What could I say, as I held her close? That it wasn’t her fault? That she should let the guilt go? Words, words. They mean nothing, less than nothing. I know.
Cindy thinks it’s arbitrary, the nights I invite her over, something that happens now and then for no particular reason. That’s not true. What happens, every once in a while, is that the phone rings. And on the other end I hear nothing but breathing. This happens to everyone, I tell myself, but I don’t believe it. I stay on and listen to the sound of what I think of as love, until whoever is at the other end hangs up. I don’t know whether I’m hearing Robert or Bobby, or some stranger. Maybe I’ll never know. But I believe it’s Robert, and I believe he knows I know, and I hang on. Six months ago the phone rang again, and I heard the breathing, and as I listened, Grace Ann looked up at me from her high chair and cried, in her demanding fashion, “Mama!” Whoever was on the phone hung up suddenly, a sound like a book banging shut. “Robert,” I cried, but there was only the echoing emptiness of the severed connection. “Ober!” Grace Ann replied happily.
Those are the nights, after the phone calls, when Cindy and I sit together, alone, and I grieve with the sound of sweet breathing still in my ears.
Cindy stood up for Mike and me at the municipal building, holding Charlie. So did Craig, holding Cathy. And Grace. Chelsea has decided that Aunt Grace is Wonder Woman, with her easy polysyllabic vocabulary and her knotty biceps. Afterward we had a party by the Roerbackers’ pool. “To our new daughter,” said Mike’s mother, and she gave me a cameo her husband had given her for her birthday years before, and hugged me tight. That was the only time I cried, that and afterward, when Mike said, “Can we have a baby right away?” I had a second glass of champagne, and when I went to the bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time, looked at myself in the silk suit, my hair curling around my face, Shhhhhell pink on my lips, I looked to make sure I knew who I was, that I was really real. I put my fingers to my mouth and shaped the word but did not say it, held it inside in deference to the day. Robert. Robert. I got pregnant that very night, in the four-poster in the bedroom of a guest house in Key West.
Robert, Robert. Where is he now? What does he feel or think? Maybe he’s in Italy or Brazil, Canada or Mexico. I don’t think he believes I’m dead, and I know he knows I love him. I know how persuasive Bobby can be, how he can hold you in thrall, make you wonder about things you’re sure about, tolerate things you never thought you’d allow. I was only twenty-one when he started in on me. Maybe Bobby told Robert that I knew exactly where they’d gone, that I’d given him away to his father. Could Robert have believed that for even a moment? Did he wonder about it now, if he’d been the person at the other end of the phone when another child called my name, the name that once only he was entitled to? Perhaps none of the lies Bobby had to tell him, to woo him, to win him, had the simple power of that sound, the sound of someone else calling me Mama.
Cindy said, when I told her the truth, or most of it, “Just tell me one thing. Is Beth Crenshaw more or less the same person as—what’s the other, now? I don’t know why I have such a mental block about that name.”
“Frances Benedetto.”
“Is Beth more or less the same as Frances?”
“Only the names were changed,” I said.
And I suppose in a way that’s true. When I was Fran, Frannie, Frannie, Fran, I felt like two people at once, the woman who seemed so in control and content, and the one with the black eyes and broken bones, the one who loved her husband and feared and hated him, all at the same time. Beth Crenshaw is two people, too. There’s the one who pulls weeds in the yard with her daughter’s head glowing in the sunshine beside her, who smiles across the supper table at Mike and stacks his shirts neatly in the second drawer, who comes down the street in her little compact car and, for just a moment, forgetting, loves her lovely little life. And there’s the one with the hole inside her, bigger than anything. There’s not a day when I haven’t wondered whether I did the right thing, leaving Bobby. But of course if I hadn’t, there would have been no Mike. And therefore no Grace Ann. Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They’re its finest fruits. Sometimes its only ones.
“Oh, honey,” Cindy likes to say, “you had no choice.”
