She hung up determined to find out the story for herself. She couldn’t eavesdrop any further on Cindy, who had left the house to go for an evening walk on the beach, and Mighty could only tell her that his parents and Vince were fighting—his mom wasn’t telling him why, and Vince was back in the city. When Mighty had called Vince to ask why their mom was so upset, Vince had told him they would talk about it as soon as Mighty returned to the city since it was hard explaining certain things over the phone.
Two nights later, though, Neni wouldn’t have to wonder anymore: After making Mighty sautéed salmon and oven fries for dinner—plus puff-puff, which Mighty had asked for after she told him it was what she and her siblings ate in the mornings as they walked to school—playing video games with him, and tucking him in bed, she went to her bedroom to read a chapter in the textbook for the social psychology class she’d signed up for in the fall semester. Engrossed in a chapter on persuasion, she initially didn’t notice the voices escalating in the kitchen. It was only after perhaps three minutes, after the beseechings and accusations appeared to have reached a crescendo, that she realized it was Mr. and Mrs. Edwards shouting in the kitchen after returning home from a wedding.
She got out of bed, tiptoed up the basement stairs, and leaned on the door with her ear pressed against it.
“No!” she heard Clark shout. “You can go back to her and work on your long list of issues if you must, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’d rather see your family fall apart?” Cindy shouted back, her voice trembling. “You’d rather that than see a therapist and admit you’ve got problems that are destroying your family?”
“Yeah, let’s focus on my problems, because you don’t have any.”
“I’m not the reason our son is moving to India!” Cindy cried.
“You think Vince is moving to India because of me?”
“He’s moving to India because he’s unhappy, Clark! He’s miserable—”
“Because of me?”
“Because we haven’t succeeded in giving him a happy life! Because all he wants is to feel happy in his own family, and we can’t even give him that. Can’t you see?”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit to what?”
“Bullshit to all your crap about feeling responsible for Vince’s happiness,” Clark shouted, amid the sound of the refrigerator door opening and slamming hard. “He’s a grown man. He’s responsible for his own happiness. I can’t help it if he wants to be an idiot and throw away a perfectly good life. I can’t do anything about it!”
For many seconds they were silent. Neni closed her eyes and shook her head, unsure which of them to feel more sorry for. She imagined Clark was angrily drinking wine or beer straight from the bottle, while Cindy was silently weeping.
“Do you care?” she heard Cindy say, her trembling voice now lower but sadder. “Do you give a shit about how badly you’re hurting us?”
“Right. Sure! Working hard to give my family this life. How awful of me. Doing everything to make sure—”
“You’re not doing everything! You’ve never done everything! Until you understand that family must always come first—”
“There are times when careers must take priority.”
“There has never been a time when this marriage took priority for you. There’s never been a time when this family took priority for you! Not once! That’s why you’re afraid of us going back to therapy—you don’t want to see how selfish and callous you are!”
“What do you want from me, Cindy?” Clark shouted so loud Neni thought the walls vibrated. “Tell me what you want from me!”
“I just … I want,” Cindy wept, “I want you … I want us … I want the boys to be happy, Clark … That’s all I want … for us to be … for my family to be …”
Neni heard footsteps walking away, and she could tell it was Clark Edwards leaving his wife to cry alone in the kitchen. She heard a thump and a wail, and pictured Cindy slipping from against the counter to the floor. She imagined her sitting alone, crying on the cold kitchen floor.
Neni pulled her head away from the door and leaned against the railing. Should she do something? Would it be appropriate? What could she do besides go to the kitchen and see how she could help Cindy?
She opened the door gently and silently stepped into the kitchen, afraid of startling Cindy, who was sitting where Neni imagined she would be sitting. She was moaning softly with her head bowed, so lost in her misery that she didn’t notice Neni walking toward her. Only when Neni stooped close to her did she lift her red tear-stained face, look Neni in her eyes, and begin weeping again.
“I’m sorry, madam,” Neni whispered. “I’m just … I only want to see what I can do to make you feel better.”
Cindy, with her head bowed again, nodded and sniffled. Neni stood up, her hand supporting her belly, and grabbed the box of tissues on the kitchen island. She sat down next to Cindy and offered her a tissue, which Cindy took, blew her nose with, and began crying in.
“I hope you and Mr. Edwards are going to solve everything soon, madam.”
“He thinks … he thinks he has the right,” Cindy whimpered, slightly above a whisper. “Everyone … they all think they’ve got the right to treat me as they wish.”
Neni nodded, struggling to ignore the smell of alcohol spilling out of Cindy’s mouth alongside her words. Her throat sounded parched, and her words stumbled in a slur, evidence to Neni that the madam had drunk more glasses of wine than she could handle.
“Can I get you some water, madam?” Neni asked.
Cindy shook her head and asked for a glass of wine, which Neni quickly got and returned to her position on the floor.
The madam took a sip, crying as she swallowed. “Every single person … they believe they can treat me … however … anyhow …”
Neni nodded again, the box of tissues in her hands.
“First it was my father … he thought he had the right, you know?” Cindy said. “Drag my mother into that abandoned house … force her … do it to her by force … don’t give a shit about … not care for a second about what would happen to the child …”
She sniffled, took another sip of the wine, and wept.
“And the government … our government,” she moaned, slurring, tears running down her cheeks, snot running down her nose. “They had the right, too. Force my mother to carry the child of a stranger. Force her to give birth to the child because … because … I don’t know why!”
Neni’s throat tightened at the sight of the devastated woman in pearls, confused, though, as she was about which child Cindy was talking about.
“I hated her … but can you blame her? She thought she had the right, too … it was her right. To beat me, and curse at me, and call me fat … because every time she looked at me, she was reminded … I was a reminder … of what he’d done to her … But why? What did I do? It’s never the child’s fault … never the fault of an innocent …”
Neni looked away as Cindy picked up the wineglass from the floor and took a long sip. The realization of who the child was had come on so suddenly that her eyebrows had risen, and her eyes had widened, and she’d had to restrain herself from cupping her mouth. She kept her face turned away, hoping Cindy hadn’t seen the look on it, and not wanting to stare too hard at the wet pitiful mess the madam had become. What was she supposed to say to Cindy now? She couldn’t give her a hug to express what she wanted to say without words, so she had to say something. But what could she say to a drunken confession about the unbearable yoke of a life conceived in violence? What could she say about things she’d never pondered?