Dirty (30 page)

“Yes! I want to be happy! But don’t try to hand me Dan on a platter and try to convince me that he’s the magic key! Okay? Him or any other man. It doesn’t work that way. True love isn’t going to transform me, Marcy. Not everyone works the way you do.”

“I’m only trying to help you,” she said.

“I know you are.” I took a deep breath. “And I appreciate it. But this is my thing, okay? It has nothing to do with Dan. It’s not something that he did or didn’t do. It’s not about him. It’s something I have to work through on my own.”

“You don’t have to do it on your own. You’ve got friends. People who love you. Whatever it is, Elle.”

I knew she was right. I knew she would listen, offer advice, hold my hand. I knew she would do what she could; but what it all came down to was that in the end I needed to rid myself of the infection inside me. Cut it out, if I had to. Tear off the scab, open it to the air, get it clean.

“I’ll see you back at the office.”

She nodded. “Fine.”

There were things to say that would make this better, but I couldn’t make myself say them. I’ve never been good at building, only breaking. I left her at the café, and later that day I saw her giggling over her ring with Lisa Lewis in the copy room. They both stopped and looked up when I came in, and Marcy smiled at me as if we barely knew each other.

M
arcy was wrong. I was not a martyr. At least, I didn’t think so. I did not want to parade my pain for all to see, to bolster myself with pity, to beat my breast and bemoan my sorry state. That was my mother’s agenda, not mine.

It was why I never spoke to anyone about what had happened in our house the years of my life between fifteen and eighteen, when Andrew died. I didn’t want anyone, ever, to be able to excuse me because of my past. I did not excuse myself because of it. Bad things happen all the time. Worse than what I endured. Everything in my past was a piece of my self puzzle, the punctuation in the sentence of my being. Without it I would not have become the woman I am today. I’d be someone else. Someone I might not recognize.

She was right, however, about pushing people away. I knew it. I had for a long time. So I pondered getting “someone” the way my brother had, and I decided, instead, to go to church. God didn’t reach down his hand and pull me off my knees. I’d abandoned religion for a reason. I didn’t believe God could solve my problems any more than therapy could or booze or drugs. Or sex. There was much for me to carry, and I had to let it go.

St. Paul’s was larger than St. Mary’s and a more modern church, advertising “folk Mass” and “contemporary worship” on the billboard in front. They did offer confession, however, and while I’d never believed it should be up to a man to decide if I’m worthy of forgiveness, the act of confession preyed on my mind so persistently that I at last decided to go.

Father Hennessy had a nice voice. A little rough, but quiet. He sounded kind and interested, at least, not bored, though I’d waited until the church was empty before I entered the confessional, and he was probably tired of listening at that point.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a long time since my last confession.”

I spoke for a long time.

“Are you able to forgive yourself?” he asked at last. “Because you know I can forgive you and the good Lord can, but if you don’t forgive yourself it’s no use.”

I nodded, my fingers aching from being clutched together so tightly. “Yes, Father, I know.”

“Have you sought professional services?”

“Not recently, Father.”

“But you’ve had counseling.”

I laughed, low. “When it happened, yes.”

“And you didn’t find it helpful?”

“They could give me medication, Father, but…” My voice trailed off.

“Ah.” He seemed to understand. “You know you’re not at fault, don’t you?”

“I know. I do know.”

“And yet you can’t let go of the guilt?”

“I can’t seem to, no.”

We shared silence for a moment before he spoke again. “Like our Lord, you’ve been pierced with thorns and nails. You can take them out, but each leaves behind a hole. And you, child, have so many holes you’re afraid that’s all you’ll be. Nothing but holes. Am I right?”

I put my forehead on my hands and whispered a reply. “Yes.”

“When they pulled our Lord from the cross, he had holes, too. But he rose again with his Father’s love, and you can too.”

Hot tears leaked over my fingers, but a strangled laugh escaped me. “You’re comparing me to the son of God?”

“We’re all children of God,” the priest said. “Every one of us. Our Lord Christ died for our sins so you don’t have to. Do you understand?”

I envied those who could accept that answer, who could let the light shine in and let the blood of their Savior wash it all away. It seemed like another fairy story to me, but I didn’t tell the priest that. He believed it, even if I could not.

“I’m tired, Father, of feeling this way.”

“Then let our Lord take it away for you.”

He sounded so sincere. Genuine. Again, I wished I could do as he said. Open my heart. Believe in something that would make all the rest seem bearable.

