Olive Branches Don't Grow on Trees (19 page)

Donna
finally agreed that the dinner would be a good thing and said that she would
definitely be there.  Silvia thanked her mother and ate her half melted
sundae with joy.  But after her sundae ended, she returned to the
laborious conversation.  She thought about what her mother had said about
not wanting to see Frank, and then she asked her mother the inevitable
question:  “Do you definitely plan to divorce Dad?”  She looked right
into her mother’s eyes as she spoke, prompting the most honest reply she could
get from her.

“Probably,”
said Donna.  This seemed like a most lame response to Silvia, and Donna
was not even looking directly into her daughter's eyes when she said it.
 On top of that, her appetite seemed just fine, as evidenced by her taking
a bite of her chicken dinner that Silvia assumed had gone cold by this time.
 And as if things were not tense enough, the waiter had chosen this very
uncomfortable moment to come over and check in on things.  

As
soon as the waiter left the table, Silvia said, “You know he misses you.”
 She was confused as to why she was attempting to sway her mother to get
back together with the person who gave her so much misery.  But she was
not trying to get them back together.  She had already decided that this
was not vital or necessary for their family to be at peace.  She was just
really upset by Donna’s callous response and wanted something more from her.

“Well,
of course he does.  Why shouldn’t he?” said Donna who apparently had gone
through some miraculous transformation in the past month, for she was exuding
confidence left and right, as if making up for all the time that she spent
moping around like a nobody.  She was her own person, separate from Frank.
 She was somebody now.  Independent, confident, and vivacious, and
she had begun creating a bright new life for
herself
.

“You’re
right Mom.  Why shouldn’t he?  I mean you are a pretty, super
lady.”  Silvia was not sure what exactly prompted her to say this, but she
was happy that she did, as it made her mother smile bigger than she had ever
seen her smile.  There was nothing strained or broken or pitiful about
this smile.  It was full and effortless and happy.  

**********

Silvia
got home at dusk, when lightning bugs lingered in the yard and crickets sang loud
into the air.  She sat on the hood of her car and took in the beautiful
night.  At times like these, she thought that living in south Jersey might
not be so bad after all.  She thought of watching TV with Frank while
eating bowls of ice cream.  She thought of having dinners with Donna,
going to movies with Cosmo, going to the beach with Angie, and seeing Vince
when he came home from college.  She thought of being able to see Isabella
grow into girl and into a woman.  She thought of having a teaching job and
an apartment someplace right around here.  It did not look so bad at all
to her.  Of course, it would not be forever, but it could be for now.
 

The
sky had a tint of pink, and the air was balmy and soft, as she sat watching the
magical lightning bugs appear and disappear.   She listened to the
soft breezes flow through the trees' leaf filled branches and the chirping of
the summer time insects.  She could hear Cosmo asking “What’s wrong with
here?”  The answer she had for this question was now very clear. 
There was nothing wrong with here.  Not one thing.  It was absolute
perfection.

CHAPTER SEVEN: TOO LATE FOR SAVING

Some
people are born with a smile on their face, while others are born with a
frown.  Frank seemed like he was of the latter type.  Silvia wanted
to be sure to get his serious frown in her painting, with lips bent downward
like a horseshoe.  She was determined to finish her painting tonight.
 She saved Frank, the most complicated person, for last.  She would
start him, like she started every person she painted, with the feature that she
considered to be the heart of their essence, the thing that made them who they
were.  For Frank, it was in his eyes.  They were very dark and when
he was drunk and angry, they got blacker than black and hollowed out like
tunnels that go nowhere. So that is how she painted them.

She
had thought of making the eyes less hollow, less dark, and less raging, because
she knew that behind his warrior facade, he was nothing more than a frightened
child still crying for the mother who had never been there for him.  But
that very night, when he had slammed through the kitchen, his eyes had looked
just the way she had painted them.  So, Silvia was glad that she had
chosen to reveal him as the angry bulldog that she knew he could be.
 Sometimes when he drank, it calmed his anger and allowed him to pass out
into oblivion.  Other times, the booze stirred up inside of him and made
the fire within him burn bright, fast, and furious.  Tonight was one of those
fiery nights, and Silvia could practically hear his anger even before he began
yelling.

He
opened the kitchen door like he was trying to break it down and slammed it shut
so hard that Silvia could hear birds, perched on the roof of the house, fly
away in fright.  He then proceeded to walk down the hallway, with heavy
footsteps that sounded like his feet might go through the floor.  Silvia
could hear him banging on Vince’s door, and opening it without giving Vince a
chance to do so himself.  She ran outside of her room, into the hallway,
and could see her father standing in his fighting position.

“You’re
nothing but an introvert and an ingrate!” 
he
yelled. “I never see you or hear a peep out of you until you want something!”

