The Other Child

by Lucy Atkins

  ‘No.’ His voice is so quiet that she can barely hear him over the car engine. ‘I didn’t go back to see her.’

  No wonder he packaged all this away. His family really is an unfathomable mess. He did what he is trained to do, he shut everything down in order to focus on the thing that mattered most: the career that would redeem him and allow him to put everything else in the past. Or at least contain it in some way.

  She should feel relieved to have this out in the open at last, but the heaviness has not lifted. In fact the atmosphere in the car feels even more tense and claustrophobic now, as if all the things that he has kept hidden are pressing in on them, sucking up the oxygen.

  He turns off the freeway and they come to a halt in a queue of cars waiting to get through the busy junction onto the quiet and civilized streets beyond. Perhaps for the first time since they arrived in Boston she feels almost relieved to be re-entering the suburbs.

  ‘Is there anything else I should know about your family?’ she says. ‘Are there any other relatives? Did Carlo have brothers and sisters? Do you have grandparents out there in Pennsylvania? Anymore aunts? Uncles?’

  He shakes his head. ‘He was an only child and I think I told you before, our grandparents didn’t come to the States. The Novak grandparents died young – that’s why the sisters emigrated – and the rest of the Gallos, as far as I know, never left Italy.’

  ‘That’s right – you did tell me – they came from a tiny town near Rome, didn’t they?’ He had mentioned its name once, early on, when she asked him about his Italian side.

  He nods.

  ‘Then you must have relatives in Italy still?’

  He moves off through a green light. ‘I probably have a hundred of them out there in Italy, and in Poland too, but I have never felt the slightest need to track any of them down. One tragic and messed-up family is quite enough.’

  They are driving along the familiar street. They pass the bakery, the yoga studio, the bank. There are Happy Holidays signs in the windows, and Christmas lights, and dirty snow banked up along the sidewalks.

  ‘I still don’t get,’ she says, ‘why you didn’t feel you could tell me any of this. You managed to tell me about the fire. Why not Carlo? Even just the bare bones?’

  His jaw slackens. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He indicates and pulls into their street. ‘You have no idea how sorry I am, Tess. I love you – I love you so much. I wanted it to just be me and you, just our little family. I thought it could be that simple.’

  ‘Well, it can’t.’ She balls her fists on her lap. ‘A little family is always going to be part of a bigger one. You have to promise that you’ll talk to me from now on, even about the bad stuff – especially about the bad stuff. I know all this must have been unbearable for you. I know the trial and Carlo vanishing must have been hideous. But it’s part of who you are, just like my own experiences dealing with my mother – the sadness, the worry, the guilt – are part of who I am. This is only going to work if we talk to each other. I have to be able to trust you to be honest. The alternative is just too damaging.’

  He reaches out and folds his hand over one of her fists, enclosing and squeezing her fingers so that she can’t see her own hand anymore because it is completely covered by his. Then he lets go and turns down their drive.

  She knows she should feel closer to him now, relieved, softened – purged, perhaps. She has the explanation that she’s been looking for. It all hangs together, it all makes sense. But she doesn’t feel relieved. She feels as if she has dug down to the foundations of their home only to find that they are cracked, flawed and in need of major repair.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It is gone midnight, they are in bed, and she is feeding Lily again. She is supposed to keep her to regular four-hourly feeds, but she has conclusively failed and Lily seems to feed almost constantly. Since it is more exhausting to resist this than to give in and feed her, breastfeeding feels like her main activity these days. Greg is lying next to them with his eyes half closed. She is not sure if he is asleep. Things between them still feel off-kilter. In the four weeks since they brought Lily home she has tried to put it all behind her, but she can’t get past Greg’s ability to keep things from her.

  When they got home with Lily on Christmas Eve, Joe was waiting for them. They had asked the Schechters’ nanny, Delia, to stay with him and as they drew up his face was at the upstairs window. He ran out onto the porch as they walked up the path, and Delia took pictures of the four of them as they carried Lily across the threshold.