“I’m sorry, Father, I just can’t.”

He sighed. “It’s all right.”

He sounded despondent, and I thought maybe the Church business wasn’t as satisfying as it had been years ago when Catholics didn’t question, they just prayed.

“I’m sorry, Father. I want to believe you.”

He laughed. “The fact you’re here says that. And if you don’t believe, don’t worry. God believes in you. He won’t let you fall away from him so easily.”

I’d never heard a priest laugh in the confessional before. “It’s not that I don’t know where to place the blame. Or that I think it’s my fault. I know it’s not.”

“But you’re full of holes.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re looking for something to fill them.”

I wiped my face with my hands, feeling my tears on my fingertips. “Yes. I guess I am.”

“It’s my job to tell you to find it in the Church,” the priest said. “I hope you’ll at least consider it.”

I liked Father Hennessy, who had a sense of humor. “If anyone could convince me, Father, I think it would be you.”

“Ah, that makes me feel better. Are you ready to finish your confession?”

“Yes.” I paused. “Go easy on me, Father, I’m out of practice.”

He laughed again. “Say one Act of Contrition, my child.”

“It’s been a long time. I’m not sure I remember the words.”

“Then I will say them with you,” said Father Hennessy, and he did.

There could be no point in continuing this way. I didn’t like it, didn’t want it, couldn’t stand it. So this is what I did.

I went to visit my mother.

Since my father’s death she’d redecorated the den. The big television still squatted in the corner like Shelob waiting for a tasty hobbit to devour, but all other signs of my father’s habitation of the space had disappeared. She’d replaced his chair with a love seat and stripped the striped wallpaper for a cheery yellow paint.

She showed me around the room, but didn’t actually let me sit in it. She took me to the kitchen, made us both coffee and pulled an apple pie from the freezer. I recognized it as one left from the wake and didn’t want any.

“I’ve got some boxes for you.” She lit a cigarette and held it between her French-manicured fingertips. “If you don’t take them, I’m giving them to the thrift store.”

“What’s in them?”

She shrugged. “Bunch of junk.”

I stirred sweetener in my coffee in lieu of the sugar she didn’t keep. “What makes you think I want a bunch of junk?”

“It’s your junk,” she said, like that made a difference.

If my visit surprised or pleased her, I saw no sign of either. She drew in the smoke and let it out, squinching her eyes shut in a way that feathered wrinkles around her eyes.

“Fine. I’ll take a look through it before I go.”

We sipped our coffee in silence. I’d never sat at her table like this, two adults drinking coffee. I waited to feel strange about it, and then I did.

If my mother did, she kept it to herself. “So, Ella. Where’s your friend?”

I gave her a look. She tossed up her hands. “What? What? I shouldn’t ask?”

“Do you really care?”

She took another drag. “It would be good for you to have a man.”

“You didn’t seem to think so when he was here.”

My mother has always been good at rewriting history to suit herself. “What are you talking about? He seemed very nice for a Jew.”

I let my head fall forward with a groan. “Oh, Jesus.”

“Not in this house,” she warned. “Don’t take the name of our Lord in vain.”

“I’m sorry.” I drank some of her coffee, which was too strong.

“You know I think it’s long past time you got married. Had some children. Had a real life.”

The rant was an old one, but for the first time I allowed myself to listen not only to her words but to the meaning behind them.

“I have a life. A real life. I don’t need to be defined by a husband or children to have a real life.”

My mother scoffed. “You need something other than those damned numbers, Ella.”

“Yes, because I’ve had such a good role model,” I retorted.

She stubbed out her cigarette and crossed her arms over her ample chest. Her expertly applied makeup couldn’t hide the circles under her eyes. “I wish you weren’t so smart with me all the time. I wish you took better care of yourself. I wish you saw I was only trying to look out for you instead of jumping down my throat every time we talk.”

I’d been holding both hands around my mug to warm them, but I put it down and spread them flat on the tabletop. I looked at her, trying hard to see myself in the curve of her jaw, the color of her eyes, the style of her hair. I tried to find myself in my mother, some thread of connection to prove I had once swum inside her womb and was not just an afterthought. That once upon a time she had looked at me with something other than disappointment.

“I wish I was fifteen again, and I had told Andrew no when he asked me if I loved him. And I wish he’d listened to me instead of getting into my bed.”

The color drained from her face, leaving two bright spots of blush high on her cheeks. For an instant I thought she was going to pass out. Or maybe scream.

