I know what you’re thinking. Linda stared back. She some kinda snob? Right? Well, gossip all you want, you’ll get nothing from me. I’ve got nothing to give.
Up and down Watson Avenue the neighborhood lived and breathed. And Linda moved like a shadow, speaking only when spoken to. She was meticulous in her dress. She wore calf-length pencil-slim skirts and simple blouses with matching cardigans. Her hair was page-boy length, her outfits in muted colors. Looking as lifeless as she felt.
Nobody knew of the cancer that grew inside her. A cancer called the Bronx.
On an occasional Saturday night, when Frank could make time to go out, they spent it with his best friends. Linda had been introduced to Anna Marie’s husband, Johnny. The three buddies were close, sharing childhood memories and private jokes. Frank worried about Linda feeling left out, but she didn’t seem to mind. Sometimes they had dinner at Johnny and Anna Marie’s apartment in Parkchester, in a fairly new development that was considered very classy for the East Bronx. Linda didn’t like to cook so it was their place or eating out.
Tonight they ate at a deli and took in a movie at the Ward Theater. Afterwards, they went for a walk. Anna Marie and Linda lagged behind the men. Typically the guys sauntered ahead to gab about sports and cars and other male subjects and the girls were expected to talk girl stuff.
The guys passed a store that featured sexy underwear. Johnny stopped and whistled at a red bra and matching garter belt. “Whooey. That’s my Christmas present for Anna Marie this year. What about something like that for Linda?”
Frank shook his head. “She’s not the type.”
Johnny finally had to ask. “What type is she — that wife of yours? What’s with her? Can’t she help out and sit in your office? What else does she have to do?”
“She’s different,” Frank told his buddy. “She’s shy and fragile.”
“Crazy. You have to pay Anna Marie a salary when you’re just starting out?”
“I don’t mind.”
Johnny shrugged “Well, it’s your funeral.”
Linda walked with Anna Marie who chatted about items in the windows. She laughed when she saw the red lingerie.
Linda gagged at the sight and stopped short. She felt faint and grabbed for a wall.
“I bet I know what Johnny was saying.” Anna Marie stopped when she realized Linda was no longer beside her. She turned. “Hey.”
“What?” Linda could barely speak. No… no, not those memories… go away…
“What? What’s with you? I’m trying to be friendly and hold up my end of the conversation and I get nothing back. You don’t talk about clothes. Or the movie we just saw, or even Frankie. What goes through that head of yours?”
Linda’s voice was so low that Anna Marie could barely hear her. “All I think about is how to get out of the Bronx.”
When Linda, to her shock, realized she was pregnant, she didn’t tell Frank. She prayed it would go away. But after watching her race to the bathroom to throw up enough times, and realizing her breasts were swollen, the doctor quickly figured it out. He was thrilled. He started calling her his Madonna. Even though she told him not to, Frank immediately announced the good news to his entire family. Of course, they all wanted to be part of it. Connie took her out to buy maternity clothes, not that she really needed them. She couldn’t keep much food down and stayed thin. Connie’s husband Al worked in a furniture store, so they got baby furniture at a discount.
It didn’t take long for the neighbors to find out, and they got into the act as well, bringing her casseroles so she wouldn’t have to cook. Frank did the cooking after work or Mama Lombardi had food sent over from the restaurant. Mrs. Schwartz brought down her famous Kosher chicken soup. Mrs. Lee from the Chinese laundry carried over her egg drop soup. Mrs. Flanagan made a huge pot of potato soup. The strength and variety of smells made Linda throw up even more. The entire building was involved in trying to keep the doctor’s skinny wife fed.
And the new baby-to-be, clothed. Bassinets were put together. Little blankets were crocheted. And infant sweaters and caps, as well. People were dropping in all the time with their offerings. What little privacy she had was gone.
Frank surprised her one day by bringing home an insurance policy on his life.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. “I would never ask you to do that.”
He kissed her gently. “Never say never.” As he was about to head to his office, he informed her, “Now that I’ll have a son, I want him protected if anything happens to me.” Frank was sure it would be a boy.
“Frank.”
He turned. “What, my darling little Madonna?”
“I can’t take pain. I’m so afraid.”
He came back and held her close for a moment. “I’ll be nearby, so don’t you worry.” Then he left.
“I can’t stand anymore pain,” she said to the closed door.
Linda was aware that all the Lombardis were in the waiting room of Monteflore Hospital the night she gave birth. She knew that Frank was pacing worriedly outside the door, as expectant fathers do. What good did it do her? Let him hear his wife screaming. He knew nothing of her pain. He knew nothing about being torn apart so badly, so many times before, that giving birth was a new pain beyond endurance.
The OR nurses tried to hold her down, but she was too strong for them. Arms flailing, the next scream was blood-curdling. “Damn you, Dyre! Damn you!”
“Push!” urged the doctor.
She pushed, her fingernails digging into the sheet, and shouted, “Prospect!” at the top of her lungs.
And at the final push, the pain more horrific than before, “Damn you to hell, Burnside!”
She fainted. When she came to, her doctor was gone and she listened to the nurses talking about her. The one bending over the bassinet that held her six-pound infant girl said, “Did you ever hear anything like that in your life?”
Her partner agreed. “In all my years they yelled for husbands, for God, or cursing, sobbing, and screaming, but I never heard anyone cry out, Dyre.”
“Or Prospect or Burnside. What do you make of it?”
“Who knows? She’s peculiar, that one.”
You don’t want to know, Linda thought. She had dared not call out their names, the ones who murdered her childhood with their foul misuse of her body. Which had they damaged more — her body or her mind? Those foster folks who promised to care for her, who debased her instead. On streets in the Bronx where she had been forced to live. Where her pain had been excruciating and her blood had spilled. She could still see that trembling nine-year-old being forced into sleazy lingerie, her mouth smeared with lipstick, and a monster bearing down on her. But she could shout out those names — that litany of shame — those Bronx street names. Places she thought she had escaped… but there was no escape, was there?
Baby Frances (no longer Frank, Jr.) was adored by one and all. Frank was driven to work even harder for his darling little girl. He was taking more and more house calls in addition to his full days at the office.
Frank came home one night, shaken, and told Linda that a doctor on Morris Avenue had been shot by a burglar who climbed in his window to get drugs. He lived on the ground floor too.
He showed her the gun he had bought. Linda was shocked. “I would never want that in our apartment. Not with a child.”