Strings Attached

Thirty-two



New York City

November 1950



There were still a few reporters out front, so we went through Iggy’s apartment. We passed through the kitchen, where the turkey was cooking, past the dining room, where the mother was setting the table. It was a glimpse of a normal world, where families sat around a table and said a blessing, and there was plenty of grace to go around.

On a table I saw the paper, and I quickly turned away from the screaming headline.



75 KNOWN DEAD IN L.I. WRECK IN RICHMOND HILL TOLL MOUNTING IN CRASH OF EASTBOUND TRAIN



“Hi, Mrs. Kessler,” Hank called.

“Hello, Hank. Tell your parents Happy Thanksgiving!”

“Will do!”

A few minutes later we were in a gray Ford and heading toward the Midtown Tunnel. I looked into every car, pressing back against the seat. If I saw anybody who seemed suspicious I would nudge Hank, and he’d take off fast from the light. But mostly I saw families in their good coats, or couples not talking, or someone fiddling with the radio.

I didn’t breathe easily until we left the city. Hank took a road that curved along the East River, and you could see the skyline of Manhattan bristling on the other side. Then we drove past dunes and marsh grass and seagulls. We passed Coney Island and Idlewild. I hadn’t quite realized how close Manhattan was to sand and sea.

I tried to think about what to do when we got there, but instead I kept thinking about the day I’d left Providence. I thought I was going like a smart person, with my bills rolled up in my underwear. I’d thought I had enough money to stake me, enough looks and talent to get ahead. I’d thought that was all I needed to meet the world. How I’d hated Da for the speeches he made, walking into my room and shaking his finger. He had said things about “the characters you’ll meet” and “when you think you have all the answers, you’re just dumb.” I’d never thought I’d get to a place where Da would be right.

We saw the sign for Babylon and Hank followed the curving road to a small, pretty town. He ran into a gas station to ask directions. I felt the first vibrations of nerves, and my stomach dropped away.

He slid back into the driver’s seat. “It’s just a few blocks away.”

I cranked down the window and gulped in some air. “The air feels different here.”

“We’re near the ocean,” Hank said.

“Delia liked the ocean,” I said. “We went once. She said”—and suddenly the memory was fresh and alive, Delia sitting on the beach, her dress tucked around her legs as the wind whipped tendrils of hair around her face — “that it must be the luckiest place to live.”

The house was small, more of a cottage, really, with a white picket fence and a red door. The shutters were painted a blue that was close to violet, cornflower blue, Delia’s favorite color. I knew just looking at the house that Delia lived there. She was alive.

My mouth was dry and I swallowed hard. “Could you just drive by? Drive by, please?” I added urgently, sliding down in the seat. Hank drove to the corner, pulled over, and parked.

“Kit, it’s not too late. We can just drive back to New York.”

“I can’t.”

“Well. We’ll have to go forward, then.” That made sense. Except I couldn’t seem to get myself out of the car.

I twisted in the seat and looked again at the house. It looked spare and small in the gray light, a little narrower than most of the houses on the street, with its high peaked roof. There was a dried yellowish plot of grass in front and no porch or stoop, just irregular slabs of slate for a pathway to the door. They were placed too far apart, so that you’d have to have a wide stride to make it to the door without stepping in mud.

A woman turned the corner, walking briskly, dressed in pants and sneakers and a navy coat, a wool cap pulled down to her eyebrows. She looked like a sailor.

When I got out of the car, she stopped in her tracks. Slowly, she pulled off her cap.

We stared at each other. I guess the changes were bigger for her. I was twelve when she left, with knees like door knockers. She had short bangs now, and her hair was the length of mine. She was dressed in a baggy gray sweater and khaki pants. The hems of her pants were wet — she must have been walking on the beach. Despite looking like she had thrown on some men’s clothes in the morning and despite the fact that she had to be over forty, she looked almost shockingly beautiful and wild. “Kit,” she said.

