Our Father (56 page)

The Torres family had the first floor, and Rosa flung open the door at Ronnie’s ring, threw her arms around her neck, talking, crying, almost screaming as she drew her in, and there were Enriqué, Téo, Lidia, and Joey, all waiting in the kitchen, leaping up, beaming, all talking at once, their arms open to her, to little Ronnie, their little love, their sister, the little hurt bird who had healed in their nest.

Wine was poured, even Téo had some, he was sixteen now, a man, and Lidia was allowed to mix some with sparkling water, and Joey had a Coke, and she asked news and they asked news and everyone listened to what the others said. Ronnie was careful not to mention Tina, and Rosa only mentioned Raoul once, tears starting in her eyes immediately she did, but she brushed them away and went on talking. They were fine, they were good: they
owned
this house! All of it! It was theirs! It was hard keeping it, good tenants were not always to be found, but they had both upper floors rented to dependable people now, that made things easier. Enriqué worked hard keeping it in good condition, he had painted the house, mended the roof, he had even planted a garden in front and next spring he was going to put one in back.

“Me too, Papa, right?” Téo interrupted.

“And me too,” Lidia yelled. “I want to plant tomatoes.”

“
Sí
, we will have tomatoes and corn and beans, and whatever you want, my children,” Enriqué said expansively.

Ronnie noted that although it was a Friday evening, he was home. His belly was smaller than it had been, he looked fit. Rosa must have won her battle with him. Ronnie gazed at the small woman with the dark circles under her eyes, a face that had worn hard folds of worry years ago. It was fuller now, less tense; she looked almost serene.

Rosa had a real job now, sewing in a sweatshop, hard work but it paid better than doing piecework at home, and Téo had a job after school at the supermarket and earned his own spending money, and Lidia took care of Joey after school—for which her mother (unbelievably in this family) paid her! And on weekends, she baby-sat for the college professors who lived down the block. She was saving money, so was Téo.

“They both go to college,” Rosa announced in a truculent voice, allowing no contradiction.

Remembering Téo’s poor grades, his difficulty learning to read, Ronnie wanted to ask more but didn’t dare. Their failure with their two elder children was a scar across both Rosa and Enriqué, one that had hardened in such a way as to make further such failures unthinkable. Not to be allowed. Certainly not to be spoken of.

Every family has its silences, she thought. Silences form over scars. Even I and I’m not even a family. For she told them nothing about Stephen, nothing about her sisters. She said that since Noradia died, she had been working as a caretaker at the Lincoln house in order to work on her dissertation, that she was well into it, thought it would take her six months, then she would leave.

“He die, you momma’s bossman,” Rosa said. “I see on TV Big funeral, the president come, Nixon come, the Bush, all important Anglo men.”

“Yes,” Ronnie breathed.

“Right after you momma,” she added shrewdly.

Could Noradia have told her?

“Yes.”

“Ronnie don’t care about that old man,” Enriqué said heartily, pouring more wine into her glass. “He was nothing to her!”

But Rosa was looking at her curiously.

“Right,” Ronnie said, raising her glass to her lips to drink. Rosa was still looking at her. She made her voice strong, light, gay. “But you know what my momma did?—all those years she worked there, she saved all her money, she put it in the bank. For me! So when I finish my thesis and get a job, I have enough money for a car, to get an apartment, to get settled in life!”

Rosa leapt up, threw her arms around Ronnie. “You momma, she was good woman! More! She was a saint! A saint!” she yelled at Ronnie ferociously. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“I know she was,” Ronnie laughed, embracing Rosa back, hugging her hard enough to satisfy her, so that she could sit down again sighing, wiping her eyes, smiling broadly at Ronnie.

“You not know how good she was, you run away from home, from her. She say she understand, she never blame you even though a year you not tell her where you are. I kill you for that if you mine! She come here and sit with me while I work, make me coffee, she want to know you okay. Years and years she did that. A saint!”

Enriqué was uncomfortable with such talk. “How about dinner, huh, Rosa? You get the girl here to starve her? When we eat?”