Everyone says that, that I did the right thing, that I shouldn’t look back, that I had no choice. Maybe they’re right. I still don’t know.
BLACK
and
BLUE
Anna
Quindlen
A Reader’s Guide
Afterthoughts
One day, sitting at a red light, I saw Fran Flynn pass in front of my car. She was hurrying, the daylight sparking off her bright hair and her white uniform. For just a moment I wished she would turn and see me, and then I remembered that I was only imagining I was recognizing a woman I had imagined into existence in the first place.
I have a soft spot for every character I’ve created, but perhaps none has lived inside me so completely, and so happily, as the nurse from Brooklyn who had the guts to take her son and run from her policeman husband. I still miss being with her, all these years after I first lived inside her skin.
That’s what you do when you write a novel, but especially when you write one in the first person: You carry the character whose voice is the bedrock of the story. And because I liked Fran so much, liked her determination and her courage and her street smarts and her humor, it was nothing but a pleasure being her for a couple of years. In many ways, Black and Blue was the easiest of all my novels because of that.
Many readers have been surprised by that conclusion, given the dark subject matter of the book. But I never set out to write a novel about domestic violence. It was not a subject that I’d explored much as a journalist, and I hadn’t experienced it firsthand or even secondhand. (“Oh, no,” my poor husband said as he was reading the manuscript, knowing how people love to presume autobiography in fiction.) I originally set out to explore the issue of identity for women, especially how, for so many, their idea of identity is tied to the people they love. Someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s wife. I wanted to look at whether or not women lose themselves in those beloved others, and what would happen if a woman was forced to re-create herself completely.
There’s a rich tradition of that sort of novel, the hero who blithely changes his name and his fortunes at the same time, but I had a difficult time imagining most women ditching their carefully constructed domestic lives so easily. Eventually I decided that my protagonist would have to be someone who was forced to abandon her favorite bedspread and coffee mug, her girlfriends and family members. She would have to be shot out of the cannon of her own life by circumstances: in this case, by the need to flee a husband who beat her.
I didn’t do any research on domestic violence; as a lifelong reporter I had always preferred to interview individuals in a particular group before I looked at any kind of habitual behavior, believing that too often assumptions about typicality could overwhelm the beauty of individuality. If you rely on data about high school dropouts, or teenage mothers, or convicts, or converts, or any other group, there’s always the temptation to look for people who exemplify the data. I wanted to build a character, not an issue. People don’t care about issues: The fastest way to get someone to tune out people living on the streets, for example, is to refer to homelessness, which conveniently leeches a heartbreaking and nightmarish scenario of the human being that makes it so.
Instead of research I had Fran, whose voice became second nature to me almost from the moment I began to tell her story. I was sure she would be someone I not only understood but liked. On the surface she was no one’s idea of a victim. She had moved past her parent’s narrow expectations into a job at which she excelled. She was the kind of woman people wanted to know and knew they could rely upon. But scratch that surface of her strength, and you’ll find need—the need that drew her to Bobby Benedetto and kept her in a life in which
she was terrorized.
In the years since Black and Blue was first published, activists in the field of violence against women have told me over and over again how accurate the portrayal of Fran and her dilemma was for them and for the survivors with whom they worked. When they said how convincing they found the account of why she stayed, and how she decided to leave, I was naturally delighted.
I think I got it right because I felt an obligation, not to be true to some literal set of facts or scenarios, but to be true to Fran. A character takes shape under my fingers as I type and retype, and at a certain wonderful point she takes on a kind of life of her own. I look at a line of dialogue or a description, and since I am alone in a little room with a computer, I am free to leave it if I want. But I’ve stopped feeling alone by that time, and I’ve stopped feeling truly able to do what I’d like. I look, and look again, and then say to myself, no. Fran wouldn’t say that, do that, feel that. I know her. I miss her to this day. Sometimes people ask me what happened, after the end, after that final sentence: “I still don’t know.” That’s my answer, too. But I know I trust Fran to make a new life better than her old one.