“It’s me.”

“All grown up.” She put a hand out, and then flinched as I took a step back. “You’re lovely.”

“I came to see you.”

“Well, you’d better come in, then.”

She opened the door to the house. To the right I could see a living room with a small hearth and a couch facing it. There was one long table against the wall with books and newspapers and magazines arranged in stacks on it.

I saw all this in a flash, all of it unfamiliar and strange, because I’d never seen Delia pick up a book in her life. Besides the Bible.

“I like to read now,” Delia said. “Comes with the job. I work at the library.” There were two deep, dented lines on either side of her mouth. Laugh lines, they were called. Did she still have cause to laugh?

Hank stepped forward, holding out his hand. “Hank Greeley. I’m a friend of Kit’s.”

“Greeley.” Delia frowned, as if the name tickled a memory. She shrugged out of her coat. “Come in, I was just about to light a fire. Take off your things.”

It was a blessing, to have the fire, for Delia busied herself with kindling and newspaper and matches, so I was able to look around and get my bearings. A bookcase covered one wall, its shelves stuffed with novels and biographies. There was a small pastel of a beach scene framed and hung on one wall. On the mantel was a row of small vases, each of them with a bit of beach grass or dried roses in it. On the windowsill, beach stones were arranged in order of size, white and smooth. Between each one was a shiny new penny, heads up. The reference to Jamie made me bite my lip and turn away.

How different it was from our apartment in Providence, chockablock with shoes thrown about and papers, sweaters left on chairs, blankets thrown over the worn spot on the couch, forgotten glasses of milk and cups of tea. I remembered Delia’s room, the plain lines of the wooden table she’d dragged out to the backyard and painted white, the white chenille bedspread, one brass candlestick. Delia had always liked things plain and spare. Back then we’d seen it as evidence of her need to show us up with her own superiority, neat in the face of our messiness.

I guess I thought I’d cry, but I felt strangely numb. Maybe I was just all cried out. By the time Delia turned away from the fire — taking longer than she needed to, I was sure — I’d gone through relief and curiosity and pleasure and had settled right back into anger, my most comfortable place.

“We thought you were dead,” I said.

Delia looked startled. “You did?”

“Of course we did! You disappeared without a trace! You didn’t send one word to us.”

Delia put a hand on the mantel like some fancy grande dame. She must have thought better of the pose, because she dropped it. “Your father told me I was no longer welcome —”

“He had every right to!”

“Yes,” Delia said, “he did.” She took a breath. “Why don’t I make us tea?”

“I don’t want your tea. I want answers.”

“Well, how about tea and answers?”

Hank looked from me to Delia. I hadn’t taken off my coat yet. I had the feeling I should just run out the door.

“Hank,” Delia said, “there are books to read — you look like a reader, somehow — and you can sit by the fire for a bit, is that all right?”

“That will be fine, Miss Warwick.”

“How do you keep track of all your names, Delia?” I chewed on nasty like it was chocolate, sweet in my mouth.

“Have a seat, Hank. I think my niece will have an easier time berating me in private.”

How could she stay so cool? Delia walked out of the room and down the hall, looking back to see if I would follow.

“If you need me, I’m here,” Hank said.

I hesitated just a moment, and when I went into the kitchen, Delia was setting the tea things on a breakfast table, a small round one by a window that looked out on another patch of dried, dreary grass. There was a package of butter on the counter, along with apples and brown sugar and a sack of flour.

“I’m making a pie this morning,” Delia said. “I’ve been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at a neighbor’s.”

“That sounds cozy.”

She pushed her hair behind her ears, a gesture I remembered. She crossed to fill the kettle.

“You’ve got a right to hate me,” she said over the crash of water hitting metal. “I know that. But you came for answers, too. Wouldn’t it be easier if we were civil?”

