“Coffee would be great,” I said bravely, hoping my kidneys could handle another cup.
“The house is really a mess,” Connie said apologetically, picking up a pair of gym shoes that stood in the little entry-way.
I never say that to visitors-it’s obvious that I haven’t hung up my clothes or carried out the papers or vacuumed in two weeks. In Connie’s case, it was hard to see anything she might be talking about, other than the gym shoes. The floors were scoured, chairs stood at right angles to each other, and not a book or paper marred the shelves or tables as we went through the living room into the back of the house.
I sat at the green Formica table while she filled an electric coffee maker. This small deviation from her mother cheered me slightly: if she could make the switch from boiling water to percolator, who knows how far she might go.
“You and Louisa were never much alike, were you?” I asked abruptly.
She blushed again. “She was always the pretty one. People don’t expect so much of you if you’re pretty.”
The poignant gaucherie of her reply seemed almost unbearable. “What, didn’t your mother expect her to help out around the house?”
“Well, she was younger, you know-she didn’t have to do as much as I did. But you know Ma. Everything got cleaned every day whether you’d used it or not. When she got mad at us we had to scrub the underside of the sinks and the toilets. I swore my girls would never do any of that kind of thing.” Her mouth set in the hard line of remembered grievance.
“It sounds rough,” I said, appalled. “Do you feel Louisa left you holding the bag too often?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t really her fault as much as the way they treated her. I can see that now. You know, Louisa could talk back and Pa’d think it was kind of cute. At least when she was little. He wouldn’t take it even from her when she got older.
“And Ma’s brother liked Louisa to sing and dance for him when he came over. She was so little and pretty, you know, it was like having a doll around. Then when she got older it was too late, of course. Too late to discipline her, I mean.”
“Seems like they did a pretty good job,” I commented. “Throwing her out of the house and all. That must have been scary for you too.”
“Oh, it was.” She was rubbing her hands over and over in the towel she’d taken out to wipe up a little spot of water left from filling the coffeepot. “They didn’t even tell me what was going on at first.”
“You mean you didn’t know she was pregnant?” I asked, incredulous.
She turned so red I thought blood might actually start oozing through her skin. “I know you won’t understand,” she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “You led such a different life. You had boyfriends before you got married. I know. Ma-Ma kind of follows your life.
“But when Mike and I were married, I didn’t even know -I didn’t know-I-the nuns never talked about things like that at school. Ma, of course, she couldn’t-couldn’t begin to say anything. If Louisa was missing her-her period-she wouldn’t have said anything to me. She probably didn’t know what it meant, anyway.”
Tears spurted from her eyes against her will. Her shoulders shook as she tried controlling her sobbing. She wound the towel so tightly around her hands that the veins in her arms stood out. I got up from my chair to put a hand on one heaving shoulder. She didn’t move or say anything, but after a few minutes the spasms calmed down and her breathing grew more normal.
“So Louisa got pregnant because she didn’t know what she was doing, or that she might start a baby?”
She nodded mutely, her eyes on the floor.
“Do you know who the father might have been?” I asked gently, keeping my hand on her shoulder.
She shook her head. “Pa-Pa wouldn’t let us date. He said he hadn’t paid all that money to send us to Catholic school to see-see us chasing after boys. Of course lots of boys liked Louisa, but she-she wouldn’t have been going out with any of them.”
“Can you remember any of their names?”
She shook her head again. “Not after all this time. I know the boy at the grocery store used to buy her pop when she’d go in. I think his name was Ralph. Ralph Sow-something. Sower or Sowling or something.”
She turned to the coffeepot. “Vic, the terrible thing is-I was so jealous of her, at first I was glad to see her in trouble.”
“God, Connie, I hope so. If I had a sister who everyone said was prettier than me, and was petted and fussed over while they sent me off to Mass, I’d put an ax through her head instead of waiting for her to get pregnant and be kicked out of the house.”
She turned to look up at me, astonished. “But, Vic! You’re so-so cool. Nothing ever bothered you. Not even when you were fifteen years old. When your mother died Ma said God gave you a stone instead of a heart, you were so cool.” She put her hand over her mouth, mortified, and started to protest.
“Well, I was fucked if I was going to sob in public in front of all those women like your mother, who never had a good word to say about Gabriella,” I said, stung. “But you’d better believe I cried plenty in private. And anyway, Connie, that’s the whole point. My parents loved me. They thought I could succeed at anything I wanted to do. So even though I lose my temper a hundred times a week or so, it’s not like I had to spend my life listening to my folks tell me how my baby sister was wonderful and I was garbage. Loosen up, Connie. Give yourself a break.”
She looked at me doubtfully. “Do you really mean it? After what I said and everything?”
I took her shoulders between my hands and turned her to face me. “I really mean it, Connie. Now how about some coffee?”
After that we talked about Mike and his job at the waste-management plant, and young Mike and his football playing, and her three daughters, and her youngest, who was eight and so bright she really thought they’d have to try to get him to go to college, although Mike was nervous, he thought it gave people ideas that they were better than their parents or their neighborhood. The last comment made me grin to myself-I could hear Ed Djiak warning Connie: You don’t want the kid turning out like Victoria, do you?-but I listened patiently for forty-five minutes before moving my chair back and getting to my feet.
“It was really good to see you again, Vic. I-I’m glad you came by,” she said at the door.
“Thanks, Connie. Take it easy. And say hi to Mike for me.”
I walked slowly back to my car. The heel of my left shoe was rubbing on the back of my foot. I savored the pain the way you do when you’re feeling like crap. A little pain: the gods letting you expiate the damage you caused.
How had I learned the facts of life? A little in the locker room, a little from Gabriella, a little from our basketball coach, a relaxed, sensible woman except on the court. How could Connie have made it through junior high without one of her friends tipping her off? I pictured her at fourteen, tall, gawky, timid. Maybe she hadn’t had any friends.
It was only two o’clock. I felt as though I had spent a whole day loading bales on the levee instead of a few hours drinking coffee with the old folks at home. I felt as though I’d already earned a thousand dollars, and I didn’t even know where to start looking. I put the car into gear and headed back to the mainland.
My socks were still damp. They filled the car with the smell of beer and sweat, but when I opened a window the cold air was too much for my bare toes. My irritation rose with my discomfort: I wanted to stop at a service station and call Caroline at SCRAP to tell her the deal was off. Whatever her mother had done a quarter century ago should decently be left to rest there. Unfortunately, I found myself making the turn to Houston Street when I should have been heading north to Lake Shore Drive and freedom.