She had gotten all grown up this year, my little girl, suddenly beautiful with legs a mile long. She was turning into someone new and I didn’t know how to keep up. It had happened overnight, behind my back.
When she came upstairs she went straight into a thirty-minute shower, with music blasting out over the rushing water, and then she disappeared into her room. I crawled into bed, thinking that this was yet another night when we were sharing a home, but barely. I was drifting off when I heard my door open.
“I can’t sleep.”
She stood in the doorway in her sleep clothes—gym shorts and camisole—arms wrapped around herself as if trying not to shiver on this hot night. She was like a shadow in the dim light from the hall, the same little girl who used to come to me when she woke up from a bad dream, only taller.
“What?” I fumbled for the bedside lamp.
“Did I wake you?”
“Uh…no…uh….” I rubbed my eyes. “What is it, honey? Is thinking about the skeleton keeping you awake?”
“That’s not exactly it.”
“Come on in.” I patted the edge of the bed. “I’m up now.”
She padded in barefoot and sat down.
“OK, it is the skeleton, but not the way you think. I mean, yes, I can’t get it out of my head that it was a girl, a kid. She had her favorite music, like me, and her jewelry, and even a bear. I mean—well, I sleep with mine sometimes.” She gasped. “Please never, ever tell anyone that!”
“I swear it. My lips are sealed. I have to admit, this discovery is haunting me too. If it’s upsetting you so much, do you want to sleep at Mel’s for a few nights? Then we can get rid of that fireplace forever, or maybe restore it to something beautiful. I bet that will send any ghosts right back where they belong.”
She shook her head. “No, no, no, that’s not it. It’s not being scared.” She fidgeted. “I was, at first, but now it seems more like sad. And really weird, of course. And I feel like—this sounds dumb, I know—I feel like I found her so I owe her something. I feel like she wants me to find out about her. Like dig out who was she and why was she here?”
“Hmm. I kind of understand how you feel….” The historian in me understood perfectly, but the mother in me was fumbling. “OK, yes I do, really, but you can’t. It’s a police matter now. I’m pretty sure they won’t tell you a thing and you can’t get in their way.”
“I know that! I wouldn’t, be, like, trying to solve it but I want to, you know, see that she isn’t forgotten. Or lonely. You know?”
“But, Chris, it’s obvious something truly terrible happened here. It was a crime of some kind. You can’t be involved in this.”
“But it was ages and ages ago. It’s not like I found a…a…a corpse. It’s more like archaeology.” She looked at my face and heaved a great sigh. “I’m not convincing you, am I?”
Actually, I was tempted, but not enough to let her think this was a good idea. And it wasn’t. “Not in the least,” I said, not quite truthfully, but quite firmly. “It’s absolutely out of the question. It’s not even up for discussion.”
“Mom! Why don’t you ever let me do anything?”
What I should have said—calmly—was “Isn’t that kind of a broad statement? If you calm down maybe we can work something out.” What I did say—snapping—was, “You are out of your mind. This is something ugly and scary and you stay out of it. It’s not going to happen. End of story!”
“You don’t understand anything.”
She ran to her room, slammed the door and left me feeling like the wicked stepmother. I felt like slamming doors myself. Instead, I went back to bed and lay there, wide awake, mind and emotions racing. A very long time later there was a tiny knock on mine.
“Well, then,” Chris said, “you think we could…I mean, you could…or maybe Uncle Rick!…at least nudge them to tell us when they find out? If they do?”
“Yes, that I can try
.
Now maybe we could both try to get some sleep?”
She sat down, “I can’t. I can’t get back to sleep. I’m not scared. I’m not. I’m just…wide awake.” She looked deeply embarrassed.
“I can see that. What would help? Cocoa?”
“Let’s see.”
It didn’t, quite. After the cocoa, she stalled some more and finally said, “Come with me.”
“What? You don’t want me to sleep with you?”
