Telling the Truth
“Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength.” – Barack Obama
Physical exertion had probably saved my life as much as reading and possibly movies. I had always run around as a child but in high school I played soccer and even when I drank and did drugs I rode my bicycle, ran, swam, did modern dance or aerobics. I was addicted to endorphins, even more when I had my first taste of sobriety. The Sicilian was naturally thin, a chain smoker, a picky eater and lazy as fuck. He had no interest in raising his heart rate or sweating. He enjoyed standing around looking pale, thin, and vaguely threatening, usually smoking, dressed in black leather.
After he threw the table across the restaurant I began to get off the D train a few stops early to walk. It felt wonderful. I was still depressed, suicidal and grief-stricken but feeling my muscles stretch and work again gave me a sense of self that had completely evaporated. When the linen manufacturer called me into his office I was prepared to be fired, instead he told me he was giving me a raise and an actual title: Marketing Manager.
“Thank you.”
“Listen, Mildred told me about that loser coming into the office. That can’t happen again. Understand?
I nodded.
“You deserve better. That guy’s an idiot.”
“Please don’t fire me.”
”I’m not going to fire you. Are you all right?”
I nodded.
“Get some help,” he stood to indicate the conversation was over.
photo by Daniel Martinez
Help. I didn’t know how to find any. My parents had suffered so much over Catherine’s death. I was afraid to tell them what a disaster my marriage was. Brigid was a mother and each time I spoke to her it was clear she wanted no part of my life. My friends had largely disappeared. I couldn’t blame them for not sticking around. I felt like a cartoon character with its own personal storm cloud above her head. Alison had been in Spain when Catherine was killed and had not returned since. We had spoken on the phone and I had called her when I decided to marry the Sicilian. He insisted on speaking to her at length mostly about his passion for the Ramones and me. When he finally handed over the phone she had sounded worried.
“Can’t you wait?” she asked me. “He sounds sort of controlling.”
“No. He’s fine.”
“Do you love him?” she asked.
“Alison, Catherine’s dead. Cindy’s dead. I don’t love anyone.”
“Don’t marry him. Are you drinking again?”
“I have to. I just want things to be over.”
Her move to Madrid had helped her separate from her needy parents and put her in close proximity to her married lover. We wrote to one another but my letters were filled with lies and omissions. I was ashamed of my life, the broken furniture, the bruises, the endless arguments, and the drinking. She had been proud of me for getting sober. As much as I missed her I wasn’t prepared to put the truth into a letter. But the walking helped. It put more time between my getting back to our awful apartment and the first glass of wine. It also helped me sleep. I was afraid of the Sicilian and my body was in a constant state of fight-or-flight, stress hormones flooded my blood as soon as I heard his voice. Each time he reached for me, I flinched or evaded his touch.
The leaves were changing and it was growing colder. I started to see families in the city, small children with their parents, people sitting outside in the waning sunshine having conversations without shouting at each other or throwing tables. Watching the world from a distance, separated by what looked like a thick pane of glass, it became clear to me that since that freezing night in February when Catherine was dying in the emergency room I had been in crisis, depressed and in a state of controlled panic. For the first time in ages, I recognized hope. Maybe I could get sober again and leave the Sicilian. Except drinking seemed necessary around him because of the fear and now what was beginning to feel like hatred.
The Dutch cookie people were very kind to us despite my husband’s lack of sales skill. They offered their place in Princeton for housesitting ten days before Christmas. Normally I would have avoided being in Princeton but I knew it was time to shed light on the mess I’d made of my life. Alison called. She was home from Spain briefly and she wanted to see me. She knew something was wrong. I described my current life as a wonderful joke, my working for an ex-lover, my husband’s unemployment, my return to social drinking.
“Why do you live so far away from the city? That neighborhood’s another country.”
So, no one can hear me scream, I thought. “It’s his father’s building.”
“I’m worried about you. This doesn’t sound right.”
And then the phone was seized and the Sicilian was talking about how he wished she had been at our wedding, telling her about his business opportunities, talking very fast, nearly shouting into the phone. He will keep us separate I thought. I can’t keep going. I needed to tell her “goodbye.” I needed to be sure she knew how much I loved her.