Anna Quindlen
November 2009
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. In Anna Quindlen’s novel Black and Blue, Fran Benedetto explains, “In the beginning I loved [Bobby] … pure and simple. And then after a while I loved the idea of him, the good Bobby, who came to me every once in a while and rubbed my back and kissed my fingers. And I loved our life, the long stretches of tedium and small pleasures…. And now all the love goes into what’s left of that life, one boy.” What brought Fran and Bobby together in the first place, and how did their relationship fall apart so dramatically?
2. Fran’s sister, Grace, alludes to the domestic violence that Fran has silently endured for years: “How could none of us have known? I called Winnie at the hospital. She said the same thing. She suspected, but she said they all told themselves that you wouldn’t put up with it.” Have you ever wondered if someone you knew was in an abusive relationship? What would you do if you suspected that a friend or family member was in this kind of trouble?
3. How does Anna Quindlen’s remarkable skill as a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist help her as a fiction writer? Discuss.
4. After moving to Lake Plata with her son, Fran realizes, “All my life I’d tried to make my boy happy, and now to keep him safe I had to make him sad. And angry, too.” How does she handle this dilemma? In Fran’s experience, is it okay to lie to your child? If you are a parent, how do you deal with these complex issues?
5. There are several deep friendships in Black and Blue: Fran and Cindy’s, Fran and Mrs. Levitt’s, and Robert and Bobby’s. What makes these relationships so special? What do you value the most in your own close friendships?
6. Secrets abound in Quindlen’s novel—from the secrets Fran and Robert share about why they fled from New York, to Cindy’s story about her twin sister’s death. What other secrets can you find in this novel? Why does the subject of secrets resonate so deeply in Black and Blue?
7. Why is Patty Bancroft so tough? Is she too tough, or are her actions and comments when dealing with “clients” like Fran justified? Is Fran being fair where she points out that both Patty and Bobby say a lot of the same things?
8. Fran says, “It took me a dozen years of house pride and seventeen years of marriage before I realized there were worse things than a cramped kitchen and grubby carpeting.” What does “home” mean to Fran, and how is this subject explored throughout the novel? What do you treasure the most about your own home, and how would you feel if you suddenly had to leave it?
9. When Fran’s mother asked Grace why she was going to Chicago for school, Grace replied, “‘Because I want to.’ Like it was the most natural thing in the world, to do what you wanted.” Contrast this with Fran’s earlier comment, “I could tell you what Bobby liked and didn’t like … But I couldn’t have told you as much about myself. I was mostly reaction to Bobby’s actions, at least by the end.” How did these two sisters end up with such different senses of themselves and of what was possible?
10. In the world of Black and Blue, what constitutes a good marriage? How would Cindy Roerbacker and Mrs. Levitt answer this question? Do you agree with these characters? How might Bobby and his mother, Ann, define a good marriage?
11. Fran’s patient Jennifer, who suffers from cerebral palsy, uses the name Sexyjen in chat rooms online. Fran describes “two Bobbys, two Frans,” living in Brooklyn. And when she thinks about Cindy and Craig, she wonders “whether there were two of them, too, the daytime and the nighttime couple, like masks of comedy and tragedy.” Is it fair to say that all of us show different personalities, depending on the circumstances? Discuss.
12. According to Cindy, “if the good Lord had wanted women to have male friends he would have arranged for men and women to have something in common.” What do you think about this statement?
13. Knowing the dangers involved, why does Fran choose to stay in Lake Plata, Florida, as Beth Crenshaw, even after Robert has broken the rules and called his father, and Fran has appeared on local TV?
14. Robert’s father tells him, “There’s a part of me in you. And there’s a part of you in me. And there’s a part of me in all the kids you’ll have, and their kids.” How do you think young Robert will turn out? Will the boy perpetuate his father’s violent streak when he grows up, or will his mother’s influence save him?
