She managed to get to the fifth month before showing. I came home from the library and found Mickey sitting on the front steps, a beer in hand at noon. He looked at me, frowning. “I suppose you knew.”
I slid around him. Mother was in the kitchen, polishing the burners on the stove wearing rubber gloves. “I can’t go back to the way things were before, Christine. Hank’s out of the picture. I can’t depend on my mother’s help or our return business. Or working at the makeup counter in Woolworth’s like a teenager, spritzing people with perfume. On my feet all day. I’m thirty-six old, Christine!” Her voice died away. She hated to talk about her age. Even when she was taking off many years as she was now. It took all the life out of her.
If Mickey leaves me, I don’t know what I’ll do.” Mother dabbed daintily at her eyes. “He means the world to me, Christine. To us! I bet a son will turn things around.”
Russell was born four months later and our lives changed profoundly.
Mary Theresa and I stood on one side of the hospital bed, Mickey on the other. Mother held the sleeping baby—as yet unnamed—in her arms. Frankly I’d never heard them discuss a name or anything else related to the coming child. Mother’s swelling middle was a topic nobody wanted to take on—and Mickey’s enmity simmered just beneath the cracking veneer of our family life.
Even though Eve was my mother, it was hard to imagine her taking care of a baby, hard to picture her changing a diaper or breast-feeding an infant, giving over a part of her body to someone else if only temporarily. Now that the kid was on the scene, it was even more improbable.
Our small living room was already crammed with stuff my grandmother had sneaked in, nearly crowding out Mickey’s fish. Knocking the wall down added to the difficulties. It’d be a tight fit in other ways with Mary Theresa wanting her share of Mickey too. Mother’s late announcement gave Mickey very little time to adjust. An uneasy and unnatural silence had held in the household until Mother’s first scream, and unsurprisingly it was me escorting her to the hospital, sitting with her in the delivery room, present for the birth.
Now Mickey was looking grimly at his offspring.
“A boy, huh?” He sounded neither pleased nor overly interested. “Don’t suppose you got a name in mind.”
Before she could open her mouth, Mickey said, “Well, let’s name the kid after my father. Russell John DiSantis. Russ, for short. What d’ya think, Mary Theresa?” he asked his daughter—as if her opinion counted for anything—as if it were solely a DiSantis family decision. “You remember him, don’t you? Your grandad? Always had a pipe sticking out of his mouth. Looked kinda like Popeye.” He turned toward his wife. “Smelled like a walking ashtray, Eve. Funny how smoke clings to some people and not others. Him—you could smell fifty feet away.” Then back to Mary Theresa, smiling like it was a grand joke. “Still, he was my dad, God love him.”
Popeye? It would be hard to wipe that name from my mind. Popeye DiSantis? Why would you want to name a baby after a man who stunk of smoke? Or resembled a cartoon figure?
“I think I remember him,” Mary Theresa said, cautious as always.
She was probably calculating the odds in the name being a joke before she spoke. No daughter was more eager to please her parent—except me, perhaps— though I thought I hid it better. The intensity of paternal love I saw in her eyes had faded in mine. It was more about risk management and self-preservation; more about keeping the harm to a minimum. The beads of perspiration on her face as she tried to please him were unlikely to pepper mine again.
I was certainly wrong there, although my forced involvement in the death of Jerry Santini had started the process of separation. What came later hardened me more. Mary Theresa wouldn’t be as cool under fire. Her hands, clutching at her skirt until she’d made a horizontal pleat, always got my attention because she’d no idea what real stress was.
“Popeye, Daddy?”
I groaned inwardly. This was bound to be the kid’s nickname after this lengthy discussion.
“Well, he wasn’t a sailor. Didn’t wear a sailor uniform. Kind of bandy-legged though.” Was he treating this discussion as serious? Mother and I flashed each other a look.
“Racine remembers him. He had a thing for her near the end. Wouldn’t let anyone else feed him. Always looking for an excuse to put his paws on her. Rub up against those boobs.” He laughed.
So Racine was big-breasted? I’d only seen her once and hadn’t noticed. It wasn’t an era for tight knit tops revealing such things.