I finally got the phone back. “Molly, I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t know him. I need to see you. There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”
“Yes, yes. You’re right.”
“Are you in danger? Is he hurting you?”
“Uh-huh.”
The Sicilian was tapping his watch and scowling. I looked around our apartment, pictures unsuccessfully hiding cracks in the plaster, so many things smashed to bits. His bookcase filled with conspiracy theory books.
“Should I come there? Let me come there. I’ll bring a policeman. Have you told your parents?”
“No.” I don’t want anyone to see where I live, the broken things, the holes in our walls from fists. Pity is what I always feared more than suffering.
“I think we might be house sitting in Princeton for friends of my parents. Let me call you.”
“You need to get away from him. Let me help you.”
“Right. So, you’ll come over the night after we get there. The eighteenth, I think.”
“I love you, Molly.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. That asshole.”
When I tell him she will visit us he is not happy, but since he has finally been hired again by the people we are house sitting for, he is amenable to the idea she will visit. “Will she like me?” he asked.
No, I thought, she will hate you like I do. “Of course. Why wouldn’t she?”
“She went to Princeton. She’s stuck up.”
No, she isn’t stuck-up and yes, she did go to Princeton University and worked her way through school and took care of her crazy parents and sister and I miss her so much my body aches. I’m afraid to breathe in case he suddenly decides she can’t come over. “She worked her way through school. Even high school.”
“Is she going back to Spain?” I could see his jealousy and his fear.
“She goes back after New Year’s.”
We spent our first night at the house sitting place and remarkably nothing much happened except the furnace went off and the Sicilian went into tirade about his need for heat and rest but I got it to work again by relighting the pilot and pushing buttons and I’ll admit this, praying. He walked around their house, smoking even though we’d been asked not to smoke inside and talking about how much he hated the country. The sound of his voice hurt my ears. I could barely breathe or sit still.
Soon someone I had known for a long, long time, since we were little girls would tell me I could stop lying, stop being afraid and stop drinking. It felt vaguely familiar this sense that I was in close proximity to something dangerous and unpredictable. When I was little and my father came home with a brown paper bag full of wine bottles I remembered this dread and trying to be very, very good so possibly he’d change his mind and just watch television and not end up with a bottle of whiskey, sitting at the dining room table talking about Ireland and how badly he’d been treated by the publishing world.
About an hour before Alison was due he started complaining that she wouldn’t like him and that he wasn’t in the mood to meet my friend. I kept still and quiet, old training; try to be invisible when you are terrified. I wanted to tell him that she didn’t have any interest in meeting him, that she was coming over to see what was wrong and to banish him. I began to arrange food on platters and opened up some wine. I fanned the cheese out across a cutting board and found where the “Dutchies” as my father called them kept their European delicacies, smoked herring and salmon paste, fancy crackers, and nuts. If the preparations were elaborate enough the Sicilian wouldn’t dare announce he wasn’t in the mood for visitors. He was pacing and smoking and looking at me strangely. I knew he was trying to find a way to keep her from seeing me.
Her car pulled in and she walked up the path, slim and straight and lovely. I had known her forever, since we were little girls and swam at the Broadmead pool. Her father was a professor at Princeton and she knew all my secrets except this one. She had called me from Madrid after Catherine died and said, “Hold on, hold on.”
He pushed me aside and opened the door, talking fast while taking her coat. But she didn’t take her eyes off me.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I said, hugging her.
“You look terrified,” she whispered into my hair.
“Get Alison some wine.”
It was an order. He showed her into the living room as if it were his house and his guest. I saw him put his hand on the small of her back and I wanted to punch him. That gesture, that time honored gesture of possession had become my most hated touch. Better to smash me in the jaw than gently push and restrain. I went into the kitchen and he followed me.
“Do you think I could talk to Alison alone?” I asked. “We haven’t seen each other in so long.”
“Seriously?” His voice was soft and calm but the skin across his cheekbones was tight and the vein in his forehead was prominent.
“It’s just, never mind.”
