The tapping had stopped, but it continued to resonate in my ears. How did he know what I always ordered? Not only would I avoid strawberry ice cream in the future, I vowed I would never again eat anything pink.
Finally, he set down the spoon and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’m really not such a bad guy, you know. No matter what she told you.”
She. Was he talking about Sylvie? I scoured the memories from my life in New Jersey, and later with her on Elm Street. The only time I recalled her mentioning him was at the end, when she had called his name over and over, relentless as Miss Pennypacker crying for Flufferbell.
I sat still with my hands folded on my lap like Nonna Moscatelli had taught Agnes and I to do when company was visiting. Had he ever had power over me? I wondered. If so, I was free of it. Free. No matter what the court had to say, I would never go with him. If he tried to force me, I would run away as many times as it took just like Agnes had. As for the logistics of getting from Colorado to Claxton, well, I’d worry about that later.
I touched the shamrock barrette for courage. “Where’s the girl you ran off with?”
“What?” And then before I had a chance to repeat it, “Is that what she told you—that I ran off?”
“Didn’t you?”
“It was more complicated than that, Zaida—far too complex for a little girl to understand. You were what—all of five—when we split up.”
“When you left.”
His perfect tan took on a maroon tinge. “What kind of mother tries to turn a five-year-old against her father with a pack of half-truths? Did you ever ask yourself that question?”
“Things are either true or not. There’s no such thing as half.”
“Who taught you that little trope? No, wait. Let me guess—your Ma.”
He stared me down waiting for me to say more, but I remained quiet till he was about to leave. Then I dug into memory and pulled out my one-word grenade: “Peggy.”
He sighed as he sank back onto the couch. “I’m sure your mother had plenty to say about that subject.”
“She never said anything,” I said. “It was Aunt Cille who told me.”
“A woman who knew absolutely nothing about our lives. Did she mention that after Sylvie and I got married, her family virtually disowned us?”
“They didn’t do that. You were the one who poisoned her mind. Kept her away.”
“Lucille knew nothing—” he said before I interrupted.
“Then you left us and ran off with a kid from your school.”
“If you think you can goad me into discussing—”
“Peggy.”
He was silent for a minute, but the hook was in deep. “Of course Lucille would make it sound as sordid as possible. If we stayed away from your mother’s family, that was the reason.”
My eyes burned. “Don’t you dare say anything about my aunt.”
By then, he was tapping again, tapping and staring at me as if he saw someone else. “All right, since you refuse to let it drop, Peg was hardly a kid. She was a graduate student who later became my wife. And she wasn’t the cause of our problems. She was a symptom.”
I’d heard the same line on Ma’s soap opera. But he was eyeing me with the same wariness I felt toward him in his powder-blue sweater so I held my tongue and waited.
“And since you’re so concerned, Peggy and I aren’t together anymore.”
“So that’s why you came for us. Because you don’t have anyone else.”
“Enough, Zaida. When you’re older, we can discuss—”
“I’m not going with you.” I thought of how Rabbi Krieger had emphasized the importance of proper conduct for a Bat Mitzvah. Say little, do much, and receive all men with a cheerful countenance, I’d written in my notebook. A quote from the Torah. Obviously, the writer hadn’t known Michael Finn.
Ma had come to the doorway. When I looked at her, I felt the presence and the strength of all those who had made me who I was: Sylvie and Aunt Cille, Jimmy, Agnes, Nonna, and all of those heroes on my wall. But above all, them. Ma and Dad.
Michael Finn reached for my hand and pulled me in the direction of the cloudy mirror where he stood beside me. “What do you see, Zaida?”
I jerked away, but not before my obvious resemblance to him was imprinted on my mind. His voice rose. “I see a thirteen-year-old child. And I also see my daughter—no matter how you—or to be perfectly candid, I—may feel about it at this moment.”
From his expression, I could tell he heard the echoes of old arguments he’d had with Sylvie swirling around us. He shook his head as if to dispel them, then sat down again—this time on the couch beside Jon.