  A broad Christmas tree, laden with lights and decorations, sat in the living room, its peak brushing the ceiling. Joe was excited as he led her to it. ‘Greg and me wanted to surprise you!’ She handed Lily to Greg and exclaimed over it, hugging Joe tight. Greg came up behind them and put his free arm around her, and Delia took a picture of them all, smiling by the tree with Lily sleeping through it all, in Greg’s arms.

  Christmas day passed in a blur of colicky yelling, nappies, feeds and Joe’s overexcitement. He ripped into Lego boxes, a Nerf gun, puzzles and football annuals, and they sat around the towering tree, ate turkey cooked by Greg, played games, watched parts of several movies. Everything ought to have been perfect, but beneath the loving exhaustion of their first Christmas, questions about Greg’s past rose up, one after another. What were his childhood Christmases like? Did he decorate the tree with his parents? Did they eat turkey or goose? Were there Italian or Polish customs they followed or was Thanksgiving the big celebration and Christmas an afterthought? And did Carlo spend Christmas with them? What about Aunt Julianna? Was she included? Was she an alcoholic when they were very young? Was she abusive, disruptive or simply a sad absence? How did the family deal with her? And how did Carlo deal with his mother?

  But of course she couldn’t ask him any of this because she couldn’t risk spoiling Christmas for Joe with the inevitable heightening of tension as Greg’s pain resurfaced. And most of the time she was too dazed to face anything that difficult, and so the questions rose and fell, rose and fell.

  And since then, for the past few weeks, the stresses of Lily’s feeding schedule, her colicky cries and the constant anxious monitoring, changing and comforting seemed to preclude any real discussion. So they cleared away the decorations, moved through New Year and into the dark, cold January days.

  They are tiptoeing around each other now, caring for the children, caring for one another, discussing Lily’s progress, her erratic feeding, her gradual weight gain, the latest check-up, but beneath these practicalities everything between them feels fraught, as if they are picking their way through rooms scattered with glass.

  One thing has been put to rest though: Helena. This morning, when she was picking her way up the icy pavement after dropping Joe at school, she saw Helena coming from the other direction, walking towards her own front yard in snow boots and the duvet coat. They could not avoid each other, so they teetered across the packed snow, meeting by the border between the houses. This was the first time Helena had encountered Lily, but she did not even glance into the sling. After the birth, Josh brought over a fruit basket, Sandra arrived with a baby blanket and a casserole, and even Muriel from the house on the corner dropped round with a basket of apple muffins, but so far Helena has behaved as if Lily does not exist.

  ‘So, Tess,’ she said, without preamble, ‘I hear my husband felt the need to share our marriage issues with you?’ Her green eyes were hostile beneath flicks of black eyeliner, her chin lifted.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tess tucked Lily’s hat down. She hadn’t spoken to Josh in weeks. Then she recalled discussion they had before Lily’s birth, before all of this – but it felt like years ago. It was irrelevant now.

  ‘I gather he told you we’ve been seeking marriage guidance.’

  ‘He might have said something …’

  ‘Well, in yesterday’s session, Tess, he admitted that he misinterpreted some things, and that he told you I was interested in your husband
.’

  It was time to tackle this head on. She did not have the energy for these games anymore. ‘And are you interested in Greg?’

  Helena’s face flushed. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Then why did you lie to me about knowing Greg at Harvard?’

  ‘I didn’t lie to you, Tess.’ She made a pitying face. ‘I knew who he was, everyone did.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t know you. He had no idea you were there around the same time.’

  ‘Ha!’ Helena gave a high, artificial laugh. ‘Well, then!’

  ‘Well what? You made it sound as if you two were friends, but you weren’t.’

  ‘None of this is relevant.’

  Tess readjusted Lily’s hat. Her feet, on thick ice, were beginning to feel numb. She tucked the blanket tighter around the sling.

  Helena offered a patronizing smile. ‘It sounds to me, Tess, as if you’re the one who should be feeling insecure about her marriage.’

  ‘Greg isn’t interested in you, Helena.’

  ‘Really? Then why are you so threatened by me?’

  ‘I don’t think I am.’

  ‘Now who’s being dishonest?’

