Kiss Mommy Goodbye (17 page)

“I was hoping you’d do the talking.”

“Me? You’re the one who said you wanted to talk.”

There was a long silence. Finally, after obvious deliberation, he spoke.

“This is none of my business.”

“What is? Isn’t,” she corrected.

“You.”

“What are you talking about?”

Another long silence.

“Look, this isn’t like me at all. I usually never interfere with someone’s private life. I’m very easy-going; I believe in letting sleeping dogs lie and all that—”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“That you are the most unhappy-looking woman I have ever seen.”

Donna was too surprised to react.

“I’m sorry. It’s a hell of a thing to say to a complete stranger, I know. Just that I’ve been watching you, and I keep hearing people go by saying ‘What’s happened to Donna? She used to be so pretty,’ and, to be honest, well, I think you’re still pretty, but you’re obviously so desperately unhappy—”

“You said that,” Donna was beginning to react. She felt the tears filling up her eyes.

“Oh, no, please don’t cry. I’m a total disaster when a woman cries.” He moved his arms around her and walked with her to the far end of the garden. The tears were
becoming sobs, her shoulders were starting to heave. Minutes later, the rest of the guests had deserted the patio area and Donna sat on the far grass, curled in the doctor’s arms, crying as she hadn’t cried since that night almost nine months ago. Mel sat beside her, his hold never weakening, until the last sob wrestled free of her body.

“I shouldn’t cry,” she said at last. “It’s not good for the baby.”

“Start worrying about what’s good for the mother,” he answered. “Usually what’s good for Mommy is good for the child.”

Donna tried to smile. “I forgot you’re a doctor.” She paused, wiping her nose carelessly with the paper napkin from around her drink. “Where’s your office?”

“South Dixie. By Forest Hill Boulevard.”

She nodded her head. “In one of the clinics?” His turn to nod. “General practice?” He nodded again. “You like it?”

“Very much.”

“Susan told me you had a daughter—”

“Yes. Annie. She’s seven. Going on twenty-four.” Donna managed a weak laugh. “Kid’s been through a lot the past few years.” He stared into her eyes. The tears hung precariously on their lids, waiting for the slightest provocation to fall. “I guess Susan also told you I’m divorced.”

“Yes.”

“Amazing girl, that Susan. She’s learned the art of staring right at you, saying all sorts of nasty things about you, smiling at you all the while, and you don’t even see her lips move. Great talent.”

“She didn’t say anything nasty about you.”

“Divorce is always nasty—especially when there are kids.”

“Why did you do it then?”

“I didn’t—it was Kate’s decision. She felt cheated, I think—”

“Cheated?”

They moved so that they were no longer locked in each other’s arms and now sat side by side, two separate entities sitting with their knees up and parallel, leaning forward, their hands moving almost rhythmically to pick at the grass around them.

“Typical story,” he shrugged. “We married right out of college; she worked to put me through med school, gave it up when I graduated. We had a child. I worked hard. I was never home. She was always home. She resented it. Then she resented me. She joined a few women’s groups. Next thing I knew, she announced she was leaving to start a new career—she wants to be a lawyer—and that was that.”

“And Annie?”

“She’s with me. Kate gets her holidays and summers.”

Donna felt her whole body tense. Why you? she wanted to ask. Why did you get custody? Instead she said, “And Kate?”

“She graduates in a year’s time. Actually, I think she’ll make a fine lawyer.”

“You’re not bitter?”

He shook his head. “No. Listen, it was at least as much my fault as hers. Basically, she didn’t see me for about nine years, and when you’re only married nine years, it doesn’t make for much of a marriage.” He paused, throwing a long blade of grass up in the air. “It’s funny, though, how things work out. I mean, ever since she left, I stopped working so hard. I suddenly realized I had a kid to raise, and so now I’m never home later than six
P.M.
and I always wait with her
until the bus picks her up in the mornings. I never work weekends except in emergencies. All the things Kate was after me about when we were married.” He looked at Donna. “Why do we always do things so ass-backward?”

“Why do you have custody?” Donna asked suddenly, no longer able to hold the question at bay.