“No way!” She looked shocked. “Of course not, but, maybe, could you sort of, you know, stay with me a little?”
“Oh, honey. Yes I can.” I thought a minute. “Now, don’t jump on me, but do you want me to read you to sleep?”
To my surprise, she did. I turned the light as low as possible, just as I used to do in the long ago days before she could read to herself, and in my softest, most soporific voice, I began, for the first time in many years: “It was difficult, later, to think of a time when Betsy and Tacy had not been friends.” She was asleep before the end of the second chapter.
However, I tossed and turned all night, half sleeping, half dreaming, half remembering. The corpse haunted my sleep, all mixed up with Chris’ questions. Once I awoke suddenly, so confused I rolled over to wrap myself around my husband.
I used to be married to a boy from my old neighborhood. I met him at my best friend’s Sweet Sixteen barbecue. To this day, he comes back to me with warm summer nights, the radio playing “Heaven is a Place on Earth,” and the smell of grilling hot dogs. He was big and cute and so shy I had to embarrass him into dancing with me there on Shelly’s patio. We never danced with anyone else, ever again. We were deaf to all concerns from my Jewish parents and his Italian ones. We knew we belonged together.
He took me to my high school prom, wearing a tux with ice blue lapels to match my satin gown. We stayed out all night and had breakfast on the beach, watching the sun come up over the Rockaways. For graduation he gave me a locket with a diamond chip in it, and said it was a promise on a ring. Two years later I went to his fire department graduation and cried because he was so handsome in his uniform, one of New York’s bravest now like his dad and half our neighbors.
We had sweet, ordinary plans and dreams. He would study hard and move up the ranks. I would keep riding the bus over to Brooklyn College and become a social studies teacher. We got married a week after I graduated with my teaching degree. We had six bridesmaids in lilac ruffles and I got pregnant one margarita-fueled afternoon on our Bahamas honeymoon. The grandmothers baby-sat and I began to teach.
We planned to save our money, buy a house, have more babies while we were still young enough to enjoy them. On spring weekends, we explored different neighborhoods, pretending we were shopping for the dream house we were a long way from being able to buy.
One Sunday afternoon while he was out riding his bike a drunk driver killed him. He was twenty-six, Chrissie was three, and I became a twenty-four-year-old widow.
I keep thinking there must be lesson for our daughter in all this. I sure don’t want Chris to marry that young, but I can’t tell her we weren’t happy.
Well, Brooklyn girls are nothing if not tough. After I emerged a little from the fog of shock and grief, I saw that I had to take care of my baby and myself. Life forcing me to find plan B. I went back to school for a master’s degree so I could become a high-school history teacher and maybe a principal some day.
And then I surprised myself. I fell in love with scholarship. My professors encouraged me, I got some fellowships, I started a PhD program in history. I am finally going away to college, all the way to Manhattan, less than an hour on the subway, to the City University Graduate Center. I became a scholar in training, and fell into a life that my Jeff didn’t even know existed.
He wouldn’t know me if he came back now as the boy he was then. Wouldn’t know how to talk to me, and wouldn’t even want to. My world has turned out to be much bigger than the one I expected to live in.
Yet some days, I’d give it all up—everything I am now, everything I have—for a single summer night in the back seat of his father’s Chevy, parked at the beach with the sound of the surf rushing in and out.
I turned over in bed, pulled the pillow over my head, looked at the clock a dozen times, dozed off. I knew my worries about Chris had set off all those memories. I wanted Jeff to be there so much I was bringing him back in my sleep.
I woke up exhausted, my eyes barely focusing, but those three o’clock in the morning ghosts were gone. I had my life and I had to get on with it. As I expected, there were no sounds from Chris’ room. Joe had given her the day off, so like any teen she would sleep until the afternoon. Adolescence turns them all into vampires.
I got myself ready for work and out the door with my own brain still asleep. Afterwards, I couldn’t remember if I’d noticed the photographer on the block that morning, or not.