“You wanna name him Russell?” Mother said. Apparently the name had taken a while to sink in or she was still under the influence of the drugs she’d insisted on. “I don’t know, Mickey. Sounds like an old man. Who’d want to name an itsy bitsy baby Russell?”
She said the last words in baby talk, looking at her swaddled offspring. Russell—and he didn’t look like a Russell, but who would—was silent. He’d always be able to sleep through tight situations. A stoic. I felt something stir inside me, in a place unknown until that moment.
“I was thinking of something like Jason. Or Joshua. Maybe Ryan.” Mother paused a second. “I thought you hated your dad, Mick? Didn’t he used to whip you with his belt? Accuse you of doing things he’d done? Beat your mother? Drink till he passed out?”
Jeez, and she’d married his son?
“Sissy names,” Mickey said, ignoring her questions. “Racine wanted to name Mary Theresa something goofy—Cheyenne, I think—and I hadda put my foot down.”
“Was it really Cheyenne, Daddy?” Mary Theresa asked, perking up.
It was rare when any piece of information about Mary Theresa entered his conversation. Mostly she served as his prop or ally. Even I was better at grabbing the spotlight. I could see her lips forming the name that might have been hers.
He thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Coulda been Cody. Or maybe it was something like Gigi or Gidget. After some movie or TV show she liked. Ridiculous. A name for a poodle not a person. Gidget!” he repeated, looking at Mary Theresa as if she had suggested it.
“Oh, I don’t know,” my stepsister said, eager to hold onto his attention for a few more seconds. “I kind of like those names. Mary Theresa’s such a dull name.”
She put her hands under her thick hair and lifted it. We all watched spellbound as several pounds of heaviness disappeared from her face. I noticed for the first time she had long eyelashes and her chin was pert. Maybe the name Gigi would’ve made a difference. A girl named Gigi wouldn’t wear a uniform all the time. Or if she did, it’d be seen as fashion statement instead of stodginess. Gidget would’ve given a father like Mickey the cold shoulder, would’ve spoken French, and smoked black cigarettes. Maybe had affairs. We could’ve been close friends. I yearned for Gigi too.
“Stodgy?” Mickey started to say. But he too was captivated by Mary Theresa’s transformation. “Hey, don’t wear your hair like to school,” he said, after a minute. “We got enough trouble around here.” He looked over at his new son and all of our eyes followed.
“Look, what’s done is done as far as Mary Theresa’s name goes,” Mother put in, reclaiming the spotlight. “It’s this kid who needs a name. My kid. Let’s focus on him.”
Mary Theresa visibly wilted. Any chance at a name change to something like Gigi or Cheyenne disappeared. She let her hair drop back to its rightful position.
The name Russell sounded funny to me already, the way words sometimes do when they’re repeated too often. Mickey continued to stare at his baby dispassionately.
“Russell. Solid name. Not too common, not too unusual.”
I got the idea he was seeing a future used car dealer. Or perhaps a future used car buyer.
He took a step closer to the baby. “Little Russ doesn’t look a thing like my father though. Looks a little like—well like Christine.” Mary Theresa stifled a laugh. “Why does he look like Christine, Eve?” Mickey continued. “Hank come around when I was out?” Mickey’s voice had a nasty edge in it.
He laughed after a few seconds, and it dissolved. “Old habits die hard, right?” I peered at my brother, trying to see a pug nose—and all of the other less than desirable features I’d been saddled with. But he was perfect.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Mother adjusted Russell’s blanket. “All babies look like Christine. She’s got that kinda face.”
I glared at Mother, but she was still looking at Russ with a beatific look on her face.
“It takes a while before you find out who a baby looks like. All their eyes are blue, for instance, but I think his will change to brown. Like yours, Mick.” When he didn’t respond to the coo in her voice, she added, “I thought Christine looked like her grandmother Moran the first few weeks. Thank god, it didn’t last.”
Pow! Another hit. My mind flew to my paternal grandmother. I never did understand how people saw a baby in the face of a senior citizen. How did they push away the wrinkles, the sagging flesh and fat, to find a baby’s features?