“Just what? Just you Princeton girls need privacy?”
He had me backed up against the wall, his hands around my throat when she came in. I was begging him not to make her leave, begging him to let me see my friend. She moved swiftly, grabbed him by the elbow, opened the back door and threw him out of the house, slamming it and locking it behind him. He looked shocked. Without thinking I moved to let him back in.
“No! Stop it, Molly. Leave him. Don’t you dare let him back in!”
I was whimpering. I was six. I was scared.
“He’s going to kill me. He’ll kill us both.”
She shook her head. “He’s a punk. Where’s his coat?” The Sicilian was hammering on the back door, threatening retribution. She opened the front door and threw his coat onto the path, slamming and locking it again.
She came back into the kitchen and lowered the blinds on the windows. Looking at the platters of food, she started to laugh. “Molly, were you getting ready for a cocktail party?”
“I didn’t want him to make me cancel.”
“How did this happen? Didn’t your parents notice he was hurting you?”
“No, I didn’t go home. And Catherine. I couldn’t make it worse.”
“I could hear it in your voice, like someone was holding a gun to your head.”
He was still hammering.
“I’ll call the police if he doesn’t stop. When did this start?”
“On our honeymoon. I got drunk and told him I didn’t love him. It’s my fault.”
Alison shook her head. “It’s not your fault. Don’t say that.”
When you are afraid your body is full of adrenalin. Your muscles are coiled, your breath is shallow, all of you poised for fight or flight. But I did not fight. When he screamed and threatened me, I was a child again, a little girl who could not hit back, who could not do anything but be afraid. Even though I acted brave and did difficult things, I had spent nearly my entire life frightened. I drank and I raged because I was tired of being bullied. Drinking made me indifferent to other people. Drinking gave me permission to hate.
We built a fire in the living room and even though every sound of the old house settling or a branch rustling outside scared me, I felt safe for the first time in ages. We curled up on the couch with the platters of food on the table in front of us, Mose Allison was on the stereo and I told her how I thought getting married was the answer to my problems.
“How can having an awful husband make things better?”
“I hoped he might kill me. Then it wouldn’t be suicide and my parents wouldn’t get so upset.”
She made a face and then we both started laughing at the ridiculous idea of my murder making my parents feel less terrible.
“Yes,. You being murdered by that jackass would be a real improvement. I don’t understand why you didn’t tell anyone.”
“I had fucked everything up so badly. We live at the last stop of the D train.”
“Lived. You’re not going back there.”
“He broke all my pottery. All my bowls.”
“Didn’t your neighbors hear anything?”
‘The entire building is Hassidic. We were the only non-Jews. They didn’t talk to us. His father owns the building.”
She shook her head. “Couldn’t you have told anyone?”
I shook my head.
“Because of Catherine?”
“Yes. And the drinking. I promised her I wouldn’t start again. I promised her when they turned the machines off and she died.”
Alison put her arms around me. “It’s not your fault. You’ll go back and get sober again. You can go tomorrow.”
“I‘ll tell my father. He’ll understand.”
“What does your mother think?”
“She thought his family was awful. His father tried to explain what arugula was and mom stopped him and said, ‘I grow it.’ They didn’t like each other.“
It was quiet outside. He was gone but I was sure he was coming back with a gun to kill us both.
“I’m spending the night. Okay?”
“Yes. Please.”
We slept in the double bed after making sure all the windows were locked. The phone kept ringing but Alison did not let me answer. After she fell asleep I lay next to her listening to her breathe. She had saved me from so much darkness I couldn’t believe she was real. We were little girls together, little girls with bad haircuts and bad parents. When I went to the bathroom I saw a light in the living room we must have forgotten.
There was someone, something in the living room. Catherine. She wasn’t hurt anymore and she wasn’t solid but sort of shimmery except for her face and hands, which had some substance. My sister.
“Where have you been? Why did you wait so long?”
I wasn’t afraid of her even though everything was sort of ghostly and strange. Kind of like when she made me watch The Outer Limits even though it scared me into nightmares.
“Mouse, I had things to do.”
So maybe dead people are busy. Who knew?
“I’m in trouble.”