“Kate thought it would be better for Annie. Law school’s a hard place for a four-year-old. Or even now that she’s a precocious seven.”

They looked straight ahead toward the house.

“You want to talk now?” he asked.

“No,” she answered.

“Why? Don’t you trust me?”

“If I start to talk, I’ll cry.”

They continued to stare straight ahead, almost afraid to look at each other.

“What are you hoping for, a boy or girl?”

“A girl. I already have a little boy. Adam.”

“Any names picked out?”

“Sharon, if it’s a girl. My mother’s name was Sharon.”

“My mother’s name was Tinka.”

“Tinka?”

He laughed. “Picture three little girls, if you will, ages five, seven and nine, arriving by boat from Poland. Their names are Manya, Tinka, and Funka.”

“Funka?”

“See? Tinka doesn’t sound so bad any more, does it?”

She laughed. “What happened to them?”

“The usual. They grew up, got married, had children and died. Except for Manya. She’s still hanging on. I think she’s about eighty-six now—she lies about her age.” He laughed.
“In the interim, they changed their noses and their names. Manya became Mary and Funka became Fanny. Only Tinka stayed Tinka.” He smiled and shook his head. “A hell of a woman.”

“Are you an only child?”

His laugh was loud. “Are you kidding? I have four sisters and two brothers. We’re scattered all over the country. From Vermont to Hawaii.”

“I have a sister,” Donna ventured. “She’s living in England now.”

“And your husband? What does he do?”

Donna stood up and wiped the grass off her skirt. She was surprised to see that Mel remained sitting where he was.

“I’m kind of tired,” she said, looking down at him. “I think I better go home.”

“All right,” he said, still not moving.

“Could you give me a ride?” she asked, surprising herself.

He got to his feet very quickly. “Sorry,” he apologized, “I just assumed you had a car.”

“I don’t drive.”

“Oh? Unusual.”

“I used to drive.”

He said nothing.

“If and when you decide you want to talk,” he began, after the silent drive to her house, “you know where my office is. Please come and see me.”

She smiled, opened the car door and crawled out of the small white sportscar. “Thank you,” she said.

He waited until she was safely inside before he drove away.

——

Sharon was three months old before Donna walked into Dr. Segal’s office.

“I didn’t recognize you for a minute,” he said, standing up to greet her. “You’ve changed your hair.”

Donna’s hand automatically moved to her almost carrot-colored hair. “Do you like it?”

He laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s cute.”

“You sound like you mean that.”

“I do.”

“Victor hates it.”

“Victor?”

“My husband.”

“Is that why you’re smiling?”

“What do you mean?”

“The first time you smiled since you walked in was when you said that Victor hates your hair.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“Only when you want to be.”

She smiled again. “The only problem is that I hate it too.”

“The only problem?”

“I also hate Victor.” She suddenly started to laugh, and for the next five minutes her laughter was as strong as her sobs had been some five months before. “There, I said it out loud. I hate him.” The laughter changed abruptly to tears. “My God, I hate my husband. And I hate myself.”

Mel couldn’t have stopped her from talking now if he’d stuck a gag in her mouth and taped it closed. The words raced from her throat, vomited into the space between them. She’d barely have time to clean one story out of the way before her body was throwing up others. All the stories.
Her almost six years of life with Victor. All of it, including the night of Sharon’s conception.

“He keeps trying to make up for it, I guess,” Donna was saying. “He’s very attentive; he’s always making a big fuss about Sharon—he’s very good with her. He helps out a lot. He’s always buying me little presents, taking me out to nice places for dinner. He never tries—” She looked at Mel to see if he understood what she was about to say without her actually having to say it. He did. She continued. “But even when he puts his arm out to help me out of the car, it makes me want to be sick.”

“Maybe because you don’t need any help getting out of the car.”

