No one moved to console her, bent over, weeping.
“That’s why I needed you so much!” she cried in a muffled voice from between her hands.
Elizabeth rose, went to Mary and stooped down and put her stiff arms around her and held her. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered into the hair over Mary’s ear. “So sorry,” she kept repeating.
Mary threw her arms around Elizabeth’s neck. “You didn’t know, you couldn’t have known,” she sobbed.
“I should have known. I could have guessed. I was so jealous of his love for you. …”
“Love! That’s love!” Ronnie cried.
“Of course it’s love!” Mary cried. “That’s why it’s so … terrible!”
“That’s not love, it’s exploitation! Oppression! Abuse! What’s the matter with you?” Ronnie screamed.
“It takes the form of love,” Elizabeth said. “And that is what is so terrible about it. Because it defines love somehow. Like pornography, you know? Defining love as torture. It gets into your brain. And it poisons the rest of your life, your sense of things … of sex … of love. For me, sexual love in a woman meant obliteration. I believed that women’s pleasure consisted entirely of pleasuring a man. I thought there was something missing in me, I wasn’t a real woman—because I couldn’t bear living that way, couldn’t bring myself to do it. I thought I was frigid,” she said, turning to face Mary fully. “As you always said.”
Mary’s mouth trembled. Sorry, she mouthed.
“But anyway,” Mary said in a small voice, “you do love him. Your daddy.” She stared at the wall. “The god descends,” she said, “sweeps you up in his arms, offering what you yearned for all those years, what you dwindled without, like a plant without sun or rain. But given in a way that hurts, shames, erases you.” She shuddered.
Ronnie cried out as if she had hurt herself suddenly, and Elizabeth swerved to face her.
“Is that how you felt?” Elizabeth prodded.
Ronnie was bent over, her elbows resting on her muscular jean-clad legs, her hands over her face.
“That is why you left, isn’t it,” Elizabeth continued relentlessly.
She nodded.
“Tell us.”
Ronnie dropped her hands. “WHY! WHY! Isn’t it enough that you know about it? You want me to give you all the salacious details so you can wallow in them, in self-pity, in whining victimization? NO! NO! I don’t have your problems. I didn’t love him and I knew he didn’t love me! End of story. It was pure exploitation!”
She stood up suddenly, went to the table where the bottles stood, and poured herself a tall glass of Perrier. She stood there, muttering. “You really loved him. It’s natural, he was your father, of course you did. And you wanted him to love you so in some sense you wanted what happened to happen …”
They cried out in protest. She held up her hand. “Whoah, whoah! I’m not saying you wanted him to rape you. Just that you feel complicit in it because you took it for love and you wanted love. It’s the sense of complicity that’s killing you. That makes you feel so … shitty.”
She returned to her chair and lighted a cigarette. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is I don’t have that sense of complicity. I was a servant’s kid, he never gave one flying fuck about me. I was a little chicana servant, nobody, nothing. I never even knew he was my father until I really saw his eyes that time. I had no love for him. So when he did what he did to me, just took me, roughly, like I was a piece of meat. … I never confused it with fatherly love.”
She sat back with her face set hard, blew out smoke.
“You mean he did it to … all of you!?” Alex cried. She felt as if her head was locked in a bubble, far away. It took time for their voices to reach her, and they reached her only faintly. Bed. She had to go to bed. She stood up, but wobbled. Ronnie jumped up and grabbed her to keep her from falling.
“Bed. I have to go to bed,” she mumbled. She sounded drunk.
Elizabeth gave Mary a warning look. “Maybe you should have a little Perrier,” Mary said, standing and taking Alex’s glass. “I’ll get it for you.” But Alex had barely touched her drink: her glass was nearly full; Mary held it up for Elizabeth to see.
“Brandy,” Elizabeth said.
Mary went for it.
Ronnie settled Alex back in her chair. She looked old, dead white. Her eyes were sunk into dark pockets. She gazed off into nothing.
“I was lying in my crib. In the nursery,” she croaked. “I felt this thing and I woke up and Father was there. His hand was inside my panties. He kept rubbing me. It felt. … it felt … nice. It hurt. It frightened me. Baby scared,” she whimpered. “Mommy, Mommy!”