“I almost forgot I have something for you,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his trousers. He pulled out five smooth marbles—the large ones they called boulders. They were the same ones that Old Man Tucker sold for a nickel, but when they caught the light, they looked like something rare and exotic.
“He doesn’t want them,” I said, rescuing a cat’s eye that had rolled to the edge of the table.
“Yes, I do!” Jon blurted out before turning to me with contrite eyes. “I been looking for one like that, Zaidie.”
“Of course you do, son.” Michael slung a protective arm over Jon’s shoulder as if shielding him from me.
“She used to call for you,” I said.
Momentarily stunned, he released Jon. “What? Who are you talking about—”
“I thought she forgot, but at the end when no one was there but me and Jon and the nurse, I would hear her calling—Michael, Miiichaellll.”
Ma took another step into the room as if to stop me. But it was too late. I was there, back in that apartment where no one wanted me to go. Not Ma. Not Michael Finn. Not even me.
“I didn’t know how to pray, but I closed my eyes and imagined you coming home late at night like you used to. The first couple of times I really believed that when I opened them you would be there and everything would be okay.”
“Jesus, Zaida.” Michael Finn put his face in his hands, and for a minute I thought he was praying, too. Or weeping. When he looked up, I expected him to be sorry or to offer some reason. But instead, his face was pale with rage.
“So that’s how you choose to remember your father? By her bitterness?”
Was that what he really thought—that she’d been bitter? I had been only five, but even then I knew how much she loved him. I would have told him, but he’d already taken so much of her; I wasn’t about to give him any more.
“Memory doesn’t choose,” I said. “It just remembers.”
“Memory doesn’t choose,” Michael repeated with a twisted pride. “Nice turn of a phrase. No matter how you try to deny it, no matter what lies they’ve fed you, you’re still my daughter, aren’t you?”
So he was taking credit for my words, too? He, who had bragged about the “journals” where he had published poems and stories. As if any of us cared.
From the kitchen where Ma had retreated, I heard the click of her wooden spoon and smelled onions frying. She had promised to make Jon’s favorite: American chop suey.
“Our flights are booked for the day after the hearing, Mrs. Moscatelli. Please make sure the children are packed and ready,” Michael Finn called from the parlor.
Then he kissed my cheek and winked at Jon before checking his appearance in the mirror one more time.
After the door closed, I heard the wooden spoon hit the wall, leaving behind a slash of red that would never be washed away.
Chapter Seven
My Father’s Victory
ZAIDIE
FOR THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS, EACH NIGHT’S SUPPER WAS MORE ORDINARY and wondrous than the last: tuna casserole with crushed potato chips on Thursday, hot dogs and beans on Saturday, a Sunday roast with mashed potatoes.
On liver and bacon night, Jon spilled his cherry Kool-Aid and Dad dropped his fork, about to bark out the usual: For chrissake, Jonny. How many times have I told
you—
But before he got a word out, something stopped him. The same force had Ma in its grip, too. She didn’t jump up to get the mop or defend her baby by fuming at Dad: “Leave him alone, Lou; it was an accident.” Nor did she yell at Agnes for overfilling the Flintstones jelly jars. No one was denied dessert for goofing around at supper.
Without the blame, defensiveness, and tension we’d always fallen into, we glanced around the table at each other and wondered how a spilled glass of Kool-Aid had ever mattered.
Agnes laughed when Princie sidled into the room, hoping one of us might sneak her a piece of liver from the table. “Watch out, Princie. Your paws’ll get stuck to the floor.”
For a moment none of us knew what to do, but then we all joined her. Even Ma.
“I got it, Shad,” Jimmy said when Jon finally pushed back his chair to clean up the spill.
But the heartbreak was always close to the surface. The sight of my brother kneeling over that pool of Kool-Aid reminded me how he’d bent over Ma, sobbing; and the clock that had momentarily stilled ticked on, even more noisily. One day, twenty-one hours, and thirteen minutes before the hearing that would decide our fate. Just a formality, Nancy had said.
