Etched in Sand

by Regina Calcaterra

  Is this really happening? “When did Paul’s mother hold me?”

  “When you were here—you and your sisters lived here when you were little.”

  I knew it. This is the Happy House, and it was our home. I think of asking Julia whether I can use the phone to call Camille, but I don’t even want to take a breath that could risk derailing our conversation.

  “I’ve been thinking about where to begin, so I guess I’ll start at the beginning: with them dating.” She sets the cake in front of me and I edge it to the side, more enticed by the revelations that are lingering than the cakey cinnamon scent rising from the plate. “Cookie and Pauly dated,” Julia says. “God, I remember my first impression of Cookie: her striking dark eyes, white skin like milk, and those two adorable little girls. Pauly dated a lot of girls after he and Carol divorced, but he wouldn’t bring them all around here,” she says. “But sure enough, he brought your mom a few times. Pauly has another daughter, you know, from his marriage to Carol. So you have another sister, and two nieces—I think they still live in Alaska.”

  “How did we end up here?”

  She stays silent a moment, then reaches out for my hand. “Frank—that was my husband, Paul’s older brother. He died ten years ago. See, Frank already had three kids from his first marriage but his wife died giving birth to the third, God rest her soul. Then we had three more, and Frank worked full-time to support us all. But, you know, for a family of eight, we needed more income. So I watched other people’s kids while they worked. Parents brought their children to me either by references or they’d find me in the Pennysaver ads.”

  I look at her hand, still on mine. With carefully chosen words, Julia explains she hadn’t seen Cookie for over a year and a half after she and Paul stopped dating. “So I was . . . surprised, we’ll say, when she responded to one of my ads asking for day care for her three girls. The first morning, she shows up with little Cherie and Camille by her side, and she hands me this sweet baby girl—you had just turned a year old. And she says to me, ‘I’ll be back after work.’ So after about ten days of bringing you girls, Cookie appears on my stoop . . . and I’m just staring at this suitcase she’s carrying. ‘It just has some of the girls’ toys,’ she says. ‘It’ll keep them occupied during the day.’ That Cookie, I’ll never forget it: She smiled and told me, ‘Have a great day!’ Then as she’s waltzing toward her car, she calls over her shoulder, ‘Oh, by the way, Regina is Pauly’s baby!’

  “With you in my arms, I’m standing on the porch calling out to her: ‘Cookie, wait!’ But she ignores me and just pulls out of the driveway. I remember wondering how she could be so detached from these kids, you know? These three beautiful little girls. After she left, I went inside and opened the suitcase, and what did I find? Not toys. Oh, no. I found clothes . . . and cockroaches.”

  I look away. “She’s disgusting.”

  “I slammed the case closed and put it out at the curb. Then for the next eight hours I fumed, ready to lay into her when she returned that evening. But even by the time Frank got home, you girls were still here. She never returned. I told Frank, ‘You call Pauly and your mother,’ and immediately they both came over. As soon as Paul walked in, he saw your two sisters and said, ‘What the hell are these girls doing here?’ Then he looked to his mother, who was holding you in her arms. She said, ‘Paul, this child is your baby.’ Pauly turns to me and says, ‘Get rid of these kids!’ Then he turned around and left the house.”

  So all the years as a child, when I wondered whether my father existed, he knew I existed. “But you didn’t get rid of us?”

  “No. We ignored Paul—the whole family did. There was a right thing to do, to take responsibility for you . . . and he refused to do it. And, so, soon the weeks turned into months and the months turned into a year, and nobody knew where Cookie went. We finally turned to Suffolk County social services and asked them to just give us food stamps to cover the costs of our food. And instead of helping us, what does social services do? They demand we turn you girls over to the county for placement in an orphanage or foster home.” She rubs her temples, then places one hand, resting on her wrist, on the table. “Frank resisted. He told them he was not going to turn over his niece and her two sisters to complete strangers so you all could end up in an orphanage. All we needed was food stamps, no money. The county refused.” She leans back in her chair, resigned. “That’s when it all became a big mess.”