Mary ran back into the room with the brandy, held it under her nose. “Smell this. Sip this.”
Alex smelled, sipped. She sat back. Ronnie was crouched down beside her; Mary knelt down on the other side. Elizabeth stood up. Alex gazed up at her and reached her hands out to her like a baby reaching out to a mother to be lifted from her crib. Elizabeth breathed in a sob, moved to Alex, bent and embraced her.
“I was the oldest. I should have helped! But I didn’t save any of you!” Elizabeth cried. “All I cared about was saving myself!”
“We all did,” Mary said, her head bent, voice muffled. “Any way we could.”
“What else could you do?” Ronnie asked, bewildered. “What could any of us do? We were children!”
Alex held on to Elizabeth. Mary sat on the arm of her chair, and embraced Alex with one arm. Ronnie laid her head on Alex’s knees, put her arms around them. Then they all started to move, to sway gently from side to side, moaning, murmuring, keening, like women at a funeral, humming and swaying in unison, a single mourning body of women.
15
WHEN STEPHEN DOZED OFF around ten the next morning, Florence buzzed Mrs. Browning on the intercom, whispered to her to send someone up, she needed a break. Teresa came tiptoeing into the room smiling. Florence mimicked drinking tea and Teresa nodded, smiled, turned the rocker so she could see the television set, which was showing some sports event.
Florence went downstairs to the kitchen and told Mrs. Browning that she wanted to see Miss Upton. Mrs. Browning frowned and said she’d have to see. She went out, came back and ushered Florence from the kitchen down a long hall past a kind of huge parlor, and a room with a pool table in it, to the library. It had a low ceiling and wooden beams and a huge stone fireplace. Miss Upton sat behind a huge desk.
Florence Douley marched somewhat fiercely up to the desk, but then Miss Upton looked up and smiled.
“Miss Upton: about that little matter we discussed last evening as I was leaving?”
“I’m sorry, Florence. What little matter?”
Florence’s mouth twisted. “About the possibility of a need for a bedpan, Miss Upton.”
Elizabeth sat back, took off her glasses. “Right.”
“Well, I was wondering if you heard Mr. Upton buzz last night. Because the bed was wet this morning.”
Elizabeth stood up. “What!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … it was just … I wondered if he buzzed or … some patients do get angry, like babies, the poor souls, and just … wet, you know.”
“Father wet the bed?” She seemed incredulous.
“Maybe he buzzed and yez didn’t hear it?”
“His intercom is connected to the kitchen, Mrs. Browning’s room, to the maid’s room, and to my bedroom, too, just in case. I can’t imagine no one heard it if he buzzed. Did you ask him?”
“I did, ma’am,” Florence confessed. “And I thought he sort of grinned at me. Of course, the way his face is, maybe I was mistaken.”
Elizabeth stared at her. “I’m so sorry, Florence. You must have had a mess to clean up.”
Words burst out of Florence. “It’s not as if he’s incontint. The incontint ones they can’t help it and I can keep them in diapers. Lucky I thought to put a rubber sheet under the chamois or I would have had a time. As it was, I had
to move him to the wheelchair, air the mattress, wipe down the rubber sheet and wait for it to dry, first thing in the morning. He seemed fine though—gobbled up his breakfast.”
After her outburst Florence felt placated. “Well, sure it’s all part of the job, ma’am. Just thought I’d ask. Because if he is, you know, incontint, we’ll need to put diapers on him.”
“Yes.” Elizabeth sat down again and Florence turned to leave. “Florence?” she called.
“If he does it again … tell me, all right?”
“Wetting the bed! Father!” Mary exclaimed. “I can’t believe it! Father?”
“Maybe he couldn’t help it,” Alex said.
Mrs. Browning and Teresa entered carrying bowls of steaming pea soup.
“Another gray day,” Elizabeth observed.
“Yes,” Mary sighed. “I thought of going to Boston tomorrow. It’s Sunday, but the museums will be open. Anyone else want to go?”
