Eyes of a Child (33 page)

Terri felt a kind of strange relief. Turning to her mother, she said, ‘So you
didn't
know how he would be.'

Rosa tilted her head, as if asking the question of herself. ‘I'm not sure,' she said slowly. ‘There was one night, after a dance at the Latin Palace. Ramon had been drinking, and I had danced with someone else. When we got in the car, Ramon slapped me out of nowhere. There were tears in his eyes before I even knew that he had seen the blood on my lip.' Again her voice took on an ironic edge. ‘He laid his head in my lap and began sobbing, begging my forgiveness. The next day, he sent roses.'

‘But weren't you afraid of him?'

‘Because of that?' Rosa gave a small shrug. ‘To be truthful, Ramon wasn't so different from a lot of other men I had known, starting with my father. Except that Ramon
wanted
to be different.' Rosa's voice grew soft. ‘I had never seen a man cry, you see. It convinced me that he wasn't like my father, brutal and unfeeling. Ramon, I told myself, had so much more love inside him.'

Terri tried to recall Rosa's father, her own grandfather. The memory was dim – a stern-looking man who spoke no English but once had bounced her on his lap. There was the faintest sense, perhaps a trick of the mind, that her mother had watched them closely. ‘After that one time,' Rosa continued, ‘it was as if Ramon had scared
himself
more than he'd scared me. He never drank when he was with me. And until we were married, he never hit me again.' She turned to Terri. ‘Do you know who reminded me of Ramon before our wedding? Richie. So watchful to see the impression he made on me, with all his plans and dreams and love for you. As if he had something to hide.'

Terri felt herself flush. But Rosa, she saw, was not sparring with her; for this moment her mother spoke more honestly than she ever had before. Only the look in her eyes, remote yet touched with shame, betrayed how hard this was.

‘And after?' Terri asked.

Rosa reached for the thermos at her feet; on these mornings when they brought Elena to the park, Rosa made thick black coffee from Costa Rica. But until now, this morning's coffee had gone untouched. Rosa filled a plastic cup and handed it to Terri, poured another for herself. ‘The night we were married,' Rosa said at last, ‘we slept together for the first time. It wasn't much, and it was over quickly. But I was happy we had done this. And then, as I waited in the dark for him to hold me, Ramon said that I was not a virgin. When I began to cry, he slapped me, and took me without asking. It was much more painful than before.' Rosa's voice became hushed with memory. ‘For two weeks after, out of anger and embarrassment, Ramon never touched me.

‘It no longer mattered.' Rosa's eyes became softer. ‘For the next eight months I wondered whether you were conceived the first time, filled with my hope, or the second time, the product of his hate. But when you were born, Teresa, and I looked into your face, I knew.'

Terri met her mother's gaze. ‘Couldn't you still have left him, Mama? Even then?'

‘To where? A jobless woman with a child? And there was no question, back then, that I
would
have this child.' For a moment, silent, Rosa turned to watch Elena. ‘When I told Ramon I was pregnant,' she resumed, ‘tears leapt to his eyes. He called our families, made a crib for you with his own hands. We were having our first-born, he said, and would build our family around you.

‘After that, he treated me well for a time, and I tried to be happy again. Only later did I understand what a baby truly meant to him.' Rosa's eyes were hard now. ‘He was afraid of more than being his father. He had never loved his father or felt love in return – only fear. Once he
became
a father, he was afraid that no one could love him of their own free will or stay with him
except
from fear. In his mind, you took away my will and gave me something to fear for.' Her voice softened. ‘The child I loved much more than him.'

Terri took her mother's hand. ‘It was as if,' Rosa told her quietly, ‘Ramon knew I could not leave now. A month after you were born, the drinking started again.'

Rosa paused, and Terri saw her eyes shut. ‘Drink changed him, Teresa – brought out all the demons of his nature. One night he saw me nursing you and imagined you were not his. He waited for me to put you in the crib he had made. Then he slapped my breasts until milk came again and I cried for him to stop. And then, when
you
began crying, he wept and begged my forgiveness. Just as he had before.'