  Julia explains that she and Frank hurried out of the social services’ office, and the social workers asked when they were bringing us back. “Frank hollered over his shoulder, ‘Never!’ I thought he’d have a heart attack. A couple of days later, three social workers and the police showed up on our doorstep and demanded we turn you over. Frank clutched you so tight that it took two social workers to tear one arm at a time off of you, while the third took you from him.

  “Your Uncle Frank never saw you again after that,” Julia says. “He was devastated. He always wondered what happened to you and your sisters, and finally he came to accept that he was never going to see you again. Then—out of the blue—you wrote him in 1983. When we got your letter, he opened it, thinking it was for him, then he realized you wanted him to hand it off to Pauly. He called Pauly and read it to him. ‘You son of a bitch,’ Frank says, ‘you get over here and talk about this. I am your brother. Let me help you do the right thing.’ When Pauly arrived, Frank told him that he knew full well that you were his daughter, that he had to take responsibility for you and get you out of that foster home.”

  “So what did Paul do?”

  “Pauly? Not a thing, honey. Such a shame. My Frank . . . a decade he’s been gone and I just could not bring myself to go through his papers. Finally, before last Christmas, I knew it was time to go through them. That’s when I found the envelope. Pauly took that letter”—my stomach flips in excitement to hear Paul had cared to keep that much—“but your uncle Frank held on to the envelope all this time. He refused to throw it out. So when I found it, I knew he held on to it so that one day he could contact you . . . let you know the truth. I guess you could say it was for him that I reached out to you. Frank always wanted to right this somehow.” She looks at me softly, almost apologetically. “I was worried. It’s been sixteen years since you wrote that letter. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to find you, but when the letter didn’t come back, I knew you must have gotten it.”

  Julia goes on to tell me that she’ll answer any questions I have under one condition: No one in the Accerbi family can know who I really am. “I’ll tell them you and your sisters were some of the kids I used to watch back in the sixties.” She leans forward. “Regina, please understand: If the Accerbis ever find out what I’ve done by getting in touch with you, they’ll disown me. We’re a close family, you know? Just promise me you’ll keep all this to yourself.”

  I nod and scoot my plate of crumb cake toward me. “I promise.”

  Julia rises from the table and walks out of the kitchen, holding on to the same banister that I used to hold when I was a toddler. When the bathroom door shuts behind her, I wander around the kitchen, then drift into the dining room, over to the head of the table where I remember perching myself to look out at the backyard, where I remember Julia throwing birthday parties for her kids with streamers, balloons, and piñatas. On the dining room table is a personal phone book with each entry carefully handwritten. I look closer at the open page, A: Accerbi. Then scroll down the page until I see it:

  Paul & Joan.

  From the side pocket of my handbag I pull out my address book and pen and write quickly, checking their phone number closely. When the floor creaks behind me, I turn to see Julia standing there. “I see you found what you came for.”

  “I did.” I smile. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not feeling well,” Julia says. “For years I haven’t been well. My body gets bloated and it gets difficult to sit or even to breathe. I need to rest,” she says. “But I want you to come back and se
e me soon, please—bring your sisters with you, Regina. I’d love to see them again.”

  I meet her at the foot of the stairs and kiss her cheek. “Thank you, Julia.” Just as I push out of the front door, two middle-aged women open the gate and head toward the house. I shoot Julia a look and she steps in to introduce me. “Regina, these are my daughters: Yvonne and Darlene. Girls, you might remember Regina. She was one of the girls I used to watch. You remember her sisters, Cherie and Camille?”

  “Me Too!” Yvonne says. “We called Camille ‘Me Too’ because every time Cherie asked for something, Camille would say, ‘Me too’!”

  I smile, remembering the old moniker my sisters used to use. “Yes,” I tell them. “Camille was Me Too. It’s nice to see you both.”

  I put the keys in the ignition and let out a deep exhale, giving myself a minute to take it all in. This was the Happy House. It really exists, more than one of the last pieces of a broken, puzzled childhood: also the home of my family. I have relatives. It crosses my mind to drive around once more and stare at the house, but instead I head straight to Camille’s.