MICHAEL FINN DIDN’T call once that week; nor did we hear from anyone from the department. There were moments, whole hours, once an entire day when I allowed myself to believe he was gone for good. Maybe another girl like Peggy or the one with my name had caught his eye and he’d forget us for eight more years. Maybe, if I stayed up wracking my brain long enough, I could think my way out of this. But then his final words coursed through my sleep and jolted me awake in terror: Our flights are booked . . . Have the children packed and ready.
Sensing my restlessness, Agnes whispered to me in the dark. “Mr. Dean said he would come back to get me, too, but he didn’t. He never did.”
In my head, however, the words that tormented me answered her. No doubt Mr. Finn is a fit parent . . . Just a formality . . . Have the children packed . . . No, this was nothing like the threat from Mr. Dean.
When loudmouth Jeffrey let the news out, Cynthia pressed me every day. “You’re not really going, are you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Promise?”
“I promised yesterday, Cynthia. Please. Don’t ask me again.”
Sometimes saying the words scared me more. Other times, when I spoke up strong, I almost believed it. But it was never long before the clock resumed its infernal beat.
I still attached Henry Lee’s tie tack to my shirt every day, but when he called, I told the family to say I wasn’t home. Finally, sick of the endless ringing, Ma grabbed the phone from Jon: “Don’t you understand? She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
It took a whole day to summon the courage to ask what he’d said. Ma scowled at a TV ad for Dial soap. “He said to tell you not to forget the plan. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I said, my throat thickening, as I thought of how we’d promised to meet at Barry Schuman’s house. Tuesday at one. Even as the clock ticked inside me, I hadn’t forgotten for a second.
On Tuesday, as one o’clock passed and then two, I imagined him sitting by the pool, watching the gate. Henry Lee, master of time, would have been there by twelve forty-five. How long would he wait before he gave up?
At three, I went out in the backyard and threw the stick for Princie so long and so hard that for the first time ever, she wore herself out. When she lay down in the middle of the yard, I spooned her like I did when she snuck into my bed. Did Michael Finn really expect me to leave my dog, or the nicked picnic table where all the kids who’d ever passed through the house had told us their secrets, or the desk Jimmy had refinished for me?
Did he know Cynthia and I planned to try out for cheerleading next year and that Henry and I were in the same homeroom? Every object I’d ever used or tripped over felt sacred—from the jelly jars to the shoes Jon always dropped in the middle of the parlor to the window in my room where Agnes and I stared into the night and talked. Even the moon, our moon, would be different if Michael Finn took me away. I was sure of it. Burying my face in Princie’s heat and softness, I cried for the life that was seeping away minute by minute.
I don’t know how long I’d lain there before I realized someone was with me, stroking the dog from the other side. Henry’s eyes had never been so dark, his olive skin never so smooth.
“So this is the famous Princie?” With his free hand, he swept a wing of black hair from his face. “I was expecting the most notorious thief in Claxton to be scarier.”
I wiped tears from my face. Looking around the scrappy yard, I took in everything I had been embarrassed for him to see—the peeling paint of the house, the stack of old tires beside the garage, Ma’s face in the kitchen window, lined with troubles. But now my fear felt as silly as Jon’s spilled Kool-Aid. For once, it didn’t even matter that my hair was uncombed or that I didn’t have a tissue to wipe my eyes.
“So you were just going to leave without even saying goodbye?”
I looked toward that kitchen window, where Ma had disappeared. “I told Cynthia not to tell you. And besides, I’m not going.” As the tears streaked down my face, I realized how unconvincing I was.
“But if you have to, we can write every week, and he might let you come back to visit your family in the summers. Then we’ll—”
I shook my head. “Why would he do that? He doesn’t even understand they are my family.”
“You know my brother’s girlfriend, Gail? They’re still together even though she’s in school out in California. He says the letters they had to write brought them even closer. He also says high school flies by, and maybe we could apply—”
“So even your brother’s heard?”