She put the kettle on the stove and lit the burner with a match. She couldn’t light it the first time; her fingers were trembling. She struck another one and this time it worked. It was the tremble in her fingers more than her words that allowed me to sit down.

“Did you know he was coming last night?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Billy! Did you know he was coming to see you?” Was it only yesterday?

“What?”

“He was on the train, the Babylon train.” Delia’s face went white. “Billy was on…”

“He was killed.”

“Oh. Oh.” Delia said the word over and over in short exhalations of breath. “I went to church early this morning— we’ve lost several in the town. The funerals start on Saturday…. Billy.”

“Why was he coming to see you?” I asked.

The blast of the whistle from the kettle made us both jump. Delia hurried to the stove and took it off the burner. She carefully poured the water into the pot and warmed it, moving it around in her hands. Then she measured out tea and poured the rest of the water in. She did it slowly, as though she had to concentrate.

“He must have been… eighteen?”

“Nineteen. He enlisted in the army.”

“That poor, broken little boy.” Delia wiped her hands on a dish towel and brought the teapot to the table.

It was the word broken that did it. I started to cry again. The tears just leaked out, like air from a tire. I couldn’t seem to stop them. “He asked me to marry him a few days ago.”

She looked startled. “You and Billy…”

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know.” She reached out instinctively to grab my hand, but I pulled away.

“I was with him just yesterday morning. Before he left he was upset. He said he just wanted the truth. That he had to stop the lies. Why would he come here?”

Delia looked down at her hands. “I’m not sure. I expect it has to do with his father.”

“I know you were his mistress, so don’t bother lying.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

I felt dizzy and sick, and though I’d been planning to refuse Delia’s tea, I took it. She had already added the cream and a half teaspoon of sugar. She knew just how I liked it. Funny how family is. You know how somebody takes their tea, but you have no idea about their heart.

“I’ve done my confession,” Delia said. “I’ve been forgiven. I’ve lived my penance.”

“Oh, good. I’m so happy to hear you’re square with God. Have a ball in heaven.”

She looked down and creased a napkin with her fingernail. “You’re old enough now to hear about it. You’re seventeen. I was about your age when I first met him.”

“At Buttonwoods Cove, in Warwick.”

It was like I hadn’t said anything. “Have you been in love yet? In love like you thought you would stop breathing when you saw him? Did you feel you were only truly in the world when you were with him?”

I didn’t answer, and I didn’t think Delia meant me to. “That’s how it was. Of course, we parted back then. Nate blamed Jimmy for it, but it was me. I knew I couldn’t marry him. I couldn’t fit into his world. Irish and Italians… we look down on each other, don’t we, for no reason at all, and I knew I’d be in the middle of that. So there was that, but there was also — I don’t know, fear. I didn’t know what he’d be. Bootlegging in Rhode Island… well, lots of people did it. Police looked the other way, the speakeasies were roaring, there was money to be made. But it started getting rougher, and I saw that Nate didn’t turn away from it like Jimmy did. So I told Nate to go away, and he did. I still think it was the right decision. You can’t save people, you know.”

“So how did you meet again?”

“The day of the hurricane. Do you remember, I was caught downtown? I ran into Benny — he was Nate by then. He saved my life that night. I don’t mean it in a silly romantic way. I was trying to cross Westminster Street, fool that I was, and my feet went out from under me, and I would have drowned if he hadn’t hauled me out. We laughed about it later, how I was swept off my feet. He took me to a friend’s office to dry out and wait out the worst of it, and that’s how it started up again. At the time I thought thank God it did, because I was dying without him. I didn’t go a day without thinking of him for ten long years. He got me that job with Rosemont and Loge. He helped our family and he made me happy. He made me happy, Kit. He made a world for us as though we were married, and for a while it was easy to believe it.”

I looked away, out at the yellow grass. “What about Billy?”

“I’m getting to that. I just have to explain how it was. When the war came and Nate got that apartment, I went, God help me.”

“You never had a job in Washington.”