  “Camille, I remembered everything,” I tell her. “The linoleum in the kitchen, the Mary statue outside.” As I relay the details to Camille, together we reach our conclusion: It was after being taken from the Happy House that we ended up at the home of the Giannis’—the Bubble House. That’s when we were finally taken to the Glue Factory and I encountered Cookie for the first time.

  Christmas Mama.

  “So what are you going to do with Paul’s information? Anything?” Camille says.

  I’m busy collecting my thoughts. This man—now, almost certainly, my father—rejected me twice, and I refuse to let him do it again. I need time to develop a rational strategy: Either I will inform him that I know that he is my father, or compel him to take a DNA test. Either route requires extremely thoughtful processing. “I’m at peace, surprisingly. For now, this is enough.”

  “Well, good, sweetie.”

  Besides, for Julia’s sake, I need to tread cautiously.

  On my drive back to Manhattan, something else clicks: the screen door with the Jesus stickers and the Mary statue on the front lawn; the ceramic Jesus heads hanging on the wall not too far from the ceramic plate of Jesus and the bronze cross of Jesus. Something about all of the Jesus images weighs on me as I try to recall why they seem so familiar. Instead of taking my car back to the rental agency, I drive straight to my apartment, find a parking spot, and run up the five flights to my apartment. “Camille,” I huff into the phone in excitement, “Julia had images of Jesus all over her house, from before you even open the front door. When did I begin to carry the Baby Jesus figurines everywhere?”

  “When you were a toddler,” she says, laughing. “Now we know where they came from.”

  A few weeks later, in late February 1998, Camille receives a phone call from Norman in Idaho. “Mom’s been diagnosed with cancer,” he tells her. “They told her it can’t be cured.”

  I have hope that in Cookie’s suffering she accepts responsibility for all the pain she inflicted on us and will finally ask forgiveness rather than point fingers. Still, I know there’s no way I can actually forgive her . . . not for what she did to me, but for what she did to Rosie.

  CHERIE AND CAMILLE pay for Cookie to fly in from Idaho, hoping finally this woman will try and redeem herself before her death. “Good luck. I’m not sticking around for this,” I tell Camille, opting instead to join the Irish guy I’ve been dating and his family for the holidays in Dublin.

  On January 1, 1999, I call Camille’s house to wish her a Happy New Year. In response, she tells me that Cookie refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing during our childhoods. “Nothing’s changed, Regina, but we knew better than to hold our breaths for an apology. You’ll be back in New York the day before Cookie’s scheduled to go back to Idaho. Don’t you think saying good-bye could give you some closure?”

  Apparently Cookie told my sisters that everything we believe happened to us was in our imaginations. “I did a fine job raising you girls!” she said. “Look how well you turned out.”

  Disregarding her denial and my loathing of her, I indulge Camille by seeing our mother one last time. My siblings and their kids crowd around me and my sister’s dining room table as I share pictures from my Ireland trip. Cookie sits in the living room, watching television by herself.

  “Gi,” Camille says, “it’s getting late. Should Cherie and I get you to the rail station?”

  “Sure.” I close my album slowly and kiss each of the kids good-bye. After I put on my coat, I turn and whisper to Camille: “Just a minute.” In the living room, I leave a wide space between myself and the recliner where Cookie’s sitting, knowing that distance from her is the only thing that has kept me both physically and emotionally safe. Wearing a blue flannel shirt, black stretch pants, and a scowl, she slowly meets my eyes. The TV’s reflection flashes off the lenses of her huge, shaded eyeglasses. “Good-bye,” I tell her. It comes out cold and flat. When she responds with silence, I nod. This is all I’ll get. Cherie opens the front door, and Camille and I exit with her.

  When the three of us get to the train station, we all break down in tears. It’s a cry of anger for our mother’s failure to take responsibility, for the unfairness of having had no say in choosing who brought us into this world . . . and for our relief knowing that soon she’ll be gone, for good.

