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processional, accompanying Charlotte’s casket as they loaded it
into the hearse parked in front of the church. It started to rain,
lightly at first, then a driving rain scattered the last few mourners.
Emma had wanted to see Lance; she didn’t know why
because from the moment she left him in Jamaica, his actions
made it clear that he was done with her. Knowing that was
painful, never seeing him had been even more painful. Today
was a mistake, she thought as she struggled to put on her raincoat standing under the eaves at the top of church steps.
“May I help you with that?” he asked. Emma was surprised
to see Lance reaching out to help her with her coat, she had
not noticed him come up the steps. After her coat was on, he
lifted her hair out of her collar and smoothed it from behind.
“Don’t,” Emma said, taking a few steps away to avoid
his touch.
“Thank you for coming,” he couldn’t think of anything else
to say and he couldn’t say what he wanted to. Where have you
been? Why didn’t you wait for me?
“Of course,” Emma said. “I was surprised when I heard. I
thought Charlotte would live forever. The last time I spoke to
her she sounded fine…”
“The last time you spoke to her? When was that?”
“About a month ago.”
“You were in touch with Charlotte all this time?”
“She hired a private detective to find me. After that,
she would call me every now and then. She even visited us a
month after—”
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“I hired the detective. How’d she? Al this time, Charlotte
knew where you were?” he said, cutting her off.
“I asked her not to tell you. There was no point. You were
married. I was married.”
“I never married.”
“But Charlotte said—”
Lance just shook his head. Until the day she died, he thought.
“But you’re married?” he asked.
“I am.”
“Who is the lucky man?”
“Someone I knew, for a while, before you.” Emma said as
a car pulled up in front of the church. Before she could say any
more the driver laid on the horn.
“I’ve got to go, my husband,” she said nodding toward the car.
“I’d like to meet him,” Lance said.
“Why? We’re not the kind of people you would know,
Mr. Withers.”
“Emma, don’t.”
“I’ve got to go,” she said, moving toward the steps.
“You don’t have an umbrella, at least let me walk you to
the car.” Trembling, she tried to keep from touching him as
they walked to the waiting car.
When they were within a few feet, a small boy opened the
window and shouted, “Mummy. Hurry, I missed you.”
Lance looked at Emma.
“My son,” she said. “Our son, my husband and I.”
“Emma, move your ass,” her husband called out to her.
“I’ve got to get to work.” He yelled something at the boy who
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closed the car window and slumped in the back seat. Before
Lance could say goodbye, Emma bolted from underneath the
umbrel a, ran to the passenger side of the waiting car and ducked
in. She was barely in the car when it pulled off, but not before
Emma’s husband gave Lance a look of pure hatred.
Lance watched the car with Emma and the life she always
wanted slowly make its way down Fifth Avenue in the rain. He
remembered watching her car leave in Jamaica. This time she
had not told him that she would love him forever.
“I will love you forever,” he whispered as the car disap-
peared down a side street. Lance turned and walked alone to
the limousine waiting to take him to the cemetery where he
would bury Charlotte along with the secrets of their past.
(II)
That night’s beating was the worst.
“Feel better now that you’ve seen him?” he taunted her when
he got home from work. He removed his shoulder holster and
laid it on the sideboard. Ed was still working security having
failed the police exam for the third time. She asked him sev-
eral times to leave the gun at work for Philmore’s safety. He
never did. Ed liked wearing a gun, it made him feel powerful,
invincible. He’d even bought the boy a toy gun, it was one of
the few times he played with Philmore, showing him how to
hold the gun, aim and pull the trigger.
“Bang, bang. You’re dead,” Ed would say, pointing the gun
at the boy. “Now you do it,” he’d urge Philmore.
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“Bang, bang, you’re dead,” Philmore would say pointing
the gun at his father.
“Now shoot Mummy,” Ed would say, but Philmore refused.
“Don’t be a sissy,” Ed would taunt him, “Shoot Mummy.”
“No!” Philmore would tell his father, “I only shoot bad guys.”
•
When Ed came home that night he was already drunk and
still drinking. Seeing Lance and Emma together that afternoon
had agitated him. In the four years of her marriage she had
made just one slip. They were making love and she called him
Lance, he never forgot it and never let her forget it.
“I work two shifts to give you and the boy a roof over your
heads and put food on the table and all the while I know you’re
fuckin’ that old man in your dreams, the great Lance Henry
Withers.” Emma knew to ignore the insults. If she kept her
mouth closed sometimes he would calm down.
