by T. Greenwood
I stumbled away from the tower, trudging through the wet and cold, allowing the wind to permeate me as I made my way to the footbridge that led to the esplanade. The river was choppy, the water like a moving sculpture beneath me. I watched the icy current, mesmerized and paralyzed, thinking I could swim. If I were to just shed my clothes and leap into the water, the river would have no choice but to embrace me, to hold me. I’d been a swimmer my whole life, and not once had water ever failed me, accused me, spurned me. In water, I was absolutely who I was supposed to be.
That was what I was thinking, it truly was, when I slipped off my shoes and started to climb over the fence that separated me from the river below: brain and heart numbed by the frigid New England winter. I was only thinking, I could swim. I could just swim.
I was the only one out here, the only one stupid enough to face this bitter cold, and I felt absolutely alone as I stood, perched as if to dive into the icy depths below. It was the way I had felt for years, before Eva came along and changed all that. And now Eva was gone, and I was alone again.
I held on to the fence behind me, felt my legs, protected only by my thin stockings, pressing against the cold, metal barrier between earth and water. The wind urged me on and then pushed me back. It whispered in my ear, beckoning. When I felt the tug at my coat, I thought it was also only the wind playing games with me.
“Lady?” a voice said, and I turned around.
Standing on the walkway behind me was a small child, a little boy. He wasn’t dressed for the cold: no boots, no scarf, no mittens.
“You aren’t thinking of jumpin’, are ya?” he asked.
Jumping? I had only thought of swimming. Of the glorious, graceful dive into the water. Embarrassed, I shook my head.
He held out his hand, and I took it. And despite the cold, his skin was warm. He helped me climb off the fence and back down to earth. I used his shoulder to steady myself as I climbed back into my soaking wet pumps. I hadn’t put the rubbers back on, and my shoes were soaked all the way through.
“You been cryin’,” he said. Not a question, just a simple statement of fact.
I studied his face. His dark hair, the freckles across the bridge of his nose. He looked like Johnny. Not exactly, but there was something familiar. The same but different. And suddenly, I felt my stomach plummet. The children. God, how could I be so selfish? How could I have even considered diving into that icy water? Eva was a better person than I. A better mother. I hadn’t once considered the children. Maybe Frankie was right. Maybe I didn’t deserve the children. I felt overwhelmed by guilt, by this terrible failure.
“Why aren’t you in school?” I asked him as he led me away from the water’s edge.
“I am. I only came outside for a smoke.”
“What?” I said, horrified.
“Just joshin’ you, lady. I go home for lunch, but sometimes I come here instead.”
“Well, let me walk you back,” I said.
“You think I go to school around here?” He laughed. “I’m a Southie.”
“What are you doing all the way up here?” Misplaced maternal anxiety ripped through my body like the cold wind that was coming off the river now. “You shouldn’t be walking the streets all by yourself.”
“Well, I ain’t the one who was gonna jump into the rivah,” he said, his accent as thick as Frankie’s.
“Touché,” I said.
“What’s that mean?”
I just smiled. “Well, let me at least walk you back to the subway station,” I said.
“How about I show you something instead?”
“You’re not planning to go back to school at all, are you?” I asked.
“How ’bout you stop asking questions?” he said.
He led the way down Boylston Street, and I followed behind. He stopped when we got to a building that appeared to be an old fire station.
“Come on!” he said. I knew that if I didn’t go inside with him, I would risk frostbite. I might lose my toes, my fingers, if I didn’t get out of the cold soon. I couldn’t feel my feet at all, and my face was completely immobilized by the cold. I struggled to get the door open, and even then it took every ounce of my strength to remain standing and not collapse by the information desk, where a lady with eyeglasses suspended from a beaded chain around her neck looked at us, shaking her head with disapproval.