“It was like we were living the life we were born to live, married. It was lovely, most of it.”

“So that was it? Moonlight and roses, tra-la? Lying to your brother, to us, violating the sacrament of matrimony, mortal sin, all of that?”

“I said it was lovely. I didn’t say it was easy. I didn’t say it was right. That summer we were together, it made us reckless. So that fall I started to see him in Providence.

I’d go to his office. One night, one Sunday night, it was snowing, and we were… together, and we saw Billy run past, down the alley by the house. We knew he’d seen us — he was probably looking in the back window.”

No, I thought. He was in the tree with the camera, looking.

“Then we saw someone else run by. Nate went after them, but it took a few minutes, because of course we had to —”

“— put your clothes on,” I supplied.

“And so I followed Nate, but I kept a bit away, you know, in case there was anyone around. But Sunday nights are quiet, and there was this snowfall, and it was bitter cold and everyone was home. I saw Nate’s car down the street, and Nate chasing it. He always left the keys in the car — nobody in Federal Hill would dare steal Nate Benedict’s car. It was like the world went still except for that car and Nate chasing it. The car was going so fast, like an airplane, like Billy wanted to just take off into the sky. It was like a dream, so white and quiet except suddenly I heard the tires spinning. And then it just… moved sideways, it spun like a toy and smashed sideways into a tree. I started to run. Nate got there first, and Billy was already getting out — he was driving. He had blood on his forehead and he was dazed, but he was all right.” Delia stopped talking. She placed her hands around her cup but didn’t drink from it.

“His cousin Michael,” I whispered.

“He was already dead.” Delia took a sip of tea. “A patrolman suddenly showed up, and he was kneeling in the snow over Michael. Nate pushed Billy toward me and said, ‘Take him away.’ So I did. I brought him back to the office and I cleaned his cut — it was under his hair. There wasn’t a mark on his face. He was crying — he was only fourteen, and his cousin was dead and he’d been driving and he thought his life was over. Nate came by an hour later and said, ‘It’s done.’ And it was. No one ever knew that Billy had been driving that car. Nate made it go away because that’s what he could do. He told Billy it was better that way. That one boy was dead, but if the other boy’s life was ruined, it would be even worse for the family. The family would fracture — how could his Aunt Laura ever look at her sister again, knowing that Billy had been driving the car? He said all this while he was hugging Billy. They were both crying.”

“When was this?”

“In 1945, in February.”

“When you took me to the play in New Haven —”

“I knew he’d be there with Angela. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. I’d gone down to the apartment like always, and he hadn’t come. I had to see him. And I guess that day we both realized that Angela knew. And I made him afraid of me, afraid of what I might do. I was afraid for myself. I was afraid I was losing my mind.”

“Why did you try to take us away?”

For the first time, Delia looked uncomfortable. “I went a little mad. I wasn’t sleeping, I was staring at my life and I saw how every choice had led to the next, that it wasn’t some big fall but a series of steps, each one of my choosing. I could see Jimmy doing the same with Elena and I didn’t want that for you. Think about it, Kit — could he have married a dark-skinned girl? Could that have worked?”

“Was that up to you? We loved Elena!” I drew in a breath. “You were jealous of her, jealous because we loved her.”

She looked down. “I was jealous of anyone who had love and wasn’t going to lose it. But it wasn’t just that. I thought I” —she pressed her lips together —“I thought I should be the one to raise you. Because I’d renounced him, and I had nothing, and I could dedicate myself to all of you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Of course it doesn’t — I said I went a little mad, didn’t I? One night, I… well, never mind. Terrible things were in my head.”

The night I’d seen her in the tub, Da’s razor on the edge. I realized I hadn’t understood anything that night.

“It was the look on your faces that destroyed me. The fact that you didn’t want me — no, that the idea of my having you would be a terrible, dreaded thing.”

“You were taking us away from our father!”

“I was like a mother to you!”

