Strings Attached

Twenty-seven



Providence, Rhode Island

March 1945



That last weekend — the weekend after Carousel— Elena came and cooked us chicken and rice. She looked pretty in a flowered dress and heels.

“You have a boyfriend,” Muddie guessed.

“Elena’s in love!” I said, and was surprised to see a flush on Elena’s neck. “Shut up, you two,” Jamie said. “Don’t be girls.”

We did what we kids did every Saturday night — ate our dinner and headed to the Boys Club for free movies. That night, halfway through the cowboy serial, the projector broke. Everybody groaned. We waited, but finally we heard the bad news. We had to go home.

The three of us sat on the curb outside, spinning out the evening, reluctant to go in.

We heard heels tapping on Hope Street, and in a moment we saw Delia appear out of the gloom. We were surprised to see her. She had left for the convent on Friday.

“What are you doing home?” Jamie asked.

“I’m home, that’s all. Why are you sitting out here, you three? It’s your bedtime, isn’t it?”

“We stay up late on Saturdays,” Muddie said.

I didn’t say anything. I still had not recovered from the slap Delia had given me the week before, and I was punishing her with silence. It was infuriating that she didn’t seem to notice. But tonight she seemed nervous. I noticed lines at the sides of her mouth for the first time, brackets around the curve of her lips.

“You can’t sit out here. Come on, then.” Delia started up the stairs, and we followed. She pushed open the front door and stood for a moment. The house was dark and quiet.

“Maybe he’s asleep already,” I whispered. Suddenly, we heard a groan. “He’s sick!” Muddie cried.

We all crowded through the doorway to the living room. Delia was first, and we heard her “Mother of God!” and quickly we tried to squirm around her but she suddenly spun around and pushed us back toward the front door.

“Get outside.”

I had a confused impression of Da in a slow motion roll, turning his head, his mouth open. Elena was on the couch in a funny position, her dress up to her thighs, gleaming in the darkness. Was she sick? Why was Da bent over her that way?

“Out!” Delia shouted at us.

But of course we didn’t go out. We hovered just outside the door, which was still open a crack. We heard every word.

“Delia, for God’s sake, turn around. We’re decent.”

“How dare you fornicate in your own home with your children outside!”

“They were at the movies!”

“Mother of God, Jimmy… this sin, right in your home, with the children —”

“Delia, could you please try not to drag God into this, I beg you. Or His mother.”

“I’d better be going, Mac.” Elena’s voice was soft.

“Yes, indeed,” Delia said. “You’d better go, and not come back.”

“Delia. Dee. I love her. We’re in love.”

The silence lasted for a full minute.

When Delia spoke, it was in a voice short of breath. “You can’t be serious. You can’t be in love with a black woman.”

We stared at each other, wide-eyed. Da in love with Elena? How had this gone on, underneath our noses? We all loved her, sure, but—

Delia laughed. It chilled us and we huddled closer.

“What do you think is going to happen to the two of you? Use your head! For once, Jimmy, look ahead. You never took a step on your own, I know that — never took a job that somebody didn’t walk over to offer you, never passed up an opportunity as long as it tapped on your shoulder. You never stretched for anything in your life! Don’t you think I knew what I was doing when I put Maggie in front of you? She was the first pretty girl who was too nice to say no to you, so you decided you loved her. And now, this one — how like you it is, to fall for someone who’s right next door. You’ve taken every easy chance, why not this one?”

“That’s enough. Did you hear what I said? I love her.”

“Love! It happens to you, so what? It happens to everybody. It’s what you do with it that matters! You can live it or you can put it away, and you can pray to Jesus to help you either way.”

“It’s not that simple, you can’t make it that simple. Love is a gift.”

“Oh, don’t be such a child! How long do I have to take care of you and your children? You lived off them and you’ve lived off me. You’ve never stood on your feet —”

“Dee, don’t go on, I’m begging you. This isn’t you. What’s happened to you?”

“You killed your wife by not wanting to pay a doctor, by waiting so long —”

“Delia!” He shouted the word. It had been going on for some time, but now we realized that underneath the shouting, Elena was crying.