Terri's stomach felt tight. But her mother's words kept coming, flat and steady, like raindrops on a stone: Terri had wished to hear this, and now she would. ‘The next morning,' Rosa continued, ‘I went to see Father Anaya. You remember him, don't you?'

Her mother's eyes had opened again: the question, almost conversational, had a certain lethal quality.

‘Yes,' Terri said slowly. ‘I was afraid of him, in his black robe and white collar. But he seemed kind enough.'

‘Oh, he was
very
kind to me. He took my hand and told me that what Ramon had done was a terrible sin. We were in his chapel, where it was cool and quiet, and for a moment I felt better.' Removing her hand from Terri's, Rosa swallowed some coffee, wincing as if at its taste. ‘And then he explained to me that the kingdom of heaven was God's but that in our home, the man must rule. If I obeyed Ramon in all things, took extra care not to anger him, then our home could be peaceful and happy.

‘“I've done nothing to anger him,” I answered, “He's just
angry
.”'

‘“Then you must be sure never to provoke him,” he told me. “You have a daughter now, a marriage and family, which are sacrosanct in the eyes of God. If you must do a little more than your part, then console yourself that it is for a reason, to strengthen your family and surround your daughter with love. In time, when you have more children, you will know that this is right.”

‘In that moment, I realized that I had ceased to matter. Assuming that I ever had.'

Rosa gazed past her: Terri sensed her remembering, as if it were fresh, the truth of her own insignificance. ‘As I spoke to Father Anaya,' Rosa told her, ‘you slept in the corner of the chapel. I picked you up and looked into your face. You were very small then, Teresa, a funny little face with a few tufts of black hair. But then you opened your eyes and looked back at me, and I saw your eyes were mine. And I swore to you then that the one thing I'd do was take care of you, always. So that you did not end up like me.'

Terri shook her head. ‘You were nineteen years old, mama.'

‘I was
married,
Teresa, and a mother. I knew my family would never take me back, even if I had wanted that. There was nothing but to go on with the life I'd made. As Ramon's wife and your mother.

‘When I came back, I looked around our home, as if to imagine my future. No one else was there. I remember staring for minutes at the crucifix Ramon had glued to the living room wall. Then I took you upstairs and, in the quiet, nursed you until you fell asleep again.

‘When Ramon came home that night, I went to him as a wife.

‘He took me twice. There was no tenderness at all. It was as if he had heard Father Anaya speak to me.

‘As I lay there in the dark, it came to me that I would have more children. I was Catholic, and Ramon's wife – there was nothing to prevent this except abstinence, and Ramon would have me as he wished. That was when I saw my life as Father Anaya saw it: I would bear children at the whim of my husband's desire for me, and each one would bind me that much longer to Ramon.

‘I turned my back to him and cried. But softly, so he would not hear me. In the morning, as first light came through our window, I promised myself that I would never cry again.

‘It just went on like that. There were weeks Ramon would not drink at all: he would go to the garage where he worked, come home at five-thirty, eat without complaint the dinner I had cooked for him. And then something would go wrong – a cross word from his boss, an expense we did not plan on – and he would not be home on time. There would be no call from him; I did not need one. I knew where he was.' Rosa sipped coffee, eyes reflective; the gesture had the eerie normality of a woman musing about a contented past. ‘And then he would come home and beat me for what the world had done to him, until my cries excited him. By the time I was twenty-six, I had five daughters, and the pleasure of knowing that Ramon would
never
have a son.'

There was bitter satisfaction in Rosa's voice. She turned to Terri now. ‘You were to have been his son, Teresa. He wanted one so desperately that, in the depths of his drinking, he beat me for not giving him one. When Maria was born, and then Eva, the beatings grew worse. For me to then have twin girls was the final insult: after Ynez and Elizabeth were born, he would look at me with hatred in his eyes. But only
I
knew that he would have to beat me forever.' Her mouth formed a smile that seemed like a curse. ‘On Mission Street, in a room above a furniture store, was a woman who read palms. But her real business, people whispered, was abortion. I went to her when Ramon was visiting Guatemala and told her that I wished to have no more children. Only when she realized that I was not pregnant did she understand what I wished for. But she had made enough mistakes aborting babies to do what I asked. . . .'