“What do I get for it?” he said, taking another swig from
the pint wrapped in a brown paper bag. “What do I get for it?”
he grabbed her arm and pulled her to him.
“Please,” she begged. “Don’t wake my boy. I’m not fuckin’
anyone but you Ed.”
“If you hadn’t gotten knocked up – I wouldn’t be stuck with
a frosty bitch like you. I’d be beddin’ some wild Irish rose, like
my brother’s wife.”
Emma pushed him away.
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“You and your precious boy. He’s my boy too but you won’t
even give him my family name. What kind of bullshit is that?”
“I told you, I wanted to name him after my brother—to
honor my brother killed in the war, I wanted him to have the
George family name.”
He shoved her to the floor. “Fuck the George family,” he
said, staggering to the kitchen. “Where’s me dinner?”
“Right here,” she said, scrambling to her feet to take the
plate of stew out of the oven where she had placed it hours ago
to stay warm.
He pulled the foil off of the plate and looked at the dried
up meal. “You expect me to eat this shit?” he said, shoving the
plate across the table so that it splattered to the floor.
“If you’d come home on time, you could have eaten with…”
He slapped her across the face before she could finish the
sentence.
“Don’t,” she said. “You hit me again and we’re leavin
g,”
“Where you gonna go? Back to Lance Withers’ big house?
Think they’ll take you in again? Not after I get finished with
you,” he said, raising his hand.
•
“Hi Mummy,” Philmore said, rubbing his eyes as Emma
crawled into bed with him after cleaning the blood from her
lip and applying cold compresses to the bruises on her face.
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“Go back to sleep, Philly boy. It’s not time to get up,” she
said, hoping the swelling on her face would go down a little
before morning.
“Okay, Mummy,” he said barely awake, “Love you.”
“Love you too, little man, now go back to sleep.”
When she heard the boy’s breathing even out and she was
sure he was asleep, she put her hand over her mouth to keep
her crying from waking him. Ed was right, she had nowhere
to go. As soon as they were married he refused to let her work,
now she and her son were completely dependent on this violent
man. Whenever she threatened to leave he’d beat her until
she was ashamed to go out in public. Three years of this was
enough, she had to get away.
Why had she settled for this man? Had Ed really been
her best option? After Philmore was born something in him
changed. He was jealous of any attention she paid the boy. He
accused her of flirting with other men; the butcher, the building
superintendent, the pharmacist anyone that said a kind word
to her or to Philmore was suspect. But Lance Withers was the
real thorn. Emma never said anything to anyone about the two
weeks she spent with him in Jamaica, but that time with the
man she loved was never far from her thoughts. It was like Ed
could sense there was someone between them. She tried to
talk to Ed about her time at 580 Park Avenue, she wanted to
share that important part of her life with her husband. But Ed
resented being reminded of what she had accomplished there.
“Workin’ for rich folks don’t make you one of them, Emma.
What you got now is as good as it’s gonna get for you. You’re a
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working stiff’s wife and our son is going to be a working stiff
like his father. Stop with the castles in the sky, Emma. Your
feet are on the ground now, get used to it.”
Ed wanted the life he’d always had, the same life his Irish
immigrant parents had. Emma wanted more. He wanted her to
be what he cal ed the little woman—to worship him for providing for his family like his Ma worshiped his Pa. Emma could not
be that woman. She hated the Hell’s Kitchen tenement where
they lived. She tried to nudge her husband into wanting more
out of life.
“What if I get a teaching job once Philmore starts school?
With my salary we can move to a better neighborhood, maybe
Queens. It’s better for families.”
Ed took the suggestion as an insult. “So you don’t think
I’m a good enough provider? If this place was good enough for
me Ma then it’s good enough for you.”
“I want more for our family, Ed.”
“You can want all you want. Getting is something I control,
and I’m fine with the way things are.”
Emma had not risked everything to come to America to
live Ed McKenna’s meager mundane life. If she and Philmore
stayed with him, their present would be their future. After
Lance Withers’ rejection, she’d hastily taken the easiest path
out of his life and that had been Ed. He had pursued her relent-
lessly, he had been great fun the few times they were together
and there was no denying he was incredibly good looking. She
liked Ed. She knew she didn’t love him, but believed that with
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Lance Withers out of the picture she could grow to love him.
She never did.