“You know how you tell your sister everything—even if she’s too young to understand? Well, that’s me and Craig.”
“Jimmy, too. Or at least before he became a rat.” In the past, I might have been ashamed of that, too, but now it was just more spilled Kool-Aid.
And the amazing part? Henry didn’t care. In his pale blue T-shirt, he lay in the dirt, one arm open to the sky, the other stretched across Princie to hold my hand. Nothing was said and he didn’t sit up and try to kiss me or pull me out behind the garage to press himself, breath and bone and fire, against my chest. But I would always remember it as one of the most perfect moments of my life.
I was the one who finally bolted upright and checked the Timex watch that Ma had given me for my Bat Mitzvah. “Henry, look!” I held out my wrist, displaying the time: 3:57. “You’re nine minutes late for your paper route!”
But Henry just lay there in my scrappy yard, stroking Princie and staring at the sky. “Yeah, I know,” he said. And when he smiled at me, it was almost as if he’d seen that cherry Kool-Aid, too.
MICHAEL FINN SHOWED up on Wednesday afternoon just like he said he would.
Instead of a suit, he wore a pair of jeans and a blazer. A shirt that matched his eyes and the sweater he’d worn before was open at the collar. Unlike Dad, the obviously fit parent didn’t have to prove his worth in the court room or anywhere else.
He and Nancy walked across the maledizione and climbed the porch, leaning close to each other to share a joke like a couple on a date instead of a pair who’d come to ruin our lives.
“Afternoon, Zaida. How’s my girl?” He was so engrossed in Nancy, he seemed almost surprised to see me. Or was that calculated to throw me off, too?
His smile was a dare.
“What do you think of this guy?” he asked, capping Jon’s head with his hand. “Is he a little heartbreaker or what? Just like the old man.”
Nancy giggled. “No one’s conceited in your family, right? You got it all.”
I rolled my eyes at the familiar middle school taunt. How had I ever thought she was pretty?
“Where’s your mother?” she asked.
When I refused to answer, Nancy approached the stairs. “Mrs.
Moscatelli? You up there?”
If I had any hope, it disappeared as soon as I saw Ma’s face. She’d obviously heard the judge’s ruling by phone, but Nancy read it again before producing the paperwork for her to sign.
Meanwhile, Michael called me to sit beside him on the couch. He took my hands in his before I could stop him. “I don’t know what I expected to find when I came here two weeks ago, Zaida. But since my first visit, you’ve made it clear that you’re not the little girl I remember. Chronologically, you’re thirteen, a child, but you’re hardly typical, are you?”
Once again, I felt him puffing himself up, as if any positive quality I might possess was a credit to him, but I didn’t pull my hands away.
“If you were,” he continued, “I’d demand you do what the court thinks best—not just because I can give you a better life, but because—well, you’re mine. I saw that when you were small, and it’s even more apparent now. No matter how many years you live with this family, I will always know you better. Bone of my bone and all that.”
Even as the words confused and incensed me, I felt he was speaking truthfully for the first time.
“I hope you decide to come with me today, but if you don’t, well, Zaida, you’ve earned my respect. I’m going to allow you to make a choice.”
At that, my brother was on his feet, his hands knotted into fists the way they were when he ran. He looked from Ma to me and back. “What? You mean Zaidie can stay, but not me? That’s not fair! Ma! Tell him I’m not going!”
He flung himself at Ma, sobbing, and the two of them clung to each other as if nothing on earth could separate them. But I already knew it could. And so did Jon.
Momentarily unnerved—and undoubtedly embarrassed in front of Nancy—Michael Finn’s mouth stretched into the thin line I remembered. The same line it had formed when I told him how Sylvie had called for him when she was dying.
Where had Princie come from? And Agnes? I didn’t even hear them enter and would only later remember how Princie had run through the rooms of the house, barking, the way she did when we argued or she sensed danger.
All the Children Are Home Page 14