‘Oh, Mama.'

Rosa's smile faded; the grasp of her worn hand grew tighter. ‘I bled for days. But I was very sure that I would
never
give Ramon Peralta a son he could make like him.' She sat back, staring into her daughter's face. ‘Now you know, Teresa, why I never wept when he hit me. It was the price I paid for defeating him.'

There was nothing, Terri realized, that she could say. Through her horror, a kind of calm overtook her: she was old enough to face the buried secrets that had bound her family and, in the end, to feel compassion for her mother. ‘Do my sisters know this?' she asked.

‘No. And they never will.'

As if by some instinct, mother and daughter turned to watch Elena, Rosa's hand still clasped in Tern's. Elena seemed to gaze at a homeless man pushing a shopping cart across the grass. It struck Terri that, alone in her perch above the park, Elena did not wish to rejoin the world. ‘At least,' Rosa said at length, ‘you and your sisters had a place to come and go, clothes to wear and food to eat, some sort of structure to your lives. Sometimes, Teresa, I cling to that. As I clung to you.'

Terri understood this: of her few memories, the best were of her mother. Rosa showing Terri the things she knew, like cooking and sewing. Helping with Tern's homework. Crawling into Terri's bed at night and holding her close until she fell asleep. With the simplicity of a child, Terri had thought her mother perfect; when Rosa's face was unmarked, it was Terri's deepest wish to look like her mother. This wish had been granted, and perhaps more; to the depths of her soul, Terri suspected, she had become her mother's daughter.

‘But how did you
live?
' she asked.

Rosa turned to her in surprise. ‘You truly wish to hear more?'

Terri looked at her steadily. ‘Yes, Mama. All of it.'

Rosa's eyes narrowed in disbelief. But she did not argue; Terri watched her steel herself. ‘It grew worse,' she said simply. ‘Much worse. Although I tried to hide that from you.'

‘You couldn't, Mama. It was like all of us lived in a prison. Except that
we
got out for school.'

‘A prison – yes. Do you remember that, after the twins were finally in school, I worked for a time?'

‘Not really.'

Rosa shrugged. ‘It didn't last for long. We needed the money, and even then I was good enough with figures to be a bookkeeper for a truck rental company. But Ramon was insulted by it. I had never asked him, you see. The night before I was to start, he struck me so hard that my eye was swollen. I went anyway.'

Her voice took on a hopeless quality. ‘Within two weeks, Ramon believed that I was sleeping with my boss. He began calling me at work, dropping in without notice. The beatings, when they came, seemed intended to disfigure me. When still I did not leave, Ramon entered the office one day, knocked all the papers off my desk, and accused me of “fucking” Joe Menendez – the man I worked for. There were no walls around my desk, only a partition. Everyone heard him.' Rosa gazed at the grass in front of her. ‘The next day, Joe – a nice man with two children – explained that having me there had become too disruptive. He could barely look at me: he had seen Ramon and knew what was happening. But he had an office to run.'

Terri touched her eyes. ‘Wasn't there anyone to help you?'

‘The police, you mean?' Rosa gave a mirthless smile and then leaned back against the park bench; it would have seemed the posture of reminiscence, except for her eyes. ‘A few nights after I was fired, after you were in bed, Ramon tore apart the house. Do you know what he was looking for, Teresa? My birth-control pills. The ones that I must be using to deny him a son.

‘When he couldn't find them, he began to hit me – on the face and arms and stomach. The bedroom was dark; I could barely see his face. All that came to me was the pain, the whiskey smell of his breath, the hatred in his voice as he said he would not stop until I told him where the pills were. And then he wrenched my arm behind my back until I thought that it would break.

‘My face was pressed against the mattress; I could hardly get the words out. “All right,” I managed to cry, “I'll tell you the truth. Just let me go.”

‘He did that. I waited until my head cleared, and then I reached for the lamp and turned it on.