understand her. One of them holds his hands out to her as if he wanted her to return the doll to him.
They are crowding around her now. The fleshy young woman, too, is moving closer. Carole doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. She just wants to take the doll out to the yard, the way she often does when her husband isn’t around. She wants to feel the sun-filled breeze on her face and see the midday luster of the pool. She wants to prove to everyone that not only can she take care of herself but she can take care of this doll, too.
6
How does her mother get past James and Paul and run to the terrace with Jude in her arms? Jude is squirming and wailing, his bare pudgy legs cycling erratically as her mother dangles him over the terrace railing.
Her father is the first to reach the terrace, followed by James and everyone else. Though Carole is standing on the shady side of the terrace, she is sweating. Her bun has loosened as though Jude, or someone else, had been pulling at it.
Jeanne isn’t sure how long her mother’s bony arms will be able to support her son, especially since Jude is crying and twisting, all while turning his head toward the faces on the terrace as though he knew how desperate they were to have him back inside.
Paul has rushed downstairs, and Jeanne is now looking down at his face as she tries to figure out where her son might land if her mother drops him. The possibility of his landing in Paul’s arms is as slim or as great as his landing in the pool or on the ficus hedge below the terrace.
Marcos also appears down by the pool, as does James’s sister, Zoe, adding more hands for a possible rescue. James is on the phone with the police. Grace has Jeanne caged in her arms, as if to keep her from crumbling to the floor. Her father is standing a few feet from her mother, begging, pleading.
Once James is off the phone, he switches places with her father. Jude balls his small fists, reopens them, then aims both his hands at his father. He stops crying for a moment, as if waiting for James to grab him. When James reaches for him, Carole pushes him farther out. Everyone gasps and, once Grace releases Jeanne, she doubles over, as if she had been sliced in two.
“Mommy, please,” Jeanne says, straightening herself up. “Souple Manman. Tanpri Manman.”
Other tenants come out of their apartments. Some are already on their terraces. Others are by the pool with Paul, Zoe, and Marcos. Her son at his last checkup weighed twenty-seven pounds, which is about a fifth of her mother’s current weight. Her mother will not be able to hold on to him much longer.
Jeanne walks toward her husband, approaching carefully, brushing past her father, who appears to be in shock.
“Manman, please give me my baby,” Jeanne says. She tries to speak in a firm and steady voice, one that will not frighten her son.
Her mother regards her with the dazed look that is now too familiar.
“Let me have him, Carole,” Jeanne says. Maybe not being her daughter will give her more authority in her mother’s eyes. Her mother may think that Jeanne is someone she has to listen to, someone she must obey.
“Baby,” her mother says, and it sounds more like a term of endearment for Jeanne than like the realization that she’s holding a small child.
“Your baby?” Carole asks, her arms wavering now, as if she were finally feeling Jude’s full weight.
Jeanne lowers her voice. “He’s my child, Manman. Please give him to me.”
Jeanne can see in the loosening of her mother’s arms that she is returning. But her mother is still not fully back, and, if she returns too suddenly, she may get confused and drop Jude. While her mother’s eyes are focused on her, she signals with a nod for her husband to move in, and, with one synchronized lurch, her father reaches for her mother and her husband grabs their son. Her mother relaxes her grip on Jude only after he is safely back across the railing.
James collapses on the terrace floor, his still crying son pressed tightly against his chest. Jeanne’s father takes her mother by the hand and leads her back inside. He sits with her on the sofa and wraps his arms around her as she calmly rests her head on his shoulder.
Two police officers, two black women, arrive soon after. They are followed by EMTs. A light is shined in her mother’s pupils by one of the EMTs, then her blood pressure is taken. Though her mother seems to have snapped out of her episode and now only looks tired, it’s determined that Carole needs psychiatric evaluation. Jude is examined and has only some bruising under his armpits from his grandmother’s tight grip.
Jeanne sees the dazed look return to her mother’s eyes as she climbs onto the lowered gurney, with some help from Victor and from Paul. Her father asks that her mother not be strapped down, but the head EMT insists that it is procedure and promises not to hurt her.
Jeanne had hoped that her mother was only trying to teach her a lesson, to shock her out of her blues and remind her that she is capable of loving her son, but then she sees her mother’s eyes as she is being strapped to the gurney. They are bleary and empty. She seems to be looking at Jeanne but is actually looking past her, at the wall, then at the ceiling.
Carole’s body goes limp as the straps are snapped over her wrists and ankles, and it seems as though she were letting go completely, giving in to whatever has been ailing her. She seems to know that she’ll never be back here, at least not in the way she was before. She seems to know, too, that this moment, unlike a birth, is no new beginning.