I did see him late that afternoon, though, getting in and out of a big black Cadillac, and snapping pictures in all directions. It barely registered until later, that he was still there and seemed to be taking pictures of my house. He was stopping people as they walked by and having little conversations too.
A street tree blocked a full view of the license places. Chastising myself for paranoia, I nevertheless jotted down the numbers I could see. I found myself drifting past the front windows. Yes, that car was still there, every time. I wondered if he was the person who had written about us online. And why would he care?
The next time I looked out, I saw Chris standing in front of the car writing something. Of all days, today Joe was on another job. It would have been nice to have a friend watching my back when I stormed out.
I was just in time to see the very large, youngish white photographer get of out of the car. He snatched the paper from Chris’ hand and ripped it into confetti.
“Chris! Into the house. Right now.” I stood between her and the guy, not taking my eyes off him, but I could feel her mutinous expression through my back. “No arguments! Move!” From behind me I heard her run across the street.
“What are you doing here?”
“Who the fuck are you?”
I didn’t recognize him personally but I knew him as soon as he opened his mouth. He was all the playground bullies of my childhood, all the Brooklyn hitters who hung around street corners making obscene suggestions when I was in high school. The girl I used to be back then came stomping in to take over. I thought, so we’re going to have to talk dirty? Yeah, I know how to do that.
“What the fuck are you doing, hanging around my block? Taking pictures of my house?”
He was unimpressed. “It’s a fucking public block, bitch. I can be here, minding my own business, which is more than you’re doing.”
“Are you the guy who wrote about us on Brownstone Bytes?’ To be honest, he didn’t look like an Internet enthusiast, or sound like one either.
He looked confused. “What if I am? It’s none of your business.”
He had moved uncomfortably close. He wasn’t a pretty sight, that close. I took two steps back, and a deep breath and said firmly, “It
is
my business. What are you up to? Nothing right, I bet.”
“Like I said, bitch, mind your own business.”
“There’s nothing here worth photographing, so stay away from my house.”
“Maybe I’m looking for some dumb young girl to take for a ride. Yours would do.” He smiled. Like a snake. “She’s pretty cute. She’d do fine. Why, I could…”
“Get lost!” I heard a voice shouting. It was my voice. “Move on, or you’ll be discussing your business with a cop in five minutes.”
His face was turning red and I realized, a little late, that I might actually be in danger. Then he looked around and saw doors being opened up and down the block. “Ahhh, fuck it. There are other ways.” He got into the car and sped off, spraying gravel.
I collapsed then, right on the curb. My head was on my knees. I didn’t know if I was a heroine or an idiot, if I should laugh or cry, if I should be terrified or proud. By then, neighbors who had heard the commotion were out on the street, helping me up, and even confused old Mary seemed to be hovering around the edge of the crowd. Chris was rushing back down the front steps.
“Mom? Mom! Are you all right? Are you nuts?” She turned to our neighbors. “Did you see that guy?”
“Oh, yeah. Big. Scary. Mrs. Donato, you are one crazy woman.”
“I know.” I shook my head. “I know.” I was calming down. “I’m OK, now. I guess. Let’s go in.”
“You sure? Well, call if you need anything,” Mr. Pastore said. “Me or the missus, we’ll come right over.” All the others murmured similar support, but I thanked them and waved them away
“Jeez, Mom! What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t thinking. I got mad. He threatened, sweetie. Us. Neighborhood, block, me, you. And we’ve already had one bad thing lately. And just what were you thinking, young lady?”
“Well, he was there for awhile, taking lots of pictures. I felt him sort of looking at me just now. It was creeping me out so I wanted to see if I could, like, report him. I needed some information….”
“Don’t you have any sense at all? You’re only fifteen! Hasn’t the rule always, always, been: if something seems creepy, get help?”
“Oh, yeah. Whatever.” She eyed me cautiously, as if I were a strange new person. “Can I get you something? Soda?”