The Murderer's Daughters Part 35

"Honey, we saw each other all the time. How could you not be relaxed with me?" My father's eyes begged me to lie. Please, give me this bit of peace, he pleaded in silence.

Appet.i.te gone, I put the uncut bagel on my plate. "Dad, why do you think I haven't seen you since December, or was it November?"

"Because of Lulu," he said. "I thought maybe she told you not to come."

Overwhelmed by the desire to rip the framed pictures off the wall and smash each one, I tore the bagel in half, then in half again. "How can you tell yourself these fairy tales?"

"Will we have to cover the same ground over and over now that I'm out?" My father picked up the knife and sawed a plain bagel in half, slowly, millimeter by millimeter until it fell apart, then went for his b.u.t.ter knife.

I reached out and stopped him, placing my hand on his. "Do you have scars?" I asked. "On your wrists?"

My father pulled his arms away, as though he thought I'd grab him and hold him down so I could see for myself. "Why do you have to do this? It happened so long ago."

I stood and undid the top two b.u.t.tons of my baby blue sweater, which I now realized was all fluffy angora and little-girl cute. I pulled the left side off my shoulder. "Do your scars look like this?"

"Stop. Please." He came toward me. I backed away.

"You've never even seen my scars," I said. "You've never seen what you did, Daddy."

"I don't have to see them, baby. I live with what I did every single day."

"No. I do." I closed my eyes, determined that I'd sc.r.a.pe the skin off my arms before I let myself cry. "I felt as though I were locked up in jail with you. When I wasn't visiting, I was thinking about you being in there or dreading the visits because they terrified me, or feeling so guilty about dreading them, I'd write you a letter. And in all that time, only once did you tell me you were sorry."

"Didn't you know? I'm always sorry. Baby, I was just a kid when it happened."

"No. You were twenty-eight. I was the kid."

"What do you girls want from me? How can I make it up? How can I get you to understand how much I need you both, how much I love you? I want my family," he begged. "Please, sweetheart, you've always been there for me. Don't do this to me now."

"When were you there for me?" I pulled up the shoulder of my sweater and leaned forward. Every beat of my pulse thudded in my ears.

"Didn't I at least try?" he asked. "I kept up with your schoolwork, your boyfriends, your career-I cared about everything you did; it all interested me. Every report you wrote and all the drawings you sent, the cards, the poems; I have your entire life in there." He pointed through the doorway.

My father made fists of his trembling hands and rested his head on them. I wondered if trying mattered, knowing, whether it did or not, his pain splintered my soul.

My father was right; he did have my entire life. He owned it.

"Okay, Dad," I said. "It's okay. I'm just suggesting you think about it, understand why it's not something we can put away as easily as you'd like."

I picked up my mangled bagel and spread TempTee on top, not knowing what I could do for him at this point, except eat the bagel.

"It's all there," he said. "In my desk. Every single thing you wrote. Do you want to see?"

"Really. It's okay, Dad." I choked a piece of bagel past my dry throat and into my clenched stomach. "Never mind." Please stop talking, please stop, please stop.

"You think I'm a monster, but I'm not. Do you understand? It's late, but, please, I can still help you."

His eyes were mine.

My father was a limited man. He'd never grow. I could only hope to learn how not to hate him immoderately or love him too much. I needed to make my father life-size.

I pressed my fingers against my mouth. My father had robbed me of so much. My mother. My family. A life I wanted hovered in the distance of my imagination, but being in his home, staring at his eyes, my eyes, I had neither the cowardice nor the courage to leave. And someday Lulu's daughters might ask to meet their grandfather, and even if my sister managed to take them, she'd only have room for her rage.

"It's a good bagel, Dad, the everything. I like it."

He gave a shaky smile. "You never had it before?"

I shook my head. "It's new to me." One more fib. One more lie. One more present for my father. Lulu would probably think I was weak, but doing it felt right for me.

He reached out and took one. "Then I'll try it. On your recommendation, Sugar Pop."

A few months later, I'd moved to New York. Park Slope, where I'd found an apartment, felt like Manhattan with elbow room.