7
Carole wished she’d see more of this, her daughter and her son-in-law together with their baby boy. James’s arms are wrapped around his wife, as she holds their son, who has fallen asleep. Perhaps Jeanne will now realize how indispensable her son is to her. Carole regrets not telling her daughter a few of her stories. Now she will never get to tell them to her grandson, either. She will never play with him again.
The first time her husband took her to the doctor, before all the brain scans and spinal taps, the doctor asked about her family’s medical history. He asked whether her parents or her grandparents had suffered from any mental illnesses, Alzheimer’s, or dementia. She had not been able to answer any of his questions, because when he asked she could not remember anything about herself.
“She’s not a good historian,” the doctor told her husband, which was, according to Victor, the doctor’s way of saying
that she was incapable of telling her own life story.
She is not a good historian. She never has been. Even when she was well. Now she will never get a chance to be. Her grandson will grow up not knowing her. The single most memorable story that will exist about her and him will be of her dangling him off a terrace, in what some might see as an attempt to kill him. For her, all this will soon evaporate, fade away. But everyone else will remember.
They are about to roll her out of the apartment on the gurney. Although her wrists are strapped down, her son is holding her left hand tightly. Jeanne gives Jude to his other grandmother and walks over to the gurney. She moves her face so close to Carole’s that Carole thinks she is going to bite her. But then Jeanne pulls back and it occurs to Carole that she is playing Alo, Bye, another peekaboo game her children used to enjoy. With their faces nearly touching, Jeanne crinkles her nose and whispers, “Alo, Manman,” then “Bye, Manman.”
It would be appropriate, if only she could make herself believe that this is what her daughter is actually doing. It would be a fitting close to her family life, or at least to life with her children. You are always saying hello to them while preparing them to say goodbye to you. You are always dreading the separations, while cheering them on, to get bigger, smarter, to crawl, babble, walk, speak, to have birthdays that you hope you’ll live to see, that you pray they’ll live to see. Jeanne will now know what it’s like to live that way, to have a part of yourself walking around unattached to you, and to love that part so much that you sometimes feel as though you were losing your mind.
Her daughter reaches down and takes her right hand, so that both of her children are now holding her scrawny, shaky hands, which seem not to belong to her at all.
“Mèsi Manman,” her daughter says. “Thank you.”
There is nothing to thank her for. She has only done her job, her duty as a parent. There is no longer any need for hellos or goodbyes, either. Soon there will be nothing left, no past to cling to, no future to hope for. Only now.
THE BEACHES OF HAZEL SASSO
HEATHER L. DAVIS
A warm mist curled up the Amalfi coast, turning the dark to velvet. No place was so beautiful to Hazel Sasso, and in no place had she been so alone. While the children slept, she walked, even though her mother-in-law said the whole town would gossip. No happy wife walks the cliffs at midnight. But Joe, her husband, was out at sea. She could spend hours staring at the waves as they crashed below, wondering when she would feel his arms around her again.
She sat down at the cliff’s edge and sang Joseph Sasso to herself, his name both a riddle and a curse as she looked down at the rocky shore. Sometimes she wondered if she loved him too much, or if he loved the sea more than her loved her. But then she begged forgiveness in her mind. He was a wonderful husband and father, when he was there. And she had finally learned the ways of the small Italian town near the naval base where he’d been stationed. Nothing happened quickly here, and no one was ever on time. She’d had to let go of American impatience.
As a girl, she’d dreamed of leaving South Jersey but never imagined she’d live near Naples, Italy, married to a wise-cracking Italian-American sailor. He promised someday they’d all move back to the States. He’d finish with the Navy and open a deli. She could be with her family, bake fancy wedding and birthday cakes to sell.
The briny salt breeze settled on her tongue. Or maybe it was the saltiness of a tear. It surprised her because she did not have the time or space to cry—she had too much to do and was no helpless victim. She’d set up and was running a household in a foreign country practically by herself. She had gotten the kids settled in school and was learning a new language. As she wiped her eyes, a little angry at herself, she saw a tall dark-haired figure to her right, a man far below, close to the water. She wanted to know who he was—he seemed familiar. She stood up and tried to run toward him, but her legs wouldn’t move the way she wanted them to.
By the time she reached the water, he was gone and the beach looked different, not like Italy at all. Where was she? Why couldn’t she recognize this place? The contours of the land had changed. Panic stirred in her gut like a living creature, but she tamped it down. There were only three places she could be, the coast of Italy, New Jersey, or Delaware—the only coasts and beaches she had ever been too. It would come to her. It had to.
Hazel tried to shake off her slippers, but they wouldn’t budge. So she sat and pulled them off, then stood up again slowly, feeling dizzy. She wanted the cold water on her feet.