“A mother who left every weekend! You got what you wanted, and it wasn’t us. It was never us!” Now we were shouting at each other, finally, and I felt satisfaction in it.

Delia controlled herself with an effort. “It is a terrible, terrible thing, Kitty, not to be loved by those you love. I hope you never find that.”

“This isn’t about love. This is about possession.” I shook my head. “You’re just like him. You’re just like Nate.”

I saw her recoil. “That’s not true.”

“Do you really expect me to feel sorry for you?”

“No, of course not. I don’t feel sorry for myself— why should you? I left everything because I had to. He made it clear I had to leave town. He was afraid of what I would do. So I made another life.”

“The whore of Babylon?”

She gave a small, private smile. “You got that, did you? I meant it as a taunt to him, but I like this place. Nate and I took a holiday once. We drove out to Fire Island and I saw this town, and I remembered it. I couldn’t risk staying in Rhode Island. But I wanted to be near the sea.”

I didn’t want to hear about Delia’s life. I reached into my pocket for the letter. “I found this.”

Delia looked over at the letter but didn’t touch it. “Where…”

“I guess Nate packed up all your stuff— he threw it into boxes. It was in the storage unit at the apartment.”

Delia shook her head. “The apartment — how did you —”

“Nate offered it to me when I moved to New York.”

Delia’s glance flicked to the living room. “The Greeleys — that tall boy is their son.” Her chair scraped back. She went to the sink and gripped it, her back to me.

“He said the apartment was just sitting there, and that I could take it until Billy came back from the army and we could be married.”

“And you accepted?”

Delia’s voice had risen, and I stood up to face her as she turned.

“You think you have a right to judge me?”

“Not judge you, just point out a particular piece of idiocy! What did you think you were doing, getting mixed up with Nate Benedict?”

I laughed. And, suddenly, Delia barked out a surprised laugh, too. We were bitter and angry and lost, but we both saw what was ridiculous in what she said.

“Oh, Lord, Kitty.” Delia dabbed at her eyes.

“So you wrote the letter and didn’t send it,” I said. “I don’t think he saw it — I found it in your stocking box.”

“I thought I’d be going back, one more time.”

“'Keep your money and your clothes,’ you said.”

“Well. When you leave a man, that’s what you do, I thought. To prove you aren’t a kept woman. I didn’t need the clothes; they were clothes to go out to restaurants and things in. I wasn’t going to do that. But I took the money. If someone pays you to leave town, it only makes sense to keep the money.”

The matter-of-factness took my breath away. She’d taken money to leave us. She could call it something else. But it was a payoff.

“So you’re still bought and paid for, then,” I said. My whole body shook. I looked at her small, neat kitchen, with the apples and butter on the counter, and rage filled me up. I remembered Billy describing his anger, how it made him blind, and now I knew blindness and hatred and how it felt.

“Why did you come?” Delia asked quietly.

“Not for your mea culpa!” I swept the butter and the apples and the flour off the counter. The apples bounced and rolled, and the sack burst, sending up a puff of flour that settled over our shoes like ash.

Mea culpa. The words in the Mass where you beat your chest three times. Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

But Delia didn’t look humble. She looked fine. She hadn’t said the word sorry. She hadn’t asked about Jamie or Muddie or Da.

Why was I here? It was so clear that we didn’t matter to her, so why would I think she could help us? She didn’t know why Billy was on that train. I’d come for nothing, I thought, and a vast and helpless emptiness opened up inside me. I would have to leave here and face my grief again. I would have to face the fact that Billy was coming here and not know why. I would have to think of him on that train, dying with a heart full of anger and desperation.

“There are some sins that even God can’t forgive,” I said. “Go back to your new life — your library and your books and your apple pie. You’re right. We didn’t want you then. We don’t want you now.”

I heard Delia calling me, but it was as though from a far, far distance, and I was running, flinging myself out of the house as though pestilence was there.