Brooklyn? Lulu had said. You're moving to Brooklyn! She'd said this as though we'd escaped the pogroms of Russia only to have me move back to the rubble-strewn town we'd left behind. Perhaps she spoke the truth, but at least I'd moved to a much-improved area of Brooklyn, many steps up from where we'd lived. I'd escaped the hovels.

I carried groceries, enjoying scuffing through the October leaves as I walked home. Sycamores lined my street, broad-trunked and protective. Traditional Brooklyn brownstones were everywhere, looking like prosperous men, proud of their portliness. Past owners had sliced most of the old buildings into apartments and co-ops, though occasionally you could peek through a lit window and see an original home, grand in its ma.s.sive rooms and luminous wood panels struck gold by crystal chandelier light.

I climbed the stairs of the brownstone where I'd bought a second-floor co-op with Drew and Lulu's help. My four rooms embraced me. Deep mahogany shutters kept out the wind. Other times, open, they let the sun outline the intricate parquet floor patterns. One piece at a time, I'd discovered secondhand furniture that fit perfectly. The couch I'd bought new, covering the deep jewel red with sapphire blue cushions.

My father had found a burled-wood bookcase put out for trash and managed to see the beauty under its layers of filth. Three weeks ago, he'd lugged over the finished project using the van from the optical shop where he worked, presenting me with a redone piece so shiny with polyurethane he'd most likely ruined its value as an antique.

I unpacked my groceries and lined them on the open shelves my father had painstakingly painted to match the couch cushions. We had dinner together once a week. Sometimes we went to restaurants. My choices, tiny ethnic finds; his, Brooklyn steak joints. We'd always finish the night with a movie. My choices, weepy dramas; his, musicals. More often he cooked, another of his growing list of avocations: Northern Italian cooking, refinishing trash, twisting wire into intricate miniature figures, anything in this world he could do to make me happy, except talking about the past. That he wouldn't do, though occasionally, when he wasn't aware of it, he'd lapse into a memory of the four of us and feed me a story sc.r.a.p on which I'd dine for weeks.

I placed take-out sushi on a pebbled gla.s.s plate and poured cranberry juice into a tall tumbler. Grabbing a textbook and a highlighter, I sat at the small wooden table I'd found in an antiques store on Atlantic Avenue.

I lived my life working, studying, and seeing the new friends I'd made. My visits to Cambridge were infrequent, though not so much that I felt a stranger when I did go. I needed time to build barriers between Lulu's beliefs about me and the growing newer me. She needed time to remake a family that didn't include me always half in and half out. I needed to become an aunt, a sister, a sister-in-law, not a hungry child pressed up against the gla.s.s of Lulu's world.

I had planned to come to New York to work with victimized children or women. So many dream clients had been available: children of torture, rape victims, and hopelessly battered women. When I found an agency of last hope specializing in milieu therapeutic visits for surviving sons and daughters of murdered parents, I thought I'd arrived home. I'd read their literature as though I were Madame Curie discovering radium. In the process, I learned I'd grown tired of feeding on my own guts and decided I didn't have to pay for the sins of my father anymore.

Now I worked in a cool, quiet art gallery. They required only a pretty face and a steady hand to give out brochures, leaving me plenty of time to study as I sat at the reception desk wearing the approved black sheath or suit. Along with a surplus of damaged people, I discovered that New York City had fast-track programs for career changers. Within a year, I'd have my certification to teach in an elementary school.

I turned the page of a text on child psychology as I dipped a California roll in ginger and soy. My father insisted on giving me almost half his paycheck each week, for tuition, joking that it was about time he paid for his kid's college. Each time he made the joke, I thought of my mother. I wondered if Mama could see me. What would she think of the arrangement my father and I had built? Would Mama want me to take the money?

Before leaving Boston, before making my final decision, I'd spent a night trying to feel Mama, asking her to come and tell me what to do about Dad. When Mama remained silent, I'd taken her silence as consent.

Mama would want me to change.

Mama would definitely want me to take the money.

Sometimes I looked at my life and got queasy-no husband, no kids, no boyfriend, just my father and me. Was this everything Lulu had feared? At those times, I'd hop online and search dating sites. I'd twitch for a Jack Daniel's.

Then I'd calm down and remind myself for everything there is a season. This was my healing season. Eventually the leaves would all fall and new leaves would grow back.