  ‘OK, fine – I probably was, at the start, when I just moved here, and I didn’t know anyone, and you were quite unfriendly – and you seemed to be everywhere – but really, Helena, I’m definitely not threatened by you now.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Helena gave a sharp laugh. ‘Then why did you try to run me over?’

  She opened her mouth to say that it was not deliberate and then she realized that anymore discussion would be pointless. Helena was never going to be honest. She was all about winning, about being the best: the most beautiful, the most wise, the most successful, the most desired. She might or might not believe herself to be in love with Greg, but what she craved, above all, was glamour, recognition, admiration, things that were not available to her in the suburbs. There was a void inside Helena, and she was struggling to fill it. Tess almost felt sorry for her.

  And so she said nothing. She turned and walked away, treading carefully so as not to slip on the ice that was layered over packed snow, through the gate and onto the more solid ground of the gritted path, up to the big front porch of the mock Tudor house. She did not turn to see whether Helena was watching her. She did not care.

  *

  Lily squirms, Tess she puts her onto her shoulder, patting her back gently. She is so tired that she feels slightly sick. She prays that Lily will sleep, even for half an hour, and not need to be walked around the house most of the night again. Greg doesn’t open his eyes or move. He has been meeting with lawyers again today, going through depositions and legal strategies. He is determined not to settle and so the case could, he says, drag on for a very long time. Now is not the time to make him talk about his family, but there is never a good time. She is going to be tired for months, he is going to be juggling lawyers and research and patients for the foreseeable future. And meanwhile his past is eating away at them like a parasite. They have to find a way to talk about it.

  ‘Greg,’ she says, quietly, ‘are you awake?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Mostly.’

  There is silence.

  ‘What’s up?’ he turns his head and looks up at her, his brown eyes concerned.

  ‘I don’t know, I was just thinking … I still feel as if there’s a lot I don’t know about your family. I still feel a bit disturbed, you know, by finding out about Carlo like that – and the way we’ve been, you know, like nothing happened … Do you know what I mean?’

  He takes a breath through his nostrils. She waits for him to say it has been an exhausting day, he has to sleep, he has an early start in the morning, there is too much on his mind right now, lawyers and negotiations and recriminations and depositions, not to mention his own research, the sick children he is treating, tomorrow’s list – but he does not. He nods.

  ‘I do. So, what do you want to know about my family?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know really. Maybe I just want to know what your parents were actually like, as people.’

  He closes his eyes again. ‘They were good people.’ His voice is flat. ‘Hardworking people.’

  ‘I know, but how about Natalia? Was she a good mother? Was she kind or strict? What was she like?’ It is like edging along a precarious floor, waiting for a plank to break, but she has to do it.

  ‘She was strong, self-contained, kind of stoic. She knew her own mind, but she was nice too.’

  ‘Nice?’ It is a banal word to use about your mother.

  ‘I think she was driven a little crazy by small-town life.’

  ‘Did she work outside the home?’

  ‘Yes, of course, she worked part-time in a shop and she did all the books and paperwork for the family business.’ His voice tails off, sadly. He covers his eyes with one hand.

  It is costing him so much to remember his mother, but perhaps it will turn out to be helpful, it might release something for him too.

  ‘Why was small-town life difficult for her?’

  He shrugs. ‘You know – there was a lot of gossip and sniping. People had a lot to say about Julianna, particularly. I think she was a little ashamed of her sister.’

  ‘Was Julianna that bad?’

  He drops his hand and stares up at the ceiling again and to her surprise he carries on. ‘Not always, no. When she was younger she was kind of wonderful. When I picture her in those days, she’s stirring a pot with a book in her hand, her hair a mess. She loved to read, more than anything. She read all the time. She organized her bookshelves according to the friendships between the authors.’ He looks up at her, and gives a tortured smile. ‘You know – Truman Capote next to Harper Lee, Edith Wharton beside Henry James, JD Salinger out on his own by the yucca plant.’

  She smiles back at him encouragingly. It is the most he has ever said about any family member and for the first time she feels a sense of loss, not just for Greg or Lily, but for herself: she would have liked to know this difficult, bookish aunt whose life went so badly wrong.