“Isn’t
that what you want?  To never see me or hear from me?”  Vince’s tone
of voice was low, calm, and indifferent, and this indifference seemed to
infuriate Frank more. He then raised his voice and said, “Well that’s it then,
I’m not helping you with your tuition!”  At this, Vince’s indifference continued,
as if Frank was talking about something incidental, like the cost of tomatoes.
 

Silvia
went back into her room and hid her painting in the closet where Frank would
not see it.  As she was doing this, she heard his heavy, determined
footsteps coming down the hallway towards her room.  Her stomach filled
with
nausea,
as if she had just drunk a glass of old
milk.  Her head felt disconnected from her body, as if it was floating
above the rest of her.  Her fingertips tingled, and she wished that she were
able to jump out of her skin.

“That
brother of yours has nothing to say to me except when he needs something!
 I’m tired of being made into a fool!  And you want to have a party
for him?  He’s a fucking ingrate!  That’s all he is!”

“Dad,
calm down,” she said, trying to have compassion in her voice.  But this
was the wrong thing to say, and although she knew that telling a mad man to
calm down would probably not go over too well, she had not known what else to
say.

“Get
your stuff and get the fuck out of my house!” came right out of his mouth,
automatic and fierce, like a bolt of thunder.  Silvia’s response was just
as automatic.  She got her backpack and grabbed Vince, who was all ready
to go, and together they made their getaway.

The
two of them were synchronized like a flock of birds flying south for the
winter, as they got in her car and zoomed down the driveway.  They moved
in silence as they drove away, and Silvia remembered all of the times they made
similar escapes with their mother and two other siblings.  Usually they
would have to evacuate in the middle of the night, when they were all sleeping,
or trying to sleep.  They would awaken to the sounds of Frank screaming,
and glasses and plates crashing onto the floor.  Angie would get up out of
her bed and get her overnight bag out of the closet, and Silvia, being her
little sister, would follow.  There was no shock in either of them.
 No words.  No need for instruction.  Almost as if they had
intuited exactly what needed to be done, like an instinctual or inborn
response.  They would meet up with the other three outside, and then all
five of them would pile into Donna’s car and flee the house.  Donna would
back out of the driveway, quickly and clumsily, with Frank chasing them down on
foot, as if he, himself, was stronger and more powerful than the full sized car
she drove.  His limp seemed to vanish as he ran, almost as if the anger
had somehow fixed him.

It
was no wonder that Silvia was so good at running.  She knew what it was
like to always be ready, to never know when she might have to, once again,
take
flight. 
Perhaps because she had
been trained in the battleground of uncertainty.
  This was why she
could never be casual about moving.  There was always some sense of
urgency about her moves, like she was still running from her father. 

She
was sorry that she had moved any of her clothing into her old bureau but happy
that she had not moved all of her clothes into the bureau and discarded her
loyal orange crates.  She was sorry that she had ever referred to that
place as home and that she had temporarily stopped thinking of it for what it
was and what it would always be-- her father’s house.  She was sorry that
she had ever considered living there with Frank or living anywhere near him, but
she was glad that she had not taken any concrete steps towards settling there,
like applying to schools in the area.

Neither
Vince nor Silvia spoke until they were safely out of the driveway, when Vince
asked Silvia where they were going. She told him that she was not sure, but
that it would be “some place far away from that shit hole!”

It
ended up, however, not being all that far away.  They arrived at Cosmo’s
apartment where she knew that they could sleep peacefully, without being woken
in the middle of the night by a raging lunatic.  Going to Donna’s would be
a bad choice.  It would just upset her.  And besides, Silvia could
not stand to make herself into a fool after she had tried to convince her
mother that Frank was getting better. 

Her
head rattled with the remnants of Frank’s tantrum, as she walked up the steps
to Cosmo’s apartment.  The familiar dinginess of the hallway in his
apartment building had become a comfort since she had been living with her
father, and tonight, after escaping the madness of Frank’s house, it was
particularly comforting.  She even began to see beauty in the vomit green
colored carpeting and the peeling beige wall paint. 

Cosmo
came to the door, smart phone in-hand, playing some game that disabled him from
saying a proper hello to them.  Neither of them minded the lack of
reception.  They just walked in, sat down,
sighed
a bunch, and stared out into the space in front of them.  Cosmo looked up
from his game for a half of a second to say that he would be finished in a
minute, but both of his guests seemed indifferent to having his attention, and
the pair just continued staring out into space, as if they were asleep with
their eyes open.