  IN THE SPRING of 1999, I receive a call from Camille at work. “Gi, I have some wild news for you. It’s something that you’d think could never happen to Frank and me.”

  “You . . . won the lottery?”

  “No! Think of the thing that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “You’re pregnant?”

  “Yes! We’re having another baby!” I feel her beaming on the other end of the phone. In 1996, Frank was diagnosed with a cancer that the doctors said would affect their ability to have any more children. Camille stayed with me in Manhattan while her mother-in-law took the kids so that Frank could receive treatments at Sloan-Kettering.

  “But after the cancer, the doctors told you it wouldn’t be possible to have more babies.”

  “Well, God thought differently,” Camille says. “We’re expecting Baby Number Four in October.”

  As Camille’s belly blossoms, so does my relationship with Julia. I receive handwritten notes from her at least monthly, and anytime I travel from Manhattan to Long Island, I make a point to see her. We’re both discreet in keeping our relationship from her daughters and her extended family, but Julia’s genuine interest in my life has prompted her to become reacquainted with Camille. On holidays and birthdays, she sends letters and cards to both her and Cherie.

  In October 1999, Camille delivers Danielle Grace. The birth of a baby girl is a good excuse for all of us to celebrate, made even sweeter thanks to the fact that of the seven children in the family, five are boys: Frankie and Michael, who belong to Frank and Camille; and Cherie’s three sons, Anthony, Matthew, and Johnathan. Finally, Camille’s daughter, Maria, will have another little girl to grow up with.

  With every new life that enters our family, more and more joy abounds. Silently, there’s a satisfaction inside me that Cookie can never be part of it: We don’t know how long she has, but it’s clear she will not outlive this decade. In November, a month after Danielle’s birth, I find myself with an irresistible urge to write Cookie a lengthy letter. Don’t ever deceive yourself into believing that you should be credited for our achievements, I tell her. Despite the odds and your attempted influences, we’ve prevailed. Many women can give birth, but that doesn’t make them a mom. To us, you’re just Cookie.

  Norm reports back that he began to read the letter to her but she told him to stop after the first paragraph. He also informs us she’s made a last-minute switch from being Mormon to American Indian because she believes it will be better for her after death.

  Thanksgiving passes and Norman shares reports of Cookie’s immin
ent demise. “I have only one wish,” I tell Camille. “I pray she will not pass on December sixteenth.”

  Camille looks at me curiously.

  “December sixteenth is Julia’s birthday.”

  By now, Julia and I have grown extremely close and I don’t want her special day of the year to be spoiled or overshadowed by my mother’s death. But of course, in the early morning hours of December 16, shortly after one A.M. in Idaho and four A.M. in New York, my phone rings.

  “She’s gone,” Camille tells me.

  We sit on the phone in silence, letting it all sink in. The chapter of our lives that we’ve waited so long to close is now over.

  I take the day off from work and Camille picks me up at the rail station. Without discussing our plan, she pulls onto the highway and we both know where we’re headed. We drive out to Saint James General Store—past Wicks farm stand, where we used to steal apples, and King Kullen, where we used to sneak our meals out of the store beneath our clothes. We drive past the Glue Factory apartment, now a Sal’s Auto Mechanics, where we spent the longest time consecutively as a family. We head to Saint James Elementary School, where we wander the back grounds . . . and we finally end up at Cordwood Beach—the place we used to play for hours, writing our names in the sand, hunting the rocks for clams, and picking fistfuls of onion grass for our dinners.

  Arm in arm, my sister and I walk the beach, saying nothing. Under the gray December sky, we look out at the Long Island Sound to where the floating dock once was anchored; to the broken stone house that we used to climb on.

  “She did one thing right,” Camille says.

  “What?”

  “She gave us each other.”

  The lives Cookie gave us were only etched in sand; able to be erased and written all over again . . . better, with meaning. We’ve all made our stories into what we wanted for ourselves.

  Standing side by side on the cold beach, there’s just one thought keeping Camille and me from feeling total completion: Rosie. She doesn’t want us to be a part of her life or to know her family.