I savored my dinner. Soft jazz surrounded me. I highlighted more pa.s.sages in my book that would help me understand my future students. Afterward, I'd call Lulu just to say h.e.l.lo.

33.

Lulu December 2003 I parked next to an old black Cadillac Seville, then walked the half a block to Aunt Cilla's house, thinking how different old Brooklyn cars were from those in Cambridge. Instead of fifteen-year-old rusting Civics, Brooklyn had hulking Cadillacs with busted taillights. I'd rented a car at the airport. Merry would have lent me hers, but I hadn't yet told her I was coming to New York. It was a sunny December day, Merry's thirty-eighth birthday. I wanted to surprise her.

A shiny Toyota Avalon sat in Aunt Cilla's driveway. I opened the door to the gla.s.s-enclosed porch, surprised it was unlocked. The porch was empty, maybe because no one used it in the winter or maybe because no one ever used it. I announced my arrival with the hanging bra.s.s knocker, banging until I heard footsteps.

An age-spotted hand pulled aside the lace curtain on the entry window. Aunt Cilla peered at me with suspicious eyes.

"Lulu?" she asked. I recognized her immediately, even though she looked every year of her age and more. Her face had sagged into the bulldog shape at which it had always hinted. Her body had taken on the contour of so many older women, sticklike legs and too-skinny arms stuck into a fat Mrs. Potato Head middle.

"It's me, Aunt Cilla."

She opened the door and stared. "You look like your father's side. Like his father."

"Right. My grandfather."

"Merry, your sister, she looks like your mother."

"I know." I hoped my smile was sarcastic enough for her to see through her thick gla.s.ses.

"She hasn't visited me once since she moved here. Even though she lives in Brooklyn. She called Arnie."

I nodded as though Aunt Cilla had made a modic.u.m of sense. Merry had dinner with Cousin Arnie once a month. It was difficult to picture him now a stockbroker.

"Come in," Aunt Cilla said. "Uncle Hal wanted to be here, but he's at work."

Probably still ashamed of dropping us off as though we were so much trash.

"I can't get him to retire," she said. "Tell me, who goes to a shaky-handed old dentist?" She wiped her hands on her faded, green-checked ap.r.o.n.

"Shaky old women with false teeth?" I offered.

Aunt Cilla clicked her tongue. "Still with the fresh mouth, even after all these years."

She held out her arms for a hug. I held my breath, leaned in, and gave her my Oprah hug. G.o.d, Lu, I can always tell when you don't want someone touching you, Merry said. You give the same hug Oprah does when the guests are too starstruck and she needs to keep her distance.

"So, can you have lunch? Or are you just going to grab everything and go?" Aunt Cilla steered me inside. "Hal brought the boxes from the attic."

We walked into her kitchen. The high-gloss appliances and expensive-looking walnut cabinets were an uncomfortable contrast to Aunt Cilla's aged face. Her old kitchen, the one I remembered from childhood, had been the blond wood that was then the height of fashion. I remembered my mother snarling at my father the entire weekend after she'd seen Uncle Hal's remodeling job.

The table was set with Mimi Rubee's china. That I also remembered. Mimi Rubee had given the service to Aunt Cilla soon after my grandfather died. Mimi Rubee didn't want the old-fashioned Haviland, festooned with pictures of dancing maidens, garlanded with green and gold. My mother had hated the dishes, as attached to modern as Mimi Rubee, both of them buying white melamine stamped with turquoise starbursts.

"Arnie keeps hocking me for these." Aunt Cilla shook her head. "A grown man who collects plates. I should give the whole service to you. If you don't like it, you can put it away for your daughters."

I started to protest, worried Arnie would feel sidelined. Merry had told me he hid being gay from Aunt Cilla. Instead, I looked at my aunt and said, "I'd love them."

She seemed taken aback. Clearly, it had been a hollow offer. "In fact, I can come back tomorrow and wrap them."

"I better wait, I need to ask Arnie." Her words trailed off as she took a platter from the refrigerator.

I could have rescued her, but I didn't. "I'll tell the girls. They'll be so excited. Why don't you box the dishes up and ship them to us? On the other hand, perhaps I should have Merry come and pick them up. How would that be?" Would it be pushing it if I offered my father's services in carrying the dishes out?

