Garden of Lies (79 page)

Marie would seldom chat on the phone, and she’d always come up with some excuse to turn

down Rose’s invitations to lunch, to dinner, a night out on the town. Rose was tired of always

being the one to make the effort, so she hadn’t [490] seen Marie in a year or more. And now, here

they were ... God, what a rotten reason for getting together.

She felt rotten, too. Weary, a heaviness in her bones.
Tomorrow,
she reminded herself.

Tomorrow Max leaves for California.

The thought was like one of Nonnie’s knitting needles piercing into her heart.

God, she missed him already, and the pain of it kept getting worse. How stupid she’d been,

how blind. And why, she agonized, why is it that the things that matter most, we get so close, we

don’t see them?

So different from the way she had felt about Brian. Max had never been pure and shining,

enthroned on an altar in her heart, an icon. No, he was something that was
lived in.
Like a house

full of nicks and jumble and worn chair arms, and more wonderful than any immaculate palace.

I’m going to start crying any minute now
—
that would be funny, wouldn’t it? Everyone

thinking I was crying for Nonnie?

No, not even poor Nonnie deserved that, tears at her funeral shed for someone else.

Rose forced her attention back to the priest. Old Father Donahue had retired, she’d heard. So

this cherub-faced kid—why, he looked hardly older than an altar boy!—had to be his

replacement. Strange, Holy Martyrs without wizened little Father Donahue in his green and white

vestments.

And instead of Donahue’s mumbling drone, this bright and youthful voice ringing out over the

mostly empty pews.

“Oh God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts like the

earth, parched, lifeless and without water. ...”

Yes, lifeless, that’s how she felt without Max.

“... You are my help, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. My soul clings fast to

you; your right hand upholds me.”

A soft burbling sound now,
someone
was crying.

Rose looked beyond Marie, hard-eyed and stony-faced, to where Clare sat, head bowed, her

face hidden by the flowing gray wings of her wimple. Clare reminded her of a feather pillow, soft

and shapeless, plumped there on the bench. If only she would stop
crying,
for heaven’s sake. As

if Nonnie’s dying hadn’t been a blessing, really.

[491] “She went just like that—” Rose heard Clare mutter weepily to Marie, “like a light going

off. Oh, I feel so terrible. So ... so responsible.”

“Why should you feel responsible?” Marie whispered back impatiently. “It’s not as if
you

killed her.”

Rose watched Clare’s round, tear-swollen face go still with shock at the very
idea.

For an instant, Rose almost felt sorry for Clare. Then she remembered it hadn’t been Clare who

had cared for Nonnie these last years, but the orderlies and nurse’s aides in a Catholic nursing

home. Clare had done little more for Nonnie than she had in the past. Except to pray, of course.

Clare was a real pro at praying.

At last, the service was over, the young fresh-faced priest making the sign of the cross over

Nonnie’s coffin.
My God,
Rose thought,
he didn’t even
know
her.

She felt a shiver run through her. The sudden horrible notion came over her that Nonnie wasn’t

really dead, that inside that coffin, she lay grinning, waiting to spring out at them like some

ghoulish jack-in-the-box.

Then Rose realized Marie was fussing with her coat, reaching for her purse.

“I have to get back,” she said. “The baby-sitter could only promise me an hour.”

“You’re not coming out to the cemetery?” Clare asked, her doughy face seeming to sag.

“To watch somebody shovel dirt over her?” Marie shrugged. “No, thanks.” Then she softened

the tiniest bit, giving Clare’s hand an absent pat. “Look, I really do have to get back. Missy’s

sick, and Bobby was looking a little peakish this morning.” One corner of her thin mouth twisted

up. “Like they say, ‘Life goes on,’ you know?”

Rose saw that Clare had turned from Marie to her now, her expression beseeching.

Rose stiffened, thinking,
I can’t stand any more of this.
But then she thought,
Is it fair, leaving

Clare to deal with these mourners alone? Mrs. Slatsky, and that bunch of old crones from the

auxiliary.

