“I know what you did to Greta. Hit your own child? How could you?” he said.
His voice was sharp, his words as cold as the air outside the window. We stared at each other in silence. Out of the corner of my eye, I remember noticing a patch of white in the doorway, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off his face. Shame opened a chasm in the floor beneath my feet, sucking me downward. But I was forced to pull myself together. I had to.
“What did Greta say?”
He took another drag on his cigarette, lifted his chin to blow the smoke high into the air, and then laughed.
“Greta? She didn’t say anything. It’s sick how fucking loyal she is to you.”
“But then how…? Who…?”
The world stood still, and at the same time seemed to be whirling so fast. He stared at me for a long time, one eyebrow raised.
“Well. Who do you think?”
“There’s only one person who knew, and she would never…”
Ruth would never betray me like that. That’s what I meant, even though I didn’t finish the sentence. He shrugged, that sneering smile still on his face. Stubbed out his cigarette. Settled himself more comfortably, with both legs drawn up in the bay window. He downed the rest of his drink, not saying a word, waiting.
I thought about Ruth. The expression on her face when I tried to explain what I’d done in her kitchen, when she listened to my pleas. Ruth, this has to stay between us, okay? You know what would happen if it got out at work. It would get blown out of proportion, turned into something that it’s not. I would be the woman who hits her own child, and nobody would ever…
It’s true that things had seemed more strained than usual between us since that night. But no one at work had found out, I was sure of that. I would have noticed. Ruth hadn’t said anything to them. So why would she have told him? My husband, of all people? Out of concern for Greta? Because she worried I might hit her again? No, Ruth knew me better than that.
“But why?” I managed to say. “Why would she tell you about that?”
Maybe at that point part of me was aware of the little figure off to the side who had started to move and was coming closer. If so, I didn’t really register it. I was no longer receptive to any outside input. Everything was drowned out by the answer he gave, the insinuating tone of his voice.
“Oh, come on. Isn’t it obvious?”
And suddenly it was. My mind created a frame around what had taken place at Ruth’s apartment on that night. A frame that contracted and focused, zeroing in on details I had naively overlooked. The fact that when Ruth opened her door, there was already something different about the way she greeted me. The tense look on her face when I told her about the naked woman in my living room. And the way she immediately got up from the kitchen table, turned her back to me, and began emptying the dishwasher. She said maybe I should have thought about that earlier on. I asked what she meant.
“You have a very charismatic husband,” she said. “You knew what you were getting into when you married him.”
Maybe I should have paid more attention to what she said. It was so unlike Ruth. Maybe I should have had a stronger or different reaction. But at that moment, Greta came into the kitchen, wanting to go home. Everything was chaos inside me. Frustration, despair. And then she flung that word in my face, my own daughter. One thing led to another. My hand flew through the air, landing on my child’s cheek. So fast. Everything happened so fast. Just as it did that night three months later.
I didn’t simply walk over to him, I rushed at him. Holding my palms out in front of me. I slammed them against his chest and the side of his body as hard as I could. I saw the surprise in his eyes, how his face contorted as he plummeted through the open window. He’d never expected anything like that. I’d caught him off guard.
Suddenly, Greta was there, next to me. She reached out through the open window, but it was too late. He’d already been swallowed up by the dark. Maybe their eyes met one last time, father and daughter. Maybe they didn’t.
Afterward, I spent a full night and day lying on the bed alone, with the door closed, cut off from my daughter. People spoke to me, but I had no words to offer in response. At first, all I had were screams and tears, which I’d kept so firmly at bay before. Later, when my body had emptied itself out, silence settled over me. It took twenty-four hours before I could muster enough strength to get out of bed. Twenty-four hours before I could make myself look into the eyes of my eight-year-old daughter. I took her in my arms, feeling how she huddled close as I whispered in her ear. I whispered that it was over now, that we would move on, stay together, and that she could count on me.
I said all that. But I didn’t ask her for forgiveness. As soon as I went into her room and met her eye as she sat there on the floor, I knew it would be impossible. She would never forgive me.
Twenty-three years later, we never speak of what happened. And I don’t need to ask what I took from her. Or what sort of person I became. For that, she has still not forgiven me.
40
Tears spill out from my closed eyes and run down my face, hot with fever. They refused to let me see Papa afterward. I’m not sure I would have wanted to see him, but it wasn’t something they even considered. It was simply out of the question. That told me he must have been terribly battered. I imagined his crushed skull, cheekbones and nose smashed in so that nothing remained of his face but mangled flesh. It was too much to take, so I decided early on to think about it as little as possible. Preferably not at all. Instead, I created other images. The same way I created other explanations. It escapes me.
Mama’s words have dispelled the fog. Exposed what I’ve worked to repress. Exposed the wedge that was driven between us that night, and the divide that has grown over the years. But her confession isn’t the only thing overwhelming me. There’s something else.
A hand reaches out from behind to rest on my shoulder. I want to touch it, but I can’t. I blame the numbness in my limbs, but I’m not sure that’s the whole explanation.
“I’m so sorry, Greta. For hitting you that time. And afterward… for shutting you out, leaving you alone so long. That was a terrible thing to do. Unforgivable. But I hope you’ll be able to… I… I’m so sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever said that properly.”
Tears are still coursing down my face, slowly, quietly, as old, frozen emotions dissolve and ebb away. Tears of sorrow and anger, but also of shame. I missed my father, grieved for him so fiercely my whole body ached. And yet. Life after him, without him, was so much easier. Calmer. No moods, no nightly arguments. Mama was nicer. And happier. It was a relief. And I’m ashamed to admit it.
Mama’s hand first squeezes, then caresses, my shoulder. She gets up and asks the psychologist where the bathroom is. When she comes back, she has refilled the water glass for me. In her other hand, she’s holding a damp washcloth. She kneels down and gently cleans my face, wiping away the blood and tears. I look at her hands. Those hands! The hands that… I close my eyes and see two hands, palms out, shoot through the air and shove a man’s body so hard that he falls. The same thing I saw when I fixed my eyes on the water of Lake Malice. Except the man I see now doesn’t fall into a well, but out a window. And the hands I see aren’t mine, but my mother’s.
“Mostly superficial cuts,” she says. “But you have a fever. And you’re going to have big bruises here, on the side of your neck and on your shoulder. Does it hurt?”
I flinch and grimace when she touches the place where the oar struck me.
“You did the right thing. Absolutely the right thing.”
The voice from the other side of the room sounds harsh. Mama’s hands stop moving. The psychologist has turned to stare out the row of windows facing the deck. I signal that I need to lie down again, and my mother helps me. Then she goes back to washing my face, not stopping until I cautiously push her hand away. Again, she goes to the kitchen, and when she comes back, she has another glass of water. She hands it to the blond woman, who takes it without speaking. Mama crosses her arms and sighs audibly.