I moved closer. The light around her made a sort of buzzing noise, like a sleepy bee.
“I know. But you’ll be all right. Alison’s here.”
“I broke my promise.”
I swear she rolled her eyes. “Never mind that. You weren’t in your right mind. No one has been in their right mind except Henry.”
“He misses you, Catherine.”
“He’ll forget.” The buzzing got a little louder.
“I won’t. Never, ever.”
“Okay, but that’s it. Don’t do this anymore.”
“I’m going to get sober again.”
She nodded. “Lait,” she whispered. “Wild child. Take care of you and my Henry.”
“Stay with me.”
But she was already gone. I turned off the light and went back to bed. I didn’t believe in ghosts and I didn’t believe she was a ghost. I believed in love and that maybe you could imagine someone so vividly, someone you had missed with every part of yourself that they could somehow manifest. Alison was snoring a little. As soon as I put my head on the pillow, I fell asleep. I slept harder than I had in over a year.
I drove to my parent’s house using back roads in case he was around. He had taken on a monster’s size, like the movie about the giant crab that ate this woman’s husband and after that the crab could use his voice to call her. The crab goes to her house and she thinks it’s him but when she opens the door it’s the giant crab and it eats her. Like that. But then I realized he would have fled to Brooklyn, back to what was terrible but familiar. As I turned into the driveway I wondered what I’d say. My parents were sitting at the dining room table reading the Sunday New York Times. They were happy to see me. Neither of them asked where he was. I sat down and tried to read about why you need to consider khaki as a wardrobe staple in the style section.
After a few minutes my father lowered his paper.
“Everything all right?”
“No,. Can we go for a walk?”
My mother looked suspicious but she agreed. I borrowed my father’s coat, which was too big but smelled like him, smoke and books and wood. It felt like he was hugging me. Driving to the path through the Institute Woods, my mother turned around to look at me.
“You need a haircut.”
“Okay.”
“What’s wrong? Tell us.”
My mother was the enemy of anticipation. If a package came to the house she opened it immediately even if it was addressed to someone else. She blurted out bad news like a child, or any news for that matter. She wanted to know the end of things, books, movies, and arguments before they started. She hated surprises and secrets. That’s why I lied so much. I felt violated by her curiosity, her insistence on knowing things. I kept diaries and notebooks and secrets because she had no respect for privacy. Brigid told her everything but those confidences had little value because they were freely offered. Getting out of the car I sensed she was afraid for me. She stared hard into my eyes like it was possible to see something I wasn’t articulating. I felt sorry for her.
“I’m all right. I need to talk to daddy alone.”
She stamped her foot like a little girl but I grabbed her and hugged her. “Please Mom,” I whispered into her hair that smelled like something clean and lemony, “Let me talk to him.”
Just then an old friend pulled in and parked and she was distracted. They walked in front of us while I seized the chance to speak to my father.
“Dad, he’s beating me. I drink all the time. I say terrible stuff and he gets angry. I need to leave him and get sober again. I’m sorry.”
My father looked straight into my eyes. “It’s okay.”
“I shouldn’t have married him.. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It doesn’t matter. We need to get you out of Brooklyn.”
“I’m going back to AA.”
“Okay. Good.”
“I think I saw Catherine. She told me to stop.”
He doesn’t speak. He stares at the ground.
“I miss her so much, Daddy.”
“She was your perfect sister. Three is better than two, isn’t it?”
I nodded. My mother was waiting for us. Her face was afraid.
“Molly’s is getting a divorce. He’s been hitting her. She’s going back to AA.”
“Hitting you?” she looked angry and then sad. She doesn’t yell at me.
The next day I am setting the table at my parent’s house and my father comes in and tells me that he and Brigid’s husband are going to get my stuff out of the Sicilian’s apartment.
“Andrea said he will pee through the mailbox,” my father said.
“After you get my stuff.”
“Of course.”
My mother comes out of the kitchen and my father turns to her. “I don’t think we should go to London. Brigid’s going to be in Italy with Andrea and Molly will be alone.” This is a mistake. I know my mother and I know she can’t give anything up for anyone, even her children. Before she can answer I speak.