“Me.” Ronnie held up her hand.
The servants left.
“How can we find out?” Mary asked Elizabeth.
“Ask him,” Ronnie said.
Elizabeth snorted. “He’d tell us?”
“We could ask the doctor,” offered Alex.
After much discussion, they decided to do both: Elizabeth would call Dr. Stamp, Mary was delegated to speak to Stephen.
Mary knocked on the open door. Florence looked up from her knitting. “Oh, bless you, I’m parched,” she said, laying her work down. She nodded her head toward Stephen without a smile. “He’s fine,” she said, briskly. “Nice and quiet, watching the telly,” she explained, as if that were not obvious. He did not glance at her, and she made no effort to fluff his pillow or straighten his cover before she left.
“May I speak to you, Father?” Mary asked from across the room.
Stephen hit the mute button on the remote.
She hesitated, then walked around the bed and sat in the rocker. “Florence was very upset this morning.”
He scowled at her.
I know that look. What the hell do I care if she’s upset?
“Of course, in her work she often has incontinent patients. She’s upset because she believes you have self-control. If you don’t, we should know it. So we can … make arrangements … for you.”
His eyes opened in outrage. Even the half-shut eye seemed to widen.
Someone else should have done this, Mary thought, her stomach fluttering. Not me. Please don’t be mad at me, Daddy.
Don’t. Don’t crumble. What would Elizabeth say? How Ronnie would mock you.
Her voice rose. “There’s no point in looking at me with outrage, Father! You wet your bed! Like a baby! Out of pure malice! I know it! And if you keep doing it, Florence will put you in diapers! Is that what you want?!”
Stephen paled, his eyes widened, he grabbed his heart. Mary stood, terrified, then darted from the room and down the stairs.
“Elizabeth! Lizzie!”
Ronnie met her in the hall. “What’s up?”
“I think he’s having a heart attack!”
Alex and Elizabeth converged in the foyer and the four of them ran upstairs. Stephen was sitting in bed watching television.
Mary grimaced. Bastard. Always could scare me.
“I just spoke to the doctor, Father. He says there’s no reason for you to be incontinent. If it continues, you’ll have to be diapered,” Elizabeth said coldly.
A look of utter hatred fixed itself like a death mask on Stephen’s face.
Elizabeth stared him down.
He dropped his gaze, pushed the tablet to writing position. BORED, he wrote, with a pitiful look at Elizabeth.
“Yes, of course you must be,” Mary said sympathetically.
He wrote again: PAPER.
“You want paper? To write on?” Elizabeth asked.
He shook his head.
“The papers?”
He nodded.
“The Globe? The New York Times?”
He nodded.
“Both?”
Yes.
“The Washington Post?” Elizabeth asked.
Yes.
“The Christian Science Monitor? A Chicago paper? The L.A. Times? We’ll have them delivered. Would you like some magazines too?”
Yes.
“Okay. All the news magazines. Any others?”
He grinned evilly, scrawled: PLAYBOY.
Stephen buzzed seconds after Florence left for the day. Ronnie, who was near the kitchen, heard it and ran up. DRNK, he had written on his tablet. He held it up. She hesitated, then asked him what he wanted. BRAN, he wrote. She poured it, handed it to him, and stood there for a moment. He nodded in dismissal and she left.
“He wanted a brandy,” she told the sisters gathering in the playroom, where they had had the bar moved. Mary liked being able to gaze out the large back windows into the garden, even though it was completely dark by six.
“Watch him wet his bed again,” Elizabeth snorted.
“Who’s going to go if he needs the bedpan?” Ronnie wanted to know.
“Doris. That’s why we hired her.”
“Good!” Ronnie sighed. “As long as it isn’t me.”
“Or me,” Mary said.
“I’d do it,” Alex said.
“What are you, a fucking saint?”
“No. Just used to it. Sometimes, when they’re short of nurses, I help out in the hospital. I’m only a volunteer, but I’ve worked there so many years, they trust me for small things. It’s a little hospital. I often help them.” Alex’s voice was thin and dead, as if her breath came only from her throat, not her lungs. She didn’t look at anyone directly.