  ‘She’d have liked you,’ he says, as if reading her mind. ‘She’d have been interested in your work. She had one friend, possibly her only friend, who was an artist. They were very close. She had a shack in the woods, she kept goats, but she’d studied in New York and Europe. Julianna was just too smart for the life she led, that was part of her problem. She had this fearsome, complicated, restless mind.’

  ‘She sounds slightly intimidating.’

  ‘She was, a little, I guess. But she could be funny too. She used to sing goofy Polish songs; she was a terrible singer.’

  ‘How bad was her drinking?’

  ‘It came in bouts. But over time, as things got … things got worse, I guess her drinking got more consistent.’

  ‘What “things”?’

  He says nothing and drops his forearm across his eyes again. She sees his Adam’s apple roll as he swallows. ‘Could we talk about her more another time maybe? She makes me very sad.’

  ‘OK. OK, that’s fine.’ She reaches out and squeezes his arm. He doesn’t move. ‘Would you be able to tell me just a little bit about your father before we stop? Can you face that?’

  ‘Sure.’ Greg drops his arm, looks at her. ‘He was distant, old-fashioned, a workaholic, strict. He wasn’t around much.’

  ‘That must be where you get it from.’

  Greg shrugs, but doesn’t smile. His jaw is clamped shut again.

  ‘Was he frustrated by small-town life too?’

  ‘Oh, God no, he loved it. He loved being the big fish in the small pond. He was into public service, he was on the borough council, the school board, you know, a pillar of the community.’

  ‘Were your parents happy together?’

  ‘They were OK, I think. I don’t really know.’ His voice flattens. ‘You don’t think about that sort of thing when you’re a kid.’

  She reaches for his hand with her free one and squeezes it tight. Lily squir
ms on her shoulder, but mercifully doesn’t wake up. She daren’t move her into the Moses basket in case she starts yelling again and Greg stops talking.

  ‘How did they meet?’

  He rubs the hand over his face, as if pushing away other, unwelcome thoughts.

  ‘They met in New York, not long after they all arrived in the States. All four of them were working in a garment factory. Natalia and Julianna were seamstresses, Giovanni and Giacopo worked on the factory floor. I think they spotted these beautiful Polish sisters, and that was that.’

  She imagines the sisters weighing up life with these dynamic Italian brothers, the four of them deciding to head off to start a business. ‘How on earth did the four of them end up in Pennsylvania?’

  ‘Giacopo saw the opportunity for a trucking business. He persuaded them all to move. I think he was the real entrepreneur, the one with the vision.’

  ‘Giacopo’s the one who died first? Carlo’s father?’

  Greg nods again, almost a wince.

  This is beginning to feel cruel. She leans over and kisses his cheek. ‘OK. I love you, thank you for telling me about them. I know it’s really hard for you to remember them like this but thank you. I think I just needed to know a bit more about who they were because, I mean, one day Lily will want to know about them too, won’t she?’

  ‘I know she will.’ He takes his arm away from his face and looks at her again. His expression is complicated: tense, troubled and unhappy. She wanted to believe that remembering and talking about them would release him from some of this pain, but he doesn’t look liberated. If anything, he looks more burdened than before.

  Lily’s limbs jerk, her eyes open and, startled by a dream or a vision – some inchoate threat, she opens her bud mouth and her face crumples like tissue paper around it. Tess shifts her onto the other shoulder and begins to pat her back, but her cries escalate.

  ‘Here,’ Greg sits up, holding out his hands, ‘she’s all mine tonight. You get some sleep.’

  ‘But you need sleep too.’

  ‘No, I don’t. What I need is to hang out with my beautiful baby girl.’ He gets out of bed, takes Lily from her and folds her over his broad shoulder, patting and making ‘shhh’ sounds as he walks across the bedroom and out onto the landing. As he turns to close the door behind him he pauses, and they look at each other. In the shadows she can’t make out his expression but she can feel the anguish of these memories running through his veins like an infection that he cannot shift.