“There’s some cool stuff in here,” he said. “But I gotta go, before they call the boys on me.” And then he was gone, just a flash of gray disappearing through the doors just as quickly as he had earlier materialized at the river’s edge. I wondered if years from now he’d remember me, the crazy lady in her stocking feet whom he saved from jumping into the Charles River. Would he tell the story to his pals at the pub, to his girl as he courted her? Would he wonder at the serendipity of his skipping school and finding me? Maybe, maybe not. I might escape his memory as quickly as these paintings and sculptures would. I might become a small smudge in his impression of this day, if he remembered the day at all. Childhood is filled with a zillion miracles we are less likely to remember than forget. But I knew that I would always remember him: the face splattered with freckles, Johnny’s face, the runny nose, and warm hands. I would remember the small tug at my coat that saved my life. The gentle reminder that I was not alone in the world. I was a mother. I still had to take care. This day for me would not be the impressionistic blur of a childhood recollection but rather the clear photograph of the day that I’d almost given up. The day I’d let my selfish sorrows almost overwhelm me.
I sat down on one of the benches meant for the weary museum patrons, and boy, was I weary. I took a hankie out of my purse and blew my nose, which, like a frozen pipe, seemed to have burst and started running a nearly unstoppable stream. Then for some reason, rather than looking at the painting before me, a painting that surprisingly has escaped my memory now, I looked up. And when I did, I saw the mobile. The enormous, brightly colored shapes suspended as if by nothing but hope and imagination. And for the second time that day, I felt like someone was sending me a message.
I make my way slowly from the guest room to the kitchen, where Devin has set the waiting phone on the kitchen table. He’s disappeared again upstairs, to give me privacy, I suppose, though I want nothing less in this moment than to be alone with that telephone. I consider simply hanging up, cutting Johnny off before he has a chance to speak, silencing him. I realize that I am terrified of what he has to say to me. I worry that he will tell me how damaged he is by what happened, how if not for Eva and me, he would have been like any other boy. If we hadn’t been so selfish, so single-minded and intent, then we would have stopped to consider the children. That my own children suffered as well. I have had this conversation with Francesca a hundred times. She herself has accused me, has blamed me, has ripped my heart open with her harsh words.
I am beginning to expect less and less that he has summoned me here to apologize for revealing our secret to Ted and setting into motion everything that happened that winter. I imagine now that he will have accusations, that he will blame me. I suspect that he has called me here to finally seek retribution for his fractured childhood. And the worst part is, I know that his indictment is exactly what I deserve. I blame myself. Of course I do.
I can smell the fire in the wood stove, hear the crackle and hiss of the logs inside. Effie and Devin are sleeping, Gussy is sleeping, the girls are also fast asleep. I am completely alone in this midnight kitchen. Alone with Johnny’s voice and my smoldering remorse.
I have spent nearly fifty years immersed in the memories of my time with Eva. I have relived every moment I had with her a thousand times. In my mind, I have changed history. I have contemplated every single factor, fiddled with my decisions. Tinkered with the tiniest choices I made, in an effort to prevent disaster. I have lived a life of regret. Even the life I made with Lou was overshadowed by the tragedy of Eva. It pains me to admit this, but it is true. And this realization hits me like a blow to the
chest. I feel my heart beating wildly, and I start to feel dizzy. My ears fill, and stars circle my vision. I use my hands to steady myself against the kitchen table, will myself to stay conscious. Will myself to stay alive.
I stare at the pale white phone, the same old phone that has been here forever, attached to its base by a curling umbilical cord.
What do I owe this man? I ask myself as I reach for the handset through the blur of stars. What do I owe this child?
What do you owe to someone whose mother you killed?
I knew Eva hadn’t meant it. Her pleas for me to leave her, to forget her, were spoken out of fear. Insincere. I had to trust that if I simply hung on she would come around, that patience and persistence would bring her back to me. That Ted hadn’t completely brainwashed her. That there was still hope. If I hadn’t held on to this fragile sliver of belief, then I would not have survived that winter.