They gathered again after dinner, chatting desultorily, but Alex remained as silent as she had been during dinner. Ronnie confronted her: “Are you remembering things?”
She started, eyes alarmed, gazed around at them. “Sorry!”
“Has anything come back?”
She nodded, her brow furrowed, glancing at a spot between the wall and the floor. “It all came back. Today, in the woods, while I was walking. I saw it. All at once.”
“Do you want to tell us?” Mary asked hesitantly, glancing at Ronnie. “I mean, do you feel like talking about it?”
Alex mused. “I guess so. I need to, I think. So many years I’ve blotted it out.
“I was in Mommy’s room, my mother’s room. I was sitting at her makeup table putting powder all over my face. I was nine. She said I could. She said I could use her lipstick too, and her eyebrow pencil. She was lying down, she had a headache. Daddy came in and asked how she was, and she said she didn’t feel too well. He told me to let her rest and come and play in his room. I didn’t want to, I pulled away but he grabbed my arm and dragged me in there. She called out, sort of weakly, ‘Stephen!’ as he closed her door and he opened it again and said ‘I’ll take care of her for you for a while, sweetheart. You rest.’ It was in Georgetown. Their rooms weren’t connected in that house, they were side by side. He took me into his room and shut the door. He said I looked like a grown-up lady with my powder and lipstick. He picked me up and laid me on the bed, and then he started to … do what he did. I was whimpering. I didn’t want him to do it but also I was scared, I knew Mommy was just in the next room, I didn’t want her to hear. So I didn’t whimper loud.
“But she must have suspected something. I don’t know why. God knows he’d been doing it for years, but something must have made her suspicious. Maybe that was why she’d been having so many headaches. Anyway the door opened suddenly very softly, like she was sneaking in, and I looked up and saw her face. He didn’t, he was lying on his stomach next to me, facing me with his hands on me. My heart stopped, I felt so bad, so dirty, so wrong. I cried out and Father whirled around and she was standing there looking at him. Then she marched over to the bed and grabbed my arm, she grabbed it so hard it hurt, and she pulled me off the bed and pushed me ahead of her into my room. She said ‘I’ll be back!’ and she lock
ed me in. She locked me in! I was crying, I was cold, I had no underpants on. I wanted to die and be buried and forgotten forever. I heard them yelling outside in the hall, I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but I remember her saying ‘NEVER NEVER NEVER!’ She was crying. After what felt like a long time, she came into my room with a suitcase. She threw my clothes into it, grabbed my coat and jammed my hat on my head, and pushed me out the door. I wondered why she was taking me away if she was going to kill me. She didn’t say a word to me. She didn’t even notice I had no underpants on.
“A cab came and we got in it. We took a train. We went to Grandma’s house. Mommy said the first thing, I had to have a bath. She took me upstairs and put me in the tub. Then she went down and I heard her with Grandma and Grandpa, whispering and yelling and crying. I could hear the way they were talking they were trying to calm her. Grandma came up and got me out of the tub—of course, I was nine, I could get out myself but she helped me anyway. She wrapped a big towel around me and held me close to her, rubbing my body with the towel and hugging me. Then I cried. She kept hugging me. I felt safe then.
“But I never felt safe with my mother after that. Not for a long time. Maybe never. I felt she blamed me. She never mentioned it again, and she was sweet to me, nice to me—always. But I never really trusted her again.
“I realize now she or Grandpa must have made some kind of deal with Father. Maybe she threatened to make it public if he tried to see me again or wrote or called. Maybe that’s what he meant when he wrote agreed.”
“Did he support you?” Elizabeth wondered.
“I don’t know. Probably. Mother earned such a pittance—two or three thousand a year. You know how they paid women in those days. Grandpa earned more, but not a lot and then he retired. But we were always comfortable. Of course, we lived modestly. Even after Mother married Charlie. I could ask her,” she added bitterly. “Now that I know, maybe she’ll talk to me.” She turned to Elizabeth. “Did you ever tell your mother about it? Later, I mean. I mean, does she know now?”