"Your mother's boxes are in the living room." Aunt Cilla slammed a plate of chopped liver and egg salad on the table. "You can look through them after we eat. See what you want. Make your decisions."

"I don't have to decide. I'm taking everything."

Aunt Cilla placed her hands on her hips and pulled herself up to her full shrunken height. Like so many women of her generation-didn't I treat them, didn't I know?-she showed the signs of osteoporosis and someday would be pocket-size. "If you take it all, what will I have to remember my sister?"

"You've had years to memorize everything, Aunt Cilla. Anyway, how do I know what you put in the cartons and what you kept?"

"Are you accusing me of stealing? Of lying?" She held a hand to her chest. Diamond rings cut into her plump fingers. "How dare you? See, this is what comes of trying to be nice. I wanted to start fresh, like Arnie said I should. Why would I steal from you?"

I took a giant scoop of chopped liver and smeared it on a piece of rye bread, licking the excess from my fork. "Mmm. Good." I covered the chopped liver with a piece of lettuce and folded the bread into half a sandwich. "Why would you do that to me? I don't know, Aunt Cilla. Why would you abandon me to an orphanage?"

I packed up the car as soon as I'd choked down the thick half sandwich, Aunt Cilla watching with pursed lips as I chewed. We had stayed silent as I carried six cartons to the car. I waited for some milk of human kindness to overtake me after carrying the last box out. Uncle Hal had labeled it "personal items," inking the words over the prestamped DAWSON DENTAL SUPPLIES.

I stood by my rented car, looking back at Aunt Cilla. She pulled her sweater tighter with one hand as she held open the front door, waiting. I walked to the driver's side, opened the car door, and inserted the key, feeling Aunt Cilla watching and waiting, maybe expecting me to come back and hug her. Kiss her.

Two sad little girls had once waited and waited for someone to take care of them.

The engine caught, roared, and I drove away.

Driving to Park Slope from Mill Basin took about thirty minutes. Block by block things changed. My aunt's suburban-looking street turned to the busier Avenue N. When I hit Flatbush Avenue, I saw the Brooklyn of my childhood. The area grew shabbier and darker. Storefronts were crowded with piles of cheap offerings, discount giant bottles of strangely named shampoos, rayon shirts in wild colors, dresses stiff with sizing, made to last until the first washing.

My children would like this-seeing my childhood-but it was too close to my father. I needed more miles between him and here to feel safe. The girls asked to see their grandfather once in a while. Now, I no longer told lies. I simply said no. Someday perhaps they'd visit him anyway, but while they were under our watch, Drew's and mine, we'd keep them away from him.

That was my plan. On occasion, Drew broached the subject, and, when he did, I tried to explain myself to him. I listened as he spoke. I forced out words for him as my heart banged away. I loved my husband. I couldn't afford to love my father. I'd never give up what little peace I'd gained.

As I approached Prospect Park, life spread out, the architecture allowing breathing s.p.a.ce around people. The Park Slope streets looked green with trees and new money.

Merry's street had no driveways. I crammed into a parking spot between a Matrix and a Prius. I reached into my bag and took out my cell, pressing her speed dial number, the first in my phone.

Merry came out and ran across the street.

We hugged and kissed. She seemed as though she'd known for weeks that I'd arrive, rather than the fifteen-minute warning I'd given. She wore lipstick and velvet.

It took us three trips to get the cartons up to her second-floor apartment, both of us sweaty afterward despite the December chill. A pot of chili simmered on the stove, lending warmth and spice to the air. Perfectly glazed challah sat on a brick red earthenware plate.

"Look at the miracle," I said. "You finally learned to cook."

"No. Dad did."

I studied my sister's face. Was she waiting for a reaction? However, she simply looked Merry. Piquant. Rock-star pretty. She seemed sweet, like she had when she was little. She'd lost her clenched edge.

"Good that he's finally useful," I said. I'd never told Merry I'd given him the fifteen thousand. She'd told me about the tuition he paid and the furniture he made, but none of it made me want to see him, not even a little. The only difference was, I finally didn't care that Merry did. "Let's see what we have in here."