15. Mrs. Levitt points out that “other people’s troubles don’t take away yours. But don’t be foolish and think somebody else is having everything fine.” What does she mean by this? Is it useful to weigh yourself against other people? Fran’s father tells his daughter to “Count your blessings … It shames you, to count yours by the hardships of other people.” How hard is it to follow this advice?
16. Fran thought of Bobby as “Tasty but dangerous. Mike Riordan was the least dangerous guy I’d ever known, and every time I thought to myself, well, Fran, he’s just not your type, I had to remind myself that my type was the type who left marks.” What do Fran and Mike find in each other, and what eventually pulls them together as a couple?
17. Despite the serious subjects explored in Black and Blue, Quindlen describes plenty of scenes that evoke happiness. These include Fran and Bobby enjoying Robert’s First Communion, Fran and Robert making a collage of sports figures on his closet door, Fran and Mike giving each other the same jacket for Christmas, and Cindy giving birth to healthy twins after losing her own twin sister in childhood. Which moments of hope, love, and redemption stood out to you the most when you read the novel?
18. “Beth Crenshaw is the name of the me I am today,” says Fran. “Grace Ann’s mother. And Robert’s mother, too. No matter what.” How does she come to terms with the disappearance of her son? What gives her the strength to make a new life for herself and keep going?
Read on for an excerpt of Anna Quindlen’s new novel
Every Last One
This is my life: The alarm goes off at five-thirty with the murmuring of a public-radio announcer telling me that there has been a coup in Chad, a tornado in Texas. My husband stirs briefly next to me, turns over, blinks, and falls back to sleep for another hour. My robe lies at the foot of the bed, printed cotton in the summer, tufted chenille for the cold. The coffeemaker comes on in the kitchen below as I leave the bathroom, go downstairs in bare feet, pause to put away a pair of boots left splayed in the downstairs back hallway and lift the newspaper from the back step. The umber quarry tiles in the kitchen were a bad choice: They are always cold. I let the dog out of her kennel and put a cup of kibble in her bowl. I hate the early mornings, the suspended animation of the world outside, the veil of black and then the oppressive gray of the horizon along the hills outside the French doors. But it is the only time I can rest without sleeping, think without deciding, speak and hear my own voice. It is the only time I can be alone. Slightly less t
han an hour each weekday when no one makes demands.
Our bedroom is at the end of the hall, and sometimes as I pass I can hear the children breathing, each of them at rest as specific as they are when awake. Alex inhales and exhales methodically, evenly, as though he were deep under the blanket of sleep even though he always kicks his covers askew, leaving one long leg, with its faint surgical scars, exposed to the night air. Across the room Max sputters, mutters, turns, and growls out a series of nonsense syllables. For more than a year, starting when he was eleven, Max had a problem with sleepwalking. I would find him washing his hands at the bathroom sink or down in the kitchen, blinking blindly into the open refrigerator. But he stopped after his first summer at sleepaway camp.
Ruby croons, one high strangled note with each exhale. When she was younger, I worried that she had asthma. She sleeps on her back most of the time, the covers tucked securely across her chest, her hair fanned out on the pillows. It should be easy for her to slip from beneath the blanket and make her bed, but she never bothers unless I hector her.
I sit downstairs with coffee and the paper, staring out the window as my mind whirrs. At six-thirty I hear the shower come on in the master bath. Glen is awake and getting ready for work. At six-forty-five I pull the duvet off Ruby, who snatches it back and curls herself into it, larval, and says, “Ten more minutes.” At seven I lean over, first Alex, then Max, and bury my nose into their necks, beginning to smell the slightly pungent scent of male beneath the sweetness of child. “Okay, okay,” Alex says irritably. Max says nothing, just lurches from bed and begins to pull off an oversize T-shirt as he stumbles into the bathroom.