Instead, she slapped my face hard enough to rock me back in my chair. I put my hand over the heat the blow left behind on my cheek. Then I looked her in the eyes.

“And I wish you would stop blaming me for it.”

I tensed for the next slap, or the coffee in my face, or the shrieks and accusations. I was not prepared for what she did next. She started to cry.

Real, fat tears welled in her eyes and left tracks in her foundation. They dripped off her chin and left dark marks on her navy silk blouse. She drew in a slow, hitching breath as her mouth trembled to let out a sob.

“Who else could I blame?” my mother said, the words striking me harder than her slap. “He’s dead.”

I wanted to get up but didn’t have the strength to do it. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“I knew.” She reached for a napkin and blew her nose, then took another to pat her eyes. Her mascara left half circles of black on the white paper.

“You called me a liar and a whore.” The words stuck in my throat before I forced them out. They felt sharp, like they left scratches.

I had never seen her look so bleak. So unconcerned with how her tears might have smudged her makeup and turned her nose red. My mother wiped her eyes again, removing more of the eyeliner, shadow, mascara. She looked naked without it. Vulnerable.

“Do you think I was a liar and a whore?” I wanted to sound demanding. I only sounded pleading.

“No, Ella. I don’t.”

“Then why did you say it?” I wept, too, but didn’t bother wiping my face. I kept my hands anchored flat on the table. “Why?”

“Because I thought maybe saying it would make it true!” She cried. “Because I didn’t want to believe he would do those things to you! I didn’t want to believe it, Ella, that my son could work such evil! I wanted to make you a liar because that would mean it wasn’t true. Because I would rather have a daughter who’s a liar and a whore than a son who raped his sister.”

“Like you’d rather have a son who is gay?” I asked, more gently than I had ever thought I’d be able to. “You’d rather have one son dead by his own hand and a daughter who doesn’t have a real life than a son who’s alive and well but likes men?”

It didn’t make me feel good to watch her flinch and crumble, shrivel like the legs of the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy took off those shoes. I had always thought confronting her would leave me more triumphant. It only left me sad.

“You don’t understand what it’s like, to have children. How they disappoint you. You don’t understand what it’s like to give another person life and watch them throw it all away. You don’t understand what it’s like, Ella, to be me.”

I studied her for another long, long moment in which she wept and my own tears slowed. At last I stood, not filled with triumph but with something else I had longed for. Acceptance.

“No, Mother,” I told her kindly. “I don’t. And I guess I never will.”

She nodded, focusing again on her coffee and her smoke, and I saw for the first time she was not a fairy queen I’d dreamed of as a child, nor the wicked witch I’d made her out to be later, but a woman. Just a woman, after all.

I hugged her, the smoke from her cigarette burning my eyes. At first she didn’t hug me back, but after a moment she did, patting my back. Her fingers tugged my hair.

We said nothing else, too fragile for words, and I left her there at the table. I thought maybe I would come back and see her again. I thought maybe we would talk again. But for the moment, what we had done was enough.

I didn’t get religion, though I did attend Mass once or twice. The contemporary service was nice, though not quite the comforting, mysterious ritual of my youth. I found it lacking, in the end, though I enjoyed Father Hennessy’s sermon about the challenges facing young people today. After, when I shook his hand as I left the church and murmured, “thank you, Father,” he pressed my hand with fingers gnarled by arthritis and looked into my eyes when he answered, “You’re quite welcome.”

I didn’t stop “not hating” my mother, either, and when she called I made more of an effort to pick up the phone and talk to her. Our conversations were strained, though. Distant and polite. She stopped asking me about Dan and started telling me more about her life. She’d taken up a membership in the gym and joined a reading group. If I found it odd to speak to her of such inanities, I’m sure she found it equally as strange not to rant and rave at me; but both of us were trying, at least, and I for one had accepted we might never have more than that.

I spent my nights the way I mostly had for years, alone. I read a great deal. I knitted. I repainted my kitchen and steam cleaned my carpets. I had a lot of time that had seemed insufficient before, when faced with all the tasks I wanted to accomplish, but which now, without anyone to share them with, seemed vast and empty and bereft.

I could have called him. I should have. Pride stopped my fingers from dialing, and fear, too. What if I called and he didn’t call back? Or worse, hung up on me?

I’d lived a long time without a Dan in my life, and there was no good reason I couldn’t get on without one, now. No good reason other than that I missed him. He had made me laugh, if nothing else. He’d made me forget myself.