“Can I hold him?”
They all stared at me in surprise. Ignoring their somewhat hostile expressions, I put my arms out.
“You want to hold him?” Mother said, cuddling him closer. “Well, I don’t know.”
Never any good at sharing, Russell was the nearest thing to a possession in Mother’s hospital room. I wondered again if she’d be able to give her milk away—a nipple even. I could picture her pumping milk into little bottles she’d store in a fridge in one of her storage units. Stock-piling breast milk for future use.
“I’ve held babies before,” I reminded her.
“Not babies a few hours old, Christine.” Mother shrugged. “Oh, well. I guess it’ll be okay.”
Reluctantly, she held my brother out to me and I took him in my arms. Instantly, I knew Russell, or whatever his name turned out to be, belonged to me. He may have come from Mother’s uterus, but he’d be mine soon enough. Her interest in him would fade over time, very little time. Especially if he didn’t make himself useful, which he was unlikely to do for years. (I was wrong about this.) But my devotion to my brother would never diminish, and he’d quickly grow to depend on my unwavering loyalty. I gulped this knowledge down, held him for a minute, and reluctantly passed my brother on to Mary Theresa so as not to tip my hand. Being overly interested in my brother would alert all three of them. It was a tough group to play poker with.
My stepsister barely glanced at the baby, even more uninterested in him than Mickey was. So the intensity I’d experienced minutes ago wasn’t typical of all girls my age—or of all female relatives. He was her half-brother too, but she could’ve been holding anything. Probably she saw the baby as another distraction for her father. Perhaps I needed to watch her carefully for signs of her harboring a murderous rage toward Russell. Immediately I pictured her wielding a knife over his sleeping body, her school uniform merely adding a grotesque element to the image.
If my father remarried, as he threatened to do occasionally, how would I react to a new stepbrother or sister? Probably somewhat indifferently since I’d see the kid so rarely. But Mary Theresa had a close relationship with Mickey. She adored him, visiting twice a week at least, bringing him little presents, calling him most nights. If my presence in her father’s house had been difficult to get used to, Russell’s would be thornier still, and he’d take more of Mickey’s limited time. Although I hadn’t wished my stepsister any ill will before, and had grown to somewhat like her, I wrote her off. Love me, love my brother. Her face betrayed her feelings. You could sense her fingers itching to hand him off to someone.
“Your turn, Mick,” Mother said, sensing it too. She gestured to him with her head. It was like the two DiSantis’ were passing the offering plate at church, a necessary if annoying task foisted on them. Neither wanted to throw in the fiver.
Mary Theresa stepped closer to her father quickly, preparing to give him the bundle. “Here, Daddy, our little Russ.”
The father-son introduction didn’t go well. All of our arms twitched as we wondered if she’d drop the baby in her rush to be rid of him. Only Russell slept on, unconcerned.
“Maybe later. Never been much good around infants. You know that.”
How would any of us know that, I wondered? Had I said it aloud?
“Wait till he can throw a ball,” Mickey said. “We’ll be big buddies.”
So neither DiSantis liked my new brother. It was good to know this from the outset. Good to know I’d have to protect him from what was to come. He wouldn’t know the hurt of their indifference because I’d take their places in his life. Be everything to him. I knew how to devote myself to one person. I learned fealty at the master’s knees. I’d merely transfer it. I swelled inside, feeling like I might burst with emotion. Instantly, he became the love of my life.
“I’ve never seen you throw a ball, Mick,” Mother said icily, taking the baby back. “Is there even a ball in the house?” She clutched Russell to her chest as if some harm had already been done to him. “Maybe if he learns to play poker, you’ll take to him. Or if he gets interested in tropical fish.”
Mickey groaned. “You know what I mean, Eve. Look, I didn’t hold Mary Theresa much either. These hands,” he said, looking at them, “are clumsy mitts. But Racine didn’t push me. Didn’t expect a man to know much about babies. And in time, we were as close as any father and daughter. Right, Baby.”