Yes, that’s what I would have done before
—
the so-called proper thing
—
in the days when I

used to be a doormat. But that has changed. I have changed.

And, mostly, she had Max to thank for that.

[492] “I’m going back with Marie,” Rose found herself saying. “Why don’t you go on alone to

the cemetery, Clare.” Kindly, she added, “I think that’s what Nonnie would have wanted, don’t

you?”

Anyway, there was something she had to talk about with Marie. Alone. Something Marie

might be able to help her with.

Rachel’s mother—yes, Sylvie was her name. It could be that Marie knew something.

Rachel touched her ear.
And if she does know something, then maybe I can figure out why

Sylvie Rosenthal gave me this earring all those years ago.

Marie’s apartment hadn’t changed. The same gloomy cave of a living room, with its stale

nicotine smell. The same motel-style furniture, but shabbier now than it used to be. The playpen

was gone, and a hockey stick was propped in the corner by the TV, a nude and contorted Barbie

doll on the rug.

“Just set that on the floor, and have a seat,” Marie said, pointing to the overflowing laundry

basket on a Laz-y-Boy recliner crisscrossed with friction tape. “By the way, Bobby went nuts

over that Atari game you sent him for his birthday. Can’t pry him away from it.”

“I know. He sent me a nice thank-you note. He’s a great kid, Marie. They all are. You’re doing

a good job raising them.”

The sound of television filtered in from the bedroom off the living room. All three of Marie’s

kids were in there, clustered around Missy’s sickbed, watching “The Mod Squad.” Rose promised

herself she would spend some time with each of them before she left, and Bobby was old enough

to stay over with her in the city sometimes. She would suggest it to Marie. ...

“Jesus,” Marie was now saying, “you’re getting to sound almost as holier-than-thou as Sister

Clare. That what being a bigshot lawyer does to you?”

Before Rose could take offense, Marie had slumped onto the couch, all the starch seeming to

have gone out of her. She lit a cigarette, and peered up at Rose through the smoke.

“Oh, hell, don’t pay any attention to me,” Marie said and sighed. “I just get so damn stir-crazy

rattling around here all by myself with the kids off at school. It turns you mean after a while.”

[493] “Where’s Pete?” Rose asked.

“Pete!” Marie snorted. “He left. Moved out. A couple weeks ago. Didn’t I tell you? Oh well,

good riddance as far as I’m concerned.”

“But ... what ...” Rose stopped herself, thought better of asking,
What are you living off of

then? At least while Pete was around you had his unemployment check.

The chilly look in Marie’s eyes didn’t invite any sisterly concern.

“Can I get you something? Coffee?” Marie asked.

“No, don’t bother ... please. I can’t stay long anyway.” Rose took a deep breath. “Marie, I came

to ask you ... about ... about something Nonnie said a long time ago. About our mother ... how she

might have ... well, that I might not have the same father as you and Clare.”

Marie was staring at her as if she’d lost her marbles. “You serious? What do you care what that

old bat said? She was always stirring up trouble. I don’t care if she
is
dead, it’s the truth, ain’t it?

She liked making us squirm. Anyway, what difference does it make now?”

“I just want to know, that’s all. I thought maybe ... well, that maybe you knew something. That

Nonnie might have told you—”

Marie’s eyes cut away from hers, and all of a sudden she seemed tense as an alleycat. “I
told

you. I don’t know any more than you do.” She sounded irritated. “Now, why don’t you just forget

about it?”

But Rose couldn’t stop. This thing was eating away at her, and she knew it wasn’t her

imagination. Sylvie Rosenthal. Seeing her in that courtroom, seeing that flicker of recognition in

her eyes. She
knew
something. And Rose was certain it had to do with her real father. Not the

smiling sailor in the silver-framed photograph, Nonnie’s son, Marie and Clare’s father, but the

man from whose seed she had sprung, someone dark and different-looking, so that she’d been set

apart from her sisters from the day she was born.