“No, Daddy, don’t do that. I’ll be fine. He isn’t going to come back if his father knows what happened. Go to England. I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
“You aren’t any trouble, Liz?”
She tosses her head. She is angry. She sighs.
“No, daddy. Go to England. I’ll feel worse if you stay. It will be fine.”
“We already lost a daughter. I can’t lose another one.”
We never say this. We never talk about her and the empty chair and the lost memories.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, beginning to cry. “I’m sorry!”
“She’ll be fine,” my mother says, drying her hands on the dishtowel she has in her hands. “When we get back, she can divorce that loser.”
“It’s ten days,” my father says. He turns to me. “Are you sure?”
I nod. I can’t speak. I don’t want them to leave. I am terrified. I’m not fine. I need them. But my mother’s hurt feelings weigh so much I’d rather get murdered by my husband than force her to postpone the trip. She looks relieved.
“So, we’re going?” she asks my father.
He nods.
“I’ll take you to shopping when we get back,” my mother looks happy. “We’ll get you a haircut and a perfect winter coat.”
I nod. I need my parents. I need to feel safe and looked after. But that isn’t normal. Normal is leaving the country without contact information, normal is letting my appendix nearly burst, normal is being left in places, not picked up, forgotten, abandoned. For ten days I sleep with all the lights on and a kitchen knife under my pillow. Each time a headlight reflects on their bedroom wall, I am awake, listening, afraid.
I went to an AA meeting. I found a seat towards the back of the room. Nothing had changed, the steps on the wall, the bad cookies, and the coffee. Since it was Princeton, there were no homeless people or bikers. A man in a Judy Garland t-shirt waved and smiled. He patted the chair next to him. His eyes were clear and full of light. He handed me a cookie. A Fig Newton, which is my least favorite cookie, but it seemed like it might help.
“How are you doing?” he asked. “You look a little worried.”
“I’ve been gone. I started drinking again and I got married.”
“How’d that work out?”
“I got drunk and he hit me.”
We both laughed. Alcoholics have so many terrible stories we laugh at tragedy like people with brain injuries cry at funny stories.
“How was it?”
“Awful.”
“You learn anything new?”
“Not really.”
“Well, welcome back,” he said, taking my hand. “Stay.”
My parents returned from Europe.
“We had a terrible time because your father couldn’t stop worrying about you.”
“Didn’t you worry about me?”
“No,” my mother sighed “You’re very strong.”
My father and my then brother-in-law went to Brooklyn where the Sicilian had put everything I owned out on the street. For some reason that information hurt almost more than anything else. His father was there but he was not. My father said his father was very polite.
“A second-rate Mafioso. He’s a driver.”
My mother and me went shopping for a coat. A store called Landaus in Princeton was having a sale. Although I would never buy most things from that store which was very preppy and expensive, occasionally you were able to find something great. I found a black coat that fitted me perfectly. It was black and sexy, Doctor Zhivago-like with a fur collar and double buttons. I felt good in that coat, I felt like a woman who was getting a divorce but had no regrets.
I stood in front of my mother, smiling. She was holding another coat, a loden. The coat was gray and hung straight down and wide from my shoulders. I looked like a Catholic schoolgirl. It concealed my body perfectly.
“Look,” I twirled in my sexy, black, Russian coat.
“No,” my mother is clutching the loden.
“But it looks so good. It’s very warm.”
“This is a loden. It’s special.”
“I want the other one. I look pretty.”
“The loden will last for years.”
“Mom, I want the black one.”
“I’m paying.”
This was true. I was broke and I didn’t have a proper coat. I had one I’d found at the Salvation Army whose buttons I’d replaced but it still wasn’t very nice. Like so many things, the loden coat became a symbol of all that was wrong with my relationship with my mother. I was certain she’d vetoed the Russian Doctor Zhivago coat because I’d look sexy in it and I was not allowed to look sexy. I was supposed to be ashamed of my drinking, my marriage, my lack of a direction and the fact I’d ruined her vacation in Europe by making my father worry.
—Molly Moynahan, author and writing coach