Mary Theresa nodded happily, eager to accept this myth. Having Mother say such a thing to someone would’ve seduced me once.
Here it was again though—the idea Racine was wise and wonderful. She got everything right where Mickey was concerned, and I wondered why he left her. Why did he desert two devoted women who so clearly worshipped him? For all her bluster, I knew Mother didn’t love Mickey. She was using him for something—just what I hadn’t figured out.
Maybe Mickey couldn’t take so much devotion. He liked being tolerated rather than loved. He’d done some horrible thing in the past and couldn’t accept such adulation.
I’d tried on many occasions to get my stepsister to fill me in on their final days as a family, what went wrong. But Mary Theresa was silent, perhaps regarding any answer as potentially disloyal. I got the idea it was some sexual thing though. Racine was certainly attractive, but maybe over time she saw things my mother hadn’t seen yet—such as Mickey resembling a rodent, for instance. Perhaps the exact one he took his name from. Maybe he’d demanded weird and demeaning things from her. Nothing would surprise me.
Mickey fled when the nurse came to administer some topical ointment, Mary Theresa following at his heels. Perhaps he was worried his fish had jumped ship. Used his absence to make their escape upstream.
“Those fish are probably up to no good,” Mother said as if she’d read my mind. Neither of us smiled at her wan attempt at humor. Things were not going well. We could both feel the change in the climate and wondered what new trouble would blow in.
Soon it’d be the three of us. I wondered if Mother knew this too. I hovered over my brother until another nurse came into the room and sent me home. I had to take two buses to get there, but Mickey had never thought about my situation when he took off with his blood child. What did he care if someone abducted me on the street?
The next day, Mother and Russell came home and the situation grew worse. There was nowhere for Russell to sleep except in their room, and Mickey hated having him there.
“The room smells like baby poop and breast milk,” he complained. “I made this room into something special for you, Eve. Something glamorous and romantic.” He waved his arms around as if Mother had committed an act of treachery. “Can’t we put him somewhere else? I’ve heard a baby shouldn’t sleep with his parents anyway.”
Mother had already packed her beauty products and moved them to the basement, and her clothing now occupied most of my closet. My stuff, pushed to the far end, was too pathetic in comparison with her wardrobe to complain. Why did corduroy skirts and cotton blouses need much room?
“Where d
o you expect Russell to sleep? In the basement with Jack LaLanne? The air isn’t good enough with a furnace five feet away. Probably there’s mold growing too. The dryer isn’t vented right.”
“How about in Christine’s room?” Mickey suggested. “Couldn’t Russ sleep in there? We could stick his crib in the little alcove.”
“Sure,” I said, without hesitation.
Within a few hours, Russell was dozing next to my bed. I heard every nocturnal breath my brother took for the next few years, although only a few months of those breaths would be in that house. I’m sure he thought of me as his mother— almost from the start. I certainly thought of him as my child. Virgin I might be—but a mother too. Others had done it.
“You’re telling me, you never married him? Never married Mickey?”
My grandmother was shouting when I came in from school. I’d never heard her shout so loudly before so I was taken aback.
“What about the honeymoon in Florida? Was any of it true?”
I was flabbergasted by this news. Flabbergasted but delighted. The reign of Mr. Fishstick was coming to an end.
My mother sighed. “Look, the whole thing got away from me. First, we were going to see a Justice of the Peace before we left for Miami. Some judge Mickey knows.”
Probably one in traffic court, I thought to myself. Mother was fluttering around the living room, avoiding eye contact, indicating she expected to tell some pretty big lies along the way. She didn’t stop moving when she fibbed.
“But it was one thing after another getting ready for the trip. We didn’t have the right luggage for a nice resort so I had to go into town to the luggage store. Twice. And clothes! You can’t imagine the things I needed. I’d been dressing like a pauper for years.” She glanced at her mother’s face, saw no incredulity, and so continued. “Miami was a whirl of activity. We played golf every day, a little tennis too, met some dealers, car dealers, that is,” she explained when she saw my grandmother’s face. “And we had reservations for dinner or a show most nights.”
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