“I gave up my life for this family,” Delia said. “I’ve been mother to these children, and I walk in and see you like this…. I don’t care if you go to hell, Jimmy, but I won’t let your children fall into sin!”

“Sin! You’re standing there talking to me about sin?”

Muddie put her hands over her ears. She could never bear a cross word, our Muddie. Jamie and I looked at each other, our mouths open and working like fish out of water. We didn’t live in a world where grown-ups said the worst things they could to each other. We lived in a house where there were undertows, things we didn’t understand, and jokes and stories passing for truth.

“At least I’m not afraid to walk into God’s house!”

“Get out! Get out of my house!”

“I pay for this house, too! This is my house as much as yours, and they’re my children as much as yours, no matter what the law says. And if the law knew about what you do in front of your children —”

“Get out. Get out right now.”

“I’m leaving, but I’m coming back, Jimmy. I’m coming back for the children.”

All the air seemed to leave the front stoop. I stared at Jamie. Muddie’s face was screwed up tight, her eyes closed, tears dripping into her collar.

Now Da’s voice was low and dangerous. “Don’t threaten me with that. They’re my children. They’ve never been yours. They never will be.”

It was so quiet. Even Elena’s sobs could no longer be heard. When we opened the door Da and Delia were standing opposite each other, enemies.



When the social worker came, we were playing poker. The kitchen smelled of burning. Muddie had made breakfast. She’d tried to make Elena’s fried dough, but what emerged from the pan were hard, bitter lumps instead of the airy sweet confections we were used to. Elena had gone, moving to Woonsocket to live with one of her sisters. We never got a chance to say good-bye. Da went grimly to work and came grimly home.

The social worker was a woman with tight curls and big yellow teeth that she kept flashing at us in an imitation of a smile. We stared at them, fascinated, half expecting them to leap out of her mouth and chatter on a table, just like in a cartoon. We told her how perfect a father Da was, but all we saw was teeth and we knew they would chomp us into bits no matter what we said. We were suddenly aware of Da’s old pants hanging from the towel rack in the kitchen, of my tap shoes sitting in the dish rack. The normal cheerful jumble of the household looked suddenly suspect in our eyes, too.

By the time Da came home from work and opened the door, the house was tidied up, everything put away. He closed the door and stood looking at a clean house.

“What’s wrong?”

We told him about the social worker and he sat at the table, his head in his hands.

“She asked us if we ever saw you kiss Elena,” I said. “We said no.”

“She asked us where our Bible was and we pretended that we couldn’t find it,” Jamie said.

“Do we have a Bible, Da?” Muddie asked.

“We did the best we could,” I said.

“I’m sure you did, my girl.”

“You could talk to that woman,” Muddie said. “You could explain things and tell her what a good father you are.”

“What’s the use?” Da said. “They’re against us.”

I asked the question we were all dying to ask. “Can’t you talk to Delia, Da? Can’t you make it up with her? Where is she, where did she go?”

“I don’t know, maybe she’s with those nuns of hers.” Suddenly, he grabbed all of us, reaching to gather us in. “I could never talk to Delia,” he said. “I can’t start now.”



In playground battles, the tactics are vicious and the play dirty. You can insult your opponent’s mother or his looks or his abilities with a ball and bat. You can make him cry. But if that person shows up at your door the next day, offers you an orange, and says, “Wanna play?” you go.

So we thought the fight would just go away. Then one day a letter came telling Da to show up for a court hearing before a judge.

That night I saw the light in the kitchen and I went out to see, hoping it was Delia come home. It was only Da, smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table. He held out one arm and I walked into it, and he pressed me against his side. We didn’t hug much in our family, and I leaned in, studying the way his dark hair curled against his ear. He stared down at the table and I saw the document on it, with names bold and black — official names that were foreign to me, like they didn’t belong to Da and Delia — and the words CUSTODY and HEARING.

Fear entered me then, a fear so big I didn’t think my body could contain it. Da was afraid of the courts, afraid of the officials, and he had already decided all was lost. I knew then, for the first time, that Delia was going to win.