Rosa stood up, Lidia too: the bustle of food preparation began, and the moment passed. The woman and the girl set out the richly flavored food—a loin of pork roasted overnight with rice and tomatoes and green peppers and onions and black beans, served with bananas, and for dessert, a gooey cream cake. The family ate with gusto, the children eager to get on with what they knew was coming, the opening of the presents Ronnie had brought. In the noisy joyful business (“How did you know I loved red?” “Oh, just the kind of shirt I love, Ronnie!” “Oh, Ronnie,” Rosa blushed, holding the pink satin nightgown up to her face, “I have always wanted …”), the opening of another bottle of wine, the moment did not return. But happy as the evening was, warm and embracing, as Ronnie walked back to the T after ten, down past the quiet fronts of the clapboard houses, her steps soundless in her rubber-soled shoes, she felt she could never go back.

Can’t come here again. At least not when she’s alone. She’s too curious. Did Momma get that look on her face when she mentioned him? She probably didn’t ask Momma, but she wondered. How could I tell her? Momma and him, what he did to me? She’d blame Momma, she wouldn’t understand how she loved him, she’d think Momma sacrificed me to him. The way I felt for a long time. She won’t give it up, I can see it in her face, she won’t back off, she’s determined to find out what happened now that Momma’s dead, he’s dead.

Good-bye Rosa. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

Oh, don’t be so dramatic, for god’s sake. You can visit them on holidays, birthdays, when the whole family is around. In time she’ll accept that you’re simply not going to talk about it. You don’t have to cut people off. She keeps Tina in her life no matter what Enriqué says, and he knows it. While we did the dishes, I whispered in her ear, “How’s Tina?” and she shrugged, “The same, she make lots of money but she look bad. I think maybe she have AIDS.” Her eyes filled with tears, I held her, but then Enriqué yelled in asking where Téo had gone, and we broke apart, finished our work. She negotiates silences. I can too.

Ronnie was still laden with packages—her presents from Rosa and Enriqué, her presents for her sisters, and some special items bought with great trepidation that afternoon to surprise them. She smiled imagining their reactions. But she was tired, the packages were heavy, and she still had a long trip ahead of her. Wish Aldo had been waiting just outside the door of Rosa’s house.

Spoiled brat you’ve turned into, she thought, trudging on.

She spent Saturday morning out in the woods examining trees, trying to decide whether they should cut one of their own or buy one in town. She hated to part with a young pine, and she studied them all carefully. Each one seemed to have some special quality that deserved to be retained, and she gave up. Let them decide, she thought, walking back to the house. And decide they did. They arrived late, around four, long after she expected them, but the car was laden down. They’d stopped in town and purchased a tree, a stand, and Christmas lights. The car also bore their suitcases, their bags of gifts, Mary’s two fur coats, Elizabeth’s portable computer. They were as excited and almost as talkative as the Torres family, embracing her, laughing, talking at once.

“Well of course Father always had a tree when he was here for Christmas but he always had a giant thing, huge, twenty or more feet high, it stood in the ballroom so you can imagine. … It hasn’t been used in years, of course. Anyway, we were sure the old stand wouldn’t work for the little one we bought, it’s only about eight feet high, isn’t it darling, Elizabeth was so picky about it, look how sweet it is, so nicely balanced and full. There are tons of ornaments around here somewhere, but we thought the lights might be old and corroded, so we bought new ones, tiny white ones that twinkle, aren’t they sweet? and of course we needed fresh tinsel. So we stopped in town to get all this stuff, and it was so quaint, wasn’t it, Elizabeth? All the houses had lights or wreaths, all so beautifully decorated, even the stores, and people knew us and greeted us, it was quite lovely, wasn’t it?”

Mary was pink and fresh-smelling, she flitted from one set of packages to another, she ordered Aldo to leave the tree on the front steps under the portico—“for now”—and to carry the rest of the things inside—“those things go up to my room, Aldo, yes all of them, make two trips my dear, it’s too much to carry all at once,” and Aldo, blanching at the “my dear,” dropped one of her suitcases and she didn’t even scold him, although it was one of her crocodile cases.

Elizabeth was quieter, but she too glowed, hugged Ronnie hard, talked. “We’ve never done this before, you know? Father always had the gardeners cut a tree from out back, it was a major undertaking, they needed saws and ropes and it took a couple of days to cut it and then put it up. And the servants decorated it, they had to stand on a ladder to do it, then when everything was done, we would be brought into the ballroom all dressed up to ooh and ah, but it was impersonal, it had nothing to do with us, and they always had some sort of ball or party that night, Christmas Eve. And the presents heaped around it, there were enough to stock a small shop I swear …” Her voice drifted off. Then she burst out, “Well, this tree will go into the playroom and we’ll decorate it ourselves, what a treat!”