Silvia
was sure that Cosmo knew why the two arrived together at this hour in a daze, but
showed little concern.  It was not that he did not care, but Cosmo was the
one, who stood with both of his feet planted firmly on the ground.
 Because he had his feet on the ground, he knew what was coming at all
times.  So it would be no surprise to him that Frank showed up drunk and
kicked them out of the house.  There was no distortion in his sight, and
he functioned like a perfect mirror for the very idealistic Silvia, who was
beginning to think more of her older brother’s ability to live his life, and
less of her own ability to live her life.

At
this moment, she did not see him as a quitter.  She saw him as someone
content with the life he had been given.  He went to work, played his
video games, went for the occasional drink with his friends, ate without
analyzing every bite of food he put in his mouth, and stayed clear of lost
causes and the arguments that such causes create.  He knew
simplicity.  His mind seemed pretty Zen to her.  It was not polluted
with causes, beliefs, and ideas, like the rest of their minds.  Unlike
Angie, he did not care what anyone thought of him.  Unlike Donna, he would
never get involved in some drama-laden relationship.  He would never
attempt to search for happiness in a bottle of scotch like Frank.  He
would never rant about causes like Vince.  And unlike her, he did not try
to change people, go on endless searches for perfect places, or try to make
peace in a family that knew nothing but war. 

“Dad
had another one of his episodes tonight, I assume,” Cosmo said putting his
phone down.

“How
did you guess?” said Vince sarcastically.

“Are
you surprised?” said Cosmo.

“What
do you think?” said Silvia.

“I
think you thought you could change him,” said Cosmo to Silvia.

“So,
what if I did?  Does that make me a bad person for wanting to help him?”

“No,”
Cosmo said, smiling deviously, “It does make you a fool, though.”

“Fuck
off, Cosmo,” she said without the slightest bit of expression in her voice.

“People
don’t change, little sister,” he said, flopping down in a chair without regard
for her ‘fuck off’ remark. “Especially people like Dad.”

He
was right.  She knew it, but she still could not resist telling her
brother that their dad did, in fact, seem like he was changing.  There was
still the tiniest bit of idealism that flickered inside of her, like a candle
struggling to stay lit in a drafty house.  Cosmo turned to Vince, who then
verified that their father did not seem any different to him.  Cosmo
needed no further proof, and his face bore a smug look of satisfaction.
 So he was right.  He was always right, damn it!  But there was
no time for being mad at her brother for always being right.  There were
too many bigger worries that had hijacked her brain and were now pressing in on
it with the force and strength of a jackhammer.

Where
was she going to live now that she had been kicked out of Frank’s house?
 It was just like her father to wait until she was all situated to pull
something like this.  
And what about the reunion that
would save them all?
 She could not possibly think of quitting this
cause now.  Cosmo must have been reading her mind at this very moment, for
he said, “So, I guess there won’t be any dinner or anything for Vince’s
graduation, huh?” He sounded greatly relieved.

“No,”
said Silvia, looking up at the ceiling stubbornly. “It doesn’t mean that, at
all.”

“Hey
Silvia, I don’t mind if...” started Vince.

“We’re
having a dinner, God damn it!  And it’s going to be great!  
Just fucking great!”
 

“Yeah,
I’m sure it will be,” said Cosmo, like he was trying to humor a mental patient.

“Do
you still want to have it this Saturday?” asked Vince, like he was slightly
afraid of his sister.

“Yeah.
 
It’s still going to be this Saturday at the fucking Central Cafe after your
graduation!  I made reservations!  Angie is coming down with Doug and
Isabella!”  She shouted every word, as if she were making an announcement
in a sports arena.  She then looked back Vince, offensively, like she was
expecting him to make some kind of negative response.  She appeared to be
very ready and willing to deal with him if he would. Vince, seeing this, looked
down at the floor and refrained from speaking a word. 

In
an effort to block the noise in her head, Silvia grabbed the TV remote that was
on a small, dented end table next to her chair, and turned on the television.
 She was hoping for something comedic, like a
Seinfeld
or
Simpson’s
episode, but, instead, she got an update on the latest causalities in
Afghanistan.  This was even worse than the noise in her head.  The
war reminded her of her family, and her family reminded her of the war. 
Fucking war!  Never ending fucking war!  The thing that has always
been and will always be.  Arrows morphed into missiles.  Sticks and
stones turned into atomic bombs.  No end and no beginning, just like the
fighting that existed and would probably always exist within her family.
 She looked over at Vince, who looked like he wanted to jump into the
television set and make everything right.  She looked at Cosmo, who looked
jaded, expressionless, and complacent as a turtle.  The person who knew
how it all really was and knew that their family was just like the rest of the
world.  
Too late for saving.
 
A family of divisions and alliances.
 A family with so
many lines that had grown thicker with time and would just continue to thicken
as time went on.  
Lines that could never be erased.

“When
will this war ever end?” said Vince.