Behind her a voice. Her mother’s.
“Hazel, what in tarnation? Put those shoes back on.”
“But Mama, please. I just want to dip my feet. I won’t get my dress wet.”
“That’s what you say every time, Hazel. We have church in thirty minutes.”
“Okay, I’m coming.”
She dipped her feet anyway, even though the water seemed too cold now. Her mother never cared if her brothers got a little sandy or wet. They got away with everything, especially at Ocean City.
She backed up and almost toppled over. After looking for her shoes for a moment, she gave up and decided to stay barefoot. There was a boy down in Rehoboth she’d been hoping to see again someday. Maybe she could walk all the way there. She’d met him at a church camp sing-along. She’d dropped her hymnal, and he picked it up and handed it to her. His impersonation of the stiff and serious music director made her laugh. Later, on the beach not far from Dolle’s Salt Water Taffy, they talked until her mother came looking for her, angrier than Hazel had ever seen her. The boy, Wendell, wrote her a letter a few weeks later. It wasn’t a love letter, but it made her feel special. She kept it under her pillow. Only one person knew about it—her best friend, Sarah.
That looked like her farther down, toward the pier. It took Hazel a while, tromping through the sand, to reach the tall, gangly girl with red hair and a beautiful smile. They hugged tightly then plopped down in the damp sand.
Sarah was beside herself.
“You won’t believe it, Haze.”
“What? You look like you just got picked to be Miss America.”
“It’s better than that. Johnny Douglas just kissed me!”
“What? How did that happen?” Hazel felt giddy and strange.
“We went to the very end of the boardwalk where there was nobody around. We held hands. Then he did it.”
“A real kiss?”
Sarah nodded violently. “A French kiss!”
Hazel marveled at this. She thought she was pretty enough with her wavy brown hair and blue eyes—though she was a little plump—but Wendell had only held her hand, not tried to kiss her. Maybe they ran out of time, or maybe she was too shy and quiet. Sarah was the opposite—bold and funny. That’s probably why they were such good friends.
“I’ll be back,” Sarah said, popping up and brushing the sand from her butt. “Johnny’s calling me.”
Hazel watched her best friend spring across the dunes, the white polka dots on Sarah’s blue one-piece bouncing away, getting smaller and smaller. “Give Johnny a kiss for me,” Hazel called into the rising wind.
When had it gotten so blustery? Hazel didn’t like the roughness of the waves or the way those fast-moving clouds blocked the moon. Henry might catch a chill. He loved storms and would not want to go into the beach house, but this was more than a little squall.
Hazel struggled to her feet, shivering. “Henry,” she squeaked into the wind, her voice barely a whisper. His metal pail and shovel jutted from the sand.
Then she saw them—small footprints heading to the boardwalk. “That rascal.”
At five years old, Henry had the determination of his namesake, Henry Ford. If he wanted something, almost nothing or no one could stop him. Distraction and relocation were the only ways Hazel could keep him in line—distracting him with something more exciting, at least for a few moments, or moving him to another place entirely.
He must have slipped away while she was ar
ranging their blanket. She tried not to overreact. He couldn’t be far. She started walking, looking as far as possible in every direction. Closer to the water, a couple were kissing passionately. Hazel squinted. It looked like two women—they were practically in each other’s laps. Her mother and father would be shocked by this, but Hazel felt indifferent. Maybe they thought no one would notice them this late at night. She’d seen friends of friends beaten by their husbands and neighbors so lonely they took their own lives. How could any kind of real love be wrong? Live and let live, Hazel thought.
She wanted to ask them if they’d seen Henry but couldn’t bring herself to interrupt. The footsteps went in the opposite direction anyway.
She walked left, then right, then left again. She was sure there had been a boardwalk here. Her heart beat faster as she imagined her only son running into the street and being hit by a car or picked up by a kidnapper. Or he might slip into the surf further down. She wrung her hands and called his name again and again.
The words sounded like marbles tumbling in the tide, making no sense.
Raindrops hit her shoulders and arms and head. She was tired of Joe being gone, of being both mother and father. She did want to cry sometimes, she had to admit. Maybe she should leave him and go back to the States. She was still young enough to find another husband.
Someone touched her shoulder from behind. She turned around.
“Joe?” Her heart almost stopped.
“Baby, I missed you so much,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand.
She couldn’t believe he was finally home. He looked tired but more handsome than ever, his dark eyes pretty under thick lashes, that sly grin on his face.
“Don’t leave me again,” Hazel said and kissed him hard, like a movie star.
He smelled like starched cotton and lemon shaving cream, like sunburned skin and the sea. He was hers. Tears rolled down her cheeks as he wrapped his arms around her.
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