When they had changed their clothes, they joined Ronnie in the playroom. She had already started a fire in the old stone fireplace, had already had Mrs. Browning set up a drinks tray for them, and was sitting there in her jeans and sweatshirt holding a wine spritzer, with a big grin on her face. Amazingly, not just Elizabeth but Mary came down in pants and a sweater—granted, both were probably from some designer, but Mary had never dressed so informally before. They went straight to the bar, poured drinks—a scotch for Elizabeth, vermouth cassis for Mary—and threw themselves on the comfortable armchairs with an abandon Ronnie felt certain they never showed elsewhere.

“Oh! This is so good!” Elizabeth sighed.

“Maybe we should hold on to this house,” Mary said wistfully. “For things like this—Christmas, Thanksgiving.” She turned to Ronnie. “Did Marie-Laure call?”

Ronnie shook her head.

Mary frowned. “Strange. She should have. I think her school let out on Wednesday. I don’t even know how to reach her.” A little pall settled on her face.

“So tell me what you’ve been doing,” Ronnie urged.

Elizabeth lighted a cigarette. “Mostly cleaning up my desk. This is a slow time in D.C., all the elected officials go home for the holidays, it’s not a time for policymaking. Especially since Reagan won with such a huge vote: that tells the guys that people don’t want anything to change.” She sighed lightly.

“Beyond that, I haven’t done much. I did look at a couple of houses in Virginia over the weekend,” she said, turning to Mary. “One of them was really beautiful—it had a Japanese garden out back and ten acres of land. It was in Falls Church.”

“Ummm. Missy Cambrowe lives in Falls Church,” Mary mused.

Elizabeth’s face brightened with hope, but Mary changed the subject, turning to Ronnie.

“And what about you? How’s the dissertation going?”

“Oh, slowly. But it’s going. I’ve collated most of my research. Now I have to get back to the books. What’s left is mostly methodical, painstaking work. The intelligence—if there is any—shows in the way I gathered the research. So it goes slowly. But I’m working.”

“Good. This house in Falls Church has four bedrooms, each with its own bath. They’re not as big as the bedrooms in this house, but they’re a decent size. And enough for all of us!” Elizabeth added, looking at Mary.

Mary met her eyes briefly, then looked away.

“And what about you?” Ronnie asked.

“Oh, I haven’t done anything, really. Nothing different.” Mary gazed at the fire. “Actually, I just picked up where I left off—only paying the bills this time. Same old life.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes. I guess it is.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“No,” Mary admitted slowly. “No. It lacks … something.”

Elizabeth fixed her eyes on Mary.

“We were all so … we could say what we thought to each other. Even if it was vicious, full of venom. We could be ourselves. It was so … liberating, so … I felt like a real person. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like a real person for any extended period in my life before.”

“I’ve missed you all too,” Elizabeth admitted ruefully. “Very much. I’d get home after work, well, after dinner, I usually eat out, and I’d walk around my apartment talking away, telling you all—well, things you wouldn’t be interested in, what a bastard Arthur Gilliam is, how sweet Jim Mangdoni doesn’t have a chance at Treasury and why, and all the convoluted disgusting politics of the place. They’re sending me off on an arm-twisting mission soon after the first of the year. Ten days, six countries, endless cups of tea, tact and diplomacy masking the threat of economic force. My face is tired when I come back from these things. I used to look forward to them, they were such a challenge. But now—I don’t know—they seem sort of pointless.”

“Would you consider giving up your job?” Mary wondered.

“Give up my job? I’d die!”

“You could teach economics in some nice college. Some pretty school in a pretty town, like Princeton. Get away from all the politics, the infighting.”

“No place is more infested with politics than academia. And of the pettiest sort.”

“There’s no escape, is there,” Mary said wistfully. “Listening to my friends this past—what, two weeks?—I keep hearing how petty they are, how ingrown their concerns. And you know, they don’t talk much about politics, but under the surface it’s their major concern. They always have to be somehow in touch with the people with the power. And they have to let you know they are, that they have an invitation from Helmut or François or Margaret or Nancy. Going back after Father’s death—well, everyone knew I was rich again, they just knew it—and the phone rang and rang, and the invitations piled up, and oh! the names that got dropped, all those names. …