The letters I wrote to Eva after that awful day in the city were not the same pathetic, lovesick epistles I had sent before. Instead they were carefully crafted entreaties. They were diagrams, plans. In them I outlined how I would get her and the children out of that dark, suffocating apartment, away from Ted, away from that life. And how, if we were intelligent about it, we could begin our new life together. Every day for three weeks I delivered a new letter to the mailbox while Frankie took his shower, which was thankfully nearly an hour-long process because of the cast. And then later, when the cast was removed, and he was finally able to go back to work, I slipped the letters in the mailbox after he had gone off to the city.
At first there was no response. I worried that she no longer even made the trip to the post office to collect the mail. I tried not to think about my letters piling up inside that tiny receptacle, the postman shaking his head and cramming the next missive in.
I thought of calling, but in addition to the fear of Frankie seeing a Boston number on the phone bill, we were still on a party line, and both Mrs. Boucher and Hannah were notorious for listening in to other people’s conversations. I also never knew when Ted might be there, when he might pick up.
And then, on Valentine’s Day, as the mailman trudged toward our house, slinging an extra heavy sack over his shoulder, as he stuffed a single envelope into the mailbox, my heart soared. I shoved my slippered feet into a pair of Frankie’s old boots and ran clumsily to the mailbox. The envelope inside was large, not the letter-sized ones I’d been sending her. It was excruciating, almost more excruciating than the days (after days) when the mailbox was empty. Because here was the answer to the arsenal of questions I had been asking. Here it was, in a manila envelope, dampened by February snow.
I sat at the kitchen table, clearing a spot. I had been working on a project for the Girl Scouts, and every flat surface in the house was covered with pinecones. I slipped my finger under a loose part of the flap and gently tugged until the glue yielded. I pinched the envelope open and turned it upside down, spilling the contents onto the table. Not surprisingly, there was no letter inside. Eva had always felt self-conscious about her writing, so I wasn’t surprised. But what was inside spoke louder than any words.
Lying on the Formica tabletop, it could have just been an intricate web of nearly invisible strings. It could have only been the filaments of my imagination, the tiny hearts, each no larger than my pinkie nail, just confetti. But when I pulled the one center pin, the tiny silver bar at the middle, the hearts (my heart!) took flight. Suspended from the network of thread were a thousand tiny hearts, floating in air.
I carried the mobile carefully upstairs, trying to figure out where I might be able to hide it from Frankie. I paced from room to room, looking for a spot in the house that he did not go. A place that belonged only to me. But it didn’t exist. In all these rooms, there was nowhere I could truly call my own. And the realization of this was what undid me. I sat down, finally, on the bed Frankie and I had shared for the last fifteen years, and wept. The thousand hearts collapsed beside me. I knew then that I needed to call her. This was ridiculous. I just needed to hear her voice.
Surprisingly the number was not unlisted, an oversight on Ted’s part I was certain. Perhaps he didn’t think I’d be brazen enough to call. But I was. That’s exactly what I was. I dialed the number the operator gave me, and within only a couple of agonizing moments, she answered. “Wilson residence.”
“Eva,” I said.
“Billie?”
All of that certainty that had been in her voice when I stood in her apartment had disappeared. All that questioning and second-guessing. All that talk of illness and moral corruption and godlessness seemed to have slipped away.
“I love you, Eva,” I said. Unable and unwilling to keep any secrets anymore.
“I love you too,” she said. “I feel like I am dying here.”
And then I heard the crackle and static of someone picking up on the party line. Hannah, I was sure. I heard a small clicking sound, a breath.
“Wait for me,” I whispered. “I promise it will be soon.”
“Billie?” she said, but I knew that if I stayed on, the entire neighborhood would know about our tryst within hours. And so I hung up.
When the girls got out of school for Easter break, I told Frankie I wanted to take them to Gussy’s. We’d be back in time for Easter Sunday, but the week leading up to the holiday I hoped to spend some time with my sister.