“If another man was my father, then he must have had family, right?” She pushed on,

desperate. “A wife maybe? A sister? And this wife or sister, she might have known. About me.

She might have wanted to see me. ...”

Marie rose abruptly, clutching at the throat of her dress. “I told you I don’t know anything

about that! You’re dreamin’, that’s all. [494] You’re just dreamin’.” She busied herself with the

laundry basket, yanking an undershirt from the tangled pile and folding it in one savage motion.

“Look, I’ve got a lot to do. So if you’re leavin’ anyway, don’t let me keep you.”

Rose felt a surge of angry frustration. Marie was lying, she
had
to be. Rose was sure of it.

Marie
was
hiding something.

Rose leaned forward in her chair, grasping the plastic rim of the laundry basket, forcing Marie

to look at her.

“For God’s sake. Marie.”

“I
told
you, I—”

“I know what you said, but I think you do know something. Oh, Marie, don’t do this to me. All

my life I’ve felt different, an outcast in my own family, and
now you’re
turning against me.”

Rose jumped to her feet. She was trembling, furious with her sister, and at the same time

aching with need.

“I have to know—” Rose choked, searching for the right words, “who I am. Don’t you see? I ...

I’m not asking for anything else. If my real father has a family, I won’t bother anyone, I don’t

want to stir up trouble.
I just want to know.
”

Now Marie was glaring at her, feverish color staining her pale, sharp-boned cheeks.

Then Marie collapsed onto the sofa, and burst into tears.

Rose stared, stunned. She somehow couldn’t move or speak. She couldn’t remember ever

seeing her sister cry.

When Marie lifted her face, her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She rose wearily, and said,

“Wait. There is something.”

Rose watched Marie shuffle out of the room, her heart beating faster than it should have been.

She remembered that story, “The Monkey’s Paw,” all about how wishes can come true in the

most hideous ways.

She was sweating, afraid.

Marie was back a minute later with something in her hand, a small blue book. A savings

passbook, Rose saw. Marie thrust it at her, quickly, as if she had to get rid of it.

Rose opened it, and saw the name typed inside:
Rose Angelina Santini.

The original deposit was twenty-five thousand dollars, dated September 15, 1954. But then

there were pages and pages of [495] withdrawals, years and years of them, a hundred dollars,

fifty, seventy-five. In the very last column, the balance showed seven hundred forty-two dollars

remaining.

She looked up at Marie. What was this?

Her sister’s eyes slunk away.

“It’s yours, all right,” Marie confessed, her voice low with shame. “I found it in Nonnie’s

things along with those letters of Brian’s.”

“There was a letter with the bank book. From some lawyer. It just said that someone had

opened this account in your name—it doesn’t say who, just that he wished to remain

anonymous.”

“And Nonnie—”

“The way I look at it, she must have figured something was rotten in Denmark. I mean, why

would some perfect stranger have given you all that money? She must have had suspicions all

along about Dad not being your real father, and this just clinched it.”

“But you didn’t tell me. You kept it.”

“Yeah) I kept it.” Marie met her gaze finally, squinting a little as if it hurt her to do so. “Every

day I’d tell myself it was just for a little while, I was just holding on to it for you. Then Pete got

fired down at the hardware store, and we were so broke, and I told myself if I borrowed just a

little, a hundred dollars to tide us over, it wouldn’t matter ’cause I’d pay it back soon as Pete

cashed his unemployment check. It was easy,
too
easy. At the bank, I told them I was you. I had

this old library card of yours, and the letter addressed to you, and I knew all the family names.

After that—” she shrugged, “it just seemed like one thing after another. Bobby having his tonsils

out. Gabe with his adenoids. And Pete, in and out of jobs faster than a Times Square hooker, with

the bills rolling in, and overdue notices. I kept borrowing, telling myself I was going to pay it

back someday ... and then when you got to be a fancy lawyer and all, I changed my tune, told