Donna looked up into Mel’s chocolate-brown eyes. He was sitting on the edge of his desk; she was sitting about a foot away. She swallowed hard, as if she were trying to digest what Mel had just said. “He makes me feel so inadequate,” she said, looking around the office. “At first it was kind of nice having someone take charge, make all the decisions. But after a while it—you know what it does to you?” she asked, coming up with the answer for the first time, herself, in precise verbal terms. “It turns you into a child again. It robs you of your adulthood. After a little while you start to act just the way you’re being treated—like a child! You become totally dependent. I’m thirty-two years old! I have two children. I shouldn’t be dependent on anyone but myself. I don’t understand how this all happened to me!” She groped for words, her hands at her neck. “I can’t breathe! He doesn’t give me any air. He decides everything; he questions everything—the most minute, stupid, inconsequential little things. He has to be a part of everything.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “And you know what’s really frightening lately?”

Mel walked around behind his desk. “What?” He sat down on his chair.

“He thinks everything is getting better between us. He thinks there’s hope for us! He said so this morning. ‘We don’t fight anymore,’ he said. ‘You’ve learned to compromise. I actually think you’re starting to grow up. Except for what you did to your hair, of course!’” She screamed. A simple, loud, straightforward yell. “Compromise! I hate the word! You know what compromise means, Dr. Segal? It means giving in. The reason we don’t fight anymore is that a year ago I decided I’d never fight him again. I just go along with whatever he decides. That’s his idea of compromise. If I say blue and he says green, so I turn around and say green, then we’re compromising.” She stood up and began pacing. “ ‘Growing up,’ he said. I’m starting to grow up! I’m starting to die! Is that the same thing? His idea of a grown-up is an obedient child. That’s all I’ve become. Except that like most children who spend all day obeying their parents, I’ve become spiteful, resentful. Mean. It’s like if I can draw blood, I know I’m still here. Is this making any sense at all?” She stopped pacing.

“Probably the best sense you’ve made in six years.” He got up and moved toward her.

“I just feel like I’ve lost control of my life. I’m always sick. I’m afraid to do anything because I might make a mistake and do the wrong thing. I’m afraid to say anything, to have an opinion because it might be the wrong opinion.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid to be myself because I haven’t a clue where I went.” She paused, looking up into Mel’s kind
face. “The only time I feel at all in charge of what I’m doing is for a few hours in the middle of the night.” Mel looked at her quizzically. “I put on a little cotton cap and get out my bucket and mop and pretend I’m Carol Burnett. I clean that fucking little house until it glows.”

Dr. Mel Segal laughed out loud.

“You’re not offended?”

“By what?”

“I swore. I didn’t mean to.”

Mel obviously had to rethink what she had said. “Fuck?” he questioned. “You call that swearing? My seven-year-old uses worse language than that.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

Mel shrugged, indicating it didn’t.

“Victor would hate it. He doesn’t even like me to swear.”

“I have seven words to say to you,” he said, counting them silently on his fingers.

“They are?”

“Leave that motherfucking son-of-a-bitch.”

The room was absolutely still.

“I can’t.”

“Why, for God’s sake? Can you name me even one positive thing about the man?”

Donna moved away from Mel and began pacing the room again relentlessly. Then she stopped. There was a question mark in her voice. “He’s good in emergencies?” she volunteered.

“How many emergencies have you had lately?” Mel leaned back against his desk again. “Donna, anyone can rise to an emergency. It’s the day-to-day business of living that
gets you, the little things. He’s killing you.”

Donna shook her head. Now that someone was finally on her side, finally saying the things to her out loud that she had been saying to herself in silence, she found herself in the weird position of trying to defend the same man she had been prosecuting.

“It’s not all his fault. I mean, I know I’ve made this whole thing sound like it’s all his fault, but you have to remember you’re only hearing my side of the story. I haven’t exactly been an angel. I’ve said terrible things to him in front of other people, insulted him, hurt him. I know all the vulnerable spots, remember. I know just where to stick in the pins!”

“Why are you making excuses?”

“Excuses?”

“For not leaving him.”

“We have two children!”

“You think they’re benefiting from the kind of example you’re setting? You want Sharon to grow up into a Barbie doll? You want Adam to get his idea of what love is all about from the two of you?”

Donna’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m afraid he’ll take them away from me! Don’t you understand? I know Victor. If I try to leave him, he’ll take my babies away from me.”