Frankie was working a lot now, trying to replenish the bank account that had, despite the disability compensation, become depleted during his long recovery. Many days he worked overtime, catching the last train back into Hollyville after work, arriving long after supper had grown cold and the girls were tucked into bed. He would barely miss us as far I was concerned. But he was reluctant. He still did not trust me, not as far as he could throw me (which wasn’t far, especially after his injury). But he had a soft spot for Gussy. We all did, and I took advantage of that.
“Gussy’s going through some hard times,” I said. “With the girls.” Gussy’s daughters were older than ours by several years. Teenagers now. They were hardly trouble though; Nancy was a straight A student, and Debbie was not bright but had a terrific sense of humor and was always, as far as I could tell, surrounded by friends. But fortunately, any troubles associated with parenting teenage girls were one of the areas (like female troubles) that Frankie stayed out of.
“How are you going to help?” Frankie asked.
“Just an ear to lend, a shoulder to cry on. She’s my sister, Frankie.”
This too was something Frankie could understand. He had plenty of sisters, each of whom had needed both his ears and his shoulders (as well as mine) over the years.
“You’ll be home Saturday night,” he said. “And the girls will have new dresses for Easter Mass on Sunday morning?”
“Gussy’s got a sewing machine, and I’ve already bought the fabric.” Every year I made the girls matching Easter dresses, and despite their objections this year, Frankie had insisted. I knew both Mouse and Chessy felt like they were too old now to be dressed up like frilly twin dolls. But I also couldn’t help but fear that Mouse’s violent rejection of the fabric I chose, the pink dotted Swiss remnant that I’d bought at half price, was indicative of something else. I hadn’t liked dresses as a girl either. I hadn’t wanted ruffles or bows or anything pink. I too had eschewed girly accoutrements in favor of blue jeans and baseball caps and sneakers. I was terrified that everything that seemed to have gone wrong in my wiring was also wrong in Mouse. Even Eva had suggested that what we had, what we felt, was some sort of illness. And despite every effort to think in other terms, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had somehow infected her, passed on this sickness. And that she, like I, would find nothing but frustration and sadness in this life.
“Fine then.” Frankie finally relented.
Gussy’s home. How can I describe Gussy’s home? From the outside, it wasn’t so very different from ours: a two-story farmhouse on a dead-end street. A wide porch with a happy, wooden
porch swing, still and expectant and inviting. Our house always made me feel a bit anxious (the repairs that were neglected in favor of other projects, the mess I could never seem to contain, the lights just a bit too bright—illuminating the chaos of clutter, the smell of last night’s dinner and the stink of cigarettes seeping into the curtains and carpets no matter what I did). But Gussy’s home was so welcoming and warm.
Gussy was a born homemaker, and I mean that in the very sense of the word. Out of this crooked house, she had truly made a home. If a home is where a family lives, where love lives, then she was, indeed, a homemaker. And not only was she a homemaker, but a caretaker. She took care. Of these four walls and everything inside of them. It was evident in all of the details. She had taken our mother’s domestic lessons to heart. While I resisted all of her teachings (on how to keep spots off glasses and silver, on how to iron shirts and make hospital corners and mend socks), Gussy had studied them, perfected the details our mother had insisted mattered. While I grimaced at the very thought of those tasks, Gussy delighted in them. And as much as I used to think otherwise, I saw there was a certain happiness and fulfillment that came from making a home. You could feel it the moment you walked through their door.
The kitchen was warm and smelled of bread, even when the oven was bone cold. Gussy made a loaf of homemade bread every single day, rising before dawn to knead the dough. There was always a hot pot of coffee on the stove, and a colorful selection of teas in a basket on the counter. She attended to everyone’s needs: sugar cubes, a honey pot, a little china pitcher of cream. Iced tea brewed in a glass jar on the sill. The table was never cluttered with the girls’ homework or Frank’s papers. The floors were clean, and the shelves clear of dust. And she made it all seem effortless.