Life had not worked out as Ed planned either. Before he
was ready he was a husband and then a father. He couldn’t pass
the written part of the Police exam, so he couldn’t achieve his
dream of being a cop. Emma offered to help him study for the
exam but he refused.
“I don’t need your pity, Emma.” After three tries he gave
up, started drinking heavily, coming home drunk almost every
night from his job still working night security. Drinking made
him angry and irrational and Emma was the enemy.
I never should have married Ed, she thought as she lay in the dark next to her son. I should have had my boy on my own. He
was the one good thing in her life and only she knew that he
was Lance Henry Withers’ son. Emma would never tell Lance
that he was Philmore’s father, she vowed that the day she left
580 Park Avenue three months pregnant. She couldn’t trust
Lance to love her or their son. He hadn’t even had the decency
to tell her they would not be together, he had Charlotte do it.
Emma remembered tel ing Lance when they were together
in Jamaica that she was fearless; that she could take care of
herself. Emma thought of how all of that had changed in four
short years; now she was just fearful. She almost smiled at the
irony of it all but that would only open the cut on her lip again.
She looked over at the son she and Lance had made together.
“Philmore, such a big name for a little boy,” she whispered. She
needed to get him away from Ed McKenna, she needed to find
a way to get them out of the mess she had gotten them into.
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(III)
Emma began asking around the apartment building to see
if anyone needed help with laundry or ironing. For five dollars
a load she washed and ironed, sometimes twenty loads a week.
She would babysit kids in the building as long as their parents
picked them up before Ed came home from work. She scrimped
on the allowance he gave her for food, buying enough for Ed
and Philmore; she would eat whatever they left on their plates.
Her weight dropped but her spirits began to soar. She kept her
mouth shut and did what she could to avoid both sex with her
husband and his beatings.
A neighbor, believing she was being helpful, told Emma
that she had seen Ed visit the woman in apartment 6D several
times when she knew the woman’s husband was out of town.
Emma wanted to hug the woman and say thank you, but she
restrained herself. If Ed wanted someone else maybe he would
let her go.
It took her a year to save enough money to leave. Mina,
who was now Executive Chef at 580 Park, helped her find a
furnished room in Queens with a woman would could baby sit
Philmore so Emma could work during the day.
“Do you want me to talk to Mr. Withers about you coming
back here? The man that’s got the job now is no major domo
– more like major don‘t know. Mr. Withers is gonna let him
go soon as he finds someone else. You could get your old job
back, Emma. Just think, we could work together again, just
like old times. I know Mr. Withers would
want you back, let
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me mention it to him,” Mina said. “I don’t care if he finds out
that I lied to him when I said I didn’t know where you were.
Back then I had to choose the lesser of two evils and I was
more afraid of what Miss Charlotte would do to me if I let
on that I knew where you were. She would have made it so I
would never work again.”
“They say you can’t go home again,” Emma said.
“Who’s they?” Mina asked. “You got a better idea?”
“Maybe after I get settled, Mina. I’ve got to make a place
for my boy first. Then I’ll come and talk to Mr. Withers.”
(IV)
Ed left unusual y early to work an overnight shift one night
in late March of 1970. It had been twenty-two years since she
left London, and now Emma was leaving another war torn
existence, her marriage. She had a little more than eight hours
to disappear before he would return. She pulled her suitcase
from the back of the closet and filled it with the few things
she planned to take—just some clothes for her and Philmore.
She left their suitcase by the door and went to wake her son.
Before she could arouse the boy she heard the front door open.
She ran to the living room, Ed was holding the suitcase.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Ed, you don’t love me and I don’t love you. I don’t want
anything from you. I just want to take my son and go.” Ed
opened the suitcase and dumped its contents onto the floor.
“He’s our son and you ain’t goin’ nowhere, Emma.”
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“Ed, please let us leave. You can see the boy anytime you
want, just let us leave. You’re not happy, why don’t we just end
this before things get worse?”
“Sure, I’m supposed to just let you walk outta here. Have
everyone sayin’ Ed McKenna’s not man enough to keep his
wife. You’re not going anywhere Emma, if anyone leaves, it’l be
me, but I don’t leave because I understand I got an obligation,
even if you are one ungrateful bitch.”
“Ed, I appreciate everything you’ve done for us. I do.”
Ed took his coat off, un-holstered his gun and laid it on
the sideboard.
“No you don’t, Emma. When you got knocked up, I did
the right thing by you. You think I was ready to get married? I
was still